Be the change you want to see in the world. Week 4

This week, Ray practiced David Kantor's 4 Player Model theory with his wife.  Instead of being in his normal advocacy role, he opted to try out the bystander role.  He explained that although this role required more of his attention to his wife's discussion about a situation at work, he felt that he was able to give her some perspective to the matter.  In this role, he was more of a coach, eliciting deeper responses due to his more thought provoking questions.  She responded positively and did not seem to notice the role change.  I thought this was curious because in personal relationships, when one acts differently and it is not expected by the other, there can be some backlash.  I would be curious on how this would have played out if he used this model with his boss, who he finds it difficult to communicate with sometimes.  He does plan on trying it out with her in the future. 


We discussed that Kantor's theory, although somewhat obvious and a bit simplistic, can be a great tool for those of us interested in creating more effective dialogue.  It allows us to take a different perspective on the situation and perhaps makes us understand the other player/s better.  Ray provided some beautiful examples of how he was able to think about some situations he encountered differently.  By trying to understand where the other person was coming from, allowed him to respect that person more.  It showed him that people do things for certain reasons and that we should not be so quick to judge. 


Also, it is important that we understand the culture and generational gaps when in dialogue with others.  An example would be in the Korean culture when speaking to elders (and I believe this to be the same in our country), one usually falls into the follower and listener role.  It is not considered respectful to oppose or even be bystanders (unless asked!).  We briefly discussed the nurture aspect of this theory in the sense that when communicating with family members we all have certain roles that we play and are accustomed to/have grown up with, whereas it may be easier to change up roles when dealing with people we are not so familiar with.


Finally, we both loved the passage about Gandhi and how he wanted to experience what the other person was experiencing before giving advice or passing judgment.  Can you say epiphany?  Ray quoted Gandhi "Be the change you want to be/see in the world."  I think this is extremely important that in life if we want to change something or someone for the better or give advice we can utilize tools such as Kantor's model to do this.  It is a great resource to refer to when looking at people's roles and perspectives and gives us some hints to how we can bring about  more positive change.