Orientation to Clarification

Change is in the Head

Change depends on your mental depiction of a situation. This emerges as a communicable account revealing the way you think about change, and the values and beliefs that you bring to bear.

Given one account, no change seems necessary.
Given another account, change of some sort may be required.

The particular account shapes, but does not determine, the type and extent of change that is judged to be required. Our natural preference to avoid change sometimes shapes our views to that end.

As presented in the previous section, the situation calling for change must be clearly depicted so that the likely future can be imagined and explained to oneself and others in a way that is credible in principle. Whether the communication is persuasive and motivating is a separate issue.

It was disturbing to discover the way that depiction methods create tunnel vision with the result that depictions might be clear while not being persuasive. In pursuing persuasive clarification, it would be helpful if each of the depiction methods (PH'3) could contribute its particular strengths to the account.

Such a contribution is possible if we explain the situation by drawing on useful values and principles intrinsic to each method—i.e. without requiring the method's procedures to dominate.

Developing a spiral trajectory on the TET has been repeatedly shown to be the taxonomic way to enable this necessary integration of methods. It creates the Primal Means for the Domain. See more in the Hub.

Limits in Controlling Action and Inquiry

ClosedDistinguish from Action Control

At first sight, it might seem that production of change is nothing more than controlling activities i.e. project management. But this is to reduce Change-RL3 to Action-RL1.

Project management focuses on goals, tasks and time-lines to deliver a pre-specified result. It takes reality for granted and does not concern itself with depiction options. Project management will succeed or fail to the degree that «change management» (if required) succeeds or fails.

Change management is about handling people, which means skilfully communicating in ways that deal with their emotions. It is not primarily about pursuing a course of action. If the Change domain is mishandled then the course of action will lose support and either deviate from the planned path, run into the sand, or simply be ignored.

Control of change in terms of communications and emotions comes down to controlling what should be taken to be real about the situation and the change process.

ClosedDistinguish from Inquiry Control

If depiction is so important, then you might think that control of change is a function of systematic investigation and proper progress monitoring. But this is to reduce Change-RL3 to Inquiry-RL2.

Inquiry is too limited: it deals with the past and any investigation needs to be sharply focused in advance. So it does not clarify emerging situations. Inquiries take far too long to deal with the ever-evolving present, while investigating the future is meaningless. Clarifying a situation to activate change involves dealing with the past in the present so as to handle all relevant factors and indicate a possible future.

Furthermore, while inquiry can contribute to what is really going on, if results of an investigation are unacceptable, then they will be ignored, suppressed or distorted. Change management involves clarifying the situation for those involved in a way that disposes them to accept the depiction.

Depiction as Clarification as Penetration and/or
as Realization

New Yorker Cartoon by George Booth 1974

The evolving world that we must deal with is complex beyond belief. There is no way it can be wrapped into a single satisfactory account. However, much we want to see order, it is not there. Essential reality is impenetrable.

Order only appears by being created and imposed. Appropriate creation leads to clarification of the inherently confusing situation in a way that is acceptable to those involved. The result is a more or less workable illusion. The illusion is powerful because, typically, the account seems to be neither created nor imposed but rather actually there in the situation's reality: it is discovered or uncovered.

That is why we say that following an accepted clarification, a person now realizes something to be the case, or discovers that it is the case.

This matter was briefly discussed in the investigation of working, which is about being accountable for changing a current reality.

Applying a creative effort to any situation demands firstly awareness of relevant everyday events, claims and activities, and then penetration beneath that surface. Penetration involves generating abstractions, applying principles, sensing motivations, positing relations and more. Done successfully, probabilistic predictions can be produced—and then seemingly confirmed by events, or not.

The bottom line is that while the future is inherently unpredictable—and we recoil from such a conclusion—clarification of the present to realize what is going on is possible. The validity and usefulness of that clarification or realization is another matter entirely.

Originally posted: 30-Oct-2024. Last amended: 30-Aug-2025.