Differentiate to integrate

…you have the whole system in the room, addressing a tough or complex and important issue.

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People are likely to act together when, including everyone, differentiate their stakes. Value and validate differences to foster harmony, wholeness, cooperation, and shared goals.

Differentiate and integrate

To differentiate:

• to distinguish, to classify—to group similar things;
• to isolate, to ostracize, to segregate.

To integrate:

• to make one, to harmonize;
• to centralize, to orchestrate.

As a meeting leader you want to help people to:

• differentiate their stakes, including everyone.

Unless people differentiate their stakes, they are unlikely to act together. To put it in positive wording, people are likely to act together when, including everyone, differentiate their stakes. Value and validate differences to foster harmony, wholeness, cooperation, and shared goals.

Differish

Different opinions in a dialogue is of key importance to break through what we—individually or as a group—find obvious or self-evident.

• http://www.hetnieuwetrivium.nl/index.php?id=145: Verschil van mening is in de dialoog van groot belang, om te doorbreken wat we individueel of collectief als vanzelfsprekend beschouwen.

Be differish to integrate.

Cells and organs in the organization—research, development, engineering, manufacturing, marketing, sales, operations—are differentiated, each with its own structural needs. None can accomplish the mission alone.

A tricky differentiation/integration challenge—hold on to your own differences while integrating toward a result bigger than any of them. You cannot afford to act in ways that deny the necessity of each.

As a catalyst, you need to set things up so that everyone can accept their differences and integrate their capabilities for the good of all. Making the leap from differentness to integrative is at the core of effective meeting leadership.

As a meeting leader, from D/I theory, you will:

• gain insight into your own potential for personal growth;
• learn to use it as a lens for your own projections;
• be in a better position to avoid exchanges that hook you into responding in ways you will later regret;
• gain a new measure of influence over any system.

Therefore:

Be ‘differish’ to integrate.

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Sources

• Don’t just do something, stand there!—Ten Principles for Leading Meetings That Matter by Marvin Weisbord, Sandra Janoff