2. Change in human systems, communication and use of the mediaThis is a featured page

When we do trainings in the framework of peacebuilding initiatives, we can have different aims: building skills or capacity, share new theories, teach techniques that have worked in other contents, etc. Peacebuilding aims at producing change in a specific context, i.e. shift a situation from being violent to peaceful. With Edgar Schein we can assume that learning in peacebuilding trainings is also about change, it is different from new learning (for instance when children learn how to count, to read) as it means that participants have e.g. to painfully unlearn certain behaviours and attitudes and relearn others. The following section will explore the topic of learning and peacebuilding further.

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  • Peacebuilding, learning and change. Peacebuilding can have different purposes. Peacebuilding training can aim at building skills or capacity, sharing new theories, teaching techniques, developing participants’ inherent abilities and solving problems; other peacebuilding initiatives can aim at restoring confidence between divided communities, empowering disadvantaged groups in order to articulate and powerfully advocate for their interests, or finding commonalities between conflicting parties - and more. Yet, we think that there is a thread that is common to most of what we do in peacebuilding: we assert that most peacebuilding is essentially about helping people learn to deal differently with conflict. Let us try to push this a step further: it is about helping people restructure their cognition of conflict so that they can deal differently with it.
  • The Basics of Change in Human Systems.Over 60 years ago social psychologist Kurt Lewin laid down the foundations for understanding and influencing change in human systems. The contemporary literature on change proliferates with myriad of models, methods and techniques to be used – many prescribing “how to” recipes for change in organisations and communities. Yet, most of them are still based on Lewin’s theoretical framework. The strength of his framework lies in a capacity to help us focus on the right kind of variables that need to be conceptualised in order to understand and influence change – i.e. the “things” we need to look at: 1) the force-field; 2) change as a process with three phases and 3) the role of tension.
  • How Can We Make Driving Forces Relatively Stronger than Restraining Forces? The stability of human behaviour is based on a system’s quasi-stationary equilibrium - Driving Forces are equal to Restraining Forces. For change to take place the system must first “unfreeze” – i.e. Driving Forces must become relatively stronger than Restraining Forcess. It seems that one of the basic problems for building peace is: How can we make Driving Forces relatively stronger than Restraining Forces and thus generate change?
  • What Happens During Unfreezing? We can think of “unfreezing” as the result of interplay of three processes: a) disconfirmation; b) induction of guilt, survival anxiety and learning anxiety; c) creation of psychological safety.
  • How Does New Infromation Come to the Learner? How Do Peaple Learn? With unfreezing the system becomes motivated to change. But that does not imply it will actually change, it does not determine how it will change and that it will be able to refreeze into a new equilibrium. Change is a particular kind of learning that is different from “new learning” as it implies (usually painful) unlearning and (usually difficult) relearning. How that learning happens is through cognitive restructuring – a restructuring of thoughts, perceptions, emotions and attitudes. Central to all these processes is that new information enters the system – or comes to the learner. How does new information come to the learner? There are two mechanisms: a) Identification and b) Scanning.
  • What is change? [...]
  • Understanding the force-field. [...]
  • Unfreezing? Refreezing?!. [...]
  • Tension doesn't feel good.. [...]
  • How can we make driving forces stronger than resistance to change? [...]
  • What happens during unfreezing? [...]
  • How do people learn? [...]
  • ...



mikicesari
mikicesari 		Latest page update: made by mikicesari , Apr 8 2009, 4:20 AM EDT (about this update About This Update mikicesari Edited by mikicesari


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Keyword tags: change communication conflict media (edit keyword tags)
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Anonymous Organizational development 0 Jun 24 2011, 4:24 AM EDT by Anonymous
 
Thread started: Jun 24 2011, 4:24 AM EDT  Watch
what are the driving and restoring forces in resistance to change in any organization, and what strategy can be used to lesson the resistance?
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Keyword tags: change communication conflict media (edit keyword tags)
mikicesari Incomplete 0 Jun 24 2009, 1:18 AM EDT by mikicesari
Thread started: Jun 24 2009, 1:18 AM EDT  Watch
Change and use of the media has not been touched here. We need to add both contents on the subject and activities all the contents introduced here.
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Keyword tags: change do do incomplete media (edit keyword tags)

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