I do not believe in complete objectivity or that emotions are inaccurate or dangerous. Imagine that it is before there were humans and you were God or at least on His design team. Some of the design team says that humans need feelings and the rest of the design team insists all they need is intellect. So they make two tribes. The next day, one of the intellectual types sees an elephant walking toward him. The intellectual studies, measures and analyzes the elephant. He gets run over. The next day an emotional type is going down the same trail. He makes a quick assessment and turns around and runs. The only problem is that he is still running.

Emotions are a gestalt. Technically, they are virtually always accurate. They are rarely wrong. They are the sum of your experience to this situation. They do not tell you exactly what you are responding to. They are telling you there is something dangerous and uncomfortable, or good and comfortable here. There are some that are wired backwards. Their sense of emotions, technically, do not work. When the psychologist says to bring your emotions under control or resolve your emotional conflicts, that is bad advice. That is wiping out data, but information is the difference that makes a difference. Emotions give you information. You do not remove the emotion, but you try to work it and accept it.

You need both systems, one to warn you and another to tell you how to deal with it. The two systems work brilliantly together if we let them. Consciousness is an executive routine. Unconsciousness is the sum total of your experience. You have to create an environment in which it is OK to cry, to get happy and silly and to get mad, as long as you use the rules. Part of creating an environment is creating ground rules where freer things can go on than our social system usually allows.

Bias. To the extent we try to be like others we are truncating our gift. We have to use common sense. But your gift to the system is you. Art is bringing that expression out in a useful way. There have to be ground rules for participants and facilitators. In education, it is more open. If you pay for educating, the educator has to impress and to use the techniques of impression. They can get into it and tell you useful ideas. That level of impression may or may not be appropriate in a facilitation.

When will I impress ideas rule, or intervene when I am the front of the room facilitator? I will not do it to push my agenda. I f I observe in a technical sense that the group is in a positive feedback group and reinforcing who they are in a way that will not allow breakout, I will employ ideas that seem appropriate to cause a level of cognitive dissonance, interruption, or intervention to break them out of that loop. I might confront the person dominating the group. I will open up a little and confront that person. IF he is the CEO, I may be the only one who can do that. I can have a dialogue with that person no one else there can have. Sometimes, that can be a good experience for that other person.

(ethics cont.)

000706.Matt Taylor