Run one inquiry in first, second and third person

Study one question three ways: in your own notes, with the few people directly involved, and through a wider source that none of you controls.

Warum es wirkt

Reason and Torbert (2001) describe three strategies for action research. First-person research fosters an inquiring approach to one’s own life; second-person research is collaborative inquiry in a face-to-face group; third-person research reaches communities and organizations beyond the group. Their abstract argues that integrating the three voices increases the validity of the knowledge people use in living and acting. Bowman quotes Wilber’s footnote that the inside and outside of the singular and plural “technically are not the same as 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-person approaches” (2014, p. 53, quoting Wilber 2006, p. 42), so this practice borrows the research strategy, not the eight-zone map.

So gehst du vor

1. Choose one question you are trying to answer about your work or a relationship.
2. First person: keep a short daily note for a week, writing what you notice about the question in your own words.
3. Second person: take the question to two or three people directly involved and ask each to describe their view in their own words. Do not defend yours in the same conversation.
4. Third person: look for a wider source that is not you or them, such as a shared record, a team outcome or a neutral party, and note what it shows.
5. Write down where the three accounts agree and where they do not.

Evidenz

Reason and Torbert set out first-, second- and third-person research as strategies for action research in their 2001 article. Only the published abstract was read, so this page claims only what the abstract states: it argues for the approach and does not report a controlled test of this exercise. (anecdotal)

Only the abstract of Reason and Torbert was read. The mechanism is described in the source but not demonstrated here. Bowman notes that Wilber does not equate inside-outside with first-, second- and third-person (2014, p. 53), so the two maps should not be merged.

Quellen

• Reason, P., & Torbert, W. R. (2001). The action turn: Toward a transformational social science. Concepts and Transformation, 6(1), 1–37.
• Bowman, K. J. (2014). Correcting Improper Uses of Perspectives, Pronouns, and Dualities in Wilberian Integral Theory: An Application of Holarchical Field Theory. Integral Review, 10(1).

Häufiger Fehler

Calling the second-person step done after one conversation in which you explained your own view. That step needs the other people’s accounts, in their words.