PLANNING THROUGH CONVERSATIONS: FROM DIVERGENCE TO CONVERGENCE

Conversations in our day to day life seem to be of very little importance to us. We basically view them as tools for expressing our feelings, making inquiries or putting forward our perspectives and viewpoints. Little do we realize that these 'basic' functions are what eventually lead to the survival of greater entities – societies, Nations, organizations and so on. Effective conversations are a key ingredient of any organizational process: be it planning, or the execution of a certain plan.

Now what kind of conversations does organizational planning require? From a strategy perspective, conversations are mainly of 2 types:
1. Conversation for Possibilities: In this type of conversations, people are required to put forth their own ideas and creative thoughts without gathering information from others or getting influenced by other people’s opinions. This involves "Divergent Thinking".
2. Conversation for Actions: In this case, people collate their own ideas with others’ opinions and based on the collective information, they achieve a common ground on a particular subject. This involves "Convergent Thinking".

For the planning process, both these kinds of conversations are needed. This is because planning, in essence, is a two step process. Firstly, the scenarios, or different possibilities for the future are identified. Secondly, appropriate strategies are developed in order to thrive under those possible situations.

Based on this theory, the planning process involves both divergence and convergence of ideas. This can be explained by a simple funnel model.





Let us assume that the narrow end of the funnel is the group or organization and the broad end are the individuals. We see that in case of divergence, the ideas for possibilities are coming out of the funnel, i.e. the ideas, that were previously embedded within the organization, are distinguished and separated on an individual level. Similarly, in case of convergence, the ideas generated by individuals are blended together, refined, and adopted by the organization.

In the first stage of planning, i.e. building up of possibilities for the future, divergent thinking is needed in order for the individuals to arrive at a previously unknown situation, which is not defined by information existing within their colleagues. For example, if an organization were to formulate a picture of the Indian economy 20 years from now, the different possibilities through combinations of fiscal, monetary policies, stock market scenarios may be formulated by different individuals. That is why this process is called 'Planning for ends'.

In the Second stage of planning, the various 'ends' generated need to be aggregated to refine the possibilities. This requires Convergent thinking. It involves assembly of the now known information and generation of a solution which is accepted by all the individuals. For example, now that the possibilities of the economy are identified, the information on these scenarios may be used to come up with the most probable alternative and how the organization will have to progress through that scenario. This process is called ’Planning for means’.

In most cases, divergence thinking is easier to achieve as idea generation something that occurs spontaneously in a human. But convergence thinking is much harder to achieve. Convergence requires a set process to be developed which can convert the divergent ideas into narrower possibilities.

Strategic Conversation Methods: Are they Convergent or Divergent?

There are several methods used in strategic conversations such as Mind Maps, Open –Space Processes, Focus Group Discussions, Native American Talking Stick Method etc. Theoretically, these methods use either convergent or divergent thinking. But from my viewpoint, each method incorporates both divergent as well as convergent thinking and in that order.

For example, consider the Open-Space Process method. In the first step, diverse agendas are generated (divergence), and in the 'Common Ground Step', those divergent ideas are used to achieve consensus (convergence). Similarly, take the example of the Native American Talking Stick Method. It is considered as a convergence achieving method, since the person holding the Talking Stick will only welcome opinions from those who agree with him/her. But look at it from this angle: the person must first generate an idea, which is not defined by existing information. This can only be done through divergent thinking. But in the second step, only those are allowed to speak who can contribute to the already generated idea, thereby resulting in convergence. So we can say that the process involves both divergence and convergence, although the divergent part is much more restricted in this case.

Therefore, no strategic conversation process is fully divergent or fully convergent. Both characteristics are present in every method, although one might be in lesser proportion. Incorporating the funnel model, it is easier to understand, because, things (possibilities) can go into the funnel only after they are generated. So there can be no convergence without divergence. Since the ultimate aim of a planning process is to form a strategy through consensus, i.e. convergence, so it can be said that both divergence and convergence always part of the planning framework.

References:

Winograd, Terry (14th May, 1987). A Language/Action Perspective on the Design of Cooperative Work. Retrieved September 7, 2008 from http://hci.stanford.edu/~winograd/papers/language-action.html

Corrigan, Chris (10th March, 2007). Divergent and convergent thinking. Retrieved September 7th 2008 from http://chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot/?p=1265