Inquiry + Advocacy

The palette chart*

 

 



Learning how to balance inquiry and advocacy in an organization can be difficult because people within the organization are already advocating and adhering to their current ways while others attempt to inquire and discover other methods; finding the perfect balance of the two can cause serious headaches.

For further explanation on these two words:

Organization leaders as advocates – they must have the ability to create a strong argument that defends their views. 

Organization leaders who incorporate inquiry – they have the wisdom to create groups to come up with new and innovative ideas for the organization.

Together, advocacy and inquiry balance out original ideas and reasoning while appropriately challenging those ideas by creating new ways of thinking.  This is only successfully developed through a certain set of skills.

 

One way to find a balance is through the palette chart, an expansion of Diana McLain Smith’s Inquiry/Advocacy matrix.  It creates a diagram through which people can create a conversation with pairings from each section of the “palette.”

Balancing conversations can be dysfunctional, such as interrogating, withdrawing, or politicking.  Other ways of balancing advocacy and inquiry, however, can be helpful.  For example, explaining, dialogue, clarifying, and sensing can all work together to create a great conversation about the organization and its goals that balances both inquiry and advocacy in a respectful and productive manner.

 

 

 

 

 

ashton

 

*The palette chart can be found in The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook