Discussing the
Undiscussable: A Guide to Overcoming Defensive Routines in the Workplace.
One is simply that we can't converge on a most likely hypothesis if there are some hypotheses that are
undiscussable. It's only in the crucible of ideas and debate that you can converge on the truth.
Groups at many public agency levels may consider political behavior
undiscussable. The OD facilitator has to foster a climate where people are comfortably discussing politics and other relevant topics (Schwarz ,1991).
Difficult issues in mentoring: recommendations on making the "
undiscussable" discussable.
For Bourdieu this issue of naturalisation is central to his concept of doxa--a zone of the "self-evident" and therefore "undiscussed", "
undiscussable", "unsaid" beyond both orthodox and heterodox discourse, a zone in which the world is "taken for granted" and that supports the existence of a fundamental misrecognition of the arbitrariness of existing power relations (Bourdieu, 1977: 164).
This conversation suggests that the 'duties' might have been an issue causing some friction within the team; although not stated openly, it seems possible that some of this falls into the category of
undiscussable contradictions, that is those that no-one is prepared to voice, in the interests of maintaining respectful relationships.
Courageous authenticity is the leader's willingness to take tough stands, bring up the '
undiscussable' and openly deal with difficult issues.
According to the degree of fear and bewilderment, uncertainty may be screened through selective inattention; it may be repressed as
undiscussable, as a taboo; it may be simplified through or by the making of myths (Malinowsky, 1954); or attempts may be made to convert it into an activity which can be carried out with minimal disrupting effects.
(1) All this talk about discussing the
undiscussable is making it impossible for me to resist recounting this goofy but true story.
I should have been whisked -off to a Buddhist nunnery, or maybe a fourteenth-century order of Beguines, where I could have meditated and discussed the
undiscussable with like- minded others.
But it was good to hear the two discuss the usually
undiscussable.
Writing in 2002 after the Enron scandal, Sonnenfeld argued that: "The highest-performing companies have extremely contentious boards that view dissent as an obligation and treat no subject as
undiscussable."