Listening Where Mental Models of People Conflict

Two people with conflicting or incompatible mental models will likely:

• See different slices of the real world (read blog post “Q7- We Found the Enemy: Our Own Concepts!”);
• May be looking at the same thing but will interpret what they see differently;
• Use different language, or use the same words but with different meanings; and
• Will not be aware of all the above and will not know why they are unable to communicate productively (unless they practice internal listening and the rest of the discipline of “Mental Models” in Learning Organizations).

If they harbour mental models of each other that the other does not agree with (“On Michael Jackson, or Our Mental Models of People We Know”) then listening stops and the erosion of goodwill starts; further communication is unworkable.

What are the options in such a case?

1. Option 1: Stop communication. To preserve goodwill, an agreement to acknowledge the fact that they have basic differences and to respect each other’s mental models instead of -
2. Option 2: Use force so that the mental model of the more powerful will prevail or
3. Option 3: Agree to obey the authority and judgment of a third party or
4. Option 4: Use universally-accepted protocols for validating, eliminating or selecting mental models.

Unfortunately, protocols for Option 4 are not yet fully developed. The scientific method is a rather well-developed and tested set of protocols for validating mental models, but applied only to empirical validation or only on “what is” and “what works” (in figure below, only right side of Ken Wilber’s quadrants). Knowledge management is engaged in seeking, innovating, developing and re-using “what works”. Sustainable development criteria falls on the lower right quadrant.

Parallel protocols for validation and selection of mental models for the left side of Ken Wilber’s quadrants (see figure below) are not yet fully developed. Protocols for application to validation of experiential data (upper left quadrant) are still being developed in the discipines of transpersonal and paranormal psychology and in phenomenological research. There is no consensus on how “individual benefit” (upper left quadrant) is to be defined and assessed. What does it consist of? Money? Social opportunities? Learning and realizing human potential? Security? Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a step in clarifying this area. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the slew of accessory protocols on other aspects and varieties of human rights is a notable contribution on the lower left quadrant. Surprisingly, the Rotary Club’s “Four-Way Test” fits very well with Ken Wilber’s framework and provides commonly-understandable or laymen criteria for the four quadrants:

I have written about Ken Wilber’s framework and applied it in many ways in past blogs:

• Comparing the expanded KM framework and Wilber’s framework: “Tacit-Group Processes in KM” and “Practical Exercise #15: Ingredients of Effective Group Action”
• Applied to estimation of global stocks of human capital, relationship capital, tangible assets, structural capital and natural capital: “Towards a Global Balance Sheet”
• Applied to understanding learning organizations: “Knowledge Pathways in a Learning Organization”
• Applied to classification of memory: “Four Types of Memory”
• Applied to understand societal megatrends: “Combining Megatrends #1 and #2: the Next Societal Innovations?”
• Applied to evolution of institutions: “Evolving Forms of Governance”
• On the scientific method’s bias for the external world: “A Paradox of 20th Century Scientific Practice”

Cheers!

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KM and Trans-Societal Megatrend #1

Trans-societal Megatrend #1 (see Q14- Naming trans-societal Megatrend #1: “towards yin”?) can be viewed from Ken Wilber’s framework, as in the following diagram.

When we were looking at “Tacit-Group Processes in KM” and “Gaia Consciousness”, we were in fact using Ken Wilber’s framework:

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When we were examining the global balance sheet of tangible and intangible assets (see “Towards a Global Balance Sheet”), we were also using Ken Wilber’s framework:

In fact, the expanded KM framework (see “Practical Exercise: Ingredients of Effective Group Action #15″) emerged from the simple observation that answers to “What are the ingredients of effective group action?” can be grouped in a way from where the commonly-accepted categories of intellectual capital or knowledge assets naturally emerge! Surprisingly, the grouping is consistent with Ken Wilber’s framework.

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Which falls neatly into the categories of intellectual capital:

Now, what we are observing (see Q14- Naming trans-societal Megatrend #1: “towards yin”?) is that there is a global megatrend running across many sectors of society: corporate wealth creation, global economy, community development, educational psychology, national development, national security, attitudes to environment, psychology, international conflicts, religion and organizational dynamics. In other words, the megatrend is trans-societal. It can be summarized as:

What do you think?

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Cutting the (Complex) Gordian Knot

According to Greek legend, when Alexander the Great was only 23 and not yet well-known, his campaign in Asia Minor brought him to the town of Gordium in 333 BC. Its former king, Gordius, tied an extremely complicated knot in the local temple to Zeus. An oracle foretold that whoever untied the knot would rule all of Asia. Many tried to untie the knot, unsuccessfully. Upon arriving at the temple, Alexander drew his sword and cut the Gordian Knot. Over the next decade, he went on to conquer Asia up to India.

By painter Jean-Simon Berthélemy (1743 - 1811) -from Wikimedia Commons

An example of professionals faced with the serious responsibility and task of making sense of complexity are intelligence professionals working for national governments. When I took a temporary leave from academic life to accept appointment as Assistant Director-General of the National Security Council (NSC) of the Philippine Government in 1992-1998, I had the rare opportunity and pleasure to meet and participate in warm fraternal intelligence exchanges (=knowledge sharing) with my counterparts in the national security and intelligence establishments of the governments of Singapore, Brunei, United States, Taiwan and South Korea (=CoP or community of practice).

The task of a national intelligence analyst/security adviser is formidable. National interest is at stake. He must assist the President in:

• Discerning new global and regional patterns and trends
• Making forecasts or estimates
• Interpreting the statements and actions of actual/potential hostile groups
• Estimating next moves of major political and economic actors
• Assessing a multitude of risks and threats
• Analyzing the power relations among top government personalities of superpowers
• Assessing potentials, threats and opportunities arising from new and emerging technologies
  Etc.

Do intelligence professionals use complexity theory? Not to my knowledge.

My former NSC boss, General Jose T. Almonte, the Director-General of the National Security Council and the National Security Adviser to President Fidel V. Ramos in 1992-1998, and who has decades of achievements in intelligence work, gave me a valuable technique that is sheer simplicity itself. It seemed to me like “cutting the Gordian Knot” of complexity facing intelligence analysts. He reminded me that people, groups, corporations, political parties, nations, etc. are essentially purposive actors; and so he advised me to study only two things: CAPABILITIES and INTENTIONS of international and intranational actors.

Through this blog post, I acknowledge him as the source and inspiration of the model I proposed in my paper on “Organizational Energy” — KNOW-HOW X WILLING-TO — that I wrote about two blog posts back, as well as the MOTIVATION factor in the CCLFI expanded KM framework. My previous blog post listed research findings that motivating knowledge workers is a key success factor in KM initiatives.

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For Complex Development Problems: We Need Bridging Leaders

This afternoon I saw in CNN how residents in Fargo, North Dakota pulled themselves together to protect their town against rising floodwaters by piling sandbags over threatened dikes.

Knowledge management (KM) is about achieving effective group action. During crisis situations — when a common threat is publicly visible and cause-and-effect relationships are known to everyone — effective group action follows easily. In more complex situations, effective group action can happen if there is a leader who can see (better than most people can) and lead through three kinds of complexity:

• Dynamic complexity: when causes and effects are far apart in space and time, and therefore less publicly visible;

• Generative complexity: when the future is difficult for most to predict, or is likely to be unfamiliar or different; and
• Social complexity: when people who are affected or who should take action do not share similar assumptions, beliefs and interests.
  (Source: Adam Kahane’s book “Solving Tough Problems: An Open Way of Talking, Listening and Creating New Realities,” Berrett-Koehler, 2004)

This type of leader is called a bridging leader.

Bridging leadership is about creating or enhancing bridging social capital (see my previous blog post D13- Bridging social capital versus bonding social capital). Bridging leaders are those who can understand, engage and lead groups of people with diverse interests to effective group action to solve problems or achieve goals under conditions of complexity. Bridging leaders fight against social exclusions. To pull the inhabitants of Planet Earth through the difficult 21st century problems of poverty, environmental collapse, ethnic-religious wars and threat of nuclear war, we NEED more bridging leaders — a critical issue I have written about in my previous blogs.

Only a bridging leader can comfortably lead a “team of rivals” the way President Barack Obama does. President Obama borrowed the phrase “team of rivals” from President Abraham Lincoln whom he admires.

Bridging leadership is another core of human capital (see previous blog post on Q21- Rediscovering a Core of Human Capital: Sophia), the skill to work effectively in the intersection of relationship capital and motivational factors. Following our expanded KM framework:

Two days ago I received a phone call from a niece Ms. Aisa Villanueva, asking for assistance. She is co-founder and officer of a non-government organization — Bridging Leaders into Successful Societies. I was so impressed that young people fresh from college are inspired to work for the social good. I am properly reminded: there is hope for our Planet. Serendipity!

This month, another serendipity occurred: our NGO — CCLFI — started working with the Asian Institute of Management TeaM Energy Center for Bridging Societal Divides (CBSD). We are co-producing an e-manual on Post-Project Knowledge Capture that will be useful to development workers. We intend to give away the e-manual for free, and invite others to use and contribute to its enrichment.

There is a new and significant discourse a-forming around the new field of bridging leadership. If you wish to know more about it, you can check the AIM TeaM Energy CBSD website and that of their Bridging Leadership Fellows Program. You can also check out the Bridging Leadership Resource Center in the website of Synergos.

Tell us what you think.

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Q21- Rediscovering a Core(?) of Human Capital: “Sophia”

1
In July 2006 one of the modules in a KM workshop CCLFI facilitated for top executives of a mining company in Mongolia was on “Mining Tacit Knowledge.” The workshop participants were the two senior VPs, all the VPs and senior directors.

We invited three managers who are known in the company to be excellent motivators. One of the them was the CEO. We arranged an informal setting where the three, sitting comfortably in sofas facing the participants, were asked to tell their stories on “How I motivate my people.” A Mongolian lady served as my interpreter in the course.

As their stories unfolded, I could see how interested and engaged were all the participants. The stories showed vignettes of their difficulties and victories in motivating their subordinates. From the faces of the participants and their responses (interpreted for me) the process was obviously a moving experience for everyone. At some point I asked my lady interpreter to stop and we just listened and allowed the interaction to proceed without the interruptions when she interprets for me. It was such a solemn deeply-felt group experience that the CEO later asked, “Has my management team changed so much after one workshop?”

2
In January 2007 I personally met Prof. Ikujiro Nonaka. I served as Conference Rapporteur and Editor of conference proceedings for the International Productivity Conference 2007: From Brain to Business sponsored by the Asian Productivity Organization. He read a paper on “Strategy as Distributed Phronesis: Knowledge Creation for the Common Good.” He introduced a new term “phronesis” and defined it as “the virtuous habit of making decisions and taking action that serves the common good, the capability to find a “right answer in a particular context.” He added that phronesis is “practical wisdom or prudence” or the experiential knowledge to make context-specific decisions based on one’s own value or ethics (high-quality tacit knowledge).”

3
In 2002, CCLFI documented best practices for UNDP in sustainable community development. Our first intention was to produce a manual or “How To” booklets (structural capital), but we discovered that manualization is not enough. The success of a sustainable community development project is also attributable to a talents of the community leader who ran the project. Now, how do one capture those talents in a document? We produced “vignettes” to accompany the “How To” manuals. A vignette consists quotations and pictures of the community leader as he or she tells stories about the project. The vignette shows glimpses or snipets of the leader’s character (human capital) that contributed to project success. We also shot videos. We invited ten of the best practitioners to a face-to-face Lessons Learned Meeting (LLM) where together they shared their stories, compared notes and learned from each other.

When you meet a best practitioner-leader of a successful sustainable community development project you notice immediately that he or she has “it” — that mix of qualities I can describe as a compelling sense of purpose, quietly inspirational, a “can do” attitude that is infectious, humble but strong in will, a deep kind of reflectiveness that shows in how he or she views the world and the people in it and a persona that naturally motivates people. It is a mix of intrapersonal and interpersonal qualities. We at CCLFI chose the term “sophia” to denote this mix of core personal qualities of a successful community leader.

From our expanded KM framework, I believe that the above stories are touching on a core of human capital and relationship capital where these two forms of capital intersect motivational factors. It consists of an inner drive or enthusiasm (an intrapersonal quality) and an ability to lead or motivate (an interpersonal quality).

Have you encountered a similar experience with exceptional leaders? Tell us about it.

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Tacit-Group Processes in KM

Tacit-group processes and factors in the lower left quadrant in the expanded KM framework (see diagram below reproduced from the previous blog post) are often the weaknesses in KM initiatives.

Expanded KM framework at the planetary level

The following are examples:

• An e-group for knowledge sharing is set up, but knowledge sharing hardly occurs because the intended users hardly know and trust each other and do not share similar goals.
• A knowledge fair organized by a vice president is hardly attended by staff under another vice president because of factionalism between the two vice presidents.
• A know-it-all CEO shoots down new ideas, generating an organizational culture of anti-suggestion and anti-innovation.
• Communication and productivity of a team suffered after an egotistical new member started to ruin the working relationships among the team members.
• An organization-wide KM program was not fully accepted by all senior managers and started to falter; a mid-course evaluation by an outside consultant diagnosed the problem as lack of change management that should have accompanied the processes of design and roll-out of the KM program.

The lower-left quadrant is about TACIT-GROUP processes and factors: trust, shared goal or mutual agreement, unity (or factionalism), shared vision (e.g. Gaia consciousness), organizational culture, teamwork, mutual understanding of a group work process, general acceptance, etc. “Ba” of Ikujiro Nonaka belongs to this quadrant.

According to philosopher Ken Wilber’s integral framework, there are four types of knowledge. There are “Four Faces of Truth.”

Compare Ken Wilber’s integral framework with the expanded KM framework. The two frameworks are consistent (I wrote about this in a paper to be published by EADI/IKM).

Now, back to the importance of tacit-group processes. Without Gaia consciousness among earth’s inhabitants, I doubt how they can solve common problems such as the global environmental crisis. Ken Wilber said that resolution of this crisis lies in tacit-group processes:

“Before we can even attempt an ecological healing, we must first reach a mutual understanding and mutual agreement among ourselves as to the best way to collectively proceed. In other words, the healing impulse comes from championing not functional fit but mutual understanding and interior qualitative distinctions. Anything short of that, no matter what the motives, perpetuates the fracture.”

Peter Senge summarized his best-seller book “The Fifth Discipline: the Art and Practice of the Learning Organization” by affirming the fundamental importance of tacit-group processes:

“The central message of The Fifth Discipline is… that our organizations work the way they work, ultimately, because of how we think and how we interact.”

With apologies to Peter Senge, what is the message when we replace the word “organization” with “planetary society”?

The central message of The Fifth Discipline is… that our planetary society works the way it works, ultimately, because of how we think and how we interact.

Is ours a “learning planetary society”? If not, are we getting there?

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Gaia Consciousness

This picture of our blue home planet Earth, taken by the Apollo 17 crew on December 7, 1972, is consciousness-raising. It helps us look at ourselves from the perspective of one planet. This amazing photograph provides a visible referent for the concept of “Planet Earth”. It “takes us out of ourselves” — a global consciousness of common or collective predicaments and tasks, and a common fate. Many people are beginning to recognize the strategic value of a “Gaia consciousness” for the common welfare and survival of all inhabitants of Planet Earth.

Photo courtesy of NASA Johnson Space Center

If we apply the expanded KM framework in Q17 (“Losses in Community Assets: the Mother is Suckling from the Baby!”) from the community level to the national and planetary levels, we get the following breakdown of metacapitals:

Expanded KM framework at the planetary level

Gaia consciousness is a key metacapital in the lower left quadrant. It is the planetary level counterpart to “sense of nationhood” and “sense of community” at the lower national and community levels.

Do you agree?

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Q17- Losses in Community Assets: the Mother is Suckling(?) from the Baby!

In Q16 I quoted Gregory Bateson,

“The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between the way nature works and the way man thinks.”

Accordingly, the next six blog posts Q17 to Q22 will apply the expanded KM framework to several major world problems:

— Underdevelopment of communities and countries
— Corruption
— Threat of nuclear war
— Sustainable development in local communities
— Israel versus Hamas and Hezbollah
— Global financial crisis.

Before we address our first problem of underdevelopment of communities and countries, let us apply the expanded KM framework to communities:

Assets of Communities

At the conference on “Knowledge Architectures for Development” sponsored by the Singapore Management University last March 2008, we presented a paper on “Knowledge for Poverty Alleviation” or KPA framework. This framework uses the expanded KM framework. We showed that successful anti-poverty projects can be explained better using this framework. We also showed how the KPA framework can be used in looking at the flow of assets to/from a typical rural town in the Philippines:

• The brightest secondary school graduates, their valedictorians and salutatorians, migrate to Manila (loss of human capital);
• Mineral and timber resources are harvested mostly by Manila-based or companies based in developed countries (loss of natural capital) but little of the economic proceeds return back to the community. The Regalian Doctrine (state ownership of public natural resources) continues to support and perpetuate this sucking of natural resources from small rural towns to Manila or to developed countries abroad;
• A small fraction of taxes collected by the national government returns back to the community in terms of public services and infrastructures (drain in fiscal resources);
• Local branches of Manila-based banks are more deposit-takers than business lenders (net flow of private savings to Manila);
• Scientists and researchers from outside come in to study the geological, biological, sociological, cultural and other assets of the community, and publish the results outside or bring the geological, biological and cultural specimens for personal or commercial uses outside the community often without the knowledge and permission of local people (biopiracy, siphoning of sociological knowledge, stealing cultural artifacts, geological exploration without FPIC or “free, prior and informed consent”).
• Manila residents who are more knowledgeable of government procedures obtain titles/patents to local land ahead of unwitting local people who had been in traditional possession of land for decades (“land grabbing”).

All these are happening all the time and in most rural Philippine communities, yet most people hardly notice it! (because they do not have the mental model, the expanded KM framework, which enables seeing). How fantastic and unbelievable that so many people cannot see!

Galtung is right. Manila is draining assets from rural Philippine communities! The mother is suckling from the baby!

What do you think?

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Practical Hint #16: Knowledge Transfer from Retiring Senior Staff

Let us apply to a practical situation the expanded KM framework presented in the previous blog post.

Suppose that many experienced senior staff will be retiring from your organization within 12 months. Much knowledge will soon be lost from the organization. As a result, the quality of strategic decision making would deteriorate. Some risks, less visible to junior staff, could materialize to actual loses. Opportunities could be missed. Productivity and revenues would likely suffer.

To minimize loses in this situation, you can transfer knowledge from senior retiring staff. The expanded KM framework suggests that we must pay attention to five areas:

1. Human capital: Mentoring of understudy (over several months) on —

• How important decisions are made
• Practice in performing critical phases of a business process, problem solving
• “Tricks of the trade”
• “War stories” e.g. about how past crises were successfully handled

The understudy must be selected considering non-technical skills required of the job such as ability to communicate, people skills, team player, etc.

2. Structural capital: Turnover of records such as —

• Work folders and work files, emails archive, Internet bookmarks
• Manuals, work templates and tools, problem-solution logbook
• Important information sources, etc.

3. Relationship capital:

• The senior retiring staff introduces the junior understudy to important external business contacts and internal stakeholders especially through informal or social occasions; this process can be repeated over several months until the external or internal stakeholders accept and trust the junior understudy to an extent that the senior retiring staff judges as sufficient for the junior understudy to take over the performance of relevant functions.
• Turnover of telephone directory
• Confidential briefing of understudy on personalities, strengths/weaknesses and relationship styles of key business, network and internal contacts
• Membership in knowledge and other networks; log-in and password to company-owned subscriptions, networks, etc.

4. Tangible assets:

• Company laptop or work station
• Books
• Company communication devices: mobile telephone, etc.

5. Motivational factors:

• The understudy must be selected considering not only technical qualification factors but also personal interest or enthusiasm in the job, whether the job is along his chosen career path, whether the new boss and colleagues in the job are likely to support the understudy, and presence of a personal talent that will be better utilized in the new job.

The above formula must be adapted to the nature of the job. In marketing or sales, relationship capital is more important. In jobs requiring very specialized skills, human capital is important. Motivational factors are always important. In high-tech services, technology (which is part of tangible assets) is important.

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