L16- Concepts Can Block Learning

“From the moment you teach a child the word ‘tree’ he can no longer fully experience a tree” said Anthony De Mello from India.

Concepts are fine tools for organizing and communicating our experiences of the world. Concepts and mental models also enable us to recognize what otherwise we hardly notice. Mental models are just that: models of reality. But if concepts become rigid beliefs or we equate them with reality itself, then concepts can imprison our thinking. If we invest our ego in our concepts, they become our “pet concepts” or “pet theories” and close our mind to other or new theories. We stop testing concepts against our experience and the experiences of other people. And we cease to learn. I wrote a blog on “We found the enemy: our own concepts!”

Religious and political concepts can possess and control minds. As a matter of survival, religious and political institutions preserve concepts (e.g. doctrines and beliefs) and impose sanctions on its members against thinking freely and challenging those concepts. As a result, it takes years, decades or even centuries to unlearn concepts that no longer work. Theological concepts can control our thinking and block achievement of the very purpose and essence of religion. De Mello also said,

“The final barrier to your vision of God is your God-concept. You miss God because you think you know.”

In a doctoral defense by a graduate student at the Asian Social Institute, I sat in the faculty panel which included a monsignor (a rank between priest and bishop). At some point in the defense proceedings I pointed to the difference between “God as a concept” and “God as personal experience”. The monsignor’s subsequent remarks revealed to me his surprise at recognizing the difference seemingly for the first time.

A learning conversation is possible when people talk about their experiences, but unlikely among people attached to their respective concepts. Moshe Idel and Bernard McGinn edited such a learning conversation on “Mystical Union in Judaism, Christianity and Islam: An Ecumenical Dialogue”. Mystical union is a personal experience of God; which is different from theological concepts of God. Do you think a learning conversation is equally possible between a Jewish theologian, a Christian theologian and a Muslim theologian?

Working with mental models is one of the five disciplines of a learning organization, according to guru Peter Senge. Below is a slide from one of my presentations on organizational learning, which lists some skills in working with our own mental models.

Staying too long in a professional area of practice or in an academic discipline or in a type of work poses the danger of being stuck with the concepts in that area or type of work. One way of continuously refreshing one’s repertoire of concepts is to shift or learn a completely new area of professional practice.

It worked for me…several times.

After a bachelor’s degree in physics, I took an M.S. and Ph.D. in physical biology. The new concepts in the life sciences were completely new and different from those of the physical sciences and mathematics. After I earned my doctoral degree I practiced through consulting in environmental management, which added the human and social dimensions. Afterwards, I accepted a position in policy studies in a university think tank, which introduced me to governance and equipped me to later accept an appointment in the Philippine government as Assistant Director General for Policy of a government body that directly provides analysis and policy advice to the Philippine President. For seven years I was immersed in the real world of politics and governance. What a change! In shifting from the academe to government, the learning opportunities opened before me were literally vast! When I went back to the academe, my interests went to development and non-government organizations. I co-founded CCLFI, a non-profit foundation for organizational learning and change, knowledge management (KM) and knowledge-based development. That was 13 years ago [as of August 2011], when I practically started KM in the Philippines and at the University of the Philippines. What a learning journey!

I learned to:

• Shift my area of professional practice several times, thus preventing me from being stuck on the concepts of one area;
• Compare, cross-fertilize and synergize concepts of one discipline with those of another;
• See that different principles from two or more disciplines are actually the same principle, e.g. the Weber-Fechner law in psychology is essentially the same principle as the law of diminishing marginal utility in economics, and the uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics is parallel to Hawthorne effect in sociology;
• Integrate knowledge across disciplines, e.g. see the different forms of capital across economics, ecology, psychology, organizational development, law, political science, etc. and call them “metacapital”; and
• Discern trans-disciplinal patterns, e.g. trans-societal Megatrends #1 (see blog Q14) and Megatrend #2 (see blog Q26), or “connect the dots” across seemingly unrelated facts, e.g. the growing importance of intangibles (see blog F2).

Cheers!

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Emerging Indigo Practices

From previous blogs, I tried to show that major world problems stem from our lack of knowledge in the indigo quadrant (lower left quadrant in the diagram below):

• The $50 trillion global financial crisis resulted from loss of business confidence or trust. Using KM language, it is loss of stakeholder capital, which lies in the indigo quadrant (see “Q22- $8.3 Trillion: Cost to Americans of Disinvestment in Trust” and “A Value Driver behind Relationship Capital”).
• The numerous on-going armed conflicts all over the planet and the threat of a global nuclear war are manifestations in low or negative relationship capital, which belongs to the indigo quadrant (see “War: Consequence of Negative Relationship Capital”).
• Weaknesses in KM initiatives often lie in the indigo quadrant (see “Tacit-Group Processes in KM”). Because organizational cultural and behavioral issues need to be addressed, experienced KM practitioners accompany KM initiatives with change management (click “Change Management must accompany KM” in the CCLFI opening page).

When two long-term societal megatrends are combined, we discover (see “Q27- Combining Megatrends #1 and #2: the next societal innovations”) that the next significant societal innovations are expected in the indigo quadrant. In my contribution to the book “The Future of Innovation” (to be published by Gower in the autumn of 2009), entitled “The Future of Innovation Must Be Sought in Non-Technological Spheres” I wrote, in part:

“Mankind has demonstrated that its ability to technologically innovate is far greater than its ability to anticipate, learn and solve the negative social consequences of those innovations…

Innovation in the future will be driven by common threats confronting mankind. Ironically, most of those threats are man-made. Innovation will proceed in the general direction of preventing and resolving conflicts, governance at all levels, advancing human rights and human security, cross-border agreements in preventing and fighting crime and terrorism, eliminating social exclusions and other social ills that lead to poverty, generating consensus on environmental problems and solutions, and value creation.”

In the specific area of KM, this means that tools, technologies and practices for effectively managing relationship capital would be important. Below is a list of such KM tools (reproduced from a previous blog post: “Practical Hint #17: Tools for Managing Relationship Capital”):

• Social Network Analysis (SNA), sociogram or stakeholder analysis: Maps and analyzes frequencies of communication, teammate preferences, perceived closeness of interpersonal relationships, degree of agreement/disagreement, etc. between people in a group, organization or network
• Team building and team learning exercises
• Setting up a cross-functional KM Team
• Customer relations management, business development, account management, or business partnership management: Management of relationships with customers, suppliers, partners, etc.
• Customer clubs and e-communities: strengthens a company’s communication and relationship with customers, allows customers to participate in product improvement or R&D, makes some customers feel special by receiving advanced news or product prototypes, etc.
• “Customer ba”: Part of the task of some Japanese customer relations managers is to create an affirmative, trusting and creative “relationship space” between himself and the customer.
• MBTI, Belvin types and other psychological profiling tests: Assessing potential for complementarity and good mix of thinking and working styles among prospective team members
• Various tools in brand management and marketing which enhance reputation and credibility of the company
• Various HR/OD tools to enhance employee loyalty and morale: recognitions, honors and awards; policies that allow appropriate decision-making to employees; CEOs that listen e.g. allow direct emails from employees; facilities that show the company cares e.g. day-care facilities within company premises for young children of mother-employees, etc.
• Group exercise in mind mapping: Allows members to see and better understand the assumptions of other fellow members
• Professional and personal profiles of staff, Expertise Directory, company White Pages: Facilitates staff in getting to know each other and each other’s skills, expertise and talents
• Face-to-face meetings and SN functionalities among e-community or e-CoP members: Mutual trust in a virtual CoP or e-community is best nurtured through face-to-face meetings, and through appropriate social network functionalities in the website of the CoP
• Visioning exercise: Co-creating and contributing to an organization’s vision tend to enhance buy-in and engagement of members in programs, projects and activities aimed at the vision of the organization.
• Negotiation: collaborative/integrative negotiation training, skills development (thanks to Peter Spence), and related tools in conflict management
• Leadership (thanks to Peter Spence): one that knows and appreciates many of the above.

Accordingly, I have decided that the next blog series will be on “Indigo Learning Practices.” We will call it the L Series.

Cheers!

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Evolving Forms of Governance

As I type these words I am enjoying the view of Kowloon across the Hong Kong harbour. Beyond Kowloon I can see the distant mountains in the New Territories. Somewhat to my left are the mountains of Hong Kong Island. I can see the moon-shaped Peak Tower on Victoria Peak over the high-rise buildings in Causeway Bay.

Panoramic views from a high place always bring me to a quiet space within me. Very early this morning, in the twilight zone between sleeping and waking, I again experienced an in-flow of new ideas — a process that happens to me countless times before. I am not sure exactly how the process takes place. After I receive them, my mind then shapes and clothes them into words, paragraphs and figures. Today the ideas came at the right time so that they can find their way into this blog. The middle three diagrams below are explicit rendering of the ideas that came to me this morning.

Following the long-term evolutionary framework in the last blog (see “Q27- Combining Megatrends #1 and #2: the Next Societal Innovations?”), we can see that forms of governance have been evolving also according to the two megatrends (the 3×3 diagram below was first presented to the Futuristics in Education course for Malaysian senior education officers last August 23, 2005 at SEAMEO INNOTECH). Glocality and counter-glocality were discussed in the previous blog on “More Power to Glocals!”

The great American democratic experiment can be viewed as a steady movement towards the lower left or indigo quadrant, the direction of the two megatrends (see previous blog). It remains to be seen how it will further evolve in the next centuries.

Tibetan Buddhism was never a centralized and doctrinaire religion from the beginning; it has been an independent experiential and learning-oriented practice among generations after generations of lamas or monks across Tibet, Mongolia and elsewhere.

Potala Palace (photo credits to Wikimedia Commons)

The political loss of Tibet to the Peoples Republic of China led to the farther spread of Tibetan Buddhism as a personal practice across the globe; from our framework, this is movement towards the indigo quadrant. What has happened is consistent with what Padma Sambhava, the founder of Tibetan Buddhism, prophesied 1200 years ago that the Tibetan people “will be scattered like ants across the face of the Earth.”

However, we see from our framework that the evolution of Christianity was regressive from Pentecost up to the Middle Ages, and then it reversed back towards the indigo quadrant starting with the Protestant Reformation and continuing with Vatican II reforms.

The modern corporation is also evolving (see my blog on “From corporate disregard to corporate embrace of stakeholder capital to socially-embedded corporations”). The advent of knowledge management, organizational learning/presencing, corporate social responsibility or CSR practices, the power shift (see Alvin Toffler and Daniel Bell) to knowledge workers/enterprises and a “flatter world” according to Thomas Friedman, are forces that tend to push the modern corporate practice towards the indigo quadrant.

What do you think?

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Q27- Combining Megatrends #1 and #2: the Next Societal Innovations?

I introduced trans-societal Megatrend #1 in an earlier blog (“Q14- Naming Trans-Societal Megatrend #1: towards Yin?”). I summarized Megatrend #1 (see blog “KM and trans-societal megatrend #1″) as:

Trans-societal Megatrend #2 (introduced in blog Q26- Information: another Force for Democratization) can be summarized as:

If we combine these two megatrends and again use Ken Wilber’s framework, we have a new way of characterizing major societal innovations and anticipating where the next major societal innovations would be emerging:

Do you agree with the following observations?

1. The combined trend is towards the lower left or indigo-colored Quadrant 4 in the figure above. Using simplistic language, the trend is towards the democratization of religions (Quadrant 1 to 4) and the spiritualization of democracy, free markets and science (Quadrant 3 to 4).
2. There is a mega-tension between Quadrants 1 and 3 which can be seen in the conflict between Western democratic values versus Islamic fundamentalism and theocracy (which underlies the events in Iraq and Afghanistan, terrorist attacks in Europe and North America, and tension between European cultures and cultures of Muslim immigrants in Europe), the conflict between scientific empiricism and religious faith (seen in Matthew Fox’s creation spirituality versus traditional Catholic doctrines, Darwinian evolution versus creationism from Genesis), and the conflict between laissez faire capitalism and various economic models that emphasize the humanistic, psychological and spiritual dimensions (such as “Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered” by Schumacher, Bhutan King Jigme Singye Wangchuck’s “Gross National Happiness”).
3. Regressive forces are represented by those groups which aim to maintain or go back to communism, dictatorship, theocracy, monopolistic control of national economies, etc.
4. New practices are emerging in Quadrant 4, which I call “indigo practices.” I will write about this in another blog. The interactive practice in double-loop learning that I am proposing in the last blog (An Invitation to Interactive Practice of Double-Loop Learning) is an indigo practice.
5. A most interesting convergence between Quadrants 1 and 3 is happening between Tibetan Buddhism and modern science: the Mind and Life Institute. Tibetan Buddhism comes from centuries of learning, experiential studies and applying consensual corroboration in the inner worlds; while modern sciences comes from centuries of learning, empirical studies and applying consensual corroboration in the outer worlds.

I introduced the ideas in this blog in an earlier paper on “Information Technology and Security in the 21st Century” which I read at the Asia-Pacific Security Forum Conference in Taipei, Taiwan in December 1999.

Please tell us what you think about these.

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Q26- Information: another Force for Democratization (Trans-Societal Megatrend #2?)

What is common among these three events: (i) the Fall of Bastille in 1789, (ii) the invention of the microprocessor in 1971, and (iii) adoption in 1992 by 118 national governments of Agenda 21?

Here are more hints.

Can you discern what is common among these six trends?

• Political: the break-up of the Soviet Union and democratization of Eastern Europe; replacement of military dictatorships with elected leaders in Latin America; fall of dictatorial regimes in Taiwan, South Korea, Philippines and Indonesia; end of apartheid in South Africa; recognition by Israel of the Palestinian Liberation Organization; “people power” revolutions in the Philippines, Chile, Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Indonesia and Serbia;
• Economic: the shift from socialist to market economies in Russia, China, Mongolia, Vietnam, and Eastern Europe where decision making by a few central planners was replaced by choices of millions of consumers; global shift of wealth creation from industry to services thereby a power shift from capital and machineries to knowledge and knowledge workers; global shift of market value from intangible (=mostly knowledge) assets than from tangible assets;
• Social: the growth of the voluntary, non-profit and non-government organizations, which mobilize civil society for causes such as human rights, rights of indigenous peoples, women’s rights, environmental protection, etc.; the adoption in the Rio Summit of 1992 of sustainable development as the new mainstream development paradigm; the growing adoption of corporate social responsibility and socially responsible investments;
• Technological: satellite TV, personal computer and WAP-enabled mobile phones which are placing tremendous information, computing power and choice in the hands of individuals and households;
• Religious: Protestant Reformation, Vatican II (“priesthood of the laity”), women in the priesthood, creation spirituality, personal spirituality replacing adherence to organized religions; and
• Organizational: the flattening of organizational hierarchies, growth of horizontal networks and virtual communities, emergence of autonomous intrapreneurial work teams and post-industrial empowerment of knowledge workers.

If you said “democratization” (or any of its synonym), then YOU ARE RIGHT!

Democratization is a trans-societal megatrend because it cuts across political, economic, social, technological, religious and organizational domains.

The people side of this megatrend picked up speed over the last three centuries, while the technological side jump-started about half a century ago (see diagram below). Indeed, the information revolution is another force for democratization. Together, the telephone, the personal computer and the Internet is a powerful and empowering combination.

Do you think that it is reasonable to expect that this global megatrend — democratization — will continue to permeate all aspects of life and society throughout the world for the next centuries?

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Photo credits to Wikimedia Commons for “The Storming of the Bastille” by Jean-Pierre Houël and the picture of a Hitachi HD6803P microprocessor; thanks to the UN Division for Sustainable Development for the cover page of Agenda 21.

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