John Lennon’s Dream: A World Free of Mental Boxes and Mental Fences

What divides humankind from one another are mental boxes and mental fences that have possessed and controlled millions (or billions) of minds. Before communication among us can redeem us from this tragedy, we need to develop the technology (and art) of managing mental models, instead of our mental models managing us.

In previous blogs, I have written about:

• L16- Concepts can block learning
• L21- On Michael Jackson, or our mental models of people we know
• Listening where mental models of people conflict
• Q16- Seeing world problems: building on Gregory Bateson
• Q7- We found the enemy: our own concepts!?

I love to listen to John Lennon’s (one of the Beatles) song, “Imagine.” His song always moves me to sadness seeing how people “kill and die for” their mental models, and how our concepts lead to “greed or hunger”. At the same time, listening to his song lifts my soul to a height my mind cannot verbalize. You can listen to the song via YouTube by pressing “Ctrl” while clicking HERE.

Here are the lyrics of this beautiful and soulful song:

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one

John Lennon asks us to imagine an alternative world reality. He encourages us, saying “it isn’t hard to do.”

Can you imagine the world he is describing in his song? If you can — even for a brief moment as you savor the lyrics, the song and the man’s dream behind the song — then you have momentarily freed yourself from powerful mental models/fences that semi-consciously imprison the thinking and seeing, and that shape decisions and behaviors of millions of people in Planet Earth.

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JOHN LENNON

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L26 -Bohm’s Dream: a Revolution in How We Communicate

Those who had experienced the pains of failed communications are pushed by the situation to search — with their brains, with their alternating mix of anger and despair, and with their souls — for answers to the pregnant KM question “What went wrong and why?”

• Was there failure in listening?
• Were assumptions different, and each side thinks he or she is right and the other is wrong?
• Were one or both sides unwitting and unconscious victims of their own assumptions?
• Concepts, values, standards, judgments and expectations replaced reality checks?
• Was there no acceptance and respect?
• One or both sides were governed by their long-ingrained habits of automatic unthinking defensive reactions?
• Anger controlled the person, instead of the person having controlled the anger?
• Communication boundaries were not announced, or if they were announced, the other side failed to hear it correctly, or if was heard correctly, the other side refused to respect it?
• Transparency was lacking from one or both sides?
• Memories from the past about a person or an idea or mental model of a person weighed more heavily than the present reality, the person you are talking with now?
• There was sheer incompetence in how to communicate?
• Was goodwill, or at least respect, absent?
• One or both sides does not truly look within himself or herself?
• An agenda, conscious or unconscious, drives communication behavior, and the other side senses it and resists it?
• Etc. etc.?

Failure is a source of energy. How to use this energy is our choice.

Most millionaires have experienced failures. Masters of life have risen from many failures. The energy from failure can be channeled to spur greater learning. Barbra Streisand, in her song “Lessons to be Learned” sang:

“There are no mistakes, just lessons to be learned.”

Harvard Professor David Bohm and Mark Edwards, in their book “Changing Consciousness: Exploring the Hidden Source of the Social, Political, and Environmental Crises Facing Our World,” said

“Suppose we were able to share meanings freely without a compulsive urge to impose our view or to conform to those of others and without distortion and self deception. Would this not constitute a real revolution in culture?”

DAVID BOHM

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L25 -12 Types of Learning, Part 2

Collaborative learning is a strong incentive towards inter-communication within a group. This is the incentive behind the rapid growth of inter-communication among:

• Scientific researchers in numerous disciplines
• R&D teams in innovative corporations
• Professional associations
• Guilds among craftsmen, artisans and artists.

Last Thursday in Bangkok, as part of a 3-day KM training program for UNISDR, UN ESCAP and various international and regional non-governmental organizations, I asked participants to “Estimate what percent of your total knowledge now came from your formal education/training?” The participants were international development professionals, and many of them have had KM experiences.

The average answer was only 15-20%. We observed that we learn from work and from life much more than we learn from school, yet we devote MUCH LESS resources, planning, tools/technologies and systems/institutions to get the 80-85% than we do to get the 15-20% from school! We are missing out on something important here. What is it?

For learning from work, we need tools and technologies of Organizational Learning.

I also asked the participants to write down their answers to the question “How Do I Learn?” The 84 answers were clustered. The two biggest clusters that emerged were: (1) learning from work or learning by doing or practice, with 21 answers, and (2) learning by interaction with others, with 18 answers. If so, the next question then is, what is the technology (and art?) of collaborative learning?

This is where Indigo Learning Practices come in.

In a previous blog post, I proposed a way to classify and clarify how we learn (see “12 Types of Learning”). The “12 Types of Learning” follow naturally from the simple KM framework developed in the earlier F Series of blogs, with the addition of Experience as a prior factor in the causal chain:

Experience -> Knowledge -> Action -> Results
or
E -> K -> A -> R

In short, learning happens when we individually or collaboratively examine and communicate what happens across these four elements.

Here is a short summary of the Twelve Types of Learning. The numbers refer to Person 1 and Person 2 who are engaged in communication for the common purpose of learning. The KM framework provides a way of seeing and understanding how knowledge flows between two people. Because Beliefs and Values also affect Action and are also affected by Experience, I place these two items with Knowledge. For similar reasons, I place Statements with Action. The causal chain then is: Experience -> Knowledge/Beliefs/Values -> Action/Statement -> Results.

1. Type 1: Comparing notes to learn what works better (R1 and R2)
2. Type 2: Communal validation and reframing is the type of learning powerfully demonstrated by the scientific method (R modifying K and E). It consists of a group of practitioners testing and revising knowledge and reframing beliefs against what works.
3. Type 3: Reflective practice, where a practitioner does “conscious learning by doing” (individual study of K -> A -> R)
4. Type 4: Presentation and discussions (S1, S2)
5. Type 5: Criticism, praise or passing judgment on another (K1 or V1 applied to A2 or S2)
6. Type 6: Debate is a two-way exchange of Types 4 and 5
7. Type 7: Learning from exemplars, models, benchmarks or best practices (A1 or S1 leading to K2)
8. Type 8: Learning through study of each other’s assumptions, mental models (mutual study of each other’s K, B or V)
9. Type 9: Conscious living or study of one’s assumptions or beliefs in relation to one’s experiences (individual or group study of E -> K and new K reframing E)
10. Type 10: Storytelling and story listening, or knowledge from others’ experiences (E1 leading to K2)
11. Type 11: Insight or intuition (birth of new K through ill-understood internal processes)
12. Type 12: Generative dialogue is productive communication that combines Types 8-11.

From my experience, Type 5 learning happens mostly if one person (the one exercising value judgments) has more power than the other person. Between equals, Type 5 easily leads to Type 6 but learning happens with difficulty in both cases.

Learning is more likely when members of a communicating group practice skills in Types 8-12. To me, the most powerful skills are story listening and generative dialogue. The set of Indigo Learning Practices is a contribution towards the systematization of technologies of collaborative learning.

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“The shortest distance between a human being and truth is a story.” – Anthony de Mello

ANTHONY DE MELLO

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Another Communication Boundary: How Far Can You Self-Disclose?

Organizational learning requires the ability — and willingness — among members to self-disclose. Senge and his colleagues use tools such as “Left-hand Column” and “Ladder of Inference” which require a member to be aware of, and to publicly describe, how one thinks. That includes many things: how one reasons out, what doubts and uncertainties one entertains, whether one agrees or disagrees and why, what one does not know or what is the extent of one’s ignorance, what facts or observations led to one’s conclusion, the meaning of a word or label one uses, etc. Below are two slides from a PowerPoint presentation on Senge’s “Five Disciplines” that I show my KM graduate class at the Technology Management Center, University of the Philippines, which lists things that members of a learning organization must be able and willing to talk publicly about.

Double-loop learning is more demanding: it requires self-disclosure that can bring about strong emotional content: personal likes and dislikes behind a behavior or pattern of behavior, personal fears and desires that affect work performance, tacit patterns of inefficient or ineffective behavior one is unwilling to talk about, etc. The strong emotional content itself can inhibit self-disclosure.

How far one is willing to be candid and public about his own thinking and feeling processes — which are normally private or personal things — is another form of communication boundary. This “self-disclosure boundary” delimits what one is willing or comfortable to tell others; just as the “communication boundary” we discussed in the previous blog post (“Announce Your Communication Boundaries”) delimits what one is willing or comfortable hearing from others. In both cases, discomfort is the signal that tells one that his boundary is being breached. These boundaries vary from person to person, and from context to context, but watching at what point the discomfort begins is a useful way to be aware exactly where one’s boundary is.

Browse through the profiles of your contacts in Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, or other similar social networks. You will notice the differences in the willingness to self-disclose. In fact people who are “very private” will not even join such social networks. You must be a “social person” or one who is less guarded about your “private space” or “personal life” to join and enjoy participating in them.

In the plane ride from Beijing to Manila last Tuesday, I sat next to a young man who visited his Chinese girlfriend. Wow! He disclosed to me — a stranger — much more than what I expected about him, his girlfriend and what they did in the two weeks he was in Beijing. He showed me their pictures in his laptop. He is a body-piercer. He told me so much about how he does it to minimize the pain in his clients. He described where (=what parts of the body) and which way he had pierced his lady clients as well as gentlemen clients, etc. He showed me the piercings in his face, mouth and head (he had temporarily removed the rings in them).

Willingness to self-disclose is not enough. Some may be willing to self-disclose more than others, and a few may be like my plane seatmate. Most people assume that they know everything about themselves — why they think, feel and do what they keep thinking, feeling or doing or NOT thinking, feeling or doing. This is a wrong assumption. Most people are actually unaware about much of their internal states. For example, most people are unaware of their “blind spots” or “blindfolds”. A willingness to self-disclose is not enough; self-disclosure to be productive of learning must be accompanied by self-knowledge that comes from years of constant practice of double-loop learning and “conscious living”.

Chris Argyris, who introduced double-loop learning, said: “Leaders and subordinates alike… must all begin struggling with a new level of self-awareness, candor and responsibility.”

In the February 2007 issue of the Harvard Business Review, Bill George and his associates wrote about learning how to be an inspiring and empowering leader. They asked 75 members of the Advisory Council of the Stanford Graduate School of Business what is the most important capability that leaders must develop. Their answer was nearly unanimous: self-awareness!

I believe that extending the envelope of organizational performance can be achieved through three steps:

1. The first envelope is through better technology: this is the easiest.
2. The second envelope is through better management: this is not difficult as there are numerous management tools for this purpose.
3. The third envelope is through better psychological-behavioral technology: this is difficult because the tools in this area are still works in progress.

According to Management Today, “Peter Senge’s advocacy of the learning organization helped begin a revolution in the workplace. And, the relevance of Senge’s work is growing rather than diminishing over time. As more businesses go global, the need to overcome psychological barriers to necessary organizational change increases.”

PETER SENGE

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Listening to Life

People do not notice nor give value to those things that are always available or always around them all the time — air to breathe, solid ground beneath their feet, the local culture, being alive, the support of a loved one — until those things are taken away from them, or seriously threatened to be taken away from them. It is paradoxical: anything that is omnipresent tends to escape our notice. Consequently, we fail to appreciate it.

Many species of fish and other aquatic animals are born, live their lifetimes and die immersed in the water all the time; and so I believe they do not notice the water. Dolphins, which can jump out of the water momentarily, have experienced being out of the water; and so I believe dolphins do notice the water. Spinning dolphins even delightfully and playfully shoot up into the air spinning, and splash back into the water. They do it again and again, in apparent glee and enjoyment.

When I was a young man I dated girls at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Laguna province in the Philippines. The first time I visited IRRI facilities, I was struck by the beautiful scenic view of the green rice fields, the rows of coconut trees and thatched huts in the distance, the blue-green mountains nearby and the bluer mountains afar. I blurted a remark to one of the girls about the marvellous scenery surrounding them. She said, “Oh, we do not notice them anymore.”

We are immersed in life and its repeating patterns so often and so much that we have stopped noticing life.

People who had looked at Death face-to-face — for example, people who survived a life-threatening illness, or an accident that was fatal for many companions, or any event where they thought they would die — are people who afterwards better saw how precious Life is and who thereafter lived Life more fully. Like young children, they listened, experienced and savored life more intensely. I know, because I survived an illness that threatened my life for nearly four years.

Take your local or national culture. You grew up within it. It is around you all the time. You never even knew what it consists of — until you leave your town or your country and travel to another culture. It is when you are outside your culture and you are confronted with an alien, strange or different culture that you begin to be aware of your own culture!

Nearly two decades ago, I studied an indigenous local spiritual culture. They have a daily practice that they taught me. It is called “pagbabasa ng Buhay na Aklat” or “reading the Living Book.” By “Living Book” they refer to your own life and daily personal experiences. It consists of closely observing, and internally and externally listening to the micro and macro events in your personal life in order to discern patterns, movements and cues as to where Life is taking you as well as where you want Life to take you. They call one’s life the “Living Book” because they believe that God communicates and interacts with every person through numerous micro and macro events in his or her life. In other words, your life experiences constitute your own “Living Scripture” that you have to “read”. “Reading the Living Book” is a practice of passively listening to Life, as well as actively engaging Life. It is a beautiful practice.

Using knowledge management language, “Reading the Living Book” is sensing of tacit individual knowledge, while reading a religious scripture (whether Christian, Muslim, Judaic, etc.) is reading explicit group knowledge. The first is personalized and private, compared to the latter which is common and public.

Early Christians, and modern-day Pentecostal Christians, use the Greek word “rhema” to refer to direct, tacit, personal experience or communication from the Holy Spirit, in contrast to “logos” which is the written, explicit record of that experience. Unfortunately, when the Bible was translated from Greek to English, both “rhema” and “logos” became the “Word” thereby losing the important distinction between direct, tacit, personalized sensing (“rhema”) and the indirect, explicit, public record (“logos”). This shift is one of the reasons why, in my analysis, Christianity lost the virtues in the indigo quadrant (see the diagrams in my previous blog post “Evolving Forms of Governance”): it shifted from rule by the many and inner disciplines of the early Christians during Pentecost, to rule by the few and canon law/doctrinal controls in the modern Vatican-managed Catholicism and various Protestant congregations. Please note that Protestantism is closer to the indigo quadrant than Catholicism.

A similar distinction occurred in the development of Islam: today there is a distinction between various practices of tacit discernment of Allah’s will (maarifah, haqiqah and tariqah) and the more common reliance on explicit or written laws (Shariah) and the Koran.

The KM distinction between tacit and explicit knowledge is an excellent framework for better understanding these distinctions: one is contextual personal knowledge and the other is generic second-hand knowledge. KM also helps us see that there are losses accompanying conversion from tacit to explicit knowledge.

Abraham, the forefather of all Jews, Christians and Muslims, did not have any scripture to rely on (fortunately!). So he used direct tacit means to listen to God. He listened very well, even if he could not at first believe what he heard. Most modern-day Jews, Christians and Muslim rely on their different scriptures (unfortunately!) and their different mental models and judgments are now leading them to misunderstand, hate and even kill one another. Watching all his children now, Abraham must be an exceedingly unhappy soul.

In 1995-1997 I led a team of experts in Filipino culture and indigenous spiritualities in designing, testing and piloting a Pamathalaan Workshop under former Philippine President Fidel V. Ramos. Pamathalaan, according to President Ramos, is “pamamahala kasama ni Bathala” or God-centered governance. One of the experimental workshop modules was a form of listening to Life patterned after the indigenous practice of “reading the Living Book”. It is an inter-faith process of consensual discernment. If God is omnipresent, then our tendency is to fail to notice Him (or Her). The water sustains the fish, but the fish never notices the water. The process is therefore a conscious practice of noticing and listening to God or to Life (is there really any distinction between God and Life?) all around us every day or moment of our life.

In 1997, I was browsing in a bookstore in San Francisco when I chanced (perhaps it was not “chance”) reading the following excerpt from the back cover of a book. The excerpt “jumped out” and I knew it was another corroboration of the Pamathalaan Workshop. I bought this book and all subsequent books by its author, Neale Donald Walsh. Neale “wrote” these books through the process of “automatic writing” (whereby the author’s hand holding a pen or pencil involuntarily moves and writes, or without the conscious control of the person). The title of the book is “Conversations with God: an Uncommon Dialogue, Book 1.”

“So go ahead now. Ask Me anything. Anything. I will contrive to bring you the answer. The whole universe will I use to do this. So be on the lookout; this book is far from My only tool. You may ask a question, then put this book down. But watch.

“Listen.

“The words to the next song you hear. The information in the next article you read. The story line of the next movie you watch. The chance utterance of the next person you meet. Or the whisper of the next river, the next ocean, the next breeze that caresses your ear — all these devices are Mine; all these avenues are open to Me. I will speak to you if you will listen. I will come to you if you will invite Me. I will show you then that I have always been there.

“All ways.”

Put this blog down (it is second-hand knowledge) and start gaining your own first-hand knowledge. Start listening to Life.

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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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Ask High-Value Questions

“If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first fifty five minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I knew the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.”

— Albert Einstein

Among the 12 Manners of Voicing, asking questions is, from my experience, the most productive of learning and innovation. I have started to illustrate asking high-value questions in a prior blog post (“Personal Learning History”).

Last March 28, 2007 I was invited to be a reactor to several paper presenters in the “National Conference on Improving Competitiveness through Science & Technology Human Resource Development.” It was sponsored by the Science Education Institute of the Department of Science and Technology of the Philippine government.

As reactor I was expected to comment on the papers presented: expand on ideas I agree with, criticize ideas I don’t agree with, etc. I decided to completely change my approach. I decided not to provide answers. Instead my “reaction” was a series of questions:

1. Provocative questions
2. Mind-opening questions
3. Assumption-exposing questions
4. Mental model-challenging questions
5. Bias-awareness questions
6. Blindfolds-discovering questions
7. Discovering-what-we-don’t-know questions
8. Attention-shifting questions
9. Market opportunities-attentive questions
10. Reframing questions.

You can read my short (only 5 substantive slides) presentation by holding “Ctrl” and left-clicking HERE to view my presentation in a new tab.

Learn to ask high-value questions. I call them “high-value” questions because they can lead to answers that are high-value knowledge, for example:

1. Delighting customers instead of just satisfying them, and thereby converting customers to willing and eager salespersons convincing their friends to buy your product.
2. Changing how we see reality: this is why “reframing” questions are very powerful. For example, if we change how we view the market then it may enable us to see new market opportunities that we hardly saw before. This can lead to —
3. Challenging and changing the assumptions behind our business model, resulting in a better or new business model that can revive a losing business or radically outstrip all competition or lead to an entirely new and successful business venture with its own niche!

Cheers!

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Listening (and Building Cross-Cultural Relationship Capital)

A good listener seeks to discover and understand the assumptions of a speaker. Cultural assumptions are particularly challenging to discover, because people are most often unaware of their cultural assumptions. This challenge has become more acute in a rapidly globalizing world economy, where cross-cultural collaborations and cross-cultural communications are multiplying all around us.

Some years back I met an American lady in a party. She had been stationed in the Philippines doing development work. She complained to me: “Filipinos sometimes say ‘yes’ just to be polite and then I later discover to my dismay that ‘yes’ actually meant ‘no.’ Why don’t they tell me the truth from the start?” She sounded perplexed and appeared irritated.

I paused for a while.

Then, instead of answering her directly I asked her a question: “Have you experienced being a guest with other Filipinos in a Filipino home where the host offered food?”

“Yes I did,” she answered.

“Did you notice how the host keep offering the food and how the Filipino visitor keep declining, but in the end relented and accepted the food?”

“Yes I did notice that,” she answered.

Then I explained, “Among Filipinos who are not acquaintances, visitors who accept food immediately after the first offer are viewed or interpreted as eager to get a free meal or quick to take advantage of the host, or as an uncouth ‘kalatog pinggan.’”

“Kalatog pinggan” (literally “clanking of dishes”) is a derogatory term Filipinos use to describe people who gate-crash parties or fiestas (town celebrations) or who constantly look for opportunities to get a free meal from anyone.

I continued to explain, “To avoid being viewed as taking any advantage, the visitor will say something like ‘Thank you but I am not hungry’ or ‘Thank you but I just ate something before coming here’ – statements which may in fact be untrue.

“Despite these answers from the visitor, a good host will repeat her offer because she understands that the visitor does not wish to impose any inconvenience on her, the host. If the host does not make a second offer, the common interpretation among Filipinos is that the host was never serious nor sincere in her offer in first place.”

“This cycle of offer and decline is often repeated a second time,” I continued to explain, “The repeated offer is a sign that the host really would like to play the role of a good host, and the repeated decline is a sign that the visitor really would not wish to impose or take advantage of the generosity of the host.”

“Finally, the visitor would accept and eat the food, and everyone is happy. This ritual is repeated almost every time a stranger visits a Filipino home. It shows that among many Filipinos not telling the truth is a lesser evil than not starting or not maintaining good interpersonal relationships.”

“Now I see,” said the American lady.

Preference for good interpersonal relationships and social harmony — which are common across Asian cultures — can become anti-learning if a person will choose not to speak, oppose someone, or voice out his truth for the sake of avoiding “rocking the boat” called “harmonious relationship.” “False harmony” is the first of William Isaac’s four stages towards generative dialogue. We will discuss this and other blocks to learning in the next blog post L13 and future posts in the L Series.

In a cross-cultural encounter, a person from another culture has at least two choices:

• Judge a behavior of another as stupid, silly, perplexing or unproductive, or
• Listen closely to understand (which is not the same as appreciate or agree) the cultural meanings behind the behavior.

The first choice is often not a conscious choice but an automatic judgmental reaction, often by people who have rigid beliefs about what is “right” and what is “wrong.” The second is often a conscious choice followed by a considered process of listening, asking, and attempting to understand or see the assumptions and meanings behind the perplexing behavior. This process requires 100% listening, awareness of one’s own mental models, assumptions and values, and temporary suspension of one’s judgment based on those values — skills that are integral in indigo learning practices and personal knowledge management, and in the broader capacities required in a learning organization.

Rigid beliefs and automatic judgmental reactions (or being unaware victims of our own childhood and cultural programmings) are becoming counterproductive in a world where cross-cultural encounters are multiplying exponentially. Indigo learning practices and related skills are needed more and more if people of different cultures are to live together peacefully or to work together productively in an ever more crowded and more interconnected world. New capacities are needed for all of us to build cross-cultural relationship capital together.

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12 Types of Learning

To prepare the ground for my next blog post (Q24- KM and power: constant bed fellows), we will use the KM framework introduced in F2 (Intangibles: More Essential for Value Creation) and F5 (A Proposed KM Framework) to look at different ways that we learn.

I have illustrated 10 different ways to apply the KM framework in 10 past blog posts:

• F6- “High-Octane KM” is Demand-Driven KM
• F8- Valuation of Intangible Assets
• F9- Economics of (Unconscious) Learning
• F10- Ensuring ROI of Training
• F11- Cost of Ignorance
• F12- Relationships Do Create Value
• F14- Monitoring and Evaluation of KM for Development
• D10- KM Tools: Qualitative to Quantitative
• Practice Internal Watchfulness (Hint #11)
• Practice Internal Double-Loop Learning (Hint #12)

Delineating the 12 types of learning (see diagram below) will be the 11th illustration of using the KM framework. I am using the same color codings (yellow for knowledge, crimson for action and green for results) as in the above 10 illustrations. This typology refers to the channels or modalities of learning and does not presume whether and how far in fact the knowledge receiver learned (thanks to Bill Kaplan of Washington, D.C. for pointing this out).
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Person A and Person B are co-equal in power, authority and influence. Interactions between people with unequal power are discussed in the next blog post on “KM and Power”. In the diagram, we start with Type 1 at the extreme right and proceed towards the left for Type 2 and the rest.

Type 1 is simply studying What Works Better, where A and B compare results of their actions; the two learn when they discover which action produces better results.

Type 2 or Communal Validation is similar to Type 1 but it involves a community and its protocols for knowledge validation. For example, the scientific community learns and generates new knowledge through scientific protocols on observation of results of actions/experiments up to analysis and interpretation of data. In a community of practitioners (CoP), identification, documentation and transfer of best practice follow similar protocols: results of many similar actions are compared and a “best” practice is identified, documented and shared with the rest of the community. Ken Wilber calls the steps in Type 2 learning as “three strands of valid knowing”; see his books “The Marriage of Sense and Soul” or “A Sociable God”. (Thanks to Mark Wolfe for pointing out that the feedback does reach back to enculturation and training.)

While Communal Validation is a feedback from observed results to mental models (=knowledge, beliefs, paradigms), when we rework our mental models or re-organize what we know (thanks to Katherine Bertolucci for pointing this out) we Reframe how we view the world. This learning process is the feedforward back to observation of results.

Type 3 is similar to Type 1 and 2 but Reflective Practice can involve only one person. Types 1-3 involve feedback or observation of results to improve knowledge and practice. A common variant of Type 3 is Learning from Doing, which happens largely semi-consciously. If you wish to learn more about Type 3, start by reading the book “The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action” by Donald A. Schon.

Type 4 is Presentation where A or B talks and the other listens, such as watching YouTube, listening to a lecture or reading a book. This type of learning is suited for learning concepts but not skills. Discussion occurs when participants take turns in presentation and then proceed to a mix of Type 1 and 2 learning, and oftentimes with Type 5 and 6 thrown in.

Type 5 is Criticism, Praise or Judgment where B — using his own knowledge, beliefs, interests or values — judges a statement or action of A. If A and B do not share the same knowledge, beliefs, interests or values, then A will defend himself based on his own knowledge, beliefs, interests or values. If A and B are co-equal in power, and neither will give up their own knowledge, beliefs, interests or values, or they are unable to shift their discourse towards Type 1-2 or Type 8-12, then the result is —

Type 6 is Debate. Learning can still happen through Type 5 and 6, but this learning is least likely to happen compared to other types. Unfortunately, when one or both of A and B strongly believes he is right, or avoids being proven wrong, or is unable to shift to Types 1-2 or 8-12, then each tries to convince/criticize the other but the other then digs in and defends himself, and the process can degenerate to an ugly downward spiral (I have seen this many times in one of the KM discussion lists). In a debate, the objective is no longer learning but winning, or proving the other person is wrong, or pushing for one’s pet theory or belief. In the end, people hardly learn or change their beliefs as a result of debate; and goodwill is often the casualty. It is unfortunate that many people allow themselves to be drawn into this inutile form of communication. This is common among people holding on to different religious and political beliefs, but I also see it among intelligent people holding on to different academic schools of thought. I wrote about Debate versus Discussion versus Dialogue in a previous blog post. If you want to learn more about the difference between debate, discussion and dialogue, start by reading the book “Dialogue: The Art of Thinking Together” by William Isaacs.

Type 7 or Exemplar is when A through his actions and speech models, manifests, demonstrates or acts as exemplar of a knowledge, belief, interest or value such that B learns through observing A. This is the process that occurs during mentoring when the apprentice watches the mentor perform, and when a child watches her parents and teachers. The mentor initiates the learning process not through trying to convince but through demonstrating how certain actions produce desired results.

Type 8 is when A and B consciously and jointly review or revise their Mental Models, underlying assumptions or frameworks that sponsored or led to specific actions or statements. This is one of the five disciplines of a learning organization according to Peter Senge. Learning or changing one’s beliefs is more likely to happen by making our assumptions explicit and examining them together than by trying to convince, argue or attack another person (Types 5 and 6). If you have not read the landmark book “The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization” by Peter M. Senge then I suggest you do. John Naisbitt’s “Mind Set! Reset Your Thinking and See the Future” is entertaining to read. A prevalent variant of Type 8 is the unplanned or semi-conscious process whereby two or more people through conversations Reconstruct their shared view of social reality.

Type 9 is Conscious Living, where a person studies why he does what he keeps doing, reflects on his own assumptions and beliefs, and consciously manages how he thinks, perceives, interprets, values and makes daily life decisions. My NGO — the Center for Conscious Living Foundation — has been developing, practicing and teaching tools under this type of learning since 1999. Check our website for more information.

Type 10 is Storytelling and Story Listening, where B shares his experiences with A. If A is able to truly listen, or to listen while suspending his judgments and beliefs, he may understand or appreciate why B thinks and believes the way he does. Then A can discover new ways of looking at the same thing they are both looking at. Check out the book by KM gurus John Seely Brown, Stephen Denning, Katalina Groh, and Laurence Prusak: “Storytelling in Organizations: Why Storytelling Is Transforming 21st Century Organizations and Management.”

Type 11 is Insight or Intuition, when new ideas or thoughts emerge in one’s consciousness — through processes the thinker himself is not clear about — that can provide the basis for better action.

Type 12 or Generative Dialogue is the process where a group of people have reached a level of trust and skill in performing Types 8-11 such that they are able as a group to reflect and explore how and why they think, see and interact the way they do, consciously discover their limiting assumptions and biases, reframe a problem or issue, revise or improve their mental models, and generate new options or solutions. Learning is more likely in Types 8-12 than in Types 5-6 which are hampered by inability or unwillingness to reflect and to suspend judgment. I have written about Generative Dialog in a previous blog post. Besides Isaacs’ book mentioned above, check out also Adam Kahane’s “Solving Tough Problems: An Open Way of Talking, Listening and Creating New Realities.”

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Practical Hint #8: Watch a Sacha Baron Cohen movie!

Continuing from our previous blog post on generative dialogue, here is a fun way to discover your blindfolds: watch a Sacha Noam Baron Cohen movie such as “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.” You will laugh your way to discovering your own (hitherto unconscious) mental models and (lurking) judgments! Haha!

Seriously now, Sacha is a British comedian who won the Best Actor award of Golden Globe for his role in Borat. He is one of the “TIME 100″ or the 100 most influential people in the world nominated by Time readers in 2008.

Even more seriously, if you watched Borat and you did not laugh at all, or you left in the middle of the movie — this is telling you something about yourself.

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