Two people with conflicting or incompatible mental models will likely:
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?
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:
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Posts Tagged ‘sustainable development’
Q26- Information: another Force for Democratization (Trans-Societal Megatrend #2?)
May 3, 2009What 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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Q7- We Found the Enemy: Our Own Concepts!?
January 19, 2009Let us do a thought experiment (Gedanken Experiment).
- One day, I visited a forest. With me are four friends: an entomologist, a logger, a civil engineer and an ethnographer. The entomologist proceeded to examine many varieties of insects hiding in the cracks of trees’ barks and underneath fallen leaves. He starts to tell everyone stories about each kind of insect he discovers. The logger is not listening because he was busy mentally estimating the commercial volume and market value of a tree in front of him based on its diameter-at-breast-height. He was also estimating the timber density of this forest. The civil engineer was looking elsewhere: at the elevation, slopes and the flow rate and drop of a nearby small waterfall. He wanted to estimate how many kilowatts a micro-hydro power generator can produce from the waterfall. The ethnographer was a bit disappointed. She could not find anything interesting in the forest so she just observed the behavior of her companions and asked them a few questions.
What is happening here? The entomologist, logger, civil engineer and ethnographer are each seeing different things. Their individual academic trainings, experiences and habits are boxing in how they see the world around them. They see only their own familiar SLICES of the real world. No one is looking at the entire forest!
In the previous blogpost(Q6- KM for development: a triple(?) bottom line?), I have no doubt the Philippine Government and the World Bank hired the best engineers. The engineers who conceived and designed the Chico River Dam project where doing their darn best. But engineers are not trained in sociology or cultural anthropology or ecology. They were trained well to look elsewhere. So they missed and failed to anticipate social and cultural costs of the project. The engineers, the Philippine Government, the World Bank, the soldiers sent to the area by the Philippine Government, etc. were not our enemies. Our common enemy was the wrong development model or the purely engineering framework (a SINGLE-SLICE framework) for viewing a hydroelectric power plant project.
Every one of us is making choices we think are best for the situation we are in, given our individual worldviews and value systems. Don’t you think so? Do you agree that the Hamas, given their viewpoints and values, are making decisions they think are the best? Do you also agree that the Israeli cabinet, given their viewpoints and values, are making decisions they think are the best?
After 178 nations learned and woke up from the terrible costs of development disasters, and adopted the principle of sustainable development, they are also making decisions they think are best or at least better than those based on earlier development models. Sustainable development is a THREE-SLICE framework (see Q6- KM for development: a triple? bottom line). So now, sixteen years after the Rio Summit, sustainable development has become the mainstream development model. With sustainable development, have we finally vanquished our enemy, namely, wrong or incomplete development framework?
Wait. Let us not quickly jump to the conclusion that we have found THE final solution. In blogpost F15 (“Our Development Concepts may be THE Problem”), I showed data hinting at the possibility that even sustainable development may not be THE perfect development model. So our real enemy may be OUR OWN cherished beliefs about development.
Please allow me to repeat what I said in the introduction to this Q Series.
In the movie “Men in Black,” Kay (played by Tommy Lee Jones) told Jay (played by Will Smith):
- “Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you’ll know tomorrow.”
Our beliefs about the world keep changing. Chances are, our beliefs today are not final; something better will be discovered in the future. KM guru Ikujiro Nonaka defined “knowledge” as “justified belief that increases an entity’s capacity for effective action.” And so, our knowledge is exactly that: beliefs. Tomorrow, better beliefs or assumptions can replace our current beliefs if the former justifiably work better or they help us produce the results we say we want. So, we should not get stuck in “right-and-wrong” thinking or “I-am-always-right” thinking, but try to replace it with “what-could-work-better” thinking.
Peter Senge said that in a truly learning organization, members are skilled in being aware, in re-examining or testing and if needed, in revising their mental models (=assumptions or beliefs).
I wonder, what could be the development model 100 years from now? 1000 years from now? (assuming the human race is still around).
What belief could be the common enemy of Hamas and Israel? What belief could work better?
Do you have any thoughts on this? Please go ahead and share it with the 700-800 visitors per week of this blogsite (click the Comment link below).
Q6- KM for Development: a Triple(?) Bottom Line
January 18, 2009The Chico River Dam proposed in 1973 in the northern Philippines with World Bank funding was a famous development disaster. The 1000 MW hydroelectric dam would have submerged large areas of Bontoc and Kalinga ethnic ancestral lands, including burial grounds and sites sacred and valuable to the cultural communities. It generated massive local and international opposition. Martial Law President Marcos sent in soldiers. Many died including tribal leader Macli-ing Dulag. The social crisis gave ammunition to the insurgent New Peoples Army. It united the traditionally warring ethnic groups in the Cordillera mountain ranges and triggered the organization of the Cordillera Peoples Liberation Army. After the famous 1986 “People Power Revolution” threw out President Marcos, the next President Cory Aquino completely stopped the project. So much was lost in terms of money, lives and goodwill of the people on the Manila government.
KM is learning from mistakes.
Similar development disasters all over the world led the World Bank to adopt “Safeguard Policies” to protect third parties from negative impacts of development projects (lower right box in the figures in the previous blogpost Q5- Market value and/or? development value). In 1978, the Philippine Government adopted a law requiring Environmental Impact Assessments prior to approval of big projects. The Indigenous Peoples Rights Act of the Philippines requires free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) from communities that would be affected by a project, to avoid, minimize and/or compensate for social and cultural costs [thanks to Ann Lily Uvero for pointing this out]. Finally, in the 1992 Rio Summit, 178 nations adopted Agenda 21 which enshrined “sustainable development” among the universal development values of mankind.
But a lesson has not been learned by the last two Philippine presidents: that military solutions to social conflicts do not work. So the killing continues: killing of people and killing of the goodwill of their kins and communities.
Learning has been slow and costly.
Let us reproduce the diagram in the previous blogpost (Q5- Market value and/or? development value), but replace “enterprise” with “project.”
The social and environmental costs (lower right box) do not enter into project accounts, and therefore they are not part of Go-No Go and other project decisions. This is another example of sub-optimization we saw in the previous blog. It is the source of social conflicts because people who suffer the external costs and who do not enjoy the project benefits will oppose the project.
The lesson is this: development of infrastructure/economic capital should not proceed at the expense of social capital and natural capital, and vice versa — this is the essence, stated in KM language, of sustainable development adopted at the Rio Summit in 1992. It asserts that a purely economic or financial bottom line is dangerous; we must adopt a “triple bottom line” embracing the economic, social and natural value domains.
Does this make sense to you? Tell us what you think (use the Comments link below).
