WOW! -- The Cup is Full

Nan-in, a Japanese Zen master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.

Obviously wanting to impress the master on his knowledge on zen he kept on lecturing for an hour. The master listened intently.

The master then invited the professor to tea. Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring.

The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!"

 

What did the master mean?

 

 

CL - Experiential Learning

Experiential Learning through observation by linking actions to their consequences is simple and probably a natural way to learn anything. We do it all the time.

Conceptually, the idea is simple to understand. A child puts his finger into a candle flame and immediately singes his finger and feels the heat. He learns never to put his finger into an open flame. He learns this because his action and the feedback (unintended consequence of the action -- burning sensation) are very close by - almost instantaneous. However, with age he would also learn how to handle fire for useful purposes too.

If that is so, why people in industries and organizations have hard time learning? The reason appears to be obvious. Actions and feedback of consequences of the actions are separated by time and space challenging cognitive ability of a human being. Since the consequence of a person's actions might appear after a long time and may appear at a different place it then becomes unlikely for a person to connect 'actions' to their 'consequences' to make meaning and learn from his/her actions in a holistic manner.

Can't this simple yet effective method of Observation Based Experiential Learning experiences be designed & applied in industries and organizations?

Surely! The design would involve simulation of the job environment or engage people on an actual job where a skilled facilitator then links the consequences (either unintended or helpful) to the array of actions a learner is free to choose or employ. By linking the two (action and the consequences) learning takes place.

I would call this 'talent development'. Undoubtedly, such talent development within an organization not only helps the person but also helps organizations improve the 3 fundamental Ps -- Productivity, Performance and Profitability.

The video provides a demonstration of a successful Observation Based Experimental Learning experiment we designed for shop floor workers, which we found rather challenging.  The feedback of the consequences was given in their mother tongue (Bengali).

Needless to say that the learners were happy with the experience and so were their top bosses who initiated the program.

However, there seems to be three tricky issues in the design and implementation of such observation based experiential learning.

These are

1. The designer and the facilitator must be comfortable and attentive to handle the uncertainty that comes up in this process of self discovery.

2. The designer and the facilitator must have strong grounding in 'Design Thinking' and 'Systems Thinking'.

3. The facilitator must be well aware of the consequences of each action especially the unintended ones. That is a facilitator must be well versed with the possible 'failure modes' of a system under study and must also know how to provide the proper feedback in a manner understood by learners.

 

CL stands for Creative Leadership

 

 

Culture Based Design -- For Sustainable Economy

The continuing Global Economic meltdown and Japan's nuclear mishap are clearly man made disasters that caused lot of pain and agony to humanity as a whole.

How are we to come out of this crisis? Do we find a new way to survive? How do we stop environmental degradation? How do we build sustainable societies?

These important questions are not new. Even Neil Bohr expressed concerns on such issues back in 1950. Of course people did not care to listen then. They could afford not to listen. However, such questions were vigorously followed up by many activists and serious champions for the past 30 years or so.

Most predicted doom for the earth and humanity. Some thought that nothing might possibly be done unless individual consciousness or the way we think and act change for the better.

Nothing happened. Perhaps there was no need to. Critics were harsh when they sneered by saying that more than 95% of humanity suffers the 'boiled frog' syndrome. Others were frustrated and almost gave up. Still some wanted to find the culprits and punish them. 

But there are new signs of change. Harsh economic reality has rudely shaken us up from our deep slumber. It is like pouring ice cold water on our face on a winter morning.

What are these signs? More visible of these that catch our attention is the dramatic and swift wave of revolt sweeping over Middle East. People can't go hungry for sure.

However, there is another vital sign that is virtually going unnoticed -- sort of happening very quietly away from the glare of the media. And that is Culture Based Design (CBD) as I would like to call it.

In essence it is simple indeed. Look around what is unique in the culture of the land. Build up the economy through products and services based on the uniqueness of such culture. This is indeed a far cry from the standardized offerings being pushed around the globe by fairly large corporations who have no other business but to grow and keep growing richer at the expense of everything (champions of the old Industrial age thinking) only to flatten the earth.

Now this small but vital sign of Culture Based Design (CBD) might be a clue to greater unfolding possibilities to answer those serious unresolved questions humanity has been asking for the past 60 years.

Some examples might be in order:

1. Chinese are deeply studying the culture of India to design products that match the cultural traditions of India and her sensitivity. Recently during Holi (a spring festival in India) they did care to provide the accessories needed for the event -- designed and manufactured in China and sold in India at affordable prices. A win win situation for both countries.

2. Iceland whose economy was virtually wiped off by the Great Recession in a matter of days is hobbling back on its feet through intense design activity. They have tapped into the country's Nordic/Viking cultural heritage for their economic revival. As of now Iceland occupies the number 1 slot as the innovation champion displacing the mighty USA (as per ISEAD)

3. India is yet to leverage this idea as Chinese and Icelanders have done. But a new generation of entrepreneurs, mostly trained in the West, is successfully exploiting traditional culture and techniques coupled with narrative marketing (good old storytelling) in areas like jewelry and ornaments. 

What possibilities might unfold from this new phenomenon?

1. A paradigm shift from globally imported cultural criteria to more local home grown products and services based on traditional culture.

2. A sustainable economy that would look more distributed than unified and based on local needs and aspirations.

3. More job creation. People would have a choice to either work as laborers in dark and damp factories or in more exciting fields touched by the glow of human creativity. Education and knowledge gained through the traditional environment would be enough to create most jobs -- a far cry from Obama's urgent plea of 'go to college again or starve'. 

4. Solve the nagging problems of environmental crisis since such efforts are not energy intensive and have been around for centuries when issues of global warming were nonexistent. 

5. Cultural preservation is also ensured.

Hence Culture Based Design would need more serious attention and development if it were to become a part of the integral solution to sustainable livelihood and economy. New internet based social learning technologies would surely come to great help in this endeavor.This would be closely coupled to the Observation Based Learning (OBL) as proposed in my earlier posts. My guess is that CBD along with OBL would be evident in every sphere of a local economy even worming its way into traditional brick and motar companies barring major infrastructural activities.

A seriously inward looking world is unfolding its still rough and jagged edges poised to draw in lots of creative energy to throw up possibilities that would impact the way we live and think.

We shall live by design -- by the people, of the people and for the people!

I may be totally wrong or am I missing something?

 

Ref:

1. http://davidreport.com/the-report/design-culture-time-cultural-fundamentalism/

Complexity, Shall We Dance?

There is an old saying in Bengal, which runs something like this: One person is insignificant; Two together make something creative/worthwhile: Three persons collaborating make things complicated: When four get together things turn chaotic.

Needless to say governments, parties, organizations, teams, communities, online communities are complicated and chaotic. So, what do we do? Naturally, organizations are always wary of chaos and therefore want to bring in order through rules, regulations, regimentation, hierarchies etc. This is the common way.

But even with all that in place, leaders still want to feel the pulse of their people, want to keep a tab on what is going on around them, listen to stories, build culture and many other things. How do they do that? 

They dance with Complexity as a partner. They keenly listen to its music. They follow its steps. They feel the passion and sense its self organizing movement. Then they either copy the steps of complexity. Or they take charge to lead complexity. Or improvize and innovate on the way. But in no case they try to overpower complexity or play rough or be sly about it or ignore it. They dance cheek to cheek with complexity.

Let us see how great and good leaders go about befriending complexity,  

Deep immersion to learn

Here Mr. Bill Gates and his wife are seen in one of the remote villages of Bihar, India. Both of them are now highly involved in philanthropic work in India. However, as expected, they know very little about the country and its culture, which they must learn so as to bring meaning to what they are doing. Hence, they immerse themselves in that learning environment.

In Bill Gates own words, "learning from partners and community members in Patna, Bihar. Incredible start to the day…"

And why in the world is he doing that? Could he not have asked his well paid people to do that for him? They would have loved to send him a detailed report complete with facts and figures supported by photos, videos and what not. Obviously that would not work for him. Human interactions are very complex in nature and that complexity can't be fathomed to any degree of reality without deep observation and learning through direct experience such as this.

Is Mr. Gates alone in such Observation Based Learning through deep immersion?

No, it seems that other great business leaders keep doing this on a regular basis trying to learn within a given context.

Here is another photo that shows Sir Richard Branson practically doing the same thing with his staff located at various offices.

Deep immersion to build culture

The idea is not to straighten out complexity. The idea is not to find order in the complexity or avoid complexity or formulate rules to bring about simplicity. The idea is to befriend complexity to grow and develop by learning from it through direct experience gained through deep immersion and observations.

This brings us to another idea: How do organizations build upon such direct experiences of learning? They can do so through sharing such experiences on a common platform for others to learn and develop on the ideas gained. We call this social learning which uses Enterprise 2.0 platforms to harness the power of complexity and chaos to drive the organization in a self organizing and may I add creative manner.

Best platforms are those which are run on this idea of building on observations, ideas, deep immersions and learning not those who focus narrowly on retaining the heirarchical structure of work as the meaning of work is now undergoing a serious redefinition, the most useful I find is 'observable work'. Such platforms enable Culture Based Design for long term sustainability of an organization.

We now have another name for it. Seth Godin calls it Idea Tourism.

And why would this be so important?

Because money hardly brings in good ideas to sustain but good ideas rake in a lot of money to progress and sustain.

So, we need not be afraid of complexity anymore. Complexity is our partner in our progress not an impediment. So,....

Complexity, Shall We Dance.... since the 21st century belong to the tacit. Or is it?

 

References

1. Culture Based Design

2. Evaluating E2.0 Platforms

3. Management Upside Down

4. Coconut Uncertainty