Human Patterns and Sustainable Organizations

WebII-The Global Brain and Sustainable Organizations

2006-08-11T13:44:00.000-07:00

WebII, The Global Brain, and Sustainable Organizations

The next stage in technology will go way beyond shared health records and continual monitoring of physical status - after all, these are still linear data streams.  With the advent of practical nanotechnology, folks will be permanently linked in serial conversations and collaborations with each other over the web - in effect we'll all be part of the global brain.  Universities (if they survive) will transition into data collation points, where independent lines of linear data get merged and synthesized by meta-data domain experts  - truly "connecting the dots".

One barrier to this next stage is the notion of a "broadband".  Using the brain as an analogy, the neural net is a web of short wireless links between brain cells that can survive a significant wound, because the cells(links) create a new path around the traumatized area. A broadly dispersed set of radio bandwidths - with repeaters, boosters, and signal scanners can be linked (voluntarily) to any person wherever they are at all times.  Data can be routed both to and from the targeted cell-person who is both a receiver and a transmitter. A company called Time Domain is emerging in this space with an embryonic hardware solution.... there will be many more.

Because of the above, Tim O'Reilly is right when he says “The race is to own certain classes of core data.” www.oreilly.com.  The issue is whether Universities retain a sufficiency of domain experts and meta-domain experts to serve the public interest or whether these folks are bought by corporations to serve narrower interests.  The open source community is a potential bastion against corporate control of data.  The old agricultural extension services model translated and distributed what used to be best in class thinking and practice to that age's unit of production - the small farm.  The citizen is the current small farm.

Web II, the Global Brain and Sustainable Organizations

2006-04-10T12:02:00.000-07:00

Howard Bloom’s Global Brain offers an interesting evolutionary perspective on what I am calling Adaptive Alignment in line with Sustainable Organization. He suggests that there are five processes that have been engaged in by life forms from bacteria to humanity and that these processes are the mechanism of a mass mind or a global brain…. these are the communication network that allows for species sustainability. He provides convincing examples and illustrations of these throughout the book. To get to them quickly, they are;

Conformity Enforcers
Diversity Generators
Inner Judges
Resource Shifters
Inter-group Tournaments

Look at some of the blogs and their operationalizing of what Web II will become. An example is the seminal piece by O'Reilly What is Web 2.0 and the explicative articles by Dion Hinchcliffe at http://web2.wsj2.com/. Draw your own conclusions. This is a great time to be alive!

The Sustainable Brain

2006-03-20T14:54:00.000-08:00

The Sustainable Brain
I offer the following application of current brain research as an explanatory frame for our evolutionary viability, our sustainability. Because satisfying models and theories are parsimonious and diagramable - elegant, I proffer a single map of the brain segmented into four property spaces by two intersecting vectors. A series of concentric circles indicates the degree of comprehensiveness, expansiveness, complexity or inclusiveness. One should, however, consider that the range of the circle may be larger in one quadrant than another.

From mapping, I shift to primary characteristics of the action of the brain, the processing that occurs in each region of the brain.
From primary characteristics of the processing, I shift to the characteristics of the output of each region.
I shift to the language used by the AI community to describe the processing an artificial brain might do. This is an attempt to merge processing with characteristics
I then offer a map of the four products these algorithms might produce and propose they are the necessary and sufficient root metaphors for comprehensive understanding of real world phenomena. Steve Popper’s world hypotheses did not map the same way these do, but his intension was identical to mine. Martin Groder helped me clarify these and introduced me to Steve Popper's work.
I then offer the four paths of inquiry that would drive the production of the “products” above. We are now in the realm of conscious individual actors performing thought. We are beyond structure and in the action or the verb.

I then offer a pair of emotional maps that result from the thought actions or actual behavior that result from the processing above. The first map reflects failure to process effectively. The second reflects success. We are in the realm of psychology and anticipating that the brain itself is engineered to induce these “primaries”; both positive and negative.
Shame is an internal experience of self-doubt and anxiety related to the ability to measure up to expectations. It is not fear in the sense of “threat”, but a sense of being off the mark, being stained or being unfit to be a member. When people say they are ashamed, they usually share an inability or inadequacy – “I have a club foot”, “I was unable to stay chaste”, “I was never smart enough to graduate”.

In regard to Curiosity versus Fear. The fear that I mean here is a visceral fear, the kind that induces flight…an animal fear. It is the danger felt by a deer when a wolf is in the neighborhood. When the fear is absent, and the animal is “safe”, the animal relaxes and explores the environment. A person does as well. That is what I mean by curiosity… it is the open-minded exploration of the environment. Those who are prejudiced…. who shut out alternatives or new ways of thinking and being feel a visceral threat to their narrow perspectives on the world. They feel safe in the confines of their fanatic belief. They are not free to be curious…. instead they censor.

In regard to Guilt and Meaning/Purpose. The guilty are guilty of deeds or actions. Implied is their knowledge of good or right behavior or standards and expectations and their violation of it despite their knowing what is right. That is why the guilty are punished. It is because they exercised their will against the law or the rule or the standard. A guilty act is committed against a meaning or a value the community has set as a norm, it contradicts the purpose or direction of the group that the act is committed against. If I subscribe to a set of values, to a set of “meanings”….. if I subscribe to a “purpose” for my actions; then behavior I engage in that contravenes those meanings or purposes is labeled as a sin or a criminal act…. acts for which I am guilty. If, however I am comfortable and congruent in my behavior with the meaning and purpose for my actions, I am guilt free and focused.

It is interesting to consider the link between despair and love/connection and classification. At first glance it seems counter-intuitive that grouping things would be the path to loving them. Upon consideration, however, the fact that people automatically respond as if objects and beings are good or bad or strong or weak or fast or slow or stable or unstable (these are Charles Osgood’s primary semantic factors) within their classifications is largely responsible for much of what motivates human behavior. As the believer opposes the infidel, one clan the other families, one team other teams; all are shaping classifications of who to love and be connected to: and love leads to further refinement as illustrated by the Eskimo who so loves his snow that he has many categories for it and the Zulu who so loves his cattle that he has many categories for their coloration. While love or connection may begin in olfactory or other chemical familiarity and affinity, it ends in making of meaningful groups of things in an individual’s world and provides the underlying grouping that gets operated upon when the linking of things together occurs in mechanical processing and the chain of causality occurs in systemic processing.

This final map takes the four pairs of “personal” emotional resources and applies them to any continuously viable entity; such as a person, a family, or a corporation. These are the labels used to describe organizational sustainability.

Human Patterns Heuristics and Adaptive Alignment

2005-10-18T10:21:00.000-07:00

Human Patterns, Heuristics, and Adaptive Alignment

I wanted to present a richer way to think about Adaptive Alignment to readers of the blog. In a conversation with Martin Groder MD, the most intuitive and adaptive diagnostician I’ve ever encountered; he gave an example of how he learned to shut off his psychiatric education in order to respond to what was in front of him. The example was of his first exposure to the Synanon game, an explosive group process where members of the group (the “rat pack”) sense vulnerabilities in participants and break through their defenses. This was used in the 60’s and 70’s primarily with people with severe character problems. Marty listened to the process, integrated it with his training, listened to the interaction between the group and one of its members, shaped a diagnosis, formulated a summary set of sentences, and offered these to the group. They listened in stunned silence. Then one of the participants said: “I’d like to thank Dr. Groder for showing us his ability to talk like a psychiatrist. Now, if you don’t mind, Dr. Groder, we’d like to get back to doing the work of the group.” Marty says he never “thought” in the game after that. That does not mean he did not use his training. His training gave him shortcuts – heuristics – to approach the people he was working with.

Human Patterns and the plethora of little models that “explain” how an individual might deal with “conflict” or “manage” or select a “work role” are similar shortcuts; they give a little frame and enable a quicker path to the issue at hand. Adaptive Alignment is the ability to use heuristics in real time so we don’t have to think, but are free to react. Software that could help to pre-sort, pre-screen, pre-weight, pre-allocate and yet not prejudice an outcome or a finding would be a tremendous asset for a researcher. The heuristics would be loaded at the front end, but the information or data itself, live and untrammeled, would draw the response from the researcher or end user. Human Patterns Software does attempt to do this; and I think could be engineered to do it even better. These issues are at the interstice of so many disciplines that we often pass each other, even in the daylight, forgetting to react in favor of our customary channels of thought. Following are two excepts from or about folks that are sharing these woods – one (Gonczi) is an Adult Educator, the other (Goldberg) is a Brain Researcher.

Advances in educational thinking and
their implications for professional
education

Andrew Gonczi

“The old research concentrates on coding of items of knowledge and
development of rules to manipulate them. It takes artificial situations such as chess
playing and builds in rules based on precoded information. The new research, by
contrast, attempts to model the real world. It is endeavoring to model a brain prepared
for action. It takes a horizontal slice of the world as opposed to the vertical slice of the
earlier research. So for example robots have been designed to react to their environment
without all the pre-coding of information of the old AI. These new robots have sets of
circuits working in parallel and each system receives information from other systems
and passes them on. The result is that the Robots are able to tolerate imperfect data, are
able to complete patterns and are fast at doing it. They use their environment to solve
problems.

To summarize, the old Cognitive science conceptualizes memory as retrieval from the
container. It assumes that cognition is centralized, that the body is outside the process
and that the environment is a problem to be overcome. Recent research sees memory as
the recreation of patterns in a decentralized way across the brain. The environment is an
active resource which helps us to solve problems and the body is part of the
computational loop (Clark 98). To clarify, it is not that the patterns are stored in the
mind, rather they are in the environment and that our brain interacts with the
environment to produce the appropriate pattern - i.e. to act intelligently.

The implication of this new research for professional education is profound. It
challenges the traditional view of knowledge which is held by most university staff
involved in professional preparation- that there is a distinction between knowing that
and knowing how. Both forms of knowledge are better understood as part of a holistic
process of pattern recognition. What it suggests is a quite different kind of mind to the
one conjured up by the container metaphor. It is a mind which does not contain
knowledge but is knowledgeable (Bereiter 1996, 2000). It also provides us with a
framework for thinking about the perennial problem of professional education, the
theory-practice gap. What it suggests too is that the old dichotomies between thinking
and doing, mind and body are fundamentally wrong and that as a consequence we need
to rethink our assumptions about how to produce capable practitioner. The most
important of these assumptions is the primacy of propositional knowledge in our
courses and the assumption that such knowledge is the basis of the ability to transfer
knowledge and skills over many contexts. This is not to suggest that we abandon codified knowledge but rather that we must rethink its connection to the world of
practice and the tacit knowledge which develops through acting in and on the world.”

The Moment of Truth?
By Sue M. Halpern
by Malcolm Gladwell
Little, Brown, 277 pp., $25.95
by Elkhonon Goldberg
Gotham Books, 337 pp., $26.00
“Goldberg's brain-imaging research has borne this out. The right hemisphere is activated when an individual is in the early stages of acquiring a new cognitive skill but as that task is mastered, the left brain takes over:
The right-to-left transfer could also be demonstrated for various real-life professional skills, which take years to acquire. Novices performing the tasks requiring such skills showed clear right-hemisphere activation. But skilled professionals showed distinct left-hemisphere activation while performing the same tasks.
It is the same across the age span: brain-imaging studies have shown that young people have more activation on the right side of the brain, and that it shifts to the left as we get older:
Contrary to previously well-entrenched beliefs, the right hemisphere is the dominant hemisphere at early stages of life. But as we move through the life span it gradually loses ground to the left hemisphere, as the latter accumulates an ever-increasing "library" of efficient pattern-recognition devices in the form of neural attractors.
Imagine two bird watchers, one experienced, one a beginner. The experienced one catches a glimpse of a large, yellowish bird flickering overhead and calls out "evening grosbeak." Meanwhile the novice frantically flips through a field guide, shuttling between pages of yellow birds, birds with crowned heads, birds with large silhouettes, birds that undulate as they fly. The experienced bird watcher has synthesized all that data and internalized a signature pattern, while the novice must rely on an external device— the field guide—which can only provide information, not synthesis, and inefficiently at that.”

RETHINKING ERIK ERIKSON

2005-10-11T13:29:00.000-07:00

RETHINKING ERIK ERIKSON’S DEVELOPMENTAL MODEL

Since I have been considering sustainability from an individual as well as an organizational point of view, my mentor referred me to Terrance Real’s I Don’t Want to Talk About It and Jean Miller and others’ The Healing Connection. Both books do a full court press on the importance of sustained connections with caregivers and the serious consequences that follow from breaks in relationships. Both also use case examples as teaching tools and include disclosures of the clinician about her/his in-session practices processes and methods, so that a reader does not have to already subscribe to a clinical school and point of view to be able to think critically about the material. Both challenge the notion of an uninvolved or removed therapeutic actor. Relationship itself is the both the cause and the cure.

This Buberesque “I-Thou” frame of reference has always been a significant strand in the therapeutic community; but it had been relegated to the touchy feely Rogerians and others of their ilk. More feminine and less potent clinicians like Social Workers, Chaplains, and Nurses used to advocate for this approach. Potent and masculine therapies were more cognitive and behavioral and emphasized thought and reason and control. The third path was chemical or electrical; shocking or drugging a “disorder” into submission.

My Dad was a girly therapist. As a South African GP with a practice in the African Townships, he had worked with Witch Doctors. He told me it was because they could communicate better than he could with his patients; that they understood the context. After emigrating here in the sixties, he became a psychiatrist and did family therapy. He called himself an Eriksonian Sullivanian with a Freudian Analytic foundation. He introduced art therapy to Richmond, Virginia. He died young and unrecognized. There were a group of these girly therapists associated with each other through the Virginia Treatment Center for Children. Mouche Lindermann and Virginia Saunders were also in my dad’s cadre. I don’t remember the names of the others and I think they might all be gone now. They would get together and attempt to fill in an 8X8 matrix based on Erikson’s developmental stages. They had oral, anal and genital correlations, introjects and projections, transferences and …. you get the picture. You can sense their struggle to be true to their faith and traditions, their clinical parents, and their experience of families as fundamental systems. I think they resonated with Erikson because he uncovered a developmental model that went beyond a model of pathology.

I don’t think Erikson ever wrote directly about families, but if you read his work, the intersection of the person with the context is at the heart of it. He wrote a wonderful little article in Daedalus in 1968 that actually evaluated leadership as the intersection of the individual leader with his community. Timing and context and individual synergy all folded together into an elegant property space diagram. As my Dad did, I think Erikson is pretty wonderful. Read his Childhood in Society for a foundation in his developmental model. I think Erikson missed something, though. Here are his eight stages:

Trust versus Mistrust
Autonomy versus Shame or Doubt
Initiative versus Guilt
Industry versus Inferiority
Identity versus Identity Confusion/Diffusion
Companionship (Mating) versus Isolation
Productivity versus Stagnation
Integrity versus Despair

A personality evolves through the resolution of the issue presented by each stage. The interaction between how the environment or context supports the resolution and the resolutions of prior stages drive and shape the resolution of the current stage. It is a dynamic model. It encompasses the entire life cycle. I think Erikson missed a stage between Productivity and Integrity. I would want to label that stage “Generativity”. In line with Terrance Real and Jean Miller, I would contrast it with Depression or Disconnection. It is the setting of the matrix or context for the following generation, the enabling of “Sustainability” for the human race and the planet. In Erikson’s day, I don’t think that the lifespan was long enough or the ecological crisis was present enough for him to see its outline. Look at what happens if this additional stage is interposed. The first three stages of childhood have to do with:

Connection = Trust versus Mistrust (Winnicot’s notion of “good enough mothering” is worth referring to to get the historical sense of this - and then Miller and Real)
Integrity = Autonomy (Me-I) versus Shame
Action = Initiative versus Guilt

The next three stages of youth and young adulthood then reiterate the same themes:

Action = Industry versus Inferiority
Integrity = Identity versus Identity Diffusion/Confusion
Connection = Companionship versus Isolation

In the frame I’m proposing, the next three stages of adulthood also reiterate the themes:

Action = Productivity versus Stagnation (Work Identity and Career Performance)
Connection = Generativity versus Depression
Integrity = Integrity versus Despair (Have I been true to my values and aspirations)

Note that there is another embedded response to the work of Real and Miller: that, while they have correctly focused the lens on a pivot for development that has been undervalued; there are two additional pivots for full development. I can subscribe to the notion that Connection is the base of the triangle of the three, the first line or precursor, but the other vectors must also be present and developed for a rich and full life.

Tactics for Vested Engagement - Keeping it Simple

2005-08-24T09:25:00.000-07:00

Recently, my mentor Martin Groder MD, suggested I read Bounded Choice by Janja Lalich. While the book is about True Believers and charismatic cults, it is a wonderful study in Vested Engagement and how not to lead Sustainable Organizations. While I found the book to be terribly repetitive and her theoretical “models” inflated with sociological jargon, it led me to synthesize a set of 10 tools to generate Vested Engagement. The pivotal issue that separates a cult from a potentially Sustainable Organization is that the focus of the cult is on a charismatic leader and on system of beliefs that preludes adaptive alignment. See my posting on Leadership of Sustainable Organizations for more about leadership.

Initiation – take people into the organization with ceremony and import
Ranks – insure that folks have a way of seeing up to heroes and down to newbies
Badges and Medals – develop markers or distinctions that indicate commitment or paticipation in campaigns or wars
Uniforms and Songs – have a code of conduct and/or dress and/or language that trades individuality for a sense of inclusion and membership
Enemies – identify an organization to oppose on the basis of culture or values, not merely competition
Creed and Motto – create an easily stated - out of reach ideal for members to aspire to
Confession and/or Testimony and/or Witnessing – create group events where members interpret themselves to another as failed or transformed or transforming in order to meet the ideal described in the creed or motto
Regulated Dissonance and/or Double-Binds and/or Crises – create situations where the choice to remain a member is an outcome of a conflict over irreconcilable values such as means versus ends, individuality versus conformity, faith versus works, etc.
Threat of Expulsion – periodically publicly apply standards in the creed or motto to define a member(s) as not measuring up to the ideal in the creed or motto
Merge Personal Identity With the Organization – use affinity networks to coopt familial relationships or friendships so that the member does not need to go outside the organization for intimacy or identity affirmation

Leading The Sustainable Organization – 7 Principles

2005-08-24T09:23:00.000-07:00

Charismatic Role Rejection – The leader rejects merging of the organization with his/her person. A corollary of this is that interests and issues should trump parties. Thus the active member with aspirations to lead will define and clarify interests and issues related to the whole, rather than form a splinter group that arrogates to itself a special knowledge or relationship to the mission. (Constitutional Convention)
Detached Statesmanship – The leader makes decisions based on the organization’s canon and viability, not on personal advantage. (Public Servant)
Cooperative With External Principled Power Centers – The leader resists rejection of other power centers provided they share 5-7 below. Thus, members from different belief systems (institutions, faiths) can be members in good standing. (Doctors Without Borders)
Flexible or Non-Intrusive Process Management – The leader actively supports a separation of processes from principles, so the organization can adapt readily to changes in the context or matrix of which it is a part. (G.E.)
Contained and Constrained Set Of Principles/Standards Applied Equally To All Members – The leader adamantly supports as few principles and rules as are necessary and sufficient for the organization to maintain an identity consistent with it’s founding mission. (March of Dimes)
Permeable Membership Boundaries – The leader is inclusive of all who can subscribe to 1-5 above. (Israel’s Right of Return, Mandela’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission)
Merit Driven Distribution of Authority, Status, And Power – The leader supports open access for any member who is capable of 1-6 above. (Athens)

Zenger and Folkman meet Kouzes and Posner at the Sustainability Table

2005-06-21T11:43:00.000-07:00

In Zenger's interview with David Creelman of http://www.hr.com/, Zenger conversationally defines his five "extraordinary leadership" competencies with their associated sub-competencies. Here they are:

1. Character
a Integrity
b Honesty
c Doing what you say you are going to do
d Predictability
2. Personal Competence
a Problem solving skills
b Technical proficiency
c Being receptive to new ideas
3. Driving for results
a Setting lofty goals
b Having a clear view of what needs to be accomplished
c Being very focused on goals or results
d Taking responsibility to achieve those goals
4. Interpersonal competency
a Inspiring and motivating other people
b Being perceived as a good team player
c Prolific and powerful communicator
5. Leading change
a Having a vision of the future
b Antenna out to look at what is going on in the outside world

Compare these against Kouzes and Posner 5 factors associated with Leadership Behavior. These were drawn down from www.josseybass.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-9644.html

1. Model the Way
a Establish principles concerning the way people (constituents, peers, colleagues, and customers alike) should be treated
b Establish the way goals should be pursued
c Create standards of excellence
d Set an example for others to follow
e Set interim goals so that people can achieve small wins as they work toward larger objectives
f Unravel bureaucracy when it impedes action
g Put up signposts when people are unsure of where to go or how to get there
h Create opportunities for victory
2. Enable Others to Act
a Foster collaboration and build spirited teams
b Actively involve others
c Understand that mutual respect is what sustains extraordinary efforts
d Strive to create an atmosphere of trust and human dignity.
e Strengthen others, making each person feel capable and powerful
3. Challenge the Process
a Search for opportunities to change the status quo
b Look for innovative ways to improve the organization
c Experiment and take risks.
d Accept disappointments as learning opportunities
4. Encourage the Heart
a Recognize contributions that individuals make
b Members share in the rewards of their efforts
c Leaders celebrate accomplishments
d Make people feel like heroes
5. Inspire a Shared Vision
a Passionately believe that they can make a difference
b Envision the future, creating an ideal and unique image of what the organization can become
c Exercise magnetism and quiet persuasion to enlist others in their dreams
c Breathe life into their visions and get people to see exciting possibilities for the future

Zenger has added in features that can be better captured through 360 feedback, but let?s ask whether there might be a better way to deal with both 5 competency views. Let?s cluster the lists of associated competencies and sort them into natural or related groups. Use your own judgment to decide if I am fair and reasonable in my grouping. Test to see if these items can be better assigned to other groups.

Cascaded Context 1 - Standards
1. Create standards of excellence
2. Establish the way goals should be pursued
3. Setting lofty goals
4. Being very focused on goals or results
5. Having a clear view of what needs to be accomplished

Cascaded Context 2 - Future
6. Having a vision of the future
7. Being receptive to new ideas
8. Search for opportunities to change the status quo
9. Look for innovative ways to improve the organization
10. Experiment and take risks.
11. Envision the future, creating an ideal and unique image of what the organization can become

Vested Engagement 1 = Character and Trust
12. Integrity
13. Honesty
14. Doing what you say you are going to do
15. Taking responsibility to achieve those goals
16. Accept disappointments as learning opportunities
17. Passionately believe that they can make a difference
18. Set an example for others to follow
19. Establish principles concerning the way people (constituents, peers, colleagues, and customers alike) should be treated

Vested Engagement 2 = Membering and Communication
20. Prolific and powerful communicator
21. Being perceived as a good team player
22. Members share in the rewards of their efforts
23. Leaders celebrate accomplishments
24. Create an atmosphere of trust and human dignity
25. Build spirited teams
26. Foster collaboration
27. Understand that mutual respect is what sustains extraordinary efforts
28. Actively involve others
29. Make people feel like heroes
30. Recognize contributions that individuals make
31. Inspiring and motivating other people
32. Exercise magnetism and quiet persuasion to enlist others in their dreams
33. Breathe life into their visions and get people to see exciting possibilities for the future

requisite Competencies 1 = Skills
34. Problem solving skills
35. Technical proficiency

Requisite Competencies 2 = Methods
36. Set interim goals so that people can achieve small wins as they work toward larger objectives
37. Unravel bureaucracy when it impedes action
38. Put up signposts when people are unsure of where to go or how to get there
39. Create opportunities for victory
40. Strengthen others, making each person feel capable and powerful

Adaptive Alignment
41. Predictability
42. Antenna out to look at what is going on in the outside world

Let me now proffer a response to these two commonly touted models of leadership. Look for yourself! You can see how thin their focus on requisite competencies is. That is probably why Jaques, who had such a sound and logical view of leadership, felt so isolated. What should be added is much of Jaques' focus, such as proper organizational layering, rational supervision chains and structures, assignments based on time horizon and capacity. But the other piece that is hugely and obviously missing is the need for Adaptive Alignment. Only 2 items out of 42 can be primarily allocated to Adaptive Alignment. This is why we are so threatened by the adaptive capacity of China and India and others! Our leaders are not being trained or supported in real time feedback and response. A Sustainable Organization frame of reference informs us of the flaws in these maps of leadership. Lest you think we are too harsh on these guys ... notice that we don't even bother to review the pabulum and outright nonsense that Jack Welsh uses to sell his speaking engagements. Remember the good old days when we could actually believe that Tom Peters had found the grail.

Sustainable Organizations and Human Capital Risk Management

2005-06-01T23:53:00.000-07:00

Within the framework of Sustainable Organization, I think we can offer a framework for risk and Human Capital. The seeds of this were sown when Lanny Hass of NCSU and I were discussing Human Capital risk management. For a while it seemed we were talking past each other. His concern was with the management of risk related to succession planning and management. My concern was with actual employee behaviors that generate liability; such as failure to update certifications. I also recalled a conversation I had a couple of weeks ago with William Fisher of Lexile about a Lexile client who determined his greatest Human Capital risk was the inability of his hourly employees to understand contracts – in effect, their reading comprehension.

Let me offer the following types of risks SO can address related to Human Capital to shape the discussion:

Organizational Opportunity Risk – The organization misses opportunities to grow and develop because the context for the organization is defined to narrowly or too broadly. This is the risk we associate with leadership and vision. In SO terms, it is the risk inherent in a shortfall in Cascaded Context.
Organizational Adaptability (Response Capacity) Risk – The organization fails to anticipate or have mechanisms for reacting to changes in the environment or market – particularly the labor pool. In practice, they have no succession process. In SO terms, it is the risk that results from a shortfall in Adaptive Alignment.
Employee Capability (Absence of Capability) Risk – The organization fails to select, hire, train, or certify competence of employees in knowledge, skills, or abilities required for performance. In SO terms, it is the risk that results from a shortfall in Requisite Competency.
Employee Action/Behavior Risk – For Jaques, this would be the T factor, but it is the management of the intersection between Requisite Competency reflected by the behavior of the employee and Adaptive Alignment reflected by the organizational management systems for detecting and correcting gaps in capacity or performance.
Employee Accountability Risk – If an organization silos accountability or disperses accountability incorrectly, adaptive responses can occur too late. Often this is because the Cascaded Context and concomitant role clarity is unclear. Sometimes trust and commitment among members of the organization is the source of the problem, and reciprocal sabotage or failure to take ownership of emerging or less than definite accountability chains results from a gap in Vested Engagement.

Sustainable Organization and Tom Friedman's The World is Flat

2005-04-28T14:19:00.000-07:00

Tom was on Charlie Rose last night (April 27) and he gave a really good interview about his book. Aside from the calculated pitch he was making against Bush's Social Security initiative and his self-serving pumping up of some his more obvious insights, he did make a point I think may be really telling and could be a source for optimism about a sustainable community of nations. In effect, the forces of realpolitics might get counterbalanced by the interdependency created through supply chains that cross national boundaries and make businesses and economies operate more like a network than stand alone nation states. From a Sustainable Organization point of view, we may be seeing the emergence of a cascaded context that undercuts the "win" "lose" propositions of traditional nation states and their bureaucracies. I hope so.

Implications of supply chain interdependence also tie into other aspects of Sustainable Organization. I'm thinking particularly of how Adaptive Alignment and Requisite Competencies in a "just in time" environment start to make labour an infinitely shiftable commodity. The need for a consistent methodology for measurement of competencies thus gains significant momentum.

Interpretation of Psychometric Results

2005-04-28T14:10:00.000-07:00

Interpretation Styles
There are three distinct styles of interpretation for different purposes: “summary’, “expert”, and “collaborative”.
Collaborative Style
This is the preferred style for fact to face interpretation with the subject himself. The graphic output and the order of the graphic output lends itself to “collaborative”interpretation. The subject is trained to interpret a graph pattern and the significanceof the numerical distribution, and then proceeds to be coached through his own interpretationof his results. The administrator is expected to solicit feedback from the
subject about descriptors, and the utility of the information for himself. Discrepantinformation should be fed back to HUMAN PATTERNS so that we can update and upgradethe outputs to improve the utility and accuracy of the instrument.
Summary Style
Used for rapid response to a third party who qualifies as a customer. The usual purpose for this is a hiring or placement input (not decision). The consultant gives a rapid accurate overview of preferences and rejections in four key areas: Personal, Interpersonal, Occupational, and Leadership and Management. If there is a specificjob role profile, this is added in at the end. The consultant does not get into“why” issues with the third party, nor does the consultant discuss the “value” ofthese preferences unless there is a clear job profile. If there is a clear jobprofile, the consultant discusses difference against the profile and suggests thatthese differences be checked for with managers or references.
Expert Style
Used to respond to an “invested” party; someone who will work with or for the person who completed HUMAN PATTERNS. Usually this is the supervisor, team member, or partner, and both parties will probably exchange and discuss profile information. With an”expert” style, the administrator feeds back results in a straightforward, direct fashion It limits inaccuracy and the potential for subjective interpretation by the “invested party”. The format of the Administrator’s Number Sheet lends itself to rapid and clear “expert” interpretation. The Administrator reviews Energy Distribution numbers, Themes, Switches and shifts, and Clusters.

OD for Sustainable Organizations through Self-Service Classification and Compensation

2005-03-24T19:18:00.000-08:00

Classification and Compensation is a fundamental part of organizational development. When it is done well, the four premises of Sustainable Organizations are organically integrated. Without the Human Patterns classification and compensation management system, organizations are in a situation where they restrict or skew their classification and compensation process to traditional systems like the "Hay System" with its focus on tasks and duties; or to innovative systems like "Work Value" systems offered by Sibson; or to Competency based systems that include "Scope of Work". None of these systems in isolation is adequate to meet the true job analysis needs of an organization.

These restricted frames of reference for doing classification and compensation are a result of the consultant driven models most organizations were forced to rely upon before Self-Service Software became available. Consulting contracts tend to need clear boundaries for consultant contact internal to the organization and definable schedules of services by which fees can be justified and calculated. Consultants also need time constricted into projects rather than the ongoing process that classification and compensation really is.

Consultants are not easily folded into continuous and integrated organizational learning systems where the output is a consequence of:

· Input done when identification of changes in the current configuration or requirements of a position emerges
· Input done when pricing or other economic factors associated with a job emerge
· Input done when organizational growth or contraction require reconfiguration of roles and assignments
· Input done by requisite and informed levels and layers of incumbents, supervisors, managers and other sources of information about jobs - each having their own window onto the requirements of the job.
· Organic and natural emergence of a dataset for organizational redesign (if necessary) and succession planning

It is not sufficient to say that the quality of the services an organization provides can be significantly improved through accurate and fair job classification and compensation. Rather, the purpose of job classification and compensation is to provide a rich source of data for organizational development. From this dataset an organization can develop, plan, and evaluate:

· training and development
· recruitment and selection processes activities
· succession planning and career paths
· staff expansion or contraction
· work unit or organizational functional reconfiguration.

Automation makes the classification and compensation process fast, effective, and to the point. The system encourages and supports ongoing feedback. Reports pulled from Human Patterns Software are based on accurate, multiple source input and requisite documentation of classification information. Through a high quality job classification and compensation processes, an organization can, at minimum, enhance the following processes:

Communication: To create and maintain an atmosphere for open and frank communication between supervisors and employees concerning job classification and expectations; and to ensure that all employees have the opportunity to discuss and understand their jobs.
Organizational Learning: To facilitate regular discussions based on job-related criteria; and to identify during these discussions specific plans for those areas in which organizational improvements can be made.
Job Development: To provide information that can be used jointly by supervisors and employees to determine appropriate training needs and resources. To discuss and identify how employees can prepare for potential advancement opportunities where appropriate. To encourage outstanding performance and enhance employee motivation.
Personnel Actions: To provide background information and documentation for consideration in conjunction with any personnel actions that may occur, such as promotions, reductions in force, discipline, raises, transfers, etc.
Compensation: To provide all the supporting information needed for Compensation Staff to calculate the correct compensation level for a job.

Sustainability Valuation Versus the Limited Forced Choice Models for Valuing Work

2005-03-24T19:04:00.000-08:00

The story of the "blind men and the elephant" where each blind man describes a different animal depending on where he is when he assesses the beast, holds for the problem of valuing individual actors in relation to their work.

· For the incumbent in a job, it is his duties and tasks and assignments that are how he typically thinks about and arranges his work and relationship to the job and assesses the worth of his contribution. These are the items he puts on his vita to prove his potential worth to a prospective employer. This is commonly call the "job description".
· For the direct supervisor of the job, it is the functional gaps in the work unit or team that the incumbent is filling out. This is how he justifies his need for a new employee when he justifies a new position in his work group. This is commonly called the "scope" of the work.
· For the recruiting and hiring official and the training staff, it is the competencies and knowledge, skills, and abilities the incumbent possesses and contributes. This correlates with the direct supervisor's point of view to some degree as well as the job incumbent's point of view. This is commonly called the "job requisition".
· For the upline supervisor, it is the current added value and the potential short to medium term value to the work unit that the job incumbent is providing. He thinks about the role the incumbent can play in the fulfillment of his department's mission; larger than the current function. This has recently been labeled as "strategic impact" by Heneman and LeBlanc.
· For the organizational leader focused on succession and organizational longevity, it is the long term potential the incumbent offers as an organizational leader and steward of the organization's future. It is the "time horizon" the incumbent brings to the organization... what Elliott Jaques called "capacity".
· For the compensation manager, it is the market price for the experience, educational, and skills and competency sets of the incumbent.

All of these are valid and viable methods for determining value of work. Consultants and consulting firms will advocate one or another or a blend of these methods of valuation. Heneman and Leblanc's blend, for instance, lists strategic vision, competencies, and talent market value as their pivots for valuation. Human Patterns offers an additional frame of reference for valuation based upon the premises of Sustainable Organization developed by Smith, Nyberg, and others.

Sustainability Valuation
1. Degree to which the job offers cascading context to the organization. What role does the position play in determining the meaning, values, mission, vision, direction, and intention of the organization? What is the highest level of the organization where this contribution is to be made?
2. Degree to which the job offers requisite competencies to the organization. What skills, competencies, specialized knowledge, native abilities, are to be exercised by the incumbent in this position.
3. Degree to which the job requires vested engagement in the organization. What degree of emotional, physical, intellectual commitment of time, energy, effort, stress (interpersonal as well as physical and emotional), and caring is expected of an incumbent in the position.
4. Degree to which the job requires adaptive alignment, or the exercise of judgement upon disparate, sporadic, and sparse information so the organization can adjust to changes in the environment. This includes, but goes beyond continuous learning and continuous improvement into arenas of knowledge management and (forgive the value laden quality of this term) wisdom.

Because the Human Patterns Classification and Compensation System is real time and can accept input from multiple sources, we do not forego the ability to also collect job classification data from each source according to its cascaded context. This means we collect from the:

Incumbent(s) in the Job
Duties, functions, tasks, and assignments.
Direct Supervisor(s) of the Job
Scope and decision parameters of functions to be performed.
Competencies to be demonstrated
Upline Supervisor(s) and Direct Supervisor(s)
Configuration and time span of the most complex assignment given to the job.
Two Tiers Upline and/or Peers or Clients
Sustainability Valuation
Compensation Manager
Scarcity estimates of skill and KSA sets
Comparable pricing of similar jobs

The Four Premises for Sustainable Organizations

2005-03-10T11:58:00.000-08:00

Sustainability

Adaptive Alignment

Continuous exchange of relevant information between;
· Organizational Units
· Roles
· Functions or Processes
· Layers – including external competition

Such that the knowledge is;
· Captured
· Attributed – Accountable
· Vetted
· Collated
· Qualified-Weighted
· Given Context

Reported out in real time in versions appropriate to the recipient’s role and function with options for re-configuration;

Retained in a database which tracks versions and variants of data collection formats, factors, and variables for iterative research;

Collected from the actual source of the information in the course of routine work activity;

Exportable into advanced statistical and analytic systems;

Formatted so as to facilitate transparency for stakeholders and rationalize advocacy or inquiry by stakeholders and/or regulators and/or risk managers.

Cascaded Context

Development of an evolving set of clearly stated and commonly understood purposes, meaning, and values for the
· Enterprise in Relation to the Community
· Enterprise in Relation to Competitors
· Enterprise in Relation to Partners and Collaborators
· Enterprise in Relation to Market Cycles and Resource Cycles
· Enterprise in Relation to Internal and External Stakeholders
· Roles Within the Enterprise
· Organizational Structures Utilized by the Enterprise
· Processes and Systems Used by the Enterprise

Such that each participant and unit of the enterprise can state how their

· Functions
· Duties
· Activities
· Goals and Objectives
· Tools and KSA’s

fold into the purpose of the enterprise

So they can define, quantify, or qualify achievement of the purposes or objectives of the enterprise and contribute context and/or weighted information to the Knowledge Management system.

Vested Engagement

The creation of a sense of inclusion and commitment by participants in the enterprise through

· Sufficient transparency of roles and relationship so trust is enabled and enhanced
· Orientation and training about the organizational context
· Mutual consent on assignment of roles and responsibilities
· Appropriate solicitation of input from members of the organization, especially regarding
change to their assignments, work activities, or roles
· Fair pay for work performed
· Appropriate rituals and rewards for recognition of members and their contributions
· Clear contracts for performance deliverables and about performance standards
· Facilitation of positive and friendly exchanges between individuals and groups
· Facilitation of role clarification within groups
· Appropriate assignment of roles based on KSA’s and Interests

Requisite Competency

Accurate assignment of individual actors to perform enterprise roles and responsibilities based on the fit or suitability of their individual

· KSA’s
· Interests
· Talents and Goals

with organizational objectives, systems, and processes.

Accurate assignment of individual actors to supervisors and managers who can appropriately direct their work

Provision of human resources, tools, and materials that are appropriate and effective for the business processes of the enterprise

Development of appropriate and effective systems, procedures, policies, and other operational systems to enable the organization to perform its business processes

Sufficient capacity at each level of the organization to understand and interpret input from Knowledge Management systems to calibrate the organization’s response to changes in the internal and/or external environment

Sufficient flexibility in systems and business processes to enable it to respond to changes in the internal and/or external environment

For the Learning Oganization Community

2005-03-10T11:54:00.000-08:00

How Argyris’ Model I and Model II Are Related to Sustainable Organizations

It is unfair to characterize Argyris and Schon as being insufficient in their coverage of Sustainable Organizations because, unlike Jaques, they do not attempt to cover organizational life per se. Rather, they address the Adaptive Alignment processes we consider to be an element of Sustainable Organizations through the values underlying the actions of decision makers and other organizational participants. When their models and approaches are applied well, it is to executive coaching and team development.

Thers is a interpersonal view of organization life. They pose a polar model of fundamental beliefs and assumptions thay label as Model I and Model II. Both Models posit a set of governing values at their root drive primary strategies, which are operationalized or manifested in the organization by its members and result in positive or negative consequences. The belief system or set of values is the starting point. The Model I framework sets a negative context and leads to negative and counterproductive relationships because it is based on poor interpersonal processes and modes of inquiry, while a Model II framework sets a positive context and leads to learning and evolution and improvement in organizational viability. In effect, Models I and II are related to the setting of and communication about Context in Sustainable Orgnizations.

In a circular and seductive argument, the bad model (Model I) leads to more bad and the good model leads to more good. When the good Model (Model II) is functioning at its best, the organization or individual shifts into second order learning or change (they call this double loop learning); reorganizing itself to adapt to feedback; instead of simply adjusting without reorganization (what they call “single loop” learning, and we would call “first order” change). The mechanism to induce the switch into a change response is “appreciative inquiry” or non-punitive analysis.

Issues of Competency are not directly included in an an Argyris based discussion. There is an equalitarian impulse (value) underneath much of Argyris which may inhibit inclusion of anything that smacks of Social Darwinism. There is also a belief that inclusivity and teamwork are inherently good for organizations, perhaps inhibiting discussion of hierarchy and other forms of organizational stratification. The central implied Competency is the social sensitivity and interpersonal awareness of each actor as each actor is involved in group relations. Other competencies do not receive much focus.

A part of what Sustainable Organizations label as Ownership is directly addressed by Argyris. Ownership by members of the organization of the Context is consequent upon the practice of Model II assumptions. Another approach to the problem of ownership is addressed through Argyris’ terms of “theory in use” versus the “espoused theory.” His concern with congruence reflects the degree a member of an organization reflects espoused Ownership of the Context through behavior. When internal congruence is low; extenal behavior is incongruent. When behavior is incongruent; trust is low. Jaques addressed this more directly as an organizational issue by positing that that all behavior in an organization be trust enhancing. Argyris enriches the determination of the degree of congruence or trust enhancing behavior for the individual actor and groups or actors, by inquiring into the assumptions that drive or justify it.

For the Requisite Community

2005-03-10T11:52:00.000-08:00

Why a Requisite Organization is Not Necessarily a Sustainable Organization

Jaques himself wrote about what he called a “T” factor that may interfere with CIP to such an extent that it overcomes the expected synergy between role, time span, and CIP.

Glenn Mehltretter has long believed that KSA’s and Values are two other “legs” of the stool that a person to role fit rests upon. This is in line with the thinking and design criteria of most of the classification and compensation community. Some focus on Competencies. Others focus on occupational interests. Yet others focus on Emotional Quotient (a counter “T” factor). The Human Patterns instrument is one of many psychometric tools to get at these other variables. In short, CIP is necessary, but not sufficient to determine a role to person fit.

Using the framework of Sustainable Organizations, Jaques’ CIP is solidly in the vector of competency for the individual. Jaques’ organizational constraints about “real boss” and organizational structure are solidly in the vector of context. Jaques makes an interesting, but not compelling case that the vector of ownership results from person to role fit. If I fit the role I own it. But notice that the interpersonal world and the realm of values get short shrift. Adaptive Alignment in an organization that is congruent with Jaques way of thinking is, I think he would maintain, a byproduct of time horizon. The owner of the time horizon inherits a way to interpret signals from the internal and external environment.

I think addressing values directly may have been seen by Jaques as muddying the waters of organizational life. However, his emphasis on trust enhancing behavior and the relationship of trust to requisite structure is value laden. I don’t think there is a way we can think of organizations without dealing with the value components of context. Context is the “why” of an organization, but it is also the structural skeleton of it – the why becoming rationalized and alive in the structure itself. This is one reason many systems of social organization have survived over long periods of time, even though they were significantly counter to principles of person to role fit. A Communal society distributes roles and rewards according to a value structure that overrides person to role fit. Monarchy with the value structure of heritability overrode person to role fit and yet thrived as an institution for many generations despite multiple crises. In some sense, the Catholic Church is an example of the sustainability of role to person fit and values. The gradual accumulation of wealth and power in the hands of the church can be attributed in large part to its consistent provision of context through principles of the faith and the rationalized hierarchy even as many individual Popes were short on competency.

An Individual Sustainability Graph

2005-03-03T08:21:00.000-08:00

An Individual Sustainability Preference Graph derived from the Human Patterns instrument.

Some Sustainable Organization Basics

2005-02-28T13:53:00.000-08:00

Sustainable Organizations Result from a Suficiency of Four Vectors.

Context - this includes all the context setting issues such as "real boss", "time horizon for longest task", "role within the team or work unit", and other context setting information to enable the worker to "choose to be a member of the company" - trust
Competency - this includes "CIP", "Mode", Preferences and Interests", "KSA's", "Work-life Values", to enable the worker to “do what I do best”. - capacity
Vested Engagement - this includes the "job contract", "felt fair pay", "requisite configuration of roles", to enable the worker to “be accountable for performance”. –commitment or covenant
Adaptive Alignment – this includes disclosure and information exchange and feedback from research, from goal and target setting, from competitors and so forth. It is based on knowledge management or research practice engaged in by the organization. – consequence or feedback

A Precondition for Sustainable Business Is A Sufficiently Sound Business Contract With Employees and Customers

A contract has the following features: (Notice the correlation between the items in the contract and the vectors of the business.)

Mutual Consent
Lawful Object
Consideration or Exchange
Competent Actors

Sustainable Businesses Features and Activities Result

Trust is developed when sufficient context is provided. When sufficient context is provided the participant understands the roles and reasons. Full disclosure of context yields the possibility of making a commitment to the organization.

Commitment is developed when mutual consent results from both understanding of the context and confidence the parties involved will be able (competent) to deliver on their agreement.

Action or Performance follows when the interests of all parties to the agreement converge sufficiently and can sustain public scrutiny and disclosure. (lawful object and fair exchange)

Feedback enables sustainable performance through disclosure of measurable and meaningful timetables and deliverables or information on conditions that might lead to changes based on actual circumstances in the environment. This is feedback and information (knowledge management) that leads to changes in organizational or individual responses due to disaster or other forces outside the control of either or both parties.

Sustainable Businesses Have Four Intersecting and Continuous Systems or Processes

Operations and/or Internal Systems (These facilitate Ownership and Trust)
Marketing and/or Sales (These facilitate through their success in the marketplace Feedback and Knowledge Management)
Management and/or Direction (These facilitate monitoring of Commitments and Context setting.)
Production (These facilitate Performance and Competency actualization)

Individual Sustainability

2005-02-28T13:44:00.000-08:00

If these “pivots” hold for a sustainable organization, do they also hold for an individual?

Here is a first offering of how one might think about this.

Competency – I have the skills and ability to do what I need to do to survive and thrive. These would include IQ, EQ, KSA’s, Physical, and other capacities.

Vested Engagement – I am commited to fill the roles, contracts, and agreements I have entered into.

Context – I have a framework of values and understandings (mental models) that shape how I sort through stimuli and aim for larger themeses and values.

Adaptive Alignment – I utilize feedback on my competencies, commitments, and my context sufficient to enable to me to adapt my responses to suit emerging physical or social conditions. Whether I engage in first order or second order adaptation, I always re-align myself to be congruent with my primary context, competencies and commitments.

Research Contributions

2005-02-28T13:42:00.000-08:00

Please research questions, cases, anecdotes, and data in this area.

The first agenda item for research into Sustainable Organization (or any endeavor with a basis in “knowledge or science”) is to find parallels between it and other approaches being used in a domain under consideration. This is the literature review that In the hard sciences is nicely constrained and contained by the history of experiments. In social sciences or disciplines a lot of sorting has to occur to get at what the hard sciences come by easily.

You will want to look at your "literature" to determine whether there is a coherent model or appoach – as opposed to a list of “considerations” – being offered to the reader in order to:

Structure the organization of the domain in a macro sense and to the topic at hand. This will require sorting and organizing the content into clear statements that define the Context. If you were a research scientist, you would state these as the set of hypothesis the writer of the text has offered about the subject.

Parse the original texts and reorganize their contents into levels or layers. This is the Cascading part of the Context. Think of this as a series of concentric circles, each circle containing its own necessary and sufficient subset of context. If you were a research scientist, this would be the subset of hypotheses you would test and experiments you would run …… moving from the small world of petrie dish … to animal research… to the ecosystem itself.

Relate business processes (Policies, Program Structure, Staffing, Content, Quality Indicators….) in a clear and logical and fashion to the context to define the skills, competencies, and domain knowledge required at each level of the cascaded context. Here, you are beginning to build the Requisite Competencies that can be derived from the texts you are offered. If you were a research scientist, this would be the constrained list of chemicals and materials you would use for your experiments.

As you do this analysis of the materials you are reading, you will be enriching the original models
· by identifying gaps or weaknesses inherent their internal logic
· exposing their steps or activities (experimental designs) for an “ideal” result or outcome in an organized fashion.

You will also be organizing your material into two of the premises of Sustainable Organization to later fold in Vested Engagement and Adaptive Alignment.