Harold Jarche

Change the structure

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Last night CBC’s Cross Country Checkup discussed the reform of our health care system. There is a sense of desperation in the way in which we are trying to save our current health care system (and education system) but in light of the near collapse of our financial systems we should be careful before prescribing any solutions.

Today’s business world is hampered by managerial capitalism, which The Support Economy shows as the primary cause of the disconnect between corporations and markets (people). Managers removed from risk helped cause the current economic fiasco. Another term, the kleptocracy, is perhaps more accurate to describe these actors. This form of capitalism also robs us of our ability for self-determination:

Psychological self-determination is expressed in three different dimensions. In the first dimension people want to live their lives the way they choose to live it. This is the sense of sanctuary. The second way people express their psychological self-determination is in the widespread desire for voice: we want to be heard and we want our voices to matter. The third way we want our psychological self-determination to be expressed is in our desire to be connected: we want to be part of communities.

Under managerial capitalism, people are called consumers or users – low forms of life without any real voice. Systems that treat individuals as replaceable units (human resources?) are part of the underlying structural problem. For instance, health care organisations should be the epitome of learning organisations, but many are stuck in their disciplinary silos and command & control structures. Kim Vicente’s book, The Human Factor, highlights some of these issues and shows how the aviation industry was able to reduce accidents and that a similar, learning-centered approach could be used in health care.

We have created self-perpetuating monopolies in both health and education and now they run us. Ivan Illich had it right over 30 years ago – we have seen the enemy, and it is us. This quote may be from 1970, but is even more pertinent today:

Everywhere the hidden curriculum of schooling initiates the citizen to the myth that bureaucracies guided by scientific knowledge are efficient and benevolent. Everywhere this same curriculum instills in the pupil the myth that increased production will provide a better life. And everywhere it develops the habit of self-defeating consumption of services and alienating production, the tolerance for institutional dependence, and the recognition of institutional rankings. The hidden curriculum of school does all this in spite of contrary efforts undertaken by teachers and no matter what ideology prevails.

Corporatist systems, where managers have benefits but almost no risk, are the root of many problems in business, health care and education. However, the collapse of the financial system may force some changes on the education system first. Many people will no longer have the luxury of borrowing to go to school. For example, finding buyers of US student loans that have been in default is getting more difficult, according to Inside HigherEd. Other sources of savings for education, such as Canada’s Registered Education Savings Plan, have been affected by the market drop with many people losing 20 to 50% of their savings. I’m one of them. Will there be a dip in enrolment in the next few years, as costs continue to increase?

For universities and colleges, now is the time to examine operating models and assumptions, before the full impact of the recession hits. This goes against conventional wisdom which says that demand for education goes up in a recession, but that is only when people have savings or the ability to borrow. As government funding becomes the main source of operating capital, will education be able compete against health care?

Both health care and education are state-funded oligopolies, reliant on the willingness of government (and the electorate) to fund them. As governments become limited in their spending power, with decreased revenues and perhaps devalued currency, these institutions will need to re-evaluate their models. The type of organisational structures that helped to create this financial mess are not the examples that our institutions should use. While we have some time and room to maneuver, now is the time to look at better ways of doing things, but it has to be done from a structural perspective.

Photo: Life_Through_a_Viewfinder

Natural entrepreneurship

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When you come to a fork in the road, take it. – Yogi Berra

As I look at what I’ve learned about business, information technology and learning over the past decade I see two major influences, perhaps not mutually exclusive, that will change how we work and learn. One is the pending major shift in energy consumption and the other is our increasing connection through the Internet.

My observations and readings tell me that when we change how we work, our education systems follow suit. There is no doubt that many of us will be changing how we work in the near future. That will mean changes in how we educate ourselves.

Peak oil has already passed and we will have to come to terms with using more costly sources of energy and using less of it. That will change how we get to work, how we go to school, and especially how we make and move goods. Scenarios such as Jim Kunstler’s are one possibility, but there are many others. Change does not happen in a straight line. However, there is no doubt that the shift away from the cheap oil economy will have repercussions at all levels.

The Internet has also changed how we work and communicate and this will continue unless something like the long emergency happens. In the meantime, the Net is changing how we do business and how we perceive learning (e.g. connectivism). For example, command & control, supply chain management and performance management are all being turned on their heads as hyperlinks subvert hierarchies. The same is happening in schools as what is taught inside has less relevance with the outside. Here in New Brunswick debates rage on singing O Canada and wearing sweats in school while critical thinking and basic digital literacy are ignored. Meanwhile, kids are having conversations with friends around the world, getting involved in international causes or creating media that is watched by over 150,000 people. Not your typical day at school.

Can we simultaneously prepare for these two possibilities- a connected world and a long emergency? I believe there is a viable option in natural enterprises, as put forth in Dave Pollard’s Finding the Sweet Spot, which I reviewed last year. Natural entrepreneurship will work in either an electric or a non-electric future, making it more resilient than most industrial models. For instance, Dave found that successful entrepreneurs had several things in common.

They built strong, collaborative relationships and networks, and operated their enterprises “on principle”. They understood that powerful social relationships are the underpinning to all human enterprise, and that collaboration succeeds better than competition. And by sticking to principles of responsibility and sustainability they ensured that these relationships were deep, trusting, and reciprocal.

Principles for natural enterprises can work whether the network of relationships is local or global. Since business models drive education models I would suggest that our business schools take a serious look at new business models and do so soon. Meanwhile, our educators have to engage in discussions on what our education system can do to build the skills for natural entrepreneurship. Time is running out.

First we shape our structures and then our structures shape us – Winston Churchill

Cappuccino U 2.0

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Jerome Martin has updated Cappuccino U, a good read for anyone not versed in all the informal learning activities available on the Web:

The traditional education system cannot be expected to provide learning for everyone, everywhere, all of the time. Knowledge is growing so quickly in so many fields that educators cannot always remain current in their fields. Furthermore, there are new fields of study developing. Many of us are working in areas and fields which were not developed when we went to university.

Originally published in 2006, the ideas are more relevant today, as Jerome says, “education is not acquired through vaccination or some sort of anointment”. This is a short read and the kind of e-book to pass around (CC-licensed) to folks who say that they could never read or learn via a computer.

Moving down-scale

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Jim Kunstler spoke to a packed audience at Mount Allison University last night, covering much of the material in his book The Long Emergency with updated data. You can watch his 2004 TED Talk on The Tragedy of Suburbia.

Kunstler opened with a most informative graph developed by C H Smith:

Yes, that’s right; sometime in the near future, oil will trade for $1,000 per barrel. In this post-peak oil period, Kunstler’s basic conclusion is that the age of continual growth (2-7%) is over. He showed how the US economy was based almost entirely on suburban development and that has now come to a crashing halt. He also predicted the collapse of the aviation industry in the next 48 months. Dwindling oil supplies and higher costs will affect every sector of society, and we will see major changes in:

  • how we inhabit the landscape as our cities & towns adapt
  • how we grow food as we are forced to be more local and use animal power once again
  • how we do business after the collapse of the industrial retail model (e.g. farmers markets vs Wal*Mart)
  • how we will make things on a more local level
  • how collector schools premised on cheap transportation will disappear

There will soon be a major down-scaling of everything we do because we will no longer have the energy to continue with our current system. Kunstler’s suggestion for a pragmatic North American project to get society motivated to tackle these huge issues is to restore our passenger rail service. It’s feasible, much-needed, requires no new technology and will employ many people. Cars (and suburbia) are dead, no matter how many hybrids we buy.

Networks

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For several years I called this blog “Conversations at the intersection of learning, work & technology” and still use that tag line from time to time. During the past decade I’ve worked at that intersection, sometimes more focused on one aspect than another. I’ve seen a merging of work and learning as more of our lives are lived in larger and more complex networks. Working in what my friend Jay Cross calls Internet Time, blurs the lines between work and learning. The blurring of lines between the silos of disciplines and knowledge is happening everywhere as we get the ability to quickly jump from one field to another, and it’s reaping the reward of innovation, as Franz Johansson notes in The Medici Effect.

This decade has witnessed an increasing use of social network analysis and value network analysis, while social media are starting to permeate every type of business, especially marketing. In learning theory we now have Connectivism – the integration of principles explored by chaos, network, and complexity and self-organization theories. Understanding networks provides new insights into learning and business.

So what lies at the intersection of learning, work and technology? NETWORKS

Can our cities survive?

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Mount Allison University presents:

James Howard Kunstler, fierce critic of suburban sprawl and our automobile-centric culture and the novelist The New York Times described as “provocative and entertaining,” will speak at Mount Allison University on Wednesday, February 11 at 7 p.m. in the Crabtree Auditorium. His talk is entitled “Planning after Peak Oil: Can our cities survive the converging catastrophes of the 21st Century?” The talk is open to the public.

I plan on attending and will write up my comments here.

Kunstler’s website and blog.

The Practice of Training in the 21st Century

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The Practice of Training in the 21st Century is an online presentation I will be doing for CSTD on 4 March 2009 at 1:00 PM EST. There is a fee for the event which supports CSTD’s work in fostering the profession of training, workplace learning and human resources development in Canada [my services are pro bono].

The presentation is an update of the ideas from the Training Department in the 21st Century. There is also a version on SlideShare. The March presentation will give more detail than what is on my related blog posts and enable some feedback, as well as open up the concept to a broader audience. As I re-do the presentation, any suggestions or criticism would be appreciated.

O Canada

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Guest post by Graham Watt

Harold’s note: This is the post that I would like to have written, but Graham says it so much better than I could have.

Springfield, a small community in New Brunswick, has been in high dudgeon in past weeks, after the principal of Belleisle Elementary School there, cut out the playing of O Canada at the start of each school day. The reason given was the objections of some parents to their children having to stand and sing the anthem.

I have a 10-year old daughter attending public school here in New Brunswick, and she has always had to sing O Canada each morning. In fact, down here, it’s quite common to still hear God Save the Queen at some school and civic events. Evidently while colonialism is slowly ebbing, it is being replaced with good ol’ American patriotism. The many recent letters to local newspapers extolling the virtues of patriotism and hooking it onto the O Canada anthem is perhaps another indication of how this part of the country has become a pale imitation of the U.S., where everything and everyone must have a reputation as a stalwart defender of freedom, and hopefully, a missing arm or a visible wound, preferably still bleeding. Not quite the Deep South, more like the Deep East.

O Canada is a wonderful anthem, a bringer of tears during emotional moments, be they Olympic victories or the sight of our poor soldiers returning home in boxes, having given their lives not only for their country but also for misguided foreign policy. Must we play it every day in schools, like a song for some brand we’re trying to sell? Why not keep it for occasions that merit our tears of joy or sorrow? Why not keep it for those who have earned its playing? They are the brave lost ones who have no recourse, nor do their families, but to be proud that they kept their word, and did their duty.

The playing of O Canada every day in schools, is supposed to celebrate the country and make us all proud. Exactly what are we proud of? That we’ve become employees and managers but not owners in our own land. That we rank 17th out of 23 industrialized countries in rates of child poverty? That we’ve killed all the fish, cut down all the trees, dug up all the coal, sucked out the world’s dirtiest and most expensive oil? That we keep saying we want to keep our beloved public health system while our business elites keep wanting us to get rid of it so they can pay less tax and make more money with a private system?

Are we proud of watching U.S. television programs so much that we have next to no original work of our own? Proud that we use another country’s television programs to describe ourselves? So that when a possibility of a coalition government forming occurs in our parliament (a perfectly normal event in a parliamentary system) we cry unfair, coup d’état, because “Hey man, they don’t do that in the U.S., so we can’t do it here”? Is this a reason to sing O Canada? Are we proud that we don’t offer our children civics courses in school? Or that any immigrant to this country knows more about our political system than we do ourselves? Are we proud of being in Afghanistan to help build schools for children while tacitly ignoring the plight of our aboriginals here? The same aboriginals whose life spans are the same as in the poorest third world countries? The same aboriginals who saved our sorry asses each excruciatingly cold winter of our ancestors’ arrivals here? Canada is in the top 5 in the UN’s human development index. Our aboriginal population is in 78th place. Do we think of this when we sing we’ll stand on guard for thee?

And exactly why are we trotting out the tired old word “patriotism”? A state that Samuel Johnson said was the last refuge of the scoundrel? Why? This is one of the few countries in the world that grew out of peace and not revolution or violence. That’s its charm and its promise too. That might be something to proud of if we’re not of the current machismo bent.

So why are we outraged about a school principal who stopped the recorded anthem every morning, when we trash the same anthem incessantly, trivializing it at every baseball game, every hockey game? Exactly what are we so proud of every school day? That we’ve cut back on education so much that our children are among the lowest scorers in literacy in the country? That we have fewer doctors per thousand people than every other OECD country but three? Have we done some reflecting about our country? Do we have enough confidence to look at its failings as well as its successes? Have we thought about how during World War 2, when Jews needed safe refuge they were turned back by our government, the classic explanatory phrase which summed up the attitude being: “None is too many!”?

We should think of that next time we stand to hear the familiar strains of O Canada. Think of how this country is more than a hockey game or a pale imitation of another country. Somewhere good and sometimes not so good. We should reflect on how we might cut back on the puffing up of our chests, and get our hearts and souls into remedying some of the enormous social problems we face by actually realizing we’re not a smaller version of some other fantasy country. That would be a good start. And perhaps think that past all the faults and the timid advances into a vast and wild land, we finally built something unique in North America, not by grabbing and stabbing, but by sharing and caring.

Graham Watt

The Fourth Turning

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I picked up a used copy of The Fourth Turning (1997) as I had read some reviews, positive and negative, and for the price figured it was worth it. I won’t go into the entire premise of the book, as the reviews on Amazon give a good overview, but I find the recommendations from 1997 to prepare for the predicted crisis in the first decade of the millennium (now) most interesting:

Once the Crisis catalyzes, anything can happen. If you are starting a career now, realize that generalists with survival know-how will have the edge over specialists whose skills are useful only in an undamaged environment. Be fluent in as many languages, cultures, and technologies as you can. Your business will face a total alteration of market conditions: Expect public subsidies to vanish, the regulatory environment to change quickly, and new trade barriers to arise. Avoid debt or leverage investments, including massive student debt. Assume that all your external safety nets (pensions, Social Security, Medicare) could end up totally shredded.

Related to my post of the Cuspers going into small business are some recommendations for this generation (AKA: 13ers):

The Fourth Turning will find other generations with lives either mostly in the past or mostly in the future, but it will catch 13ers in “prime time”, right at the midpoint of their adult lives. They must step forward as the saeculum’s repair generation, the one stuck with fixing the messes and cleaning up the debris left by others.

President Obama campaigned on this fact and even Prime Minister Harper has had to discard some of his conservative principles and get down to the messy job of repair. Both are members of this generation. The Crisis is here and there’s lots of work for all of us to do.

Preparing for Business 2.0

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If you were to advise someone considering going into business or becoming an entrepreneur today, what would you tell them? What is the best advice for today’s business schools? Where would you start; with underlying processes, human psychology, supply & demand theories or principles of management? I’ve been using the wirearchy tag to note articles that talk about the changing nature of work. Here are some examples:

Wirearchy: The performance management schemes, grade levels in the organizations and compensation practices have yet to recognize how work gets done in networked environments and increasingly, in a networked world.

FastForward Blog: … the radical reduction of transaction costs shifts the economic reality enough to eliminate the current value of organizations, making organizations effectively irrelevant.

Umair Haque: That’s the third, simplest, and most fundamental step in building next-generation businesses: understanding that next-generation businesses are built on new DNA, or new ways to organize and manage economic activities. Think that sounds like science fiction? Think again. Here are just a few of the most radical new organizational and management techniques today’s revolutionaries are already utilizing: open-source production, peer production, viral distribution, radical experimentation, connected consumption, and co-creation.

Scott Anthony: The Great Disruption creates real challenges for managers who have made a career out of focused execution. Smart management and prudent cost controls might have been enough to survive the Great Depression, but they are wholly insufficient for surviving the Great Disruption. For example, all the operational acumen in the world won’t help U.S. newspaper companies handle the seismic shifts in their industry.

G. Oliver Young: I see a fundamental rethinking of the definition and function of the firm; the single biggest change since the industrial revolution.

Are there any books that you would recommend to someone entering into a commerce program or starting their first foray into business? I think that the rules are changing rather quickly, as I see what people in my own networks are doing, especially with start-ups.

Is there a way to study and prepare for business today or is it better to jump in and make mistakes as you learn? Recommendations would be appreciated, especially from younger entrepreneurs.