“a profound failure of ethical action”

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Jon Parsons has researched the ethical implications of the pandemic since it was declared by the WHO.

I initially thought that the pandemic, while obviously a serious crisis and heralding an era of disruption, was an opportunity for positive change, a moment people would step up, come together, and enact values of collective care … But all that stopped, and quicker than I would have imagined. Issues came up to do with financial support for workers. Forms of racism and stigma emerged, aimed at specific communities and related to the borders. With global shortages of personal protective equipment, there was a tendency toward forms of nationalism.

By the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021, it became clear what was happening was a profound failure of ethical action. I can think of no greater ethical wrong that has been so obviously committed in such a short period of time in living memory in this country … For example, recent protests have many people questioning what is happening in Canada. As I argue, this is just a symptom of the underlying pathology and a direct consequence of the failure of ethical action.

Such a failure also raises serious questions about challenges coming in the future, such as the capacity to deal with the consequences of climate change or to authentically engage in a project of reconciliation. Given how Canada responded to the pandemic, it is difficult to imagine this country could adequately rise to such challenges. —Covid-19 Ethics in Canada

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twitter enables open knowledge networks

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Twitter has kept me informed through this pandemic. I have been informed by subject matter networks of experts who share their knowledge with the public on Twitter. I was even taken to task by a troll (now off Twitter) for not blindly following local public health advice — “Twitter doctors are apparently more trusted than our medical officer of health.” But given the performance record of our CMOH, the advice from my pandemic list has kept me safer over the past two years.

Imagine if public health had taken the informed advice of Barry Hunt, an engineer specializing in airborne infection prevention. On 31 March 2020, Barry described the droplet theory of the spread of SARS-C0V-2 as — “90 year-old stale dated fake news” — yet the droplet theory was promoted by the WHO until May 2021.

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hope springs eternal

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On the last Friday of each month I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“A society which eulogizes the average citizen is one which breeds mediocrity. What the world should be seeking, and what in Canada we must continue to cherish, are not concepts of uniformity but human values: compassion, love, and understanding.” —Pierre Elliott Trudeau (1971)

“Peace is not the absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition of benevolence, confidence, justice.” —Baruch Spinoza

“I’ve met people who effortlessly said, ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’ but were unwilling to learn to say people’s name right. Learning and / putting effort into saying someone’s name correctly is one of the most basic things and humane things we could do.” —@blessingmpofu

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knowledge flows at the speed of trust

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Transparency

Businesses that are open, transparent, and cooperative are more resilient because they rely on people, not processes. In a transparent organization there is no way to game the system as an individual. A transparent business focuses on long-term value, not short-term profit. It can also foster innovation, as diverse ideas come to the fore when people openly share their ideas. Workers become a social network, cooperating in order to make the organization better.

Knowledge networks are similar. They function well when they are 1) based on openness, which 2) enables transparency, and 3) in turn fosters diversity — all of which reinforce the basic principle of openness. In such a transparent workplace, the role of management is to give workers a job worth doing, the tools to do it, recognition of a job well done, and then let them manage themselves.

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from training to learning to performance

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I have been reading in several places recently that a new concept of learning in the flow of work, or workflow learning, is the latest advance in the learning & development field. It’s not that new though.

So I dusted off my copy of Electronic Performance Support Systems (1991) by Gloria Gery, which begins with an identification of problems with the training industry.

  1. Training (and learning) was moved out of the actual job context.
  2. The experts were removed from the novices.
  3. Post-training support was reduced to manuals, an occasional job aid, and intermittent supervisory commentary.

Does this sound familiar in any workplace today?

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dancing in the dark

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Peter Drucker (1909-2005) was an American management consultant whose work has influenced how business is done for more than 50 years. He was a prolific writer and is often quoted, though frequently incorrectly. Some of his quotes are pertinent today, especially here in New Brunswick, Canada where we have dropped all public health measures in advance of what will likely be a sixth wave of coronavirus, as infection rates in Europe are beginning to indicate.

“… no human being can possibly predict the future, let alone control it.” —Peter Drucker

Our government and public health authorities are confident that while hospitals are near capacity, vaccine efficacy is waning, and vaccination rates in children are low to nil, any subsequent wave of viral infection will not require any precautionary measures.

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strategic doing through agile sensemaking

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Cormac Russell has developed Asset-based Community Development (ABCD) which I see as a complementary model for Strategic Doing, especially Skill #3 — Identify the assets at your disposal, including the hidden ones. Cormac recently shared a thread on Twitter.

Here are a few paradoxes I’ve noticed at play in the dynamics between institutions & communities:

  1. The institutional paradox: Institutions are hardest to reach when you need or want them most. And most difficult to shake off when you need or want them least.
  2. Where there’s a danger that achieving the institutional mission will jeopardise the organisation’s future: Antibodies will be produced to kill off all such progressive efforts. Their prime directive: the institution’s survival matters more than fulfilling its mission.
  3. Past a particular scale or intensity, institutions will become counterproductive: producing the opposite of their stated intention, e.g. stupefying schools; crime producing prisons. (Illich)
  4. Bureaucracies following an iron rule: those who wish to elevate, support, & practically resource community alternatives will always be junior/subordinate to those who want to feature their professional & institutional capacities above citizens and the communities they serve.
  5. The more professionals talk about “community power”, the less power communities actually have and the more disabling institutions are. While where citizens and professionals openly talk about institutional limits and the dangers of disabling professions, the more powerful communities are and the more enabling professionals can be.

—@CormacRussell 2022-03-04

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sensemaking networks

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Where have you been getting your news about the pandemic or the invasion of Ukraine? Mainstream media? Twitter?

And of course some of what I end up reading through Twitter originates with traditional news outlets like the Times or CNN. But Twitter is simply faster than any other medium at picking up the shifting momentum of a global event like the Ukrainian conflict. You see the street-level demonstrations in St. Petersburg and Moscow the second they erupt. You pick up reports about EU nations rallying around the proposition of kicking Russia off of SWIFT. You get real-time expert assessment walking through the challenges of an occupying army holding a city of Kyiv’s size, or the potential pain that the West could inflict on Putin’s inner circle of oligarchs — ideas that usually won’t make it to the op-ed pages for another day or two. —Networks Versus Tanks

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weltschmerz freitag

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On the last Friday of each month I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“When from our better selves we have too long
Been parted by the hurrying world, and droop,
Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired,
How gracious, how benign, is Solitude.”
—William Wordsworth, The Prelude — via @sonjabl

“If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won’t amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.” —Abraham Lincoln — via The Marginalian

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hold the centre

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A recent conversation on Twitter between Peter Radcliffe and Chris Corrigan highlighted the need for a political centre that does not polarize those on the edges.

“A fundamental Canadian flaw is that the 70% of us who are in the political middle have been raised to be too polite to publicly call the 15% on the extremes bat-shit crazy.

That leaves the center silent, the noise and press extreme, and Canada feeling somewhat divided and broken.” —Peter Radcliffe

To which Chris responded:

“It would help if folks in the middle didn’t vilify those of us towards, but not in, the 15%. Everyone knows those folks are irrelevant, but when we get lumped in with them by the centre 50%, it dilutes policy creativity and the possibility of better solutions.” —Chris Corrigan

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