Complexity

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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perpetual beta — our new normal

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The perpetual beta model describes how knowledge can flow between professional networks, communities of practice, and work teams. It shows that it is necessary to connect all three in order to ensure a diversity of ideas and perspectives — as well as safe places to test these — in order to support increasingly complex collaborative work tasks. An essential component of this is ensuring individuals develop the discipline of personal knowledge mastery.

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value network analysis masterclass

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Value Network — “A web of relationships that generates economic or social value through complex dynamic exchanges of both tangible and intangible benefits.” —Verna Allee

I participated in my first value network analysis (VNA) workshop in 2007. My impression at the time was that humans work in complex environments and we are by our very nature unpredictable. The result of a VNA allows us to ask better questions but it doesn’t give specific answers (it’s not a tool for bean counters). I felt that VNA was an excellent change management tool. I could see the use of VNA and the resulting concept maps enabling better communication within organizations, with clients, with funders, and throughout communities. These perceptions have not changed

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the blind monks are running the show

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There is a story, told in various forms, about the blind men, or monks, and the elephant. These men are sent away by their ruler to find out what this creature is and to report back to him. Each only feels a part of the elephant so each one reports a different description and they argue with each other. In the Buddha’s version, he concludes, “Just so are these preachers and scholars holding various views blind and unseeing…. In their ignorance they are by nature quarrelsome, wrangling, and disputatious, each maintaining reality is thus and thus.”

I have often told this story, and then ask — What if a group of women was sent instead? I would wager that the women would have talked about their experiences and come through consensus to a more complete description of the elephant. Who knows, and perhaps our future really lies in being networked and more feminine.

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yes, it’s the system

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Only in the past month have public health authorities in Canada acknowledged that SARS-CoV-2 is primarily spread through the air, after more than a year of prevaricating by ‘Droplet Dogmatics’ in face of the evidence.

“Since March 2020, Ontario [Province of Canada] public health guidelines have stated that droplet precautions are adequate to guard against COVID-19 transmission. According to the province, airborne precautions, such as N95 masks, are needed only by those performing aerosol-generating procedures, such as intubating a patient [in June 2021].” —CBC 2021-06-20

COVID-19 is an airborne disease. Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer only publicly acknowledged airborne transmission this November. But many protocols to control fomite transmission continue, such as plexiglass dividers and surface washing conveyor belts in supermarkets.

In view of overwhelming evidence, our structures — workplaces, schools, eating establishments — still do not change to adapt to the evidence. Peter Drucker is attributed for the saying that ‘Culture eats strategy for breakfast’. [What Drucker really said was, “Culture—no matter how defined—is singularly persistent.”] Or perhaps Robbie Burns said it best when considering what happens to our ‘best laid schemes’.

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the fifth wave

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One way I keep up with this pandemic is from 13 experts who share their insights on Twitter — my pandemic list. As we enter a fifth wave of the novel coronavirus, let me share some of these insights from the list and elsewhere.

Droplets

“The question of whether SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted by droplets or aerosols has been very controversial. We sought to explain this controversy through a historical analysis of transmission research in other disease … Resistance to the idea of airborne spread of a respiratory infection is not new. In fact, it has occurred repeatedly over much of the last century and greatly hampered understanding of how diseases transmit.”
—Echoes Through Time: The Historical Origins of the Droplet Dogma and its Role in the Misidentification of Airborne Respiratory Infection Transmission in SSRN 2021-09-21

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masterclasses

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Several times over the past few years I have been asked to conduct online masterclasses to help organizations with their internal change initiatives, such as — digital transformation, distributed work, & online community building. These sessions are 1/2 day (±4 hours) and have from 20 to 60 participants. Each one is focused on the needs of the client which we discuss in advance. Here are the various components that we have used.

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entangled expertise

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I have never purported to be an an expert. I have some skills and some knowledge, but my greatest asset is my network.

“What the Internet Time Alliance group brought to the table in our engagement, in the person of Harold Jarche, was not only his extensive experience and network, but also the expertise of the rest of the Alliance and their networks as well. While we in our organization have networks of our own, the quality and extensiveness of the ITA network added a value that we would not have been able to tap alone, and led us to a superior solution that will better serve our customers.” — Corporate University Manager within Fortune 500 Health Insurance company

Hierarchies and experts have a symbiotic relationship. But individual expertise, in a single field, is gradually being replaced by collaborative expertise. The expertise in any given field developed as a result of the Enlightenment is insufficient to deal with the wicked challenges of the Entanglement.

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learning in the complex domain

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Personal knowledge mastery (PKM) can be a lens to examine how knowledge flows in organizations and human systems, especially from a perspective beyond formal training and education.

“A model of curation for the digital era that is being used in health and care is Harold Jarche’s ‘Personal Knowledge Mastery’ (PKM). This is about individuals making the best use of their networks and other sources of knowledge so that they can keep up to date with the most effective thinking in their area and practice new ways of doing things. Leaders who take responsibility for their own effectiveness through PKM create leverage and value for their organisations. The underpinning framework for curation within PKM is ‘seek, sense, share’. ‘Seeking’ is about finding things out and keeping up to date; pulling’ information, but also having it ‘pushed’ to us by trusted sources. ‘Sensing’ is about making sense and meaning of information, reflecting and putting into practice what we have learned and plugging information into our own mental models and turning it into knowledge. ‘Sharing’ is about connecting and collaborating; sharing complex knowledge with our own work teams, testing new ideas with our own networks and increasing connections through social networks.” —UK National Health Service White Paper: The new era of thinking and practice in change and transformation

In addition, PKM is much more than a model of curation.

“Seek > Sense > Share are three elements at the core of Harold Jarche’s Personal Knowledge Mastery (PKM) Framework. With PKM, he shaped one of the most persuasive approaches to personal and professional development, combining natural ways of learning with an approach to sensemaking and contributing to a larger collective.” —GIZ.DE

Personal knowledge mastery is a framework that connects working and learning. Much of what professionals and most adults learn is from experience and interactions with other people, at work or outside of it. We learn from experiences and exposure to people and ideas.

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a unique opportunity

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“The spread of germs is the price we pay for the spread of ideas.” —Nicholas Christakis

Many people want a return to normal. But normal is what got us into this pandemic — mass air travel, global supply chains, constant expansion, pollution, biological weapons research, etc. What we have is a unique opportunity for significant change and a 21st century Renaissance.

“The Black Death upended the world of the Florentines and mightily reduced their numbers. And how did the Florentines respond to mass death and a shortage of hands? With great creativity and new visions. They opened their society to change and filled the ranks of the dead with new faces. You called it the Renaissance.

My COVID-19, on the other hand, is a minor pandemic, a small disrupter. A rupture to be sure, but nothing like my Black Death. But do you think that I have stopped your world so you can daily complain about lockdowns and shortages of toilet paper and computer chips? No. I am here, present and alive, so you can take stock, make amends, and pay attention to what matters.

Whether there will be a renaissance in your future depends not on how much knowledge your society has manufactured. Rather, it rests on how much wisdom you have cultivated.” —The Pandemic Speaks

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