Getting started: the jargon

Agile

We spot some technical jargon immediately.  Computer people like “agile”.  What they mean is doing just as much as we can to be able to get some feedback.

Imagine it this way, when we begin a journey from London to Edinburgh, we ask the SatNav for a route and then we tend to assume the journey will then be pain free.  Often the journey is not and the real outcome involves looking for another route in a mild panic when the inevitable happens and we are diverted.

The alternative is a SatNav that works like this.

• It finds the best route and first junction about 15-20 minutes away
• As we reach that junction, it quietly rechecks the route taking into account any weather and traffic information that has arrived since then

Agile is simple getting on with the first task but allowing that the overall route to the destination may change.

Sense-making

Sense-making is best understood through the SIR COPE acronym of Karl Weick.

Sense is not about truth.  Sense is about piecing together whatever information we have so that there are no discrepancies and so that we are willing to ‘stay in the game’.

Sense-making is an ongoing process; it is a confusing process; and it is ultimately a social process because a key factor in our decision to stay or go is our judgement of the people around us and their loyalty and commitment.  In military terms, it is ‘morale’ – do I even want to belong to ‘this man’s army’?

What can we learn from weary soldiers managing the battlespace?

So jargon aside, what new does William Mitchell add in his description of thinking clearly in the battle space?  I will be using my words now because these are my notes.  I hope you find them useful but if you do, check back to the original article.

#1 Think imaginatively

Technically, we call imagination in “thinking about the systems of systems” or in Mitchell’s words “network philosophy”.

In practice, we think like this:  I want to attract more customers to my business.  They either don’t know I exist, or barely pay me any attention, and when they notice me, don’t trust me.  I want to win their trust.

Of course, I can woo them directly and sometimes I will.  But they already have relations among themselves.  So when I woo the fellows who, say, wear hats, the fellows who don’t wear hats don’t want to take part.  That second level effect is systems thinking.

When we are busy, or in goal mode, our systems thinking tends to get turned off.  Let’s go back to driving from London to Edinburgh.  When I set my SatNav and I head out onto the motorway, I know the trip will be boring, so I don’t want to know about all the wonderful places I could visit just 5 miles off the motorway, or I will not stick to my task.

But I also don’t know about the inter-schools football championship that is about to disgorge a flood of cars into the junction ahead of me.  That’s what management intelligence is for. To make a system that scans for the opportunities or threats that we aren’t scanning for, and should not be scanning for, because we are in executive-mode and concentrating on something else.

But the key takeaway is not that we have lookouts.  The key takeaway is that we have lookouts how understand second order effects – what causes what.  And for there to be any point to having intelligent lookouts, we need managers who understand the messages from lookouts.  That’s why managers must be fluent in systems of systems thinking.  They must be able to follow the briefings and ask the right questions.

 #2 Write things down

Technically, we call this state “iterative modelling”. We write down what we think to build a bridge from our brainstorming to our action.

In practice, we log our interactions with potential customers and we see how well we are doing.   We calculate our open rates and click through rates and sales.  We use numbers to focus our attention on what must be done and to learn how to do what we do even better.

Very simply, when we drive from London to Edinburgh, part of the system is written down for us. The SatNav is doing the map calculations for us using a straightforward A* algorithm and some detailed information from maps.  Then it presents it on a map annotated with voice commands.

We do the rest. We look at our clock.  We note the time to destination on the SatNav.   And we note what time we ‘must’ arrive and make our decisions accordingly.  We can see immediately that SatNavs are going to become much, much better at learning.

There are several skills involved in modelling dynamic information.  We have to know what to model. We have to capture data.  We have to write programs of very many sorts.  We have to lay out information.  And we have to learn, a lot, about how to make the whole system better.

And in that morass of work, we might forget what all this is about: to bridge the dynamism of systems about systems thinking with action that has to be taken in some instances, in a split second.   This is what we are doing this for!

#3 Look at alternatives

Technically, the third stage is called “hypothesis generation and testing” or “scenario planning”.  Oh my, how we hate to do this when we are in the thick of action!  To be goal-oriented means to be confident of what we are doing.  And we resist any undermining of our confidence including thinking about what else might be a good idea!

But snap decisions are dangerous and unwise.  A good MI system delivers the correct information to make choice at the right time.  We slow down thinking to speed up work – or avoid false starts and over commitment to unwise courses of action.

Let’s imagine, for example, that we are very attracted to selling big ticket items to wealthy customers.  And that we are reasonably successful.   But that our smaller items fly off the shelves in our ‘outlet’ shop around the corner.   Now imagine we have a choice: spend the next hour serving the high value customer, or spend the next hour helping move the queue around the corner.  It’s helpful to have a display that shows our two choices and their consequences so we can make the choice in terms of what we will achieve and not simply our personal preference.

Equally, when we are driving from London to Edinburgh and we are diverted, in the time we have to reroute, it would be helpful to have a display that shows the best 5 choices rather than requires us to step through them painfully – a task that cannot be done until we find somewhere to pull over.

Every MI system has assumptions built into them. And though we use the systems in a very trusting way on a day-to-day basis, we should know what those assumptions are and what information we are not seeing.  Yes, the data must come packaged ready for action. But we must have people in the background looking at alternatives and produces displays for those too.  Caveat emptor: If we rely on computer systems that we don’t understand and don’t insist on getting better and better, then we only have ourselves to blame.

The three steps of Agile Sense-Making

So this is it agile sense-making –

• Think imaginatively (imagine the side-effects)
• Write things down to bridge imagination to action (a computer program counts as writing things down)
• Have alternative programs that bring together analyses in different ways (our methods must learn)

This is the new world of management consulting folks – data driven.  Now let’s find the clients to match!

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Not the cry, but the flight of a wild duck, leads the flock to fly and follow.

Chinese Proverb

I don’t know the provenance of this quote. I got it from @mr_gadget on Twitter. But I like it.

We follow when

• We see someone move in a way that is not easily reversed.

• When others copy.

Our reasoning, if we could call it that, goes something like this.

• Whatever they have noticed must be really important – well really dangerous.
• So I had better run too.

The ‘reasoning’ sucks. This is what is happening.

• We are startled and our startle response unleashes a wave of adrenalin or noradrenalin and we have an overwhelming impulse to run.
• And so we run.

When we think about what we have just done, we justify our actions by saying that there might have been danger. Well, we justify our actions by what Daniel Kahneman calls anticipating our future remembering selves. We don’t want to look back and say we didn’t move when we should have done. And of we are wrong, we can easily justify ourselves to ourselves because other people were alarmed too.  So running when other people run checks the boxes for the future remembering self.

Reacting in panic is a bad idea; keeping cover is a good idea

But really, some people are volatile rather than observant. They might react in alarm to just about anything and run straight into the jaws of a lion.

Basic military training is geared-up to teaching us not to start running every time we get a fright. We can learn something from the foot soldier. Our job is snot to scamper about wildly in all directions but to remain under cover where we won’t get shot at.

My more exuberant character chaffes as the idea of taking cover. It smacks of fear and deprives me of what I like – wide open spaces with distant horizons.
So let me develop that idea. I am able to walk freely and joyfully in my wide open spaces, not because they are there – though that certainly helps. I can walk in my fields because at a collective level we have institutions that keep us ‘under cover’. We have gun control (this is the UK not the US). We are relatively prosperous and you don’t get mugged (much) in the countryside. We have time (contrary to all the grumbling).

We have safe spaces and though we take them for granted, we keep them safe through collective action.

But can we be too safe?

Of course, people who have never lived in unsafe conditions might never develop any awareness of danger. They might even become rather silly and use their biological flight response for entertainment.
How can we design spaces so that we each have to do our fair share of being the proverbial sentry?  Can each of us ask “What lions and marauders do we look out for on behalf of the greater community?”
I think that is why children are given responsibilities early, in like: to take out the trash, to feed the dog. Thinking ahead and thinking broadly – well thinking – is what they are practising. When they have to take out the trash because we are too lazy to do it – that is different – we are using them as servants and not developing them at all.

Create environments where people increasingly take responsibility for the group

Yup, I think I got it. We will react like birds given half a chance. Many of us are bored so we are fascinated by the idea of mobilizing people with as little effort as a cry or an irreversible action. This cannot be our goal. This is what relatively mindless birds do.
Our goal, or at least my goal, is to create environments where people share the responsibility for creating a safe space and we start taking on responsibility in an age-related way – taking full responsibility for an important task to that we learn to think and not simply react like an impulsive creature. So we start to take out the trash and start to think about the business of keep a place hygienic. And we move on and up, learning to weave many responsibilities together.
Good quote but a different conclusion! When the birds take off, I’ll sit tight. Rapid, panicky reactions are not what it is all about.

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don’t worry, nobody has the
beautiful lady, not really, and

nobody has the strange and
hidden power, nobody is
exceptional or wonderful or
magic, they only seem to be
it’s all a trick, an in, a con,
don’t buy it, don’t believe it.
the world is packed with
billions of people whose lives
and deaths are useless and
when one of these jumps up
and the light of history shines
upon them, forget it, it’s not
what it seems, it’s just
another act to fool the fools
again.

there are no strong men, there
are no beautiful women.
at least, you can die knowing
this
and you will have
the only possible
victory.

Charles “Hank” Bukowski
1920-1989

I never know quite what I think of Bukowski’s poetry – realist? cynical? ugly? brutal?

But perhaps the view that “there are no strong men, there are no beautiful women” is essential to mindfulness – to be fully present with whomever we are with, wherever we are.

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Denial?

Anger?

Depression?

Bargaining?

Adjustment?

Denial about the banking crisis is over

I believe we are out of denial.  Do you agree?  Not everyone understands the extent of our financial woes, or the rate that they are getting worse, but we have grasped that when we wake up in the morning, the problem will still be with us.

Anger about the banking crisis . . . still with us?

Much of the citizenry is still very angry about the financial crisis.  We are still looking for someone to blame and somebody to hurt back in return for the hurt we have suffered?

Am I right so far?

Depression . . . the politicians are depressed about the crisis?

Politicians, to a man and woman, seem depressed about the crisis.  They are busy having meetings and telephone conference calls.  But by-and-large, they are being busy.  Of course, they are busy. They are ‘shaking the tree’ or in the parlance of a domestic household, looking down the sofa for small change to pay the rent.  That doesn’t put anyone in a good mood.  But their gloom is the result of more than penny-pinching and cash flow management.

Do you think they are acting with a positive sense of the future or just getting-by?

Bargaining  . . . what does bargaining look like?

What does bargaining look like anyway?  I don’t really know.

In other countries and other crises, I have seen people protest a country’s position ‘between a rock and a hard place’ by going on ‘fasts’ (not, hunger strikes, ‘fasts’ or ‘pacts with God’).  The country didn’t move forward very much but the fasters did get very slim and they learned to get up early in the morning.  I can say that for their methods.  Whether their lives improved in other ways, I doubt.  Unsurprisingly, they did very little work.  Their electronic diaries were pristine with the exception of their prayer schedules.

The secular equivalent of keeping one’s head down can be just as dangerous, by-the-way.   It normally involves being very busy doing-the-boss’-bidding while he or she sits out of harm’s way- a bit as Carne Ross described in talk at LSE this week on life as British diplomat.

Does satire play the role of bargaining?  Does laughing about ‘their idiocy’ without taking action not perform the same function of reducing emotional concerns without moving forward?  Resignation rather than adjustment which is really a form of bargaining?  If I laugh, then it will be alright?

Is writing this post a form of bargaining?  I guess it is.  I am being an observer of ‘them’.

Adjustment . . . is it possible?  Can we just adjust and get on with it?

If I don’t really understand bargaining (as much because we think this stage of recovery is a delaying tactic rather than useful), I do know what adjustment is going to mean.

Adjustment is accepting that we were all part of the mess and are all part of the mess.

Adjustment rests on a foundation of “who we are”.  Who are we loyal to?  Who is ‘me and mine’?  Until we really feel solidarity with each other and are willingly to form a new social compact based on that solidarity, then we aren’t going anywhere fast.  We will ‘lurching from church to school’.  I’ve no idea where the expression came from but it conveys the idea.

Our solutions will be in direct proportion to our solidarity.  While we hate each other, our solutions will be correspondingly mean and inadequate.

Getting to adjustment in a country that is in trouble

Getting to ‘adjustment’ when a country is severe trouble is a tough one.  The psychological key is our own good temper, or whatever kernel of good temper that we can find.

When we identify what we believe is good in Britain, when we can point to what is, rather than to what we want to be (usually through someone else’s efforts); until we believe the something is sufficiently good that we are willing to get out of bed to work on it, whether or not anyone else is working on it, we – I mean you, I mean me – are not going anywhere very fast.

The questions, to me, are three fold:

• What is, right now, is so good that it fills me with awe?
• What is, right now, that I can bounce out of bed to look after and nurture?
• What am I willing to do right now, whether or not you support me or not, but which can include you if you want to be included?

Keeping my good temper intact

So here I am writing a post ‘about’ Britain – and in a way about what is wrong with Britain. Here I am apparently procrastinating and avoiding doing some work which has shards of pleasure and the sharp edges of tedium.

Am I being a hypocrite?  Or am I saying that I like to process the news and know what I think and feel?  Am I saying that I like to read between the lines and see the big events that might be affecting us all (the government is looking for small change down the sofa)?  Am I saying that I like to use the heuristics I have gathered over the years to think economically?  Am I saying that I think people like Carne Ross (apostate diplomat) are right?  Change in UK will not start in Whitehall. It will start at street-level with small matters, with whatever we care about executed, not an angry, contested manner (even when that is concealed under do-goodery), but in a respectful, collaborative manner that demonstrates democracy in the minute detail?  Am I saying that I like Web2.0 (blogs etc) because they minimally give me a neat place to store my thoughts and writings and a place where others can read them if they choose?

And having cleared my mind, I can get back to work, because work is like hoovering the carpet – it’s not much fun but the results are pleasant.

And for every moment I spend doing work that matters, I might be building a foundation for future solidarity.  And from there we might find solutions to build a Britain fit for the next 50 years.

So here ends my thoughts on where we are psychologically in making sense of the financial crisis using the well known heuristic of the grief cycle – denial/not us,anger/blame, depression/loss of direction, bargaining/magical thinking, action/affection.  The kernel of your good temper is Britain’s future.

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言者不如知者默
此语吾闻于老君
若道老君是知者
缘何自著五千文

dú lǎo zi

yán zhě bù zhī zhī zhě mò
cǐ yǔ wú wén yú lǎo jūn
ruò dào lǎo jūn shì zhī zhě
yuán hé zì ruò wǔ qiān wén

Reading Lao Zi

Speak person not know know person silent
This saying I hear from old gentleman
If Way old gentleman be know person
Reason what confident five thousand characters

Reading Lao Zi

Bai Juyi

Those who speak do not know, those who know are silent,
I heard this saying from the old gentleman.
If the old gentleman was one who knew the way,
Why did he feel able to write five thousand words?

Published Version

This poem is volume (juàn) 455, no. 1 in the Complete Tang Poems (quán táng shī).

My Source

Mark Alexander who has a book available at GBP 7.99.

MY CORRECTIONS

I am not a Chinese-speaker. Nor do I have a copy of the original poem. But I think there may be mistakes in the Chinese at the top. I have corrected the characters in three places.

言者不知, 知者默.
此语我闻于老君.
若道老君是知者,
缘何自若五千文?

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None Found

Psychologists spend a lot of time wondering situations like these where we just cannot gather the will power to do something – or when we appear to procrastinate. Sports people have simpler explanations.

• Are we trying to take charge of a game?
• Do we have some energy and pace?
• Are we paying attention to what needs to be done right now?

Or alternatively:

• Have I thought through what it means to have a winning day (rather than just a day)?
• What do I need to do right now (rather than what others need me to do)?
• Am I enjoying focusing all my attention on the task of the moment?

Knowing these questions probably won’t make me better friends with my phone when I am woken before I am ready to wake up but it sure makes planning my week a lot more fun.

• What is winning to me?
• What needs my attention right now?
• Am I enjoying this?

I hope these questions help you turn some tiresome weeks into weeks that are easier and more enjoyable.

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I am sure you have noticed that when you set a goal, and measure your progress, you tend to achieve your goal. And much more quickly and easily than you expected at the start.

You can look at the science; but try the wise words of poet Goethe

I can point you to much published literature on goal-setting showing the effects of goal-setting. But why when German poet, Goethe, already said the same, and so much more beautifully.

Until one is committed,
there is hesitancy,
the chance to draw back,
always ineffectiveness

Concerning all acts of initiative and creation,
there is one elementary truth
the ignorance of which kills countless ideas
and splendid plans:

that the moment one definitely commits oneself,
then providence moves too.

All sorts of things occur to help one
that would never otherwise have occurred.

A whole stream of events
issues from the decision,
raising in one’s favor
all manner of unforeseen incidents,
meetings and material assistance
which no man could have dreamed
would have come his way.

Whatever you can do or dream you can,
begin it.

Boldness
has genius, power and magic in it.

Begin it now.

Goethe

A goal is what you are already working on right now and you committed to finishing

A goal is simply what you are so determined to finish that you have already started.

Even though you don’t have all the resources and know-how you need, you are so keen that you got started anyway.
What are you actually working on at the moment?

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I do not love you as if you were a salt rose, or topaz
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
So I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Not to get to psychologically geeky on you but when love straightforwardly, without complexities and pride – isn’t that when we experience flow, mindfulness and even universe conspiring to help us . . .

Pablo Neruda  Nobel Prize

Neruda’s work cannot be out of copyright yet.  Does anyone know where this was published and where it is available for sale.? At least we should have links up but if you own the copyright, please advise what you would ike us to do.

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“You who asked for advice, listen: When the tower
falls, be like that child. Laugh so loud everybody
in the world frowns and says, “Shhhh.”"

A delightful little poem to make you smile.

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• For those dogged moments when we just have to get things done
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• Live the questions now. Live your way into the answer.
• No 1 Ladies Detective Agency
• Deciding what you want to do is the really hard part, doing it is easy
• The ups and downs of the Hero's story
• Pleasure, engagement and meaning for a good life
• putting Humpty back together again – the psychologist's challenge

I’ve only lived in Europe for 4 years. In a new economy, that is a sizeable chunk of time.  Here it is nothing.  Surrounded by old buildings and reminders of a long history, everyone is acutely aware of their insignificance.  To the ear of a new arrival, there seems to be a lot of complaining.  And the constant whine is not a figment of our imagination.  Academics have constructed massive theories about the anomie of Europeans, the malaise of hopelessness, and the prevalent sense that someone powerful makes our lives a misery.

What is fun about living in a highly developed country?

There is another reading of life here that I find more useful.

Being a small part of a large system is invigorating when our understanding of the part we play brings alive our sense of our relationships with other people. The need to tell our story to the strangers around us sharpens our wits as we retell the same story for their appreciation.  And we are drawn into the present as we attend mindfully to changes the ripple across the land.

• A part implies a whole and a complex whole implies relationships in every direction.  What could be more fascinating for the social animals we are?
• A stranger needs a quick explanation and often not in words. A courtesy on the underground melds our story with others and is instantly recognizable to them.
• The world swirling around us draws us in to fast moving events and draws us to horizons and vistas that are breath taking in our mutual recognition of possibility.

Putting my money where my mouth is

Sitting on a grubby train, it can be difficult, I admit, to be anything but disgusted.  And the impulse to withdrawn into our shell is very strong.  I do try to avoid the trains, I must be honest.

• But what if we thought instead about the wonderful diversity of relationships we have because of our movement.  What would  our commute look like through a filter of “relationships”?
• What if we were interested in the story of the person next to us (including their desire to sleep if that be their story)?
• What if we developed a Sherlock Holmes sense of awareness about who was on the train with us and where they were going? If we knew the fields we pass through so well that we knew when the wild flowers were late and when the birds were hungry (or over fed).

Would we then feel out of sorts, put upon and out of control?

The three ideas from social science which suggest whinging is the wrong way to see the UK

Parts and relationships.  Strangers and stories in gestures.  Swirling activity and vistas suddenly appearing on the horizon.

Those are the powerful concepts that challenge the stories of us as hopeless bit-players in someone else’s romance.