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Cognitive Edge - Guest Blog

From Richard LallemanDecember 21 2008

In order to graduate with an MSc in Information and Knowledge Management I was required to submit a research dissertation. This research acknowledges that knowledge management is a cross-disciplinary practice with strong links to organizational learning and complexity theory. Organizational learning is the process that enables an organization to adapt to change and move forward by acquiring new knowledge. Complexity theory is the theory that argues that acquiring new knowledge evolves through the cognition in human organizations. So, to compete and be innovative in a fast-moving environment, organizations should enhance organizational learning by understanding the strength of cognition. Managing this cross-disciplinary practice requires a new form of leadership and therefore the research discovered crucial leadership behavior and generated evidence of how leadership behavior enhances organizational learning.

First, the research was undertaken to develop a theory and model on how to enhance the creation of knowledge in organizations through leadership behavior. This theory and model did not aim to give the leader a description of only one particular leadership behavior. New opportunities and problems should be seen in its social context. Therefore it was important to develop a theory and model that kept the identified leadership behavior in its social context. In this respect, the model adapted two frameworks for understanding the social context and one framew

GUEST BLOG OPENDecember 17 2008

The guest blog is now open to contributions from anyone, including past guests. Details in the header on the front page of the web site

Until We Meet AgainDecember 14 2008

This guest blog has been a great example of self-organizing process for me. At least at my intrapersonal scale, it has set all three of the (necessary and sufficient) conditions for self-organizing in human systems. The space and time established a container that held my attention and focus. My various experiences and parsing of sense-making differences established the potential energy for change. Finally, the conversations I described and reflection coupled with writing completed the conditions for active self-organizing pattern formation. Container, difference, and exchange forming similarities, differences, and relationships that have meaning across space and time. Given the sensitivity to initial conditions, nonlinear causality, high-dimensionality, and massively entangled boundaries in which we all live, these same patterns will never emerge again in exactly the same way. And still, their emergent process and the patterns they formed will persist. They have been fun and illuminating for me. Hope the same is true for you. Please do stay in touch. Visit the website. Visit our social networking site. Send your email, and we’ll put you on the HSD Institute mailing list. Keep talking. Keep learning. Keep teaching back in this time of yeasty learning and discovery about complex human systems dynamics. Thanks, Dave. Thanks, Dawn. Thanks, All

Is Dominance a Difference that Makes a Difference?December 13 2008

I’m curious these days about dominance, its role in human systems, and its function in complex adaptation. In an intervention today, I was working with a male supervisor of an all-female team. As I watched them interact in a formal, conflict resolution conversation, I became painfully aware of his unconscious—and incredibly powerful—dominant behaviors. I watched the women react and heard them give feedback about everything except those specific signals of power and control. I then realized that I may do the same. Sometimes I unintentionally send signals to claim or maintain my position. Sometimes I react unconsciously to the signals sent by others. Of course there are other times where I consciously and/or intentionally choose a dominant or subservient stance, but I only worry about those when I don’t do it well. The situation that really challenges me is the one in which I participate in patterns of which I am not aware. Perhaps that is what it means to be part of a dominant culture, but what function does such an asymmetry serve in the complex adaptation, self-organizing, emergent process of social structuration? Is it necessary, or is it an historical artifact that we can and should abolish for the survival of the human race?

So, what about accountability?December 12 2008

Recently many of my conversations have focused on accountability. Sometimes the context is management of a complex project in an unpredictable landscape. Sometimes it is demonstration of outcomes and impacts for international programs to shift massively complex patterns such as nutrition and livelihood. Sometimes, it is simply a prickly relationship between a supervisor and a technical professional. Sometimes it is a new resident in the White House and his retinue. Unpredictability makes accountability a problematic concept in complex systems, especially ones that are recognized to be adaptive or self-organizing. If you don’t know what an outcome will be, how do you hold self or others accountable to produce a result? At the HSD Institute, we think of three different kinds of accountability in complex systems. One is the traditional kind of accountability. It is possible—even advisable—when a system is in a relatively stable state. Examples in my experience include safety regulations, assembly line production, auto repair, logistics, and construction. Even as I write these, I am aware that practitioners in each of these fields would challenge the predictability of their domains, nevertheless: • Change is slow. • Parts are tightly coupled to each other. • Causality is linear or simply nonlinear. • Boundaries are relatively impermeable and clear. • Diversity is limited. • Degrees of freedom are low. • Part, whole, and greater wh