Thought stream

by Robert Perrine

11 January 2009 - Checking Reality

Profits mask the ailments that stress will reveal.

Weak management skills suffice when profit is easy.

The stresses endured by the poor on a daily basis would break those unaccustomed to such hardships.

09 January 2009 - Change

We resist change.

Today in the United States people resist going through a six month training program to do data entry work because the effort seems to outweigh the benefits.

Today in India people go through college and earn Master's Degrees so that they can do data entry work.
The perceived cost is low and the perceived benefit is high.

Today Christians in some countries are martyred.
Today Christians in other countries avoid going to church because it interfers with their recreational activities.
To the martyr, the cost is low and the benefit is high.
To the affluent, the cost of loosing an hour of leisure time outweighs the benefit of community fellowship.

08 January 2009 - Proxmimity

Our ability to agree is related to how close we already are to a common understanding.

Our ability to learn is related to how far we are from a common understanding.

The less likely it is that we will agree, the more likely it is that we can learn.

07 December 2008 - Banishment

Firing an employee.
Divorce.
Imprisonment.
Capital punishment.
These are all implementations of BANISHMENT.

Separation is a human condition and a human anxiety.
The separation from God told in Genesis is a key theme.
The Laws of Moses describe the conditions for acceptance into that society.
Our rules and regulations today describe the conditions for acceptances into modern society.

Questions:
Do we have the right to banish?
Under what conditions?
Towards what end?
Why does the United States today have such a large percentage of the population in prison?

06 December 2008 - Perspective

The atmosphere that we live in interferes with our vision. The reason the Hubble telescope was put into space was to get it above the atmosphere so that it would be possible to more clearly see distant objects.

We also live in an atmosphere of relationships and perceptions. We have a difficult time seeing our society because it is a distant object and the disturbances around us distort our view.

23 November 2008 - Priority

The US Government is about to release a forecast of global growth and global crises that we will see between now and 2025. Humanity will face crises over resources including water, food, power, pollution and materials. We can solve all of those technical problems.

The highest priority for humanity now is to learn to cooperate.

A crises can either divide or unify. If we each seek our own best interest, then we will be in conflict. If we learn to seek the best interest of humanity, then we can unify.

22 November 2008 - Perspective

Cartoons and movies personify natural objects.
This creates an anthro-centric perspective.
In the same way that Galileo challenged the earth centric view of the universe,
we need to challenge the anthro-centric view of creation.

The easiest way to appeal to people is to tell them what they want to hear.
We want to be the center of our universe.

The universe is a vast creation.
The earth is a vast ecosystem.
Humanity is on the earth with responsibilities to the earth.
We are tiny aspects of humnity.

16 November 2008 - We feel the separation

We do not fit.
  • This is a common observation found throughout all history.
  • The triad of Judiasm, Christianity and Islam attribte this condition to the fall described in Genesis.
  • Phychology strives to resolve the perception and diminish the anquish.
  • But this is a natural condition with roots in our genetics and our environment.

We elevate ourselves.
  • The concept of Liberation Theology is that some people set themselves above others and allow poverty to continue. A person with a conscious can only allow suffering to continue if he or she blocks out their perception of the suffering.
  • The typical representation of nature in fiction today projects human characteristics onto nature. This denies the differences and makes the human perspective supreme.
  • The key theme in the first chapters of Geneis is that humanity is superior to everything else in creation. The statement that God created humanity in God's image is a reversed projection. We humans project our thoughts and expectations onto our understanding of God and thus limit God.

We do not know utopia.
  • We are all different. Creative people struggle with rigid order. Others grate when their lives of order are disrupted. There is no one arrangement that will satisfy all.
  • More importantly, most utopian literature only considers the human perspective and neglects the conflictual perspectives of the other species that share this planet.
  • But acknowledging the difficulty of the problem does not excuse us from seeking the solution.

11 November 2008 - Community knowledge

Science requires that all knowledge must be personally acquirable.
Every fact known to science must be reproducible by any person who has access to the right technology.
Given enough time, any person can reproduce every scientific experiment known to humanity.

Religion is socially defined.
The religious experiences any of us encounter cannot be reproduced at will by anyone else.
Regardless of the amount of time or effort,
no one person can reproduce even a fragment of the total religious experiences reported to humanity.
Thus, religion is not personal knowledge, but social knowledge that can only be constructed by a group.
We sip from the collected wisdom.

There is a misunderstanding when we judge religion with the tools we use to judge science.

09 November 2008 - Systems view

The best way to respond to a strong army is with rust.
The best way to change a firm opinion is with time.

The world is a system.
Evil that is input into this system can be propogated, amplified or dampened.
The only way to decrease evil is to dampen it.
Responding to an injustice with reciprocity propogates evil.
Responding to an injustice with force amplifies the evil.
The only way to decrease evil is to dampen it.

21 May 2008 - 31 days

On 21 April 2008 I began frantically trying to explain the concept of Love and Dissonance. On that first day I created a brief PowerPoint presentation to outline the concept. I uploaded that and then started writing. The entire structure was in my mind all at once and I had to write quickly before I lost it. As I finished each article in the series that article faded and the next article filled my mind. I finally finished writing two days ago and tonight I uploaded the full work as both a PDF and HTML onto my web site at http://www.RobertPerrine.biz.

If you browse that work I would love to hear your feedback.

06 May 2008 - Another Executive Briefing

I attended an executive briefing a few days ago and saw the slide show describing the best practices implemented in that location. As usual the slides are wonderful. As usual, the people in that company do not follow any of the processes that their executives described. What I have come to understand is that best practices are just a check box that people need to acknowledge. They really have no interest in doing the work, they just want someone to give them a nice bundle of templates so that they have one of each.

There are two responses to this culture. I could start selling templates and make money off their ignorance. Or, I can work with companies to help them understand that they really want to build only what they need and only when they need it. I like the second approach. I find, however, that my clients are surprised that I do not want to sell templates. Then they are even more surprised to find that I expect them to do the work of creating their own templates. That, however, is the only way that it has meaning.

If we remember the ancient technique of transitioning from apprentice to journeyman to master. The skill that converts a journeyman into a master is the ability to create the tools that you use in order to create tools for others. The skill I want to transfer to my clients is the ability to create their own tools. If they can do that then they will have mastery of the subject. My goal is to make myself obsolete.

01 May 2008 - Aligning

This is a continuation from yesterday's posting. The theme is "aligning". I believe that a team that is aligned is self-motivated and self-directed. If we hold meetings and agree on actions then we are collaborating. If, however, we act in unison and then hold meetings to confirm our continued agreement then we are aligned. As a team, this is the performing stage. Sometimes I hear this referred to as empowering. And when you feel comfortable enough to turn people loose and trust that they are so well aligned with your goals that you no longer need to be there then the team is performing.

To clarify, alignment is a style of conflict resolution where we hear each other and want to find a solution because we care. When we are aligned then we manage ourselves. The expectation is that you are aligned with the goals of the company. The expectation is that you are concerned about the good of the team and the department and the company.

In my view this is what the One Minute Manager books refer to as delegating. The problem I have with that term is that it is so widely misused that I do not know if it can be salvaged. Today when someone says they delegated a task I typically sense that they either mean they adopted a smoothing or forcing style of conflict resolution and now they do not want to hear any dissonance. That type of delegating is actually deadly. The person who will judge the results is disengaged and thus free to deny responsibility and yet still free to critique.

The grid I am using contains three dimensions. Aligning is high in dissonance and high in compassion or love. It is also high in energy. And yet, from the times I have felt like my efforts were aligned and from the times when I have lead a team that was performing, the results are almost effortless. So the question is why does it feel effortless when it really takes a lot of energy? My answer is to compare alignment with collaboration.

Everyone needs to work to hold collaboration together and overcome the friction. With alignment you work less because the team is already going in the right direction. And the team works less because they do not spend time struggling against the process. We can collaborate and compromise when people are still not fully aligned. When we collaborate we need to spend time every week to clarify the goals and help everyone learn. And we need to repeat some explanations because the concepts are difficult to grasp. Once grasped then we will spend less time explaining. And once these processes are understood and aligned we can spend even less time in weekly status checks.

30 April 2008 Team Formation

I had an email asking that I clarify what I mean when I refer to a management style of "aligning". To answer that question I am going to first describe the team formation process in terms of dissonance, antagonism and effort. Please refer to the diagram, shown below. Then in my next posting I will come back to a better definition of aligning.

FIrst, let me clarify my terminology. Dissonance is our tolerance for differences and our willingness to hear each other. We need dissonance but we learn to tune it out. We confuse necessary dissonance with unnecessary distractions. Antagonism is compelling or forcing. It is friction. The opposite of antagonism is love, or compassion or concern. The third factor is energy. Energy is an indicator of the amount of work we put into the effort.

Next, I need to ensure we have the same terminology when I describe the team formation process. Team formation styles were identified about forty years ago by Bruce Tuckman. Here is a list of references on that topic:

Forming is the time when we treat each other formally. Everyone acts politely and there is no disagreement. Every time we add a new person to a team we go back to forming and start over again.Storming is the time when we are trying to find our place and set our boundaries. There is disagreement and there is lots of friction but little of this is helpful. Norming is when we all agree to listen to each other and try to cooperate. The transition from storming to norming is not discrete. Sometimes we are really compromising and sometimes we are confronting as we oscillate between storming and norming until we finally settle comfortably into norming.

Performing is rare. Very few groups make it out of norming and into performing. It was only when I put these onto a grid with dissonance and antagonism that I understood why. We want to tune out the disagreements or stifle them or pretend they do not exist. To reach performing we need to be open to all of the concerns from everyone on the team. Some of us learn how to use force, anger and antagonism to get our way and we do not want to turn loose of a tool that seems so useful. Some of us learn to tune down the antagonism and focus on "getting along" with others. But it is rare for a team to go beyond an effort to reduce antagonism and switch to an effort to increase love. It is love, compassion, concern and care that allow us to go fromnorming to performing.

29 April 2008 Conflict Resolution Styles

Someone asked that I clarify my presentation on conflict resolution styles. This is a reference to one of the slides I have posted on my web site at http://www.RobertPerrine.biz. That particular slide is clarified in the following diagram.

There are six conflict resolution styles on this diagram.

Forcing is also known as directing or commanding. One person makes the decision. Subordinates may have opinions but those opinions are not requested or desired. Thus the amount of discussion (dissonance) is low. The implied use of force is high. In the military failing to obey an order has immediate repercussions. In corporations we go through HR paperwork but the end result is that people who do not follow directions are forced to change their behaviors or find another job.

Smoothing is low in noise because we simply disengage from the conversation. Smoothing is also low in force because we just capitulate. We do this sometimes with our boss, our spouse or a teenager where the resistance is something we are just not in the mood to deal with and we chose to just let them do what they want rather than get into what could be a heated discussion. Thus, we disengage from the discussion and we disengage from the argument. When we act like there is nothing wrong then this is smoothing.

If, however, we disengage from the conversation but continue the battle then this is really just an armed truce. The "silent treatment" is a battle of wills - high in force and high in disagreement. This style of conflict maintenance is known as Withdrawing.

Confronting is known as participation or collaboration. For a group to collaborate everyone needs to listen. If we ask for everyone's opinion and then tell them we are going to do it our way anyway then that is forcing, not confronting. We cannot force anyone to do it our way so that implies that the use of force is low. We must listen to all the opinions so the dissonance or noise is high.

Compromise is also known as cooperation. We agree to do something that no one is completely satisfied with so this means we have agreed to stop the discussion even though we are not finished. And to hold the agreement together we are all compelled to do things in a way that we do not think is optimal. Thus we acknowledge the unresolved dissonance and we are all subjected to a bit of force and, in turn, we all use our own force to hold the compromise together.

The sixth style of conflict resolution is alignment. We all have a common objective and we act without anyone telling us what to do. The One Minute Manager calls this delegating. The problem is that most people think that delegating just means smoothing. Or they think that delegating is just a remote controlled form of forcing. Alignment is high in discussion and invites differences in opinion. Alignment dissolves when force is applied. Alignment grows when people sense compassion, concern and love.

What do you think? Does this explanation clarify the diagram? Does this make sense?

28 April 2008 Demonstrating Love in your project

I had two conversations in the past couple days that converge to a common theme. One friend and I were talking about a training program. One of the programs that he put together has come into hard times lately and I offered my opinion that the environment had changed. I perceive less commitment from some of the teachers and this creates a feedback cycle with less commitment from the students reinforcing the instructors behavior. My friend has moved on and has another assignment and now he is trying a different tactic. He now accepts the student's desire to be entertained and he leverages that to get them involved in the learning.

Another friend and I were talking about a project where his team was struggling to get closure on the project schedule. I consider him a natural at understanding the need to dampen the antagonism and repeat the communication until the message is heard. In other words he naturally understands the need to work with dissonance, antagonism and energy. What he did this time, however, was really interesting. He turned the project meeting into a game. He was surprised at how well it worked. We talked about it and then looked at my diagram. In my opinion, the effort he put into creating this game was a gift to the team. He demonstrated his love for the team by spending hours of his time to make this interesting for them.

Both friends have taken indifference and antagonism and turned it around by demonstrating their compassion and love. Both friends paid attention to the dissonance and acknowledged the disconnect between their audience and their previous attempts. I learned from these conversations.

And, interestingly, my mental model of love and dissonance is holding up so far when challenged by the real world.

27 April 2008 Conflictual disagreement

I downloaded the Librivox recording of Thoreau's book On the Duty of Civil Disobedience. Thoreau has been an influential figure for about one hundred and sixty years. As I listen to him now I hear his themes of resistance and disobedience in a different way. Martin Luther King, Jr. would disobey laws and go to jail. Thoreau disobeyed laws to make a point. The difference, however, seems to me that King then spoke of his love for his jailers and his belief in the future of our society. Thoreau seems to be antagonistic. What are your thoughts. On a simple graph, like the one shown below, where do you plot the actions of Thoreau and the actions of King? In my opinion, King was opposed (dissonance) and acting with love. In my opinion, Thoreau was opposed (dissonance) and acting with force. Thus I plot King at about 11:00 and Thoreau at about 2:00. What are your thoughts on this?

26 April 2008 - Dialogue

I am finally reading Bohm's book On Dialogue. The question I now ponder is why did Gandhi succeed in India while Buber failed in Israel? Why did King succeed in the USA while Bohm did not? I need to study this.

My hypothesis is that Buber and Bohm were not able to get beyond the disinterest and antagonism to get to dissonance and love. Was it their approach or was it the time? The people of India were ready for Independence. Is anyone in Israel or Palestine truly ready for the hard work required to create peace? The majority of the population were persuaded it was time for desegregation. Is that same population willing to hear about disarmament? Was it only the difficulty of the message they preached or is there something else?

Bohm, King and Buber all say that we are to engage in dialogue. Bohm and Buber are remembered for their words. King is remembered for his actions. Why? What did they do or fail to do?

25 April 2008 Team Formation

Last night I finally unraveled how to express the stages of team formation onto this new grid I am using. The goal is to get to the stage where the team is performing. The natural tendency is to go towards storming and then only slowly move towards norming. With this grid I can see the efforts that are required to get to performing. First, we need to not only stop antagonism, threats and force, but we then need to treat each other with love. Second, we need to become increasingly tolerant of differences. Does this make sense to you?

24 April 2008 Workplace Jujitsu

I have many bosses pulling me in many directions on many projects. When I get conflicting directions it creates a sense of chaos. One boss tells me he wants me to work 40-hours a week on a new project and then spend a few additional hours on some other minor tasks. Another boss says that is all fine, but here is a project that he needs me to coordinate and it should not take more than a few (let's say 10) hours a week. Another boss tells me he wants me to drop all of those tasks and focus exclusively on his project. I ask all of them to get together and figure this out but they do not do so. These are all wonderful people, but I sense chaos.

Chaos implies a high level of dissonance and a high level of force. I like dissonance. I do not like chaos. Thus, the problem must be the application of a force that I do not see. So I think back over some of the conversations and I remember "… of course we could always just transfer you elsewhere." "…well, if you don't like working on this then I will understand." These are wonderful people and yet there is an implicit use of force in each of these conversations.

From what I understand of Jujitsu, the approach is to use the opponents own posture, balance and motion to cause him or her to topple. This concept applies here in that it is my acceptance of the implied use of force that converts this dissonance into chaos. The answer is to release myself from the mental acceptance of coercion.

I am on a journey. This stage of the journey spans from the point where I finished the draft of my book to the point where I will publish this book. I have one boss, and I call him God. I will listen to the dissonance of these conflicting schedules and then laugh. Clearly all of their plans will fail unless they work together to resolve the issue of how to allocate my time. The dissonance will be interesting to enjoy.

From this I hope to learn. I will not allow this chaos to alter my thoughts. The trick is to avoid oscillating between chaos and an anesthetized state. My challenge is to shift from chaos to a transforming state.

23April 2008 A Mental Model

I am opening this blog to solicit feedback on a mental model. The key concept is encapsulated in the following diagram and illustrated in more detail on my web site at http://www.robertperrine.biz