Diversity: Crafting the Questions

In order to conduct a thorough exploration of the Civil Rights System in the Pacific Northwest Region of the US Forest Service, we will be hosting a number of focus groups and dialogue circles. The success of each conversation, and ultimately the project at large, begins with identifying just the right questions to ask.

I propose the following Four Levels of Listening, from Otto Scharmer, as a model which can steer our project team both in the development of questions and in providing us with a shared language to use when planning the process for our focus groups and dialogue circles. Also, this model can help us to assess the depth of the information gleened in each session.

According to Otto Scharmer's work, Theory U, there are four levels of listening. At level one listening I hear you through the filters of my own attitudes and beliefs. As I listen I compare what you are saying with what I already think. I seek to either accept or reject your words based on whether or not they confirm my own judgements. At level one listening, what you say to me does not fit in with what I already believe, I will reject your words and I may even reject you.

At level two listening I have stopped my internal thinking and am simply hearing what you say. Because your words aren't passing through the filter of my own attitudes, I am willing to change my mind based on what you've said. That's why Scharmer calls it the "Open Mind" phase.

At level three listening I have become emotionally hooked on what you are saying. Some how during the course of conversation I experienced an empathetic connection to the words. Now I'm not only listening with an open mind, but an open heart as well. When you're chatting with co-workers at the water cooler, and the conversation switches from football to someone's recent cancer diagnosis, the listening leaps from levels one and two to level three. You can feel the shift in the room. You'll notice that when an entire group shifts to level three, some people will even place their hands on their hearts for a moment.

Level four happens the least frequently but provides the most memorable experience of conversation and connection. When I am in a group and we are all engaged at this depth, I feel like the very forces of creativity and innovation are passing through us. I find that the words which move through me in these moments represent completely new ideas. I'm often startled at the clarity afforded in these moments of being "in the flow" with others.

As we craft our key questions we'll need some questions which specifically target each level. Here's an example:

If we trust the model and agree that the greatest learning occurs at deeper levels of listening, then it becomes strategically important to drive the group toward conflict and debate (level two) in order to reach levels three and four.

What do you think? What are the really hard questions? What sorts of debates stand between our intention and our collective learning?

Meta-Communication

The saturation of the World Wide Web with infinite volumes of content along with new web-based communication services such as Twitter, FaceBook, MySpace, Blogs, Wikis, etc. have resulted in a whole new order and organization for information and communication.

We have landed at an entirely new level of communication which I think of as Meta-Communication. It is now possible to share a real time connection with hundreds of friends and associates. This new found capacity is transforming the very fabric of society and the rules of socialization.

Entirely new heights of collaboration, coordination, and integration are possible. Technology has fostered a leap in our social consciousness. While younger generations and early adapters value the breadth, speed, and volume of mass communication; late adapters balk at the lack of depth and authenticity and some may never join cybersociety.

Government: Transparent, Collaborative, Participative

On Friday, along with millions of other federal employees, I received a memo from Obama stating that government shall be transparent, collaborative, and participative. This is very exciting news and promises to maximize social media, such as blogging. Of course, everyone has heard by now that Obama is also the first blogging president.

Conceptually, I really support and understand the idea of things becoming more transparent, collaborative, and participative. I'll admit I'm not an expert at most social media platforms, but I consider myself an early adopter. I'm taking time to become more familiar because this seems to be the way of things. But, as open and adaptive as I like to think I am, I'm still experiencing resistance and confusion around how to fully realize the next era of effective communications.

I'm experiencing uncertainty around a number of big questions. Let's start with transparency. Who exactly should be transparent and how transparent should one be? I love the idea of having close to real time data in line-by-line transactions on the web where any American can go and see how the dollars are being spent. And I love the idea of reading blogs written by executive leaders. In both cases, people don't have to actually read either of these -- simply knowing its available increases the perception of being trustworthy. Let's take the case of Forest Service leaders blogging. I've been advocating this for a couple of years now. I want to hear weekly updates about what the Chief of the Forest Service has been doing, who she met with, what conferences she attended, etc. I want to hear her reflect upon the trends and dynamics she witnessed. I want to feel like I'm sitting in her office when the light bulb clicks on and she realizes that there is a connection between what she saw on Monday and what she felt on Wednesday.

But that's not how blogging is going in the agency. So far it's been very sporadic. The few blogging executives seem to post once every few months and when they write it seems white-washed and safe... like all the other internal publications. It's easy for me to understand why: it's scary to be that open! The reason why transparency builds trust so quickly is that transparency requires vulnerability!

I'm no executive, and there aren't 35,000 employees being reminded that there's a blog they could check out. Yet I'm still experiencing fear and resistance around this new media. Intuitively I know that we humans are striving to actualize new forms of networked intelligence and collective consciousness. I know that my own knowledge is only as valuable to the collective as it is accessible to the collective. And yet I am having a miniature identity crisis in the process of making myself accessible to the collective!

All in one week I've been asked if I had a FaceBook profile... by a professional contact, a spiritual friend, and my sister-in-law. I don't have a FaceBook profile because I can't figure out how to relate to each of these three kinds of contacts as myself. My sister-in-law could care less about the professional jargon-laiden side of my life. And my colleagues could be uncomfortable if exposed to something about my spiritual beliefs. What's really ironic is that I want to just be one person! I want to feel safe being who I am... without that jeopardizing my effectiveness.

But in order to be an active participant in this vibrant and dynamic web of connection, community, and co-creation, I absolutely must put myself out there. And if I want to feel whole and honor my whole self, should I put it all out there? I must not be the only person who is trying to balance all of this.

I believe that it is a travesty of human experience that we are discouraged from being our entire selves in the work place. It is yet another form of fragmentation which needs to be healed in order for us to achieve our highest potentials as individuals and groups. I advocate for a balance in the 5 dimensions of well-being: mental, physical, spiritual, emotional, and social. Emotional wellbeing, for example, finally entered the workplace in a more meaningful way when Daniel Goleman's work on emotional intelligence became popular in the mid 1990s. Physical wellbeing has been supported by employers for considerably longer because of the clear linkages between health and productivity. Mental wellbeing is an unspoken requisite for becoming and remaining employed. Social wellbeing is left to the individuals and differs greatly depending on personality types and the culture of the organization. Spiritual wellbeing is generally not touched by a 10 foot pole within organizations. There are good reasons for (and plenty of scar tissue around) the separation of church and state.

I don't really have a good way to conclude this post... other than owning the fact that I'm standing on the edge of a precipice and I won't be able to lead others into a new era of effective communication until I'm willing to leap into the uncertainty myself.

Be a Good Neuron - Start a Blog

The Forest Service, like so many organizations, is struggling to find ways to communicate more effectively. At present we're relying on emails, newsletters, intranet sites, meetings, and conference calls. We're innundated by irrelevant information in our inboxes so often that in order to survive we have to tune most of it out. Then we miss the pieces of news which were really crucial.

For the past 100 years the agency has gone through phases of both centralization and decentralization. The next phase of development is struggling to emerge - networked intelligence. My good friend and colleague Faye Fentiman says "intelligence is widely distributed in organzations - one brain per person." Each brain has an amazing depth of unique knowledge which is currently only barely tapped.

Think of it this way. There are 35,000 hard drives each with huge volumes of information, but none of them are networked. There's no way to Google a topic and find anything valuable because each hard drive is encased inside a skull and there are no wires connecting them. Some people call it a knowledge management issue, others call it a communications issue.

There may not be wires from my head to yours, but there are connections and channels of information and influence between individuals. They're called relationships. The more trust and commraderie between two people, the more freely they share their knowledge. The collection of relationships throughout the agency are social networks.

True networked intelligence requires a healthy and vibrant web of interconnected social networks which allow for the unimpeded flow of knowledge throughout the organization. What's interesting to me is that intelligence within one brain also requires a network, a neural network. In your brain there are neurons which fire electrical impulses. Think about your mom for a minute. Everything which comes to mind about your mom can be called a thought construct. Each thought construct is a network of neurons which fire in tandem while you are thinking about that topic. These neural networks, like all networks, are self-organizing. That means that sometimes you can spontaneously realize there is a connection between two or more formerly separate thought constructs. When that happens we describe it as a light bulb going off in our heads, which is fitting since the neurons connect via electricity. When you get a new idea or insight it is said to look like a lightning storm in your brain - it's the flash of thousands of neurons firing in conjunction for the first time - the birth of a new neural network.

If I record my ideas, theories, experiences, knowledge, etc. in my blog and if others do the same, then by Googling I can find and connect with other people around the topics which interest us. Over time as these connections multiply, a network is born. In the knowledge management world it's called a Community of Practice.

The Forest Service is only just entering the world of Social Media. We can Wiki, and executive leaders can blog. I've recently heard that blogging will open up to any employee, provided the supervisor agrees to monitor the blog. I'm choosing to blog outside the fire wall now, and when the opportunity arises, I'll have a duplicate blog on the inside. The reason I think it's important to do both is that I want to participate in dialogue both internally as well as with my external peers.

Even if no one ever reads these posts, it's helpful to me to process and record information in this way.