Author: s1tecur8r

Ideas to Ideals – the citizen SBI story

Principles and approaches behind the Citizen SBI story – what made such a large scale deep change intervention practical and doable in the context of a large nation-wide organization.

Talk given at the conference on Igniting the genius within organized by International School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad. October

[embedyt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1fLmr5b6fY&t=4s[/embedyt]

Cognitive Empowerment (old)

How does ‘cognition’ enable or disable us? What does it mean to be empowered or disempowered at a cognitive level? How can ‘cognitive empowerment’ unleash individuals, the organizations they work in, institutions, the nation? An exploration into ‘cognitive empowerment’, with the Illumine Team.
Talk given to the Illumine Team, February 2015

[embedyt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UFpZISndew&t=518s[/embedyt]

The role of educators and administrators in preparing students for the future

There is almost unanimous agreement that our educational system can no longer afford to perpetuate the past. Our teachers can actively build the momentum for change by embracing a new role-vision. Find out how teachers can widen their roles such that students are “awakened” to create a better future for all concerned.

Talk given to Principals at the National Fiji Principals Association Conference, May 2016

Combining Craft with Scale– The notion of Integrity to Method

World-class knowledge organizations attempt to address a unique dichotomy – between great pride of personal craft and demonstrable logistical/ service delivery assurance.

The dichotomy between knowledge craft and delivery assurance is non-trivial. Craft is born of the personal. Assurance of the impersonal. Integrating the personal and impersonal into a single “whole” is not possible without a complete transcendence of both.

How does this transcendence – leading to integration of the personal and impersonal actually take place?

The answer lies in the concept of “Integrity to Method”.

“Integrity to Method” is the master idea of a scalable, world-class knowledge organization. It represents the integration of a “way” into the warp and weft of one’s work and life context.

“Integrity to Method” is the essence of the entire scientific community and its long term capacity to include and evolve globally – across cultures, motives, and contexts.

What is “Integrity to Method” in terms of day-to-day action?

“Integrity to Method” represents not adherence to process but adherence to model. In any “model of living” lies inherently a set of sustainability measures. Identifying those sustainability measures and ensuring that all actions support and reinforce the model and its success, is the key task of the leader – from the business success point of view.

The notion of an enabling economy

While the production roles in an economy are well understood, the enabling roles of the economy are not well understood, and in fact, many of the enabling roles have themselves become production roles instead of remaining enabling roles. The challenge before us is how do we create systems that combine economic value-addition along with enablement of the individual.

The two building block ideas (i) socio-economic deliverables having two kinds of value (economic and enablement value), and (ii) enabling systems which look at creating both economic value-addition combined with enablement of the individual, together point to a new vision of the enabling economy.

Let us understand this idea a little differently. The more industrialized a country gets, the more production and value-addition capacity an economy creates at a scale level, the more we will face a situation of ‘growth without jobs’. Technology innovations such as AI, for example, may relentlessly replace human activity so that productivity improves without corresponding growth in jobs.

Yet we see even in industrialized nations, a huge number of ‘vacancies’ in enabling roles such as childcare, healthcare, personal counseling, etc.

All these enabling roles have high enablement value but often very low economic (and in some cases societal) value, leading to these roles being played by individuals who seek to ‘serve’ or earn a little extra, or individuals less ‘qualified’ for more value-adding activities.

This happens primarily because of a blind spot in the collective mind that places a greater price-tag on economic value than on enablement value.

Similarly, in the Indian context, we find that there are a range of enabling roles – some of them physical enablement, functional enablement, knowledge enablement, (such as nurses, physiotherapists, gym trainers, household help, etc. etc.), all of which provide help in various ways to other human beings.

Put another way, an economy has two types of roles

While the production roles in an economy are well understood, the enabling roles of the economy are not well understood, and in fact, many of the enabling roles have themselves become production roles instead of remaining enabling roles. And the reason for this is because we know and understand economic systems, the importance of economic value-addition, and the relative importance of various roles within these systems, while we do not know much about, nor do we understand how enabling systems are designed, the importance of enablement value to human beings and to human collectives, and the fact that many enabling roles are not played in society.

Invoking and Sustaining Excellence (old)

1.0 In almost every community we have worked with or visited, there has been one common problem, one theme, that has run through all developmental efforts.  The problem of excellence.  A company seeks to introduce Quality Programs, people ask why.  A leader wants her team to learn more and adapt to new technologies, people silently resist it.  A government seeks to lay out an exciting vision of global leadership, people (in their minds!) wonder if it is possible.

2.0 In other words, people are finding it difficult to relate abstract ‘good ideas’ like excellence, quality, faith, growth, achievement with the day-to-day personal and professional concerns that constitute their lives.

3.0 On deeper thought, it can be seen that the same issues underlie the problems faced by three distinct groups of people (i) those who are seeking to build superior institutions, (ii) those who are seeking to compete better, or (iii) those who are simply trying to question and challenge the status quo in their individual areas of endeavour.

4.0 What is the bridge between excellence and one’s own life? It appears that the bridge cannot be “external motivation” but is “internal motivation”.

5.0 Put another way, one become excellent because one chooses to be excellent. When one chooses to be excellent, the result is an interest in all things associated with excellence.

6.0 When do individuals choose excellence in their lives? When they see the relationship between quality of output and significance of life, when they recognize the meaning of performance, and when they come to recognize that learning and growing is an end in itself.

7.0 What then is the “trigger” that enables individuals to embark as this cycle of growth and excellence?

8.0 The trigger appears to be an encounter with quality: when individuals come face to face with people or situations or events where the value of great performance, of raw professional competence, of true meaningful effort, becomes obvious to them.  This encounter could be with role models or aspirational figures, with people who are known to have excelled, or even with powerful books or films.  The important thing is the encounter. But the encounter is not enough.

9.0 What is also needed is reflection, (the availability of conceptual models and frameworks of learning that allow these encounters to be truly assimilated)

10.0 Equally important is the necessity of practice. The opportunity to test and refine ones own understanding withinn the warp and weft of real world action. Put another way, there must be at least one or more “zone of excellence” in one’s life where one is willing to make the choices and sacrifices needed to encounter and realize excellence.

11.0 Finally, what is also needed is a group of people who are willing to provide the moorings for the emotional and self-esteem related changes that such a journey involves – the enabling environment.

12.0 Putting these four elements together – the encounters, the tools and models for reflection, the opportunities for translating these ideas into action, and the enabling environment of role-models – constitutes the ingredients of excellence in human systems.

13.0 Most important, these four elements – the presence of encounters, the opportunities and models for reflection, the availability of “zone of excellence” and the presence of an enabling psycho-social environment – are seen to be mutually reinforcing if we seek sustainable interest in human excellence from ourselves and our people.