"The problem of the steady change of ideas (or the perpetual need to imagine new ideas) also demolishes the notion that the essence of education consists in mastering certain contents or materials. You are not little birdies sitting in the nest with your mouths open to receive half-digested worms of knowledge regurgitated by the faculty. Education is not about content. It is not even about skills. It is a habit or stance of mind. It is not something you have. It is something you are." So says educator Andrew Abbott. To work towards ‘progressing’ our skills and capacities, as if this was just some kind of iterative and cumulative process - that is, as if we were merely intelligent machines - is a limiting concept.

Sitting last week in a workshop on the theme of ‘design’ I found myself uncomfortable with the tone and tenor of the offering. I realized eventually that the source of this discomfort was the assumption on the part of the workshop facilitator that ‘design’ was a manipulative process, a means of imposing one’s will on the world, of giving the world a shape related to one’s ‘picture’ of how things might be or should be.

I found myself wondering about alternative ways of practicing design which might be less directive and interventionary, which might go with the grain of the world rather than against it. I found myself wondering what alternatives we might use if suddenly the word ‘design’ was denied us, removed overnight from the English language.

If not ‘design’, then, how about:

Appropriate response – In a given context and a given environment, how do I use my skills and the tools available to skillfully respond to a ‘design problem’?

Problem solving – What stands in the way of a skilful outcome, and how can I remove these obstacles?

Biomimickry – Has nature worked on this problem, and if so, what was her answer?

Simplification – Can the elements of this situation be reduced to useful and usable components, suitable for generating core patterns and deep understanding of the more elaborate systems upon which they’re built?

Pattern recognition – As in the ‘simplification’ pathway, can we discern in a welter of data or experience any ‘red thread’ which seems to recur, bind together or give meaning to the whole?

Affective optimization (‘happiness’, ‘freedom’, ‘affiliation’) – What are the elements of the environment in which we’re working that will afford access to the human aspirations which drive affective connections?

Naming/coding/storytelling – Does this situation resonate with our deep need for narratives which give meaning and structure to life?

Knowledge transfer – What kinds of knowledge are appropriate to consider in this situation, and how best might we arrange for knowledge to be transferred from one site (or person) to another?

Social poetics – Can we bring two horizons of meaning (the conceptual worlds of at least two players or agents) into close proximity, such that they inform, provoke, problematise or ‘feed’ each other?

Putting together a coaching bureau is an interesting challenge. I’ve been working on this for some months, gathering together half a dozen friends and colleagues with coaching experience in a group I hope will make a very wide range of expertise available to my customers, Edgies, entrepreneurs in the earliest stages of their business. It’s a challenge because not only should these people implicitly and explicitly understand and accept Edgeware’s DNA - Make money, have fun, change the world - but each should demonstrate a skill set which has ’stand-alone’ value and also particular strengths in one area or another, hence the value of a bureau, a menu of talent and experience from which Edgeware’s customers might benefit.  

And there are subtler intangibles. Edgeware tends to generate a tribality among its customers, I guess because of the camaraderie inspired through its emphasis on the personal journey and social responsibility, the simultaneous looking inwards and outwards, and this familial orientation in turn seems to inspire a need for elders and eldering.

In some Indigenous Australian cultures, pubescent children are raised not by their direct parents but by uncles and aunts. These elders have the same regard for the children as the parents, the same responsibilities, the same drive to protect, guide, nurture and correct, but they’re not Mum and Dad. And so, for Edgeware’s coaches, we seek not only capable and complementary skill sets but also capacity for unclehood and aunthood.

I wonder: who would you choose, if you could, as your uncle or aunt?

I’m pretty new to the world of podcasting, but I found this interview refreshing in that Cameron Reilly, the owner-operator of the G’Day World Podcasting Network, allowed time to really explore and flesh out ideas in a way that other forms don’t tend to allow, in favour of more clipped and sound-grabby formats. I found this particularly useful in trying to discuss the ‘bigger picture’ context for my practice and the Edgeware business generally. People have been telling me for a while that short audio clips are useful ways to communicate, and Cameron’s sold me on this. I plan to be adding some more podcasts to my site, and Edgeware’s as well. Meantime, I highly recommend Cameron and his podcast business to those interested in exploring this compelling, accessible format.

Click on the graphic to listen to the podcast.

Business ethics is an important field for Edgeware because it’s in the ‘change the world’ bit of our DNA.

You don’t ‘adopt’ ethical practices; you can’t operate without ethics, even if you couldn’t name them and you don’t have a code. We make moral judgements all the time and they’re the basis of our actions a lot of the time whether we recognise it or not. The question is: are these good ethics or not so good ethics, is this action which is good or action which is not so good? And this ‘good’ concept, that’s an ethical question itself, right?

People say, ‘My business is my baby’ – and babies can get different parenting. Some parents want their baby to grow up faster, smarter, richer than the other kids, some want them to grow up to be loving, compassionate, generous, maybe even happy; some want all of those things.

I’m interested in the mummies and daddies who want their kids to grow up saying ‘yes’ to three questions: Is what you’re doing sustainable; is what you’re doing meaningful; and is what you’re doing responsible? These are the applications of the Edgeware DNA: Make money (sustainability), Have fun (meaning), Change the world (responsibility).

And consciously ‘good’ ethical practice fits right in there … with the financial bit and also the personal journey.

Here’s a long-ish quote from the Dalai Lama on ethical practice, from Ethics for a New Millennium.

Consider the following. We humans are social beings. We come into the world as the result of others’ actions. We survive here in dependence on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives when we do not benefit from others’ activities. For this reason it is hardly surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others.

Nor is it so remarkable that our greatest joy should come when we are motivated by concern for others. But that is not all. We find that not only do altruistic actions bring about happiness but they also lessen our experience of suffering. Here I am not suggesting that the individual whose actions are motivated by the wish to bring others’ happiness necessarily meets with less misfortune than the one who does not. Sickness, old age, mishaps of one sort or another are the same for us all. But the sufferings which undermine our internal peace — anxiety, doubt, disappointment — these things are definitely less. In our concern for others, we worry less about ourselves. When we worry less about ourselves an experience of our own suffering is less intense.

What does this tell us? Firstly, because our every action has a universal dimension, a potential impact on others’ happiness, ethics are necessary as a means to ensure that we do not harm others. Secondly, it tells us that genuine happiness consists in those spiritual qualities of love, compassion, patience, tolerance and forgiveness and so on. For it is these which provide both for our happiness and others’ happiness.

Smith Magazine invites us to summarise our lives in six words - ‘Six Word Memoirs’. I thought, ‘Easy! I have the Edgeware motto, near enough to six words: make money, have fun, change the world. I could lose the article before "world" and that’s the six.’

Then I looked at the phrase as a ‘memoir’ and it didn’t feel right. It struck me that a motto, or a guiding statement of principle, or a goal, or a home truth, has to chunk things up to get to a seamless, clear whole. Life as it happens to us, though, isn’t chunked up; it’s chunked-down into its messy, fragile, wet, human, contingent moments of experience. The motto is a kind of noun, while ‘life’, the kind of thing a memoir tries to capture, is a kind of verb.

So I turned the Edgeware motto into a set of six action-oriented questions: ‘Make money’ became, "Is it economically sustainable?’; ‘Have fun’ became, ‘Is it personally meaningful?’ and ‘Change the world’ became, ‘Is it socially responsible?’ And that gave me a better handle on the ’six word memoir’life-summary exercise.

And this is the first draft. Earned keep; Smiled often; Behaved honourably. I’m sure it’ll change as I give the exercise more thought, but these concentration/focus/decoction games can be very productive. Don’t you think?
 

Everyone is coaching or being coached; there are life coaches, career coaches, personal coaches, fitness coaches, executive coaches, coaches for getting out of bed in the morning and coaches for getting to sleep at night. Why do we need coaches so much and so often?

Could it be that the old, well-worn and predictable pathways - any path to anywhere and every path to everywhere - are dsiappearing, the maps no longer even remotely relating to the territory? Are coaches our conceptual cartographers?

I’m not a great fan of mind mapping, but I find the mapping analogy for coaching very compelling. I often find myself encouraging my clients to stop (the *stopping* is important, whatever it is that needs to stop) and take notes of their thoughts and feelings; these tend to stream out in a linear, if not strictly logical way. Then I ask them to stop again, that is, stop the linear thought process and take a helicopter view, to rise above and hover over the text they’ve streamed, to imagine the words - and the thoughts and feelings they signifiy - as elements in a landscape, to look for non-linear, associative links. ‘What is this page telling you?’

The words and ideas, these lanscape features, can be seen as part of a map. Maybe it’s a new map, maybe new trails can be broken to link the various new hills, trees, creeks and villages.

I’m fascinated by the emerging field of ‘experimental philosophy‘, where it seems that philosophers are stepping away from their armchairs and using research methods from psychology to tackle philosophical questions.

Like intentionality.

This is interesting enough in itself, but just recently I’ve been pondering some of the ideas I heard expressed and saw practiced in workshops here with my friend and colleague Paul Natorp, from the Kaos Pilots. Paul’s gigs were mainly about ‘creative leadership’, the kind of leadership that is appropriate to innovation and R&D. One of the phrases I heard him use, and one that’s cropped up elsewhere as well, is to ‘hold the space’, to indicate the idea that a leader’s role is to dynamically maintain a kind of framework or DNA in which the process can happen and which helps make it happen. This is a useful idea because the ‘creative leader’ may not know the actual destination or solution, perhaps because the code needed for the solution is not the same code used to identify the problem. There has to be structure but there also has to be elbow room - I’m thinking of a kind of suit, perhaps like Dorothy Heathcote’s ‘mantle of the expert‘.

So this ‘holding the space’ idea has me thinking, and I find myself relating it to recent philosophical experiments on intentionality. To give some idea of what that means, I’ll include two cases, the first (the Harm Case/Help Case) from Joshua Knabe, and the second (the Free-Cup Case and the Extra-Dollar Case) from Edouard Machery. Both were conducted using psychology-style surveys.

Harm Case: The vice-president of a company went to the chairman of the board and said, ‘We are thinking of starting a new program. It will help us increase profits, but it will also harm the environment.’ The chairman of the board answered, ‘I don’t care at all about harming the environment. I just want to make as much profit as I can. Let’s start the new program.’ They started the new program. Sure enough, the environment was harmed. Now ask yourself: Did the chairman of the board intentionally harm the environment? Yes or No?

Help Case: The vice-president of a company went to the chairman of the board and said, ‘We are thinking of starting a new program. It will help us increase profits, and it will also help the environment.’ The chairman of the board answered, ‘I don’t care at all about helping the environment. I just want to make as much profit as I can. Let’s start the new program.’ They started the new program. Sure enough, the environment was helped.  Did the chairman of the board intentionally help the environment? Yes or No?

What’s the difference?

It’s probably unsurprising that most people opt for ‘yes’ in the first scenario, and ‘no’ in the second.

Following through, on Joshua Knabe’s blog, I read that:

"Perhaps, when people are wondering whether or not an agent brought about some effect intentionally, they ask themselves whether or not the agent deserves praise or blame for that effect. That is, they ask themselves whether the person stands to the effect in a relation such he deserves praise if the behavior is good and blame if the behavior is bad."

Interestingly, Knabe also discusses cases in which people’s concept of intentional action is conditioned by some idea of the ’skill’ of an agent. (A dart thrower can claim to be able to hit the Triple-20, but her successful throw is only deemed ‘intentional’ if she was good enough to achieve the target in the first place.)

So our moral sense (which may just be innate, though this seems a contentious point), conditions our understanding - and our practice - of intentionality, of the decision that precedes action.

Now the second of the two experimental philosophy cases, these from Edouard Machery.

The Free-Cup Case

Joe was feeling quite dehydrated, so he stopped by the local smoothie shop to buy the largest sized drink available. Before ordering, the cashier told him that if he bought a Mega-Sized Smoothie he would get it in a special commemorative cup. Joe replied, ‘I don’t care about a commemorative cup, I just want the biggest smoothie you have.’ Sure enough, Joe received the Mega-Sized Smoothie in a commemorative cup. Did Joe intentionally obtain the commemorative cup?  Yes or No?

The Extra-Dollar Case

Joe was feeling quite dehydrated, so he stopped by the local smoothie shop to buy the largest sized drink available. Before ordering, the cashier told him that the Mega-Sized Smoothies were now one dollar more than they used to be. Joe replied, ‘I don’t care if I have to pay one dollar more, I just want the biggest smoothie you have.’ Sure enough, Joe received the Mega-Sized Smoothie and paid one dollar more for it. Did Joe intentionally pay one dollar more? Yes or no?

Again, it’s probably unsurprising that most people answer ‘no’ in the first case, and ‘yes’ in the second, so here we also see ideas of ‘value’ and ‘work’ and even ‘luck’ or ‘fortune’ which seem to condition our view of what is unintentional or intentional, determined or freely willed.

Whichever way we determine intentionality, it seems, the proposition in these experiments - and others - seems to be that we are always constrained in some way by our moral sensitivities and sensibilities, which are contingent values.

Now, to return to the idea of intentionality and ‘holding the space’ …

As I understand it, intentionality is a kind of ‘leaning of the mind’ towards certain kinds of action. It’s an orientation, a location of self relative to others and self relative to situation.

In the moral domain, the domain of the phronimos, this means decision-making which is as aware as possible of the moral-ethical assumptions and prejudices indicated in the philosophers’ scenarios, above, where the decisions of the Chairman of the Board and Joe with his smoothie are seen as subtle and complex and contingent, rooted in a web of signals and meanings and received understandings of the world.

By virtue of the fact that this awareness reveals (or comes closer to revealing) an actual state of affairs, intentionality of this kind (the intentionality of the creative leader) predisposes the self to action which is skilful, by which I mean, action proceeding from reality.

This leaning towards skilfull action is founded on seeing things clearly and experiencing things authentically. So the development of this capacity is, in the first place, the development of the self. This inspires the realisation of the self as a profoundly interconnected and interdependent entity, realised from moment to moment in the phenomenon of being present, of witnessing, of building a bigger container.

A Bigger Container isn’t a thing; awareness is not a thing; the witness is not a thing or a person. There is not somebody witnessing. Nevertheless that which can witness my mind and body must be other than my mind and body. If I can observe my mind and body in an angry state, who is this ‘I’ who observes? It shows me that I am other than my anger, bigger than my anger, and this knowledge enables me to build A Bigger Container, to grow. So what must be increased is the capacity to observe. What we observe is always secondary. It isn’t important that we are upset; what is important is the ability to observe the upset. (Joko Beck, Everyday Zen, p.49)

In ‘holding the space’ the creative leader operates to generate ‘a bigger container’ for herself and also for her team, through the capacity to see reality for what it is (that is, before we append our opinions about it), to see truthfully in the first place, then operate from this place, to sow seeds of insight and awareness which finally yield understanding and compassion.

Practically speaking, what would this look like? How would we know that this is going on in a group, as an outcome of the creative leader’s facilitation? I can think of six indicators.

·         First, there is evidence of deep listening in the group - a sense that every suggestion, every input, is received on its merits, carefully considered and incorporated in the process. This might be characterised by moments of intense, deliberative and focused silence.

·         Second, there is evidence of generative questioning, questions which take into account everything that has taken place and advance the conversation by reframing experience and operating from ‘a bigger container’.

·         Third, there is evidence that emotions are recognised and validated, honouring the value and dynamics of irrational and tacit processes, but not to the extent that emotions confuse or engulf interactions.

·         Fourth, there is laughter which proceeds from insight, which surprises and delights as a result of direct, authentic seeing.

·         Fifth, and related to this point about insight, there are ‘aha!’ moments - instances of clarity, of falling-into-place, a sense that such-an-such was right, correct, sufficient, just so.

 … Mental preparation involving inward focus of attention promotes insight even prior to the presentation of a problem. Therefore, it may be that how a person is thinking before problem solving begins is just as important as the kind of thinking involved in reaching the solution, and perhaps even determines whether the solution will be derived with a sudden insight. (John Kounios, ‘Aha! Favours the Prepared Mind)

·         Finally, there is evidence of compassion, of care and the mindfulness of others, of the integration of insight and knowledge with the profound human need to empathise, to share, to belong, to connect.

So the task of the creative leader in ‘holding the space’ is bound up with mental preparation on his part, an inward focus of attention which models self-leadership among the group and thereby generates a group dynamic operating in a ‘leaderless’ way. The creative leader becomes invisible to the group, in the same way as a basin is invisible to the water it contains, or in another way of putting it, where the basin and the water are indistinguishable, a whole.