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Here is the issue # 395 SLOW KNOWING
Best regards,
Ken Friedman
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2002 08:07:14 -0800
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: TP Msg. # 395 SLOW KNOWING
From: [log in to unmask]
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"Meetings proliferate; the working day expands; time gets shorter. So
much time is spent processing information, solving problems and
meeting deadlines that there is none left in which to think."
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Folks:
Some kinds of thinking and some kinds of leadership just can't be
rushed as noted in this profound excerpt from Chapter Seven, The
Hare and the Tortoise, in Leading in a Culture of Change, by Michael
Fullan, JOSSEY-BASS, A Wiley Company, San Francisco Copyright " 2001
by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jossey-Bass is a registered trademark of
John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Reprinted with permission.
<http://www.josseybass.com/>
Regards,
Rick Reis
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UP NEXT: Policing the Classroom
Tomorrow's Teaching and Learning
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SLOW KNOWING
When talking about leading on the edge of chaos, it may seem odd to
say that what Claxton (1997) calls slow knowing becomes more
important than less. Claxton provides the reason: "Recent scientific
evidence shows convincingly that the more patient, less deliberate
modes are particularly suited to making sense of situations that are
intricate, shadowy or ill defined" (p.3).
In other words, under conditions of complex, nonlinear evolution, we
need more slow knowing. "Hair brained" is about chasing relentless
innovation; "tortoise mind" is about absorbing disturbances and
drawing out new patterns. Entirely consistent with our previous
chapter, Claxton (1997, p.214) observes:
Those who try to manage nations and corporations- ministers
and executives of all
persuasions- may be panicked by the escalating complexity of
the situations they are
attempting to control into assuming that time is the one
thing they have not got. Their
fallacy is to suppose that the faster things are changing,
the faster and more earnestly
one has to think. Under this kind of pressure [they] may be
driven to adopt one shallow
nostrum, one fashionable idea after another, each turning out
to have promised more than
it was capable of delivering. Businesses are re-engineered,
hierarchies are flattened,
organizations try to turn themselves into learning
organizations, companies become
"virtual." Meetings proliferate; the working day expands;
time gets shorter. So much
time is spent processing information, solving problems and
meeting deadlines that there is
none left in which to think. Even "intuitive thinking"
itself can easily become yet another
fad that fails- because the underlying mindset hasn't changed [p.214].
In referring to "hard cases" (situations of complexity), Claxton
says, "One needs to be able to soak up experience of complex domains-
such as human relationships- through one's pores, and to extract
subtle, contingent patters that are latent within it. And to do that
one needs to be able to attend to a whole range of situations
patiently without comprehension; to resist the temptation to
foreclose on what that experience may have to teach" (1997, p. 192).
Claxton talks about the poet John Keats's reference to "negative
capability," which is the capacity to "cultivate the ability to wait-
to remain attentive in the face of incomprehension" (1997, p. 174).
In my lexicon, remaining attentive is to have moral purpose;
incomprehension is to respect the complexities of situations that do
not have easy answers. Claxton continues, "To wait in this kind of
way requires a kind of inner security; the confidence that one may
lose clarity and control without losing one's self. Keats's
description of negative capability came in a letter to one of his
brothers, following an evening spent in discussion with his friend
Charles Dilke- a man who, as Keats put it, could not 'feel he had a
personal identity unless he had made up his mind about everything'"
(p. 174).
Beware of leaders who are always sure of themselves. Effective
leaders listen attentively- you can almost hear them listening.
Ineffective leaders make up their minds prematurely and, by
definition, listen less thereafter. I recall a high-ranking civil
servant who said about this boss, "His problem is that he is so
bright that he stops listening as soon as he has understood the
point." Not a very good way to build relationships or to pick up
ideas that you might have missed.
Paradoxically, slow knowing doesn't have to take a long time. It is
more of a disposition that can be "acquired and practiced" (Claxton,
1997, p. 214). Again, effective leaders seem to understand this.
They see the bigger picture; they don't panic when things go wrong in
the early stages of a major change initiative. It is not so much
that they take their time, but rather that they know it takes time
for things to gel. If they are attentive to the five leadership
capacities in this book, they know things are happening all the time,
even when there is not closure. In a sense, they take as much time
as the situation will allow, and do not rush to conclusions in order
to appear decisive.
To get this good itself requires time. Conger and Benjamin (1999, p.
262) suggest a ten-year rule of thumb "as the threshold time for
individuals?to attain the status of expert." But we all know the
difference between ten years of experience and one year of experience
ten times over. Therefore, the experience must be intensive and must
constantly cultivate the capacity to hone one's moral purpose and
knowledge of nonlinear change process, to build relationships with
diverse groups, to build knowledge, and to strive for coherence. Most
organizations do not function in a manner that provides these kinds
of learning experiences- just the opposite in some ways: they teach
people to get better at a bad game (Block 1987). And, as tempting as
it is to try, we have also learned that it is not sufficient to
package this knowledge and try to teach it. For many reasons, it
must be learned in context.
Claxton, G. (1997). Hare brained and tortoise mind. London: Fourth Estate.
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