I KNOW - AND SO DO YOU

Brothers and sisters, in the matters of knowing we must remember and maintain reasonable modesty. We do not know all, and in particular we do not know what is the situation where our brothers and sisters operate.

This magnificent internet era provides a possibility to watch different presentations. Also many of us hear a lot of key notes and speeches in different events. And organizations are full of inspiring executive talk and all kinds of models developed by experts in headquarters. Often the speaker and/or developer really seems to know her/his topic - which is just great. But sometimes the modesty does not seem part of picture. And as you can guess I am talking about the modesty in a very special way. What I mean with modesty here  is epistemological modesty. Epistemological modesty gives to a speaker an acute sense to understand what s/he knows - and what s/he does not know. Epistemological modesty suggest that we cannot create understanding for others, they will do it by themselves, if they choose to do so.

You see, around every person there is a kingdom of knowledge, where that person by herself/himself is the master. Let us look at the following picture. In that picture there are four main elements: 1) a person,  2) her/his kingdom of knowledge (green marks), 3) the world of daily work (the world of everyday discussions, etc.), 4) new ideas (red marks). Also there is a picture of a torch on the left, that is a symbol University of Jyväskylä and in general a symbol of understanding.

The general idea in this picture is that in our daily work we talk and handle issues which rather familiar to us. Hence the area of daily work is the easy area for us. It is the area which provides continuation to our life. When we want to learn, change and develop we often think that what we need are new ideas. That is all fine, new ideas are very important. But please take a notice, here new ideas are not yet our own ideas. We are still in a listening mode.

Hence, even more important than new ideas are those matters which are very, very close us. These matters, which belong to our kingdom of knowledge,  are such which we can really change if we just possess the understanding, knowledge, will and energy to do so. These matters can be very practical things i.e. our ways of acting in different situations, or they can relate to our understanding, values, etc.

And here lies the crux of development. We must create settings where people are willing and capable to use new ideas in their own kingdom of knowledge. You might think that this is easy and something which happens almost automatically. I dare to propose that we must not overlook these things, not personally and not when we wish to develop organizations.

So whenever we speak, no matter from which position we speak,  we have to remember the epistemological modesty. This means an attitude. "I know - and so do you". In practical terms this means that we genuinely invite people to speak their truth and share what is essential and possible in their kingdom of knowledge.

This is the route to dialogue which may provide something new to us all.

What it means to become better - as an executive

What it means to become better - as an executive

What makes you learn? What gives you the certainty that you have become better? Are you better now than what you were a year ago? The starting point here is that you are already an experienced actor, so you know what it takes to fill your position in your organization and you start to be ready for more challenging tasks. You also know where you are good if not excellent and you also know that in some areas you could be much better.

As such it is an interesting question how you would like to proceed from your current setting: do you want to be even better in the future? Probably, many of us has this kind of an stance to our existence. I would imagine that rather few like to be worse off in the future as compared the present situation by their own will. Whereas I dare to guess that there are very special individuals who by themselves feel that they have reached the high level which is possible for any human being to ever reach and thus they would like to stay where they are, but perhaps this attitude is somewhat rare (thank goodness).

But, what does it mean to be better, what is most important? Do you want to be wiser, or more efficient, or faster, or more energetic, or more caring, or what? Do you want to be better decision maker, better coach, better in presenting your arguments, or better in selling or managing sales people, or what? Or do you want to better in choosing right customers, excellent people in your team, predicting this year volumes and big events, anticipating where problems and new opportunities will emerge, do want to be better in initiating forceful action, or finding energizing vision for your organization, or what?

Also it is intriguing to think what kind of words and thinking patterns would be used if this text would belong to the wholly different realm of life than business and organizational reality. What if we would examine wheather sports enthusiastics would like to be better. I guess they certainly would like to improve their performance and we have a pretty good idea what it would mean (eg. more meters, less seconds, etc.). But what if we think for instance religious life, would people like to be better on that arena? Probably, also there the improvement in very fundamental way seems to be the goal, although it gets different forms and manifestations in different religions. Hence the desire to become better seems to be very prevalent human desire, which we can encounter in different spheres of life.

Let us zoom back to business life, and let us ask what it means to become better in that form of life? I would imagine that we might think that - of course we know the answer. Perhaps we have something in our mind and we think that it is self evident what it means to become better. However, perhaps this is one of those moments when we think that we know the answer but when we pause to think we may notice that the answer what we have in our mind is not at all self evident or that at least our answer does not cover the whole question.

In principle there are four different perspectives in evaluating whether someone is better than before:

1) Output perspective.
This is the simpliest perspective where something concrete is measured.In case someone is able to connect more pieces than before or make more phonecalls that before or do more interviews than before then s/he is better when things are estimated from this angle.

Clearly the problem here is that very rarely if ever anything like this is essential when we estime performance of an executive. Hence this level is rarely very useful. As such simple measurements do not capture the essence of the executive work and in any case quality is often much more important than quantity (eg. person makes more phonecalls in such a way that more people in the network becomes irritated - hardly an improvement).

2) Profit perspective
Here the crucial figure can be found from income statement. You might think that this solves all the problems in evaluation, because business is about profit and in case an executive is able to deliver more profit s/he becoming better. End of the story.

There is no denial that this measurument has its merits and this measument is the corner stone of modern business thinking. However, also this measurement is deficient in some important respects. For instance, any organization is part of a much larger world where everything is in the constant change. Sometimes some wave of change helps some organization to improve its results, sometimes something in the wider world makes it difficult or impossible for a certain organization to succeed, in particular when some periods are examined. Hence it can be difficult to say what part of the change in a profit figure relates to the actions taken (or not taken) by a certain executive.

3) Expert evaluation
Here the other experts evaluate performance. Clearly experts are not confined to one number or numbers in their evaluation, instead they can try to see the big picture and even the whole picture as far as it is possible for anyone. It is certain that this evaluation is actually in very wide use in the executive world. Even when officially evaluation is done on the basis of some numbers, be it a profit figure or figures from a balanced scorecard or any other metrics, even then people (experts) decide how we should read and interpret the numbers. In the business world experts use all the time their judgement in deciphering that when we can consider some performance as excellent and when as less excellent.

Also this evaluation has its challenges. Who are the experts, how they have created their knowledge base? Are they experts because they know a lot or because they fill some positions (sometimes these things are not the same). Also we may guess that sometimes experts may their own agenda which may affect to way how they exercise their judgement.

4) Self evaluation
Who knows best which particular things in your position are the real challenges and opportunities, who knows best what is difficult for you to do and what you master with ease? Clearly you are in very unique position in evaluating yourself. Old Indian proverb says that before you are able to evaluate another person walk a mile in her/his moccasin. Well, you are doing the walking.

But also self evaluation has its own pitfalls. Perhaps you are you too merciful or too harsh on yourself? Perhaps you use criterias which are not that relevant for those actors who on their part give you the resourses to act or the position to operate.

In sum what do you think when you look the path ahead. When do you will feel that you have become better, when do you know that you have become better? In any case, sunny days and enjoyable trails!

Knowledge in Business

How Do We Know What We Know

What does the concept "paramount reality of everyday life" mean? Does this concept have anything to do with those matters which we handle in business and other real life organizations? Well, a too short answer would be that it is theoretical concept and we in practice can manage nicely without thinking these kind of issues and realities any further. This stance is certainly possible, but please bear with me for a while. I propose that it could be very valuable for all of us in every organization to pause to reflect and to examine how we know what we know.


The paramount reality of everyday life means that it is typical for us to think that we see and understand how things are. Somehow things are self evident to us.  Certainly, we know that there are a lot of issues which we do not know and we are fully aware that there are all kind of matters which are totally out of our reach, eg. some technological issues and such matters. And yet, at the same time we seem to possess a very peculiar certainty - we know how things are, at least how the most relevant things are.


A way back in history philosopher Rene Descartes unraveled this puzzle mastefully. He pointed out that people always wanted more and more all kinds of things, there was, however, one thing what people tought that they had enough of that. Dare to quess what that was (is)? Yes, it was common sense. People were convinced that this part of life on their behalf was in good order.


Perhaps in that respect very little has changed. Have you, for instance, seen a person to buy a latest tabloid from a supermarket? There is no lack of certainty. He has seen, partly through his earlier readings, what is really happening in this world and what celebrities are doing and all that. He also seems to know without hesitation what kind of issues merit his attention. Yes, this is his free time and time to unwind, I grant that all. And being by myself a person who runs up and down different hills during free time I have very little gravitas to assess anyones's free time activities. Nevertheless, you may admit that we have some point here.


Just a few days ago I had pleasure to say few words to an esteemed eMBA delegation from Iceland. At some point in presentation I showed almost a similar picture as below: the end of the (typical)road. Could we claim that the eMBA studies are the end of a typical everyday attitude where we think without thinking what we think? Could it be that eMBA studies on their part give tools to decide to think what you think?




There are at leat two aspects of our thinking which we could reflect. Firstly, we could analyze how we build our tinking every day by focusing on certain issues and by leaving some other matters in the shadow. We could examine how we do that indivudually and how we construct our thinking in organizations. In very practical terms, what are the issues we talk (and even think) in our meetings? How people learn to know what is important in our organizations? How we, by ourselves,  have learned to think which issues are most important - are those issues still most crucial, do they merit to get our attention?

Secondly, we must value our thinking as most precious resourse. It is a resource which must be used very wisely. Here, David Rock and his fabulous book, Your Brain at Work, tells this message extremely powefully.

In sum, we may become much better in understanding how we know what we know. That understanding can be immensely valuable - also in practice.


***

This blog builds on phenomenolocal and ethnometodological thinking and I am most greatful to several authhors and thinkers who have explored the world from this perspective. For further reading please study thinkers like: Alfred Schutz and Harold Garfinkel.

Why it takes so long - organizations and the lacking agility

Organizations are extremely important. They are those institutions where we create things and services. It is vitally important how effective those organizations are. At the same time it is vitally important that those organizations offer excellent working conditions for us all. It feels somewhat awful to write something like this because when we think globally, the working conditions are certainly different in different places and at the same time there is room for improvement everywhere. To some extend it is almost surprising how little we as a human kind have been able to do in improving our living and working conditions throughout the history (and at the same time we are thankful for past generations of everything what they have created for us).


                                    


Could this somewhat slow progress of general development be explained partly so that we are not that clever in creating and running organizations which would provide results? Once again, there are extremely productive organizations but at the same time there seems to be organizations where "getting things done" take time - a lot of time sometimes.



In this blog the mountain gives a birth to a mouse, I have to admit that. This means that the opening paragraph hugs the world but what follows is something pretty defined, yet very important I think. What follows is an examination of something what I have sometimes encountered and which relate to the way how professional organizations operate. (Please note that a more explanation to the mountain-mouse expression is provided below).

It is always surprising to witness situations where almost everything seems to be ready  but then nothing happens. Quite often this "moment of petrifying" seems to take place just before to crucial moment, just before the phase where it would be possible to test whether the outlined and developed service/product would really work.

Here the term "really work" refers to that market reaction. What happens in the market defines whether the new service/product can succeed and develop. At some point organization must take this test and learn from their experience and make the necessary adjustments. Everybody knows this and yet - some times it really seems to take a lot of time before organizations take this crucial test and learn from it.

This phenomena of "why it takes so long" has made me to think following points:

The area of Agility

Organizations can not be agile and quick in everything. Metso makes world class paper machines, it can not start to make furniture very quickly (by the way this blog does not relate to Metso in any sense - the thoughts of this blog comes from working with totally different organizations than Metso). However, that Metso helps me to make this point succinctly, papermachines and furniture are different, clearly there are limits for reasonable agility. Having said that I take my comment back to some extend, it is a challenge to know what kind of an agility is most relevant for any particular organization. In fact, when we examine different organizations it may be the elementary strategic conundrum to define what are the areas where an organization should be quick in noticing new opportunities and creating new action. This question could be posed to any organization. What new opportunies could be relevant to Metso? What new opportunities are relevant and strategically important to an any organization which produces services to its customers.

It is important the every organization has an insightful and deepening understanding what it should be able to see and which are the areas where it needs to be quick and agile. What is the strategic area of agility?



                                  

Human side of Agility in organizations

It is always somewhat superficial to talk about organizations, we should always look deeper and try to understand how people think and act in any given situation. People create organizations, sometimes we are clever in creating organizational procedures and rules which make our organizations astoundingly effective, sometimes we play a role in creating organizations where things do not get done fast and effectively. (This sounds odd, how is this possible? It should not be in realm of possibility but the evidence seems to suggest otherwise - a closer examination of this phenomenon is needed in the future).

Hence it is always important to delineate whether people working in any organization are really interested and equipped to locate new opportunities? Do they have that kind of a mindset and is the organization around them such that it will support opportunity finding mode of working? Is that kind of an activity really encouraged in an organization,  or is it more a public statement? Does it really make sense to try something new? How the colleagues react when someone proposes something new?

Creating something new is rarely just a matter of individual insight, it is also a matter of shared interpretation where people create an understanding what the insight actually is and what it would mean to us to our organization. Hence, it is vitally important how the key people around "the event of insight" create room and support for new insight to develop and perhaps turn into action.

In Sum

The development and management work which aims to make organizations quicker and more agile is a worthy effort. It is of course a business issue but it also affects to the living conditions for all of us. I have a hunch that new technologies which are able improved connectivity between people will provide new ways to proceed and develop. Let us create organizations where it does not take that long to produce valuable services for people.


(An explanation to the mountain-mouse expression: When I started as Phd student many years ago, my professor once commented that in one of my research proposals a mountain gave a birth to a mouse - apparently what I promised to study was something huge, but the possibe results were not at the same level. That comment was pertinent, it was given so cleverly that it only motivated to move on and develop the proposal and to find some balance between promise and result).


                            
 

empty papers - what is strategy work

Empty papers in organization - what is strategy work?

Have you ever been in a meeting where you would talk about empty papers with your highly esteemed colleagues? Please do not deny this as such implausible scenario too easily. Let us image the setting where people sit around the table and they all have pile of empty papers on front of them. Let us envision further that they all are willing to present excellent comments concerning those papers. The comments are presented, debated even, but the papers remain empty. And perhaps the papers are taken to a next meeting where this happens again.







Well, I admit the above mentioned may have happened rather rarely in any organization. But let us change our approach a little bit. Have you ever been in a meeting where you talk about papers which probably will not change anything in your working life? And if you pause to think could it be that in that same meeting the papers under discussion will not change anything on the working life of anyone discussing about those papers. Have you experienced something like this? (Please tick the right option: never, sometimes, quite often, often, almost every time, always)

One question. Why do you talk about empty papers with your colleaques in different meetings? Is there a some force in play which make you to do it, or is there some special personal temptation that you crave to do it? Let us dig a bit deeper.

Do you think that it is really work to talk about papers which are not connected to anything in this world? Probably it can be called as work and even rather demanding work, but probably it is not that effective or productive to debate about empty papers. And yet, I would claim that to some extend empty papers are under discussion in many organizations and in numerous meetings all the time.






What I am proposing here is that meetings should not be about empty papers but about real issues. This appears obvious but it may not be so in real life and in real life meetings. Why this is the case is a very comlex issue and in order to be ready to answer to that question we really should go very deep in examining those forces which are in place in any organization and also to the ways how people see their work. That analysis escapes the limits of a single blog. However, I propose here something which might on its part make your organization and your meetings better. Could this blog on its part be a road sign, which helps you to find a way to meetings where the role of empty papers is as minimal as possible?

I suggest that in every meeting you should start the meeting with an open discussion and you would make it as certain as possible that all the participants woul feel as free as possible to voice their own opinions. Here I propose some questions which might help to develop your organization and your meetings. Perpaps you might actually to use the questions to some extend but of course the goal should be that gradually the culture in your organization whould become such where empty paper meetings would take as little time as possible.

The questions which could guide the discussion could be for instance following:

What are we doing

Why are we talking about these papers, what we wish to do with them? Do really see some relevant real life connections and consequences? What do we see, what is most important? What our discussion on the basis of those papers really mean in practice?

Connection to my working life

How the papers under discussion are relevant to me and to the other in that meeting? Should the relevance be so high that whatever we are talking about really mean or at least could mean something concrete to all of us or at least to some of us? In case the topics under discussion will not change anything relevent in some foreseeable future should we really talk about those papers? What we are really talking about then if the connection to reality is very vague? Why we are doing that kind of talking? At least the answer to these questions should be raised on the table.

Road ahead

In sum. The more I work with and withing organizations, the more I see that organizations could be much more effective, more agile and clearly better in providing valuable results and outsomes to people in this world. Often improvements would not add the workload for the people in that organization, probably quite the opposite.

I am very convinced that we are all doing important work when we try to make our dear organizations better. Let keep us doing that.

P.s.
While writing this blog it occured to me that Charles Handy has written an excellent book: The Empty raincoat, which I read years ago. If my memory serves, in that book he examines the role of us as real persons in organizations and whether there is room for us as individuals in the work life. In my blog I am in a way pondering whether real issues are really present and under discussion in our organizations. Is there room for facts and real issues in our meetings?

Enjoying life - use of language - the Savo case

There is a very special area in our dear Finland where people speak a bit differently - that area is Savo. You can find that part of a country around Kuopio city. The very special way how Finnish language is used in Savo region has caused several interpretations among other Finns.

The two main interpretations have been: 1) When a person speaks the Savo language it is a hearers task to be very vigilant and decide what part of the speak can be trusted and what part should be left in doubt. 2) And more directly the suspicion towards Savo speakers has been expressed by saying that users of the Savo language should be approached with care because it may difficult to know what they really mean. Generally speaking it is clear that Finland is a so called low context country where words are considered crucial in communication, please see Edward T Hall.

In Finland people do respect highly different parts of the country and also different dialects are considered as a national richness and hence all dialects and also Savo language are actually cherished. And it is simply just great that this is the way how things are here in this country. Hence, also the comments what people direct towards the Savo speakers should be viewed from this perspective of appreciative respect and interest.

Nevertheless, I think that it is now time to join this discussion which revolves around Savo language. Hence, in this blog I propose an other interpretation concerning the real essence of Savo language. Surely, this text is just a short commentary, but it still purports to offer a somewhat new angle to our everyday discussion. I believe that in more general terms this blog briefly examines the use of language in everyday situations and how clever people are in using their own language and their own dialects in Finland and certainly around the Globe. Also this text may on its part demonstrate that the whole world is really a learning environment - have you ever visited a cafeteria without learning something new?

My interpretation here is based on new anectode which happened just a moment ago. I had a lucky opportunity to hear from a side how very advanced Savo speaker, a person who had already celebrated her 70th anniversary spoke in a phone with her friend. As such the discussion was very general in nature, it was about everyday topics so there was no secrets in that phone conversation. Hence I did not consider my role as an accidental hearer any way difficult.

However, structure of the discussion was simply enchanting and I think that I understood something new about the Savo language. The speaker was telling about her everyday matters and events, but this was not the main crux in that phone discussion.  What was most arresting was that the speaker kept throwing verbal knuckleballs all the time (I will say few words about knuckleballs at the end of this blog). When looked from the outside people may think that Savo language, and apparently other dialects as well,  are mainly about somewhat peculiar pronunciation and special speak which is peppered with unique words.  But in essence dialects are about something else. The essence seems to be a way of being together, where a special way of speaking creates unique connection between people. Also a key element in that special speaking seems to be a celebration of a clever use of language - the use of words, expressions and images which all the time challenge and invite the other to join to that very active and certainly energizing interaction.



I would tentatively propose that perhaps the rich and joyful use of Savo language could be viewed against the history, against those conditions of life which where present not so long ago. The living conditions also in Savo region have been challenging, sometimes even the rye bread may have been a scarcely available - to put it mildly. Thus people have endured a lot of grueling, hard work and a lot of all kids of challenges and real suffering. Could it be that a very rich use of language has been a way say to the other - please join me to this rich use of language, we are both living now in this moment and there is so much enjoyment in this moment and in this life.

Joyful and invigorating discussions in every dialect and every language!

P.s. And what comes to the knuckleball I am enormously thankful to wikipedia because there this concept is opened with a masterful wording:

A knuckleball (or knuckler for short) is a baseball pitch with an erratic, unpredictable motion. The pitch is thrown so as to minimize the spin of the ball in flight. This causes vortices over the stitched seams of the baseball during its trajectory, which in turn can cause the pitch to change direction—and even corkscrew—in mid-flight. This makes the pitch difficult for batters to hit, but also difficult for pitchers to control. The challenge also extends to the catcher, who must at least attempt to catch the pitch, and the umpire, who must determine whether the pitch was a strike or ball.