Context, Crucible, Crucial Experiences of Values

Recently, I’ve tried to reflect on the apparent fickle-mindedness or the hyper-flexibility of people who act in organisational setups. It is not infrequent now to witness some of the following behaviors in client organisations.

a)     Profess a point of view, and even commit to it in writing. Then do a turnaround, as though they can do it as an act of privilege. E.g. Dishonouring a legal contract ad nauseam; so much so that the contract may now be seen as an instrument of deception itself.

b)    Enthusiastically embrace a point of view, as if to commit to a line of action. Then act, as if they’re acting out a will that is not the one that owned the point of view.

c)     Avail of services, and keep up an image that the organisation is a storehouse of virtue, until your own bills contain threads of damning evidence to the contrary.

Many consultants I know experience these issues. In India, an unreasonable charity in business is not without context. The sheer burden on time and money in following a litigious route can deter one from asserting one’s legal rights. It makes business sense to move on in life, at least when you can. Keeping that ‘suspense’ account for acts not attributable to sheer honor of contracts may often be a wise idea.

However, a charity of perspective is paradoxically still affordable. It would for example be a broad-brush sweep that paints similar incidents with the paint of Integrity. Assuming for a moment it is about absolutism, and not about particularism as may be the case made out of our collectivist, context-rich, meaning-laden interactions of tacit interweaving, why would Integrity remain stunted?

It is largely because:

1.   When we reflect on our experiences, we do not have clear notions of boundaries and limitations. As John Scherer reminds me of what TS Eliott said “Everyone gets the experience, only some get the lesson”.

2.     We ignore creeping transgressions except to track financial misdemeanours

3.     Task obsessed people use weak-ties in their social networks to inform and influence, often missing opportunities to hone core values in wholesome relationships

My inner voice these days tells me “To develop your moral intelligence, re-calibrate your beliefs”. Contexts frame the intrinsic judgment of the individual, and that too in interactive dynamism. That is a crucible for transformation indeed. More on such another time.  

Neglected aspects in design for development of people

There is a deluge of ‘canned’ programs in learning and development today. Online tools and techniques will hang out for the ‘convenience’ of the keyboard buffs and corporate clients. Civilisation today is less of heart and more of intellect, they say. In my experience, there are a few aspects I would look at to enable ‘contact’ with reality, or at least those aspects of reality that our senses get numbed to over time. Usually these touch ‘mind-set’ issues. A requisite range of experiences normally helps.

1.       Structure ‘uncertainty’ confrontation through the requirement of ‘choice-making’. i.e. The learner chooses what he or she would do away from the online screen. At least one personal change that the learner would like to make. At more complex designs that require concentration bereft of cognitive biases, one change the learner would like to make in the norms of the group he or she belongs to is a challenge. The consequence of choice is owned by the learner. That is a choice in design of learning too.  

2.       Get to root or core issues.  Although it presents itself as a behavioural issue, seeped in emotionality, it actually may surface from ‘thinking’ skills or the cognitive domain. Do learners ‘frame’ their issues right? Do they argue without fallacies in reasoning? Do they curiously frame questions that get them the information they need? Are they smug in the certainty of the organisational hierarchy? Likewise, do cognitive pursuits get curtailed for lack of emotive expression?

3.       Get to ‘expression’ of self in our times. The outcome is a grounding in an alternate awareness that gives introspective nudge “In what frame of reference am I speaking for myself?” If the learner is a specialist in accounting, can he or she speak on custodianship of ethics from the standpoint of a salesperson? If the speaker is a CEO, can he or she speak as a ‘mentor’ of new talent? If the learner is a high-potential leader, can he or she speak of what it means to belong or identify with a national culture other than his or her own?

4.       Get people to ‘thought’ leadership with sufficient preparation. Avoid the ‘ppt’ or ‘deck’ as aid to present remote ‘information’. Instead, the audience gets a position paper of specified lengths based on primary and secondary research which are cited for others to learn from. Get the learner to immerse in the domain of thought he or she will present. Intimate engagement gets the learner to develop ‘justified beliefs’ – the cornerstone of knowledge.

5.       Involve stakeholders of sustainability, not merely ‘shareholders’ of profit. Agility, self-awareness, interpersonal competence and organisational citizenship based on discretionary behaviors, is born of choice. Only if, learning is done from meeting or exceeding legitimate expectations of the local government and community where the firm is engaged, as also those of customers’ customers and supplier’s employees.  Most significantly, your fellow learner is also a stakeholder, evolving continually into the future.

Action learning is one rich methodology that will aid in this respect. Obviously, this experience goes not only away from the classroom, but a considerable time is devoted away from the online devices that take away from sensing the reality in which competence is required to be built. Am referring here a compelling video from MIT, where Ed Schein also mentions the potency of feedback – it is culturally offensive!
What do you feel? What do you think?