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All through my work career, I had always used the basic microeconomic conception of the balance of the three elements: Time, Quality and Cost which I believed was unalterable. Time and time again, I used the argument that one can have only 2 elements of the trio but never the 3 elements at their peak concurrently. You cannot get a top quality product at rock bottom price immediately. Should you want the product now, you will have to trade off the quality or pay a higher price. Should opt for quality and advantageous price you might have to wait. It was one of my favorite sales argument for selling premium products and services.

I was stunned today to learn that this concept has now evolved and can be altered. Vince Poscente in his recent book, ‘The Age of speed’ postulates that because of technology we are able to save money and time whilst producing better quality. Surely to stop myself from being a ‘has been’, I admit that in the reality of today and the speed that we are now experiencing the once immutable concept got transformed. Now I shall be able to demand superior quality product at cheap prices to be delivered now. This very much in step with the time now: lucky us who live today!

Vince Poscente in his book has helped me to put in new perspectives to some of the ingrained concepts that I have carried from my past. I recommend you to avail of his writings which I am enjoying this week.

Here is an extract on the topic I just mentioned:

A Love Triangle: Time, Quality and Cost

Ingrained in our perception of products, services and

activities is a very basic microeconomic concept: There

is a balance that must be maintained between time,

quality and cost; if you want more of one, you have to

sacrifice another. It’s a time-tested formula and the

foundation of many decisions we make in our personal

and business lives.

But in the Age of Speed, the rules have changed.

Though it is unlikely that trade-offs among time, quality

and cost will ever cease to exist, the old model is no

longer a given. Because of technology, we have more

shortcuts available than ever before, and these shortcuts

not only save us time but often also save us money and

produce equal or better quality.

If we can accept the positive potential that speed

offers, we can do more, be more, live more. We don’t

have to assume that if we embrace speed, our lives will

just get busier and busier. We need to adapt, evolve and

shed our outdated or misguided perceptions of speed.

We need to reshape the way we define, manage and categorize

our time.

Trust me. Dr. Karen Stephenson, who I am still reading, like most business Gurus insist that human interactions flourish only when the trust level is high. Here again a short extract from her on “The Role of Trust in Transferring Tacit Knowledge”. I am fond of her story of a cocktail party to illustrate the social human behavior.

I have stated that tacit knowledge is the source of innovation. A catalyst for the creation of tacit knowledge is trust. Unarticulated, tacit knowledge can find expression in collegial discussions with others, in which experiences are shared. This knowledge transfer is subtle and mediated by the trust among colleagues. Thus, trust is the medium and knowledge the message. In this way, experience is transferred from those who have it to those who don’t.

This is the primary reason why mentorship and apprenticeship are critical practices of knowledge transfer, Mentoring is the oldest form of knowledge transfer and still the most efficient when exchanging knowledge between humans. It is made tangible by the trust relationship that develops between mentor and mentee. How does it happen?

To understand how mentorship works, let’s take a view from afar. Imagine a cocktail party which you have been persuaded to attend by your spouse. Your spouse needs your moral support at this business function as he or she plans the tactics for their next promotion and your subsequent vacation to the Bahamas. Being a selfless and loving spouse (and imagining the wind against your face on the beach) you go. Hundreds of people are in full party by the time you arrive. Lit faces, rooms and cigars create a three-ring circus. At the periphery you take a deep breath and give a sidewise glance to the space by your side that was filled by your spouse only moments ago. Now vanished, your spouse is working the room, making that promotion happen, So there you are. Stranded! A server places a glass of wine in your hand. You hurriedly gulp the wine to take the edge off your discomfort and have already started on your second glass when your feigned knowing nods and smiles invite the ‘small talk’ of others. “How do you know our host?’ and other bland queries lead you to a third, even fourth glass of wine and more meaningful discussions about such things as educating the next generation, public elections, neighborhood issues and global warming. By the time the fifth glass of wine is making its way to your brain and you no longer recognize your spouse, you’re in deep conversation about more intimate matters such as marriages, divorces, parenting, etc. These and other life -threatening situations are the times in which trust (and, sometimes trouble) are forged.

Let’s step back and analyze the situation closely. In the small talk of cocktail parties, humans are at random walk, desperately seeking points of similarity through visibility: height, girth, dress, gender, race, accent, hair and eye color, etc. Reading the audience and working a room are ancient skills encoded in us by our forebears who sat cheek by jowl around the campfire; an earlier and more primordial form of cocktail party. I confess to having attended countless cocktail parties and continue to be amazed how, after just a few drinks, I end up with people who are like me in some way – same experiences, same clothes same interests, etc. It’s not the alcohol talking, but the ancient drive of seeking similarity: ‘You look like me, you think like me, you dress like me … you’re one of us.‘ When people connect at this basic level, they are engaging in an embryonic form of trust with each other. What began as a room full of disconnected people may end up as a network of people connected in invisible lines of trust.

These invisible lines of trust don’t just operate at cocktail parties. They also surreptitiously galvanize people in an organization by connecting them to each other. These connections, or networks, of trust are the veins of a natural resource of knowledge, a honeycomb of collective consciousness which is mined for hidden sources of innovation. The challenge is to detect them, render them visible, understand their underlying structure and leverage them to increase productivity.

The practice that I have used and recommend to build trust and better human interactions in organizations as well as families is that of creating frequent occasions for cocktail parties or similar gathering activities. In the corporate world set up, the ‘small talk’ where important issues are discussed happens very often in the relaxed environment at the water fountain or around a cup of coffee or tea at the break.

Dr Karen Stephenson has been capturing my reading attention for the last 2days. Her anthropology back ground tints her understanding of human networks and render her work very interesting. She suggests ways of using human networks to increase our power of leadership and to leverage our man management skills. You can understand how excited I could be, as these are precisely themes of my prime interests.

Knowledge and understanding it from her point of view is the starting point. From the documents, I have come across the term “tacit Knowledge” which she defines very explicitly, also rank very highly in my need to understand and to master. I shall summarize daily, my understanding for her papers as I note them for my memory’s sake.

In a nutshell, this is what I have retained today from her:

Knowledge economy, knowledge organization, knowledge networks, knowledge by any other name I call a fad. After listening to knowledge gurus spout less and less about knowledge, I have come to the conclusion, that we are going ‘knowhere’ with knowledge. Too much knowledge without integration tears us apart. The wisdom to integrate knowledge by assembling key people and skills remains the ancient art.

Experience has long been considered the best teacher of knowledge. Since we cannot experience everything, other people’s experiences, and hence other people, become the surrogate for knowledge. ‘I store my knowledge in my friends’ is an axiom for collecting knowledge through collecting people. ‘A friend of a friend is a friend’ or ‘an enemy of a friend is an enemy’ are two more axioms for knowledge transfer through people via their entrusted relationships.

We can summon knowledge from ourselves, but how do we elicit knowledge on demand or ‘just in time’ from others? This becomes salient in knowledge driven organizations where critical knowledge is not only stored in computers, database, facilities, files, etc. but in people. A major obstacle for organizations is that of linking the knowledge stored in people to that in organizational processes. Why? Process knowledge can be transferred on demand and does not necessarily depend on the presence or absence of people. Thus the employee is free to take that needed vacation and the organization is able to go about its business. This knowledge transfer is not well understood for tacit knowledge, the subject of our discussion here.

Tacit Knowledge

When you teach a child to ride a bicycle, there are certain inexorable truths that you convey about the skill, such as where to put your feet (on the pedals, not the handlebars), where to put your hands (on the handlebars, not the pedals) and where to sit. There is much more to riding a bicycle that cannot be adequately articulated – balance, control, the sensation of riding, etc.

The same could be said of alpine skiing. The basic premise of putting your feet in your boots, your boots on skis and pointing downhill is a fearsome scenario that would hardly suffice as advice for anyone learning how to ski. When you can’t define what you know, how do you teach it? I watched on a DVD with awe, the lessons given by Erik Decamp, on the transfer of knowledge in an alpinist context.

Not being able to define what you know usually comes from embodied experience – ‘felt knowledge’ – and is often called tacit knowledge. The adjectives ‘felt’ and ‘tacit’ are meant to convey the ineffable and unarticulated forms of knowledge which come from experience, such as learning to ski or cycle. As we experience life, we store our learning as tacit knowledge in memories and intuitions. What we don’t experience or learn, we can glean from others. Thus, people become knowledge storehouses from whom we can ‘indirectly’ learn, making them our surrogates for direct experience.

In rapid, radical change, this form of knowledge becomes a critical resource for innovation. We don’t realize what we know until the immediacy of the moment forces to the foreground knowledge we weren’t aware we had. If business could methodically and efficiently mine this type of knowledge from its people, then managers and executives could more strategically steer the evolution of innovation. Since business is only as good as its next new idea or suite of ideas, this know-how is essential in a knowledge economy.

I recently discovered the works of Karen Stephenson. She advocates that “Too much knowledge without integration tears us apart. The wisdom to integrate knowledge by assembling key people and skills remains the ancient art.”

It will take me sometime to digest what she teaches about knowledge and more importantly how to  make good use of knowledge which abounds today.

 

Karen Stephenson, Ph.D. is president of NetForm, Inc, recognized as one of the top 100 leading innovation companies by CIO in 2001. She is internationally recognized for her pioneering work in detecting, diagnosing and designing human networks to solve a variety of problems: (1) engineering tipping points in open markets and communities of practice (CoP), (2) remediating acquired organizational deficiencies within large-scale public and private organizations and, (3) developing novel techniques for building trust and collaboration among communities (interagency cooperation in the U.S. intelligence community and with NGOs and local governments in the United Kingdom).

She has been featured in the media and press, most notably, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The New Yorker, The Financial Times, The Guardian, Strategy+Business, CIO, Fast Company and Wired. She has taught at several universities including but not limited to the UCLA School of Management, MIT’s Sloan Management, Imperial’s School of Management and most recently at at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. She received her Ph.D. in Anthropology at Harvard University, an M.A. in Anthropology at the University of Utah, and B.A. in Art & Chemistry at Austin College, TX.

The unprecedented rate of change that we are experiencing today has resulted in making the future more uncertain. How will the entrepreneurs cope with this new situation? What skills will be needed?

‘The uncertain future we all face demands that executives develop the ability to listen, learn, and lead’ said Vincent P Barabba, Author of Meeting of the Minds: Creating the Market-Based Enterprise and more recently ‘Surviving Transformation’.

You will recall in the 70’s the most sought persons of the corporate world were IT technology wizards. After the burst of the internet bubble, the financiers took over the control of the corporate boards. The ‘Enron’ scandal pushed further the control of lawyers and financiers to have a strong hold on the world of business. The world business leaders are now backing the human aspects for growth of their enterprises. We are back to basic leadership skills.

I found that the 3L’s: Listening,Learning,Leading, coined by Vincent P Barabba to be a very worthwhile motto that all leaders, entrepreneurs or managers could be reminded of. More importantly, one has to be mindful of the sequence of the 3L’s. Listening is the first.

William E. Halal, professor of management at George Washington University, and author of ‘The New Management’, is of opinion that Leaders are above all great listeners. In an article he wrote towards the end of the 90’s, he insisted on the development of listening skills by managers to strive in this ever fast changing environment.

Here is an extract of the article which is today still pertinent and valid:

When visiting a major American corporation recently, I was privileged to witness a vivid demonstration of the leadership that is so badly needed today. Seated at a conference table were managers, labor leaders, suppliers, distributors, and officials from the local government. What was most striking is that the president of the company did not seem to be a particularly imposing person. He had no commanding presence, was clearly not a genius, and showed little charisma. How did he manage to pull this diverse group of big egos together into a harmonious team?

As the meeting progressed, it became clear that he saw his role as encouraging the talents of others, and so he rarely spoke himself but was more intent on asking people for their views. What was most remarkable is that he really listened. Unlike most leaders, this man was genuinely humble. He focused on understanding the reality of the situation. It was like a breath of fresh air! A leader who cares what people really think? Who wants to hear the messy truth? Who does not impose his solutions? Surely this was either a ruse or it didn’t work, I thought.

But it did work. It energized the meeting. People brought out their problems, their ideas, their doubts, their misunderstandings, and all the other hidden agendas we normally keep contained within us. The president simply asked an occasional question, made a few suggestions for their consideration, and tried to clarify what they were doing. Otherwise, the group controlled the meeting. Most importantly, the meeting affirmed that this was their organization. They were responsible for its success or failure, so they did whatever was needed to make it work.

Okay, this humble approach really works, but what about the leader, I worried. He was obviously not “in charge,” and in fact he seemed a bit uncomfortable at times. Little wonder when people would say harsh things to him, such as complain about some aspect of the company and criticize his behavior. Occasionally they even called him by his first name! How could he maintain his dignity and self-respect, much less the power needed to be effective?

Beneath this appearance of casual disregard was a deep sense of respect and affection. Not because this leader held the power of the president, but precisely for the opposite reason. He had voluntarily yielded his authority. The heart of this relationship was that the president was genuinely concerned about others, and he provided a subtle, supportive guidance that helped them find the way ahead. Ironically, by giving up his formal power, he was given far more real power as a “servant leader” rather than a boss. They would do things for him that no ordinary boss could even ask for.

A Key Principle

This highlights a key principle of leadership today: in a world of escalating complexity and empowered people, leaders must cultivate the art of helping others to share the responsibilities of management. But the price of their support is to relinquish that old sense of control while patiently listening to others for understanding.

The knowledge revolution is creating a world in which teams of skilled workers must manage complex business ventures, solve technical problems, and probe the boundaries of a global economy. Not only are economies becoming complex, a more educated knowledge worker is appearing, who is motivated by achievement, creativity, and control over the work.

A historic upheaval in power structures is underway. Jack Welch, CEO of General Electric, summed up the need: “In a world where we must have every good idea from every man and woman, we cannot afford management styles that suppress and intimidate.” This power shift comprises a peaceful revolution. Employees are gaining control over their time, have access to the financial records, determine how to perform their jobs, choose co-workers and suppliers, and even evaluate their superiors. Customers make new demands for quality and service. Major investors replace CEOs.

The problem is especially visible on the communication networks that are penetrating business. It is somewhat like the “flaming” that goes on over the Internet. One CEO convened an “electronic meeting” to spur open discussion, only to see top management attacked so viciously that he had to pull the plug.

Obviously, leaders will have to be far more skillful to direct this raw energy into productive directions. The most unsettling change is that they will have to shed their mask of authority to meet people directly, facing all the stinging criticism and outrageous demands that have been suppressed by authority. And employees will be equally unsettled at seeing that leaders are not demi-gods with all the answers but fallible humans; they will then have to assume the responsibilities that managers are being asked to relinquish. With both leaders and followers stripped of their old illusions, both may then settle in for the hard but realistic task of learning to work together.

Today’s leaders must facilitate a shared decision-making process by encouraging open discussion, clarifying issues and resolving conflicts, summarizing key themes, and drawing out a satisfactory conclusion. The most crucial requirement is to listen to understand the messy complexity of problems and the different ideas others hold about them.

The art of listening is seldom practiced because it is a demanding discipline. Most people feel chronically deprived of being heard in a way that fully appreciates their unique views and struggles. When some caring soul comes along to listen, the average troubled individual will so eagerly unburden themselves that the listener may have a hard time disengaging. If the leader gives up prior expectations and listens with a careful, receptive mind to capture subtle meanings, the most outlandish points can prove to be nuggets of good fortune.

For instance, there is no better way to confirm an argument than to be challenged by a strong objection, and then to turn that objection into support. If one can listen carefully and ask probing, honest questions, a resolution usually appears. The role of a wise leader is to nurture this greater truth and present it as a gift to his or her followers. The resulting sense of their gratitude and heightened trust can be palpable.

How little we understand the wisdom of traditional sayings, such as “The meek shall inherit the earth.” The very thought seems ludicrous in today’s high-stakes power games. But the real message is not that “weakness” will become widespread, but that a gentle, trusting humility is more realistic than self-pride for coping with a world that is too mysterious to comprehend. Rather than a sign of weakness, humility is a virtue of strong people who do not need to prove their might, so they are open to new understanding.

In a knowledge society, leaders will have to reverse what was once considered admirable. Rather than acting with bold determination and extending a brilliant vision to guide others, leaders must direct attention away from themselves to focus on their followers. They should certainly offer their own ideas. But if they can unite their vision with the many other visions also waiting to be realized, the resulting synthesis of views is invariably far richer and more powerful.

We are all creatures of belief, and we are usually trapped inside of our own heads by limited, outmoded beliefs. The first responsibility of leaders today is to understand that it is okay to admit we are ignorant. Let’s make the search for understanding not only acceptable but praiseworthy, and show the way by modeling this ability to learn through honest interaction.

If this painful exploration can be sustained through its twists and turns, a new clarity of awareness, or a “vision,” may be given us to guide the way ahead. Leadership must be nothing less than a creative process by which isolated souls can touch one another to set off sparks of insight, initiative, and social energy to cope with a far more demanding world. For all its pain and peril, coming to grips with unpleasant realities and with each other is essential to create the needed breakthroughs in awareness for managing a complex world.

Everyone has a boss. And anyone who has aspired to move up the corporate ladder knows that their relationship with those they report to is crucial. When I read Rosanne Badowski’s book I realised that I had been doing mostly what she prescribed. It is precisely these actions that helped me to move up the Rogers corporate ladder .I was Managing Up in my early days as the Air cargo supervisor of Rogers Aviation way back in 1973.Later, as Commercial Manager of Rogers Aviation in the 1984 I had sharpened my Managing Up skills. This is yet another case of practising leadership without being on top of the heap.

In Managing Up Rosanne Badowski offers a straightforward, entertaining, no-holds-barred account of what it takes to make your relationship with your boss work to your advantage, no matter where you stand in the corporate hierarchy. Managing Up is an invaluable guide for managing your career and juggling responsibilities with finesse and confidence. It should become a management bible for anyone hoping to get ahead in their profession.”Rosanne Badowski’s extraordinary fifteen years in the trenches with Jack Welch have given her unparalleled expertise in the art of leadership. She wrote:

When I’m cranked up, two hours of phone work, slogging through files, and reviewing briefing material will come down to a 30-second “gun and go” item that hits Jack’s desk. I deliver the essential elements of what he needs to make a decision so that he can make it and move on. I anticipate and answer questions. Am I a mind reader? No. But I pay attention to what’s happening, and I understand why. I’m a student of cause and effect, allowing me to assess what executive input will be required, so that I encapsulate it.

Simply passing along a customer complaint or issue doesn’t create time. It is, in fact, a time sponge. Without support, the executive must stop what he or she is doing to find out what’s going on, who is handling the project, and what is being done about it. Often, it means juggling priorities and diverting attention from more urgent matters. With proper support, the complaint hits the desk with notes or a memo covering those points so that the boss can be assured that the customer is satisfied, and can ensure the situation doesn’t happen again. What might have gobbled up hours can be done in minutes.

By functioning in this way, you allow your manager to skip over time-consuming preliminaries to focus his or her resources on the final outcome. I scrub every item Jack Welch gets to make sure it’s free of nonessentials or of aspects that can be handled by somebody else. Time is too precious to waste by touching a piece of paper, a project, or a problem more than is necessary. Sometimes high-touch is essential. But disciplined one-touch or low-touch provides an extra cushion that can be used to grow a business, or to fight fires.

As an executive assistant, I perform countless management roles—project manager, coordinator, communicator, and troubleshooter. Yes, we’re all managers, but we’re also all secretaries. I don’t care if you come to work in a limo or ride the bus. At times, we all have to roll up our sleeves and do the mundane tasks to make grand strategies work. Companies can’t survive without highly trained, motivated, empowered, front-line support people who sweat the small stuff. These people are on the cutting edge of every vital function, integrating and coordinating against tight deadlines and across time zones and boundaries. Without dedicated help, all the strategic thinking, careful planning, innovation, and high technology will fall short. Someone has to be there, simply to get the job done.

Jack had a habit of sending handwritten notes to GE people. He wanted to remain accessible, break down barriers that isolate most CEOs, and offer a bit of help—an idea, a nudge, a pat on the back—to men and women who were working hard to close deals, satisfy customers, or manufacture high-quality products. Even the notes that started with “What the hell’s this all about?” were designed to help break impasses and to bring a resolution.

No matter what your job, if you’re not helping, you’re hindering. The essence of managing is making things happen. So, determine whether your actions support a long-term goal. Ask yourself: Did the work I performed today help to achieve a goal? Invest time and effort in the things that matter most.

It also helps if the organization has clear goals worth investing in.

One of the subjects of consultation of President Sarkosy with the German Chancellor was to compare and adjust their notes for an action on the holding company of EADS. The two countries main shareholders of EADS have to get their act right as their actions will have an impact on the work force of each country. Besides the fierce competition of the aircraft manufactures could well be fiercest of the many competitions between the US and the EU. China & Dubai will be investing in Airbus. Much is at stake.

There have been a couple of books written on the Boeing Airbus rivalry. Flight of the titans (2005), Boeing versus Airbus (2006) are the recent books. I read through the summary of the 2006 book written by John Newhouse, the prolific author and former columnist of a renowned American newspaper: The Newyorker.

Who will ultimately win the battle? And which battle are they fighting?

Is it the battle of the survival of the firms? Much has to be said about the financial structure of each company and the support given by the respective governments. On the one hand, the US had accused the Europeans to subsidize Airbus on the other technological break through researched and paid by the NASA are used by Boeing. Conveniently, Boeing is also a manufacturer of strategic aircraft for the military.

Will the battle then be about market share?

At this stage, it would appear that the strategic decisions taken by each company are different. Seattle-based Boeing didn’t want the super-jumbo jet to carry fewer than 600 passengers, so that it could preserve the market for any expanded version of its 747 jumbo jets, which have a current maximum capacity of 420 seats…Some Airbus members wanted any joint US-European line of super jumbo jets to begin with a 500-seat version to prevent Boeing from increasing its own overall share of all airliner markets.

The two firms also disagreed at a fundamental level about future demand dynamics. Boeing maintained that increased fragmentation in the form of point-to-point travel would solve the problem of congestion at major airports. Airbus, on the other hand,believed that hub-to-hub travel, particularly at the major airports in London, New York,Los Angeles, and Tokyo would continue to grow. While it agreed with Boeing that some increases in fragmentation and frequency would occur, it did not believe that theyrepresented long-term solutions to increasing travel, especially at major hubs in Asia. Asa result, Airbus saw the development of airplanes with greater capacity as essential.

At any rate, once their collaboration ended, both competitors reverted to independent efforts in this product space. Airbus quickly set up a Large Aircraft Decision to pursue the market opportunity in VLA. Thus in 2008 the Airbus 380 will be on stream. And for its part, Boeing considered two updated and “stretched” versions of its popular 747 jumbo jet, the 747-500X holding up to 490 passengers and the 747-600X holding up to 550 passengers, at a total cost of $5to $7 billion. Boeing is also pursuing its efforts and energies in a more efficient and ecology efficient aircraft, the dream liner 787 using new engines and new material for the aircraft body.

It looks like now and in the future Boeing is ahead in market share, and ahead in the game of the future which will be a more efficient and pollution friendlier technology. Whilst Airbus battle ground is still on today’s turf it looks as if Boeing is furrowing in the new rules of the Future, the fuel efficient aircraft and reduced pollution.

In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India
My friends Shabbir and ILA from Bombay offered me sometime ago the book written by Edward Luce. I am so grateful to them.

It is a very entertaining and yet very well documented book which I thoroughly enjoyed. Living in Mauritius in the country with the largest majority of Indians in the southern hemisphere, I was enthused with the writings of Edward Luce.

I am now clearer (I guess) or at least I could sense the source of some of the unexplained behaviour of some of our Indian origin brothers of Mauritius particularly some of the prominent politicians. Castes system: origin and practices are very well illustrated in the document. One only needs to transpose the basis concept of Caste system from the Vedic literature to the reality of present Mauritian Society.

I was interested to read Luce’s view on:

1.      The relationship of the between the majority community and the Indians of Muslim faith. How the situation will develop with the Islamic world’s expansion.

2.      The impact of Bollywood and the Cinema on the Indian Society and the world.

3.      The continuing threat of Hindu nationalism.

4.      The modern Global and Medieval co existing together.

5.      The future  issues of India in the face of the United States and China

 

The Guardian English newspaper produced a comment on the book:

While researching this book, Edward Luce visits the Cow Product Research Centre near the central Indian city of Nagpur. It is run by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, a right-wing militant organisation dedicated to, among other things, the ‘reform of the Hindu religion’.

Luce is shown around by a senior activist, who starts by taking him to the laboratories. ‘The first room hit me about 20 metres before we arrived. It contained hundreds of bottles of cow’s urine. Next we were shown cow-dung products. My favourite was cow-dung soap.’ ‘God lives in the cow dung,’ Luce’s guide said. ‘All of these recipes are contained in the holy texts.’

 

This anecdote raises the snigger it is calculated to raise and reinforces a stereotype about India. Luce, however, is no panderer to stereotypes. He shows us that with India, stereotypes exemplified by such anecdotes often turn out to be red herrings.

I spent an hour or so watching a seminar given to Microsoft staff at the academy given by Kathryn Cramer on Asset Based thinking. The download was good enough as I did not have many interruptions or lag delay on account of internet communications. Should be able to afford the time, I recommend you to watch it and become a better person :an asset based thinker instead of a deficit based thinker.

Description:
Dr. Kathryn Cramer, founder of The Cramer Institute, has developed and brought to life a revolutionary (and refreshingly simple) concept called Asset-Based Thinking – a practical approach to taking the positive side of life?s ledger and using it to full advantage in everything you do. Asset-Based Thinking calls for small shifts in the way people absorb, perceive, filter, and interpret information. It changes the way we see everything, leading to dramatic improvements in the way we live and work. Asset-Based Thinking zeros in on what?s working rather than what?s not (Deficit-Based Thinking) and favors inspiration and aspiration over desperation?and it is infectious. Through Asset-Based Thinking anyone can lead more productive and personally fulfilling lives. Throughout this talk, Kathy will teach the audience members how to tap the power of Asset-Based Thinking and apply it to their personal and professional lives. This program is divided into three parts: Change the way you see yourself Change the way you see others Change the way you see situations Within each part, Kathy provides practical advice, case studies, and exercises that help participants modify their management, leadership, communication skills, performance, and satisfaction, and take them to the next level.

Speaker(s):
Kathryn D. Cramer, Ph.D., licensed psychologist and founder, The Cramer Institute

My “Confucius” back ground in which at a very early age I was lucky to have been raised place “learning” as the top of my life priority. Thanks to my grand father who used to say that after having satisfied your physical needs of survival, a human immediate need should be learning. Living for him means growing and going forward. Growth can only be achieved by learning. More so, in this fast changing world of today, it has become even more important and pressing to focus our effort to acquire new skills through learning.

Most people find it natural to learn when one is young and attending school. How many stop learning once they strike the working life? Is it because of the sloth of people or their unconscious mind, that the need to create the learning organisation came in the work place environment? I have not stop learning and will not ever to do.Learning is natural to me. I choose to think that Peter Senge and his team coined “the learning organisation” more so for the methodology of learning in a work environment rather than the necessity to motivate the human to keep on learning.

In the final years to my working career, I had the chance to reconvert myself into a coach and got very interested in learning about learning. Very much in the line of my dear friend Penny Vingoe an accomplished teacher who is now running the coaching organisation “learn to learn”.

I enjoyed the article of Vaughan Waller of the topic of learning which I would like to share with you. Much emphasis and effort is now placed in training programmes. I would rather come back to basics and place the focus on learning programmes. Mauritians enterprises are spending so much in training these days. HRDC or the competent authorities would be failing to their tasks if they are not ensuring the quality of the design of the training given by the numerous mushroom grown training institutes in Mauritius.

In the Shoes of the Learner

By Vaughan Waller

The available methodologies to deliver learning in the workplace are now more plentiful than ever and most organizations now realize, that not offering learning opportunities to their staff is potentially more costly than doing so. Enabling staff to develop their skills or acquire new ones is an important way of keeping companies fresh, adaptable to change and thereby remain competitive. So there appears to be very little argument against making learning an integral part of our daily working lives, in the same way that e-mail is currently, to most of us. But, as always, this is easier said than done. In my experience making the time for learning (since that is what managers invariably tell their team to do) only means that something else is not done or not done as well. Learning in the workplace, usually because of the small amount of available time, has to be delivered in a way that will enable learners to integrate it into their day – and this process is the responsibility of the learning designer.

Every learning programme designer wants the project to succeed in its objectives and to be used, enjoyed and talked about in a positive sense from then on. The factors that cause learning programmes to be unsuccessful are many and various : –

• Learning styles
• Personality preferences
• Peer pressure in a classroom environment
• Dislike of learning via a computer
• Learners’ minds on other things
• Using of the wrong training medium
• Poor course design
• Not enough time to do it properly
• Lack of motivation
• Level of computer literacy
• Ability of the learner to self study
• Etc etc.

Therefore, it is one thing to design a programme of instruction but also ensuring that it is succeeds for a variety of learner types is a critical part of the overall process. So how do you ensure that learners will learn what they need to learn?

Unfortunately, the answer to the latter question is often difficult to find. There is a plethora of educational psychological data on how humans learn. There is plenty on pedagogy and the processes whereby information in one person’s head is transferred into the head of the learner. But ask most people in what way they like to learn or in what circumstances they learn best and it is likely that they will call to mind either a good or a poor learning experience. Most people will remember a learning experience in which they were having fun. If someone has had a really successful golfing lesson which produces results, then that person will remember the lesson because they were enjoying themselves. Conversely, we can all remember a crushingly boring training course where the tutor did not connect with the learners, the course was badly designed and perhaps, as a consequence, very little was learnt. Delve further however and ask what is your learning style preference and what is their Myers Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) assessment and you will be met by blank looks. The learners would have to go on a course just to answer these questions!

More to the point, if you did have the answers to these questions and they can be found using a variety of means, how do you design or adapt the learning programme to suit what will almost certainly be a mix of these preferences? It is near impossible to make a programme of instruction that will appeal equally to every learning style and all personality preferences. Furthermore, at the present time it is required that all learning programmes must also be accessible to everyone regardless of any learning or physical impairment too.

The popular answer that is always trotted out is “blended learning”, a combination of learning media, an “e-learning sandwich” or a “bit of this and a bit of that”. Blended learning is one of those terms that most people connected with training within an organization, will profess to know at least something about. Yet it is nothing new and is one of those things which have become caught up with e-learning and other learning activities which has made some think that it is a new 21st century buzzword.

But in my opinion this is no answer to the learning designer who wants easy and straightforward answers to the question “Which way, or mix of ways is best to deliver this learning effectively?”. The answers to the question become a lot easier if they are answered from the perspective of the learner. That may seem obvious but it has to be said that in reality few people in an organization’s learning or training department do or perhaps we should say can design learning from the learners’ perspective. In an organization there are time pressures, budgetary pressures, lack of resources or even perhaps in some cases knowledge. It is easy to write down here that you should do this or do that when in realty that is not always realistic. But in the analysis, design and development stages of the most well known instructional design model, it is possible to consider learners at every point of the way.

This may sound like difficult work but it should not be shirked. And in the way of things that are not particularly fun to do the timescale for all this should not be rushed either. It has been seen repeatedly, ever since computers were first used in learning that trying to rush the boring bits to get to the “nicer” parts of the process, normally spells disaster.

Sticking to an instructional design process will determine the best way to get the learning to the learners in a way that will overcome as many of the problems listed above as possible. Nothing should be ruled out within reason. If you do define e-learning as learning delivered digitally with additional support and services then this can cover a host of options. You could choose from dozens of possible methods many of which are as valid now as they have ever been including : –

• Web based learning content – to be accessed in whatever way is most effective for the learner
• Learning simulations – enabling learners to experience what they have to learn
• Virtual learning – virtual classrooms, conference telephone calls, video conferencing etc enabling learners to work as far as possible with others
• Easy access to reference material such as websites, intranet pages, books and videos
• Informal learning – access to “someone who knows what you need to know”
• Coaches, tutors and mentors – as part of the programme not just when the learner needs help
• Instructor-led “conventional” training – not just the ubiquitous “e-learning sandwich” but as part of the programme

Another possible way to make the choice easier is to use an adaptation of the four-stage process often used in marketing which is : –

• Where are we now?
• Where do we want to be?
• How will we get there?
• How can we ensure arrival?

This can be adapted for this purpose to : –

• What training need do we need to address?
• What will be the specific objectives we want to achieve?
• What delivery method will work best from the learners’ perspective?
• How can I measure its effectiveness simply?

The third question of course is the important one here but if you put yourself in the shoes of the learner consider these questions : –

• Would I enjoy doing it this way?
• What’s in it for me – what is the reward to me by doing it?
• Will it challenge me or bore me brainless?
• What will motivate me to do it?

After all if you consider e-learning, it is meant to be learner-centric – that is allowing learners to pull learning to them rather than having it pushed at them. Except in those organizations where everyone designs their own personal development plans learning is something that employees are asked to do or perhaps told to do and this makes all the difference. Those taking an Open University course do so because they are personally motivated to complete the course but in other situations the motivation has to come from elsewhere.

One of the big challenges of a using a variety of learning methods in one programme is to integrate the various platforms together in one seamless package. This is always tricky but consider as you go along the limitations of each delivery method. It should be remembered that learning on a computer is at its best when used to transfer facts and concepts. The real thinking and analysis type of learning has to be done away from the computer screen. That is why in most cases the computer part is used in a pretest or assessment role to ensure that when the students come to the next part they are all, more or less at the same level of knowledge on the subject.

In this article I have tried to avoid as much as possible the term blended learning since learning has been blended for many decades now. Learning doesn’t need to be “designed using a blended learning approach” since good instructional design would do this anyway. As long as the learning designer puts himself or herself “in the learners’ shoes” then most of the time the outcomes will be successful.