Capability: Part 10 – Summary
Summary
I want to begin this summary with this idea from:
journal.emergentpublications.com/article/complexity-science-a-worldview-shift/Perhaps the most
useful mental model for thinking about the
[Traditional WorldView]TWV and [Emerging
WorldView] EWV is that of a polarity (Johnson,
1992). Polarities are sets of opposites
that cannot function well independently.
The
two sides of a polarity are interdependent,
so one side cannot be “right” or the
“solution” at the expense of the other.
Johnson contends that “many of the
current trends in business and industry are
polarities to manage, not problems to solve”
(p. xi).
An example of a polarity in worldview
is that, rather than replacing yang dominance
with yin dominance, the EWV includes a balance
of yin and yang, not subordinating the yang.
Likewise, the example provided earlier
suggests that indeterminism and determinism
form a polarity. The question of behavior
emerging from the bottom up or being imposed
from the top down form a polarity. Each side
of the pole has upsides and downsides. A
[recursive] “figure 8” pattern often develops
between the upsides and downsides of the two
assumptions.
People often
identify the downside pole as the “problem”
and therefore want to abandon it. The upside
of the opposite pole is seen as the
“solution.” When one pole has been
emphasized for too long, the result is
the downside of both poles.
In the final line in the preceding paragraph, the description parallels the ideas of CAPABILITY DYNAMICS. Our development is often moving between the polarities of how we were, and how things… or we are. And while there is a negating response to that which has gone before, it is the idea to honor our past development – weaving it into the our development now, near and far.
LeaderWARE are tools!
In Capability, we discovered that there are a
number of tools that we can use to create a
dialogue with self and others, to promote
self-knowledge>>self-awareness while understanding
how to leverage our TALENT, create “enabling”
AFFECT and to move among SENSEMAKING
opportunities.
As we move into a necessary
discussion of BIAS DYNAMICS, we are cognizant of
the many ways in which leaders are challenged in
VUCA conditions and why it is critical to
understand the “horse” that you ride.
“In The Fifth
Discipline, Peter Senge (1990) includes
mental modeling as one of the five
disciplines. He suggests that people must be
able to surface mental models by sharing the
assumptions they make in a situation. This
task is not trivial. Most mental models are so
deeply imbedded that people do not even
realize they are simply models; we believe
that they are reality.” – Eric B. Dent
Uncovering these mental models and why they serve us and how they serve us or fail in service to us as postmodern leaders is the meta-goal of BIAS DYNAMICS, our next discussion. Stay tuned!
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