Dynamics of Ownership based on Scharmer and Heifetz

by Elmer S Soriano

A young female physician friend shared recently how she had not yet started the program for drug-users in her town, despite the fact that rehabilitating 800,000 drug users is an urgent and large scale problem in the Philippines these days. She said she had not yet been trained to address this problem. A hidden perspective is that a young female physician faces personal security risks when she interacts with drug users in a small rural town. 

The Bridging Leadership framework (by AIM and Zuellig Family Foundation) propose "ownership" as a core principle in Bridging Leadership. Heifetz and Scharmer both describe the "ownership" mindsets of leaders but from slightly different perspectives. 

Heifetz could describe the doctor's mindset as a form of "work avoidance" because the thought of doing the adaptive work on local drug-users could feel too "distressing", or "too hot" for this female physician. She may be conscious or only subconsciously aware of this distress or disequilibrium that she faces. She therefore conveniently declares that she has not yet been trained as a polite way of dis-owning the problem. (See Figure 1). 

Scharmer would describe the situation as the doctor operating from "me-world" and "it-world", resorting to polite talk or talking tough as opposed to owning the issue at Level 3 and Level 4. (See Table 1 and Figure 2).

This is part of the Adaptive Leadership-Bridging Leadership Dictionary initiative.  

Fig.1: Adaptive  Learning

Table 1: Phrases as Reflections of Structures of Attention/Ownership

Structure of Attention	Thinking  (Individual)	Phrases (Individual)	Phrases (Group)	Phrases (Institutions)
Level 1 - Operating from the old me-world	Downloading habits of thought	That's not my job description. That could be my job but I don't have the required inputs (training, budget, etc) so I can't do it.	I'm already doing my job and fulfilling my role.	That isn't on our plan for this year. Let's include that in next year's plan and budget. (Or some other organizational excuse.)
Level 2 - Operating from the current it-world	Factual Object focused	What are the performance gaps? Of the gaps, which are assigned to me?	That's not my job. I've done my part.	Let's refer the client to the assigned service provider (whether or not the providers are adequate.)
Level 3 - Operating from the current you-world	Empathic Listening	How can I care for the client-partner as myself?	How can we help the client-partner as if we were the client?	How can we change our rules so that we thrive and create shared value with our client-partner?
Level 4 - Operating from the highest future possibility that is wanting to emerge	Generative Listening	What is emerging? What patterns are being formed? What is called of us?	How can we do things differently? What rules are getting in the way of our preferred future? How can we modify the rules that don't work?	How can we create a space so that we have ongoing adaptation/ transformation?

Sources:

https://www.presencing.com/sites/default/files/page-files/Theory_U_Exec_Summary.pdf

Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading (2002) by Martin Linsky , Ronald A. Heifetz

http://irregularleadership.com/wp-irregdir/uploads/2015/04/Screen-Shot-2015-04-10-at-12.38.59-AM-1024x591.png

http://www.adaptiveleadership.civika.com/home/resources/al-bl--dictionary
www.bridgingleadership.aim.edu
www.zuelligfoundation.org 

Building Blocks of Leadership

by Elmer S Soriano

Just as chemistry has the building blocks of protons, electrons, and neutrons, I've begun thinking of the building blocks of leadership. Here are a few essentials that I think are good ways of learning leadership quickly and with more depth.

1. Chunk - chunking is the brain process that occurs when inputs come together into a coherent whole in an individual's brain. It is closely related to adult learning.

2. Stories - chunks are comprehended frequently through stories, and leaders have a key role in inducing insight and choicefulness among their learner's as they join the leader through a Hero's Journey. Case 1

3. Frameworks - frameworks are maps that enable individuals to navigate through known and unknown territories. With the adaptive leadership framework, a leader may be better oriented in working on the frontiers of what is known and unknown.

4. Emergence - emergence the the product of multiple complex interactions. A leader is sensitive to emergence and deploys interventions that engage emergence so that the dynamic is more likely to flow in the direction of the preferred reality.

5. Design thinking - is an approach to design and problem solving that takes advantage of the previous four elements here. The assumption is that social problems are results of complex dynamics and that solutions can be designed to induce a more positive dynamic through design thinking. For social problems, design thinking can be applied to introducing institutional innovations. Case 2

I have attempted to teach leadership using these building blocks. The results are mixed and the aim is for the Civika Teaching and Learning Lab to get better at teaching leadership through simpler and more robust concepts and learning methods.

The Adaptive Leadership-Bridging Leadership translation dictionary is one application of these building blocks in deconstructing both frameworks. (click here)

Image credits:
https://www.greenwood.com.au/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/brain1.jpg

Walang Paki, Absencing, and Cognitive Distancing from the Poor

by Elmer S Soriano

A few years back, I had a friend from Sydney visiting me in Manila. We were in the car stopped at an intersection when a street child knocked at window. She was jolted by the sight of a human just inches away from her, looking her in the eye, begging for help. 

I, however, had been desensitized by years of exposure to street children. The common practice is to knock twice from the inside of the window to dismiss them, or to simply look away.

How can a society become desensitized to the plight of the poor?  

"Walang paki'' is short for "walang pakialam", which translates to "no accountability, responsibility, or care".

These terms roughly correspond to Scharmer's "absencing" (see video) which he explains as:

"The cycle of absencing unfolds through blinding and denial rather than seeing; entrenching and desensing rather than sensing; holding-on instead of letting go. By doing these things, we create an illusionary map of reality that results in killing the new instead of birthing and co-creating it.

 Lott (2002) explores the same concepts from the class and race perspectives and describe  "cognitive and behavioral distancing from the poor" as

"...a dominant response is that of distancing, that is, separation,exclusion, devaluation, discounting, and designation as “other,” and that this response can be identified in both institutional and interpersonal contexts. In social psycho-logical terms, distancing and denigrating responses operationally define discrimination."

Filipino Psychology	Scharmer	Lott
bulag, nagbubulagan	blinding
manhid, walang paki	desesnsing
nagmamatigas, nagpupumilit	holding on
mata pobre; hampas lupa; nilalait		Symbols of ridicule
Tinuturing na basahan		"nonpersons"; not worthy of recognition;
Walang pinag-aralan		Stereotyping; symbols of ridicule"

The Filipino terms here are drawn from a more critical or judgemental voice, where there is a premise or moral expectation of the "other" should see or empathize. Lott, however, 

From the designer's perspective, the Deep Dive evolved into Human-Centered Design as antidote to absencing. The Empathy Field Guide organizes the feelings that one may encouter as one walks in someone else's shoes.  

From the social development perspetive, leaders should be able to name the class stereotypes and social psychology blinders that inject cognitive distancing from the poor. Issues and biases that accompany race, class, gender, etc. have to be named in order for these stereotypes to be less blinding. 

Sources:
Lott, Bernice, Cognitive and behavioral distancing from the poor.
American Psychologist, Vol 57(2), Feb 2002, 100-110.http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.57.2.100
Scharmer, Otto, http://www.ottoscharmer.com/sites/default/files/2011_BMZ_Forum_Scharmer.pdf

Image credit:http://exploringyourmind.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/partners-in-a-play.jpg

Generative Governance: Typology of Governance Frames based on Theory U

by Elmer S. Soriano

How does one develop tools to guide Mayors through the different "structures of attention" all the way to generative governance, going beyond project management? The image above is an example of a Mayor's dashboard that was adopted in 600 municipalities. Using this one-page Mayor's Dashboard as reference, regular coaching/advising sessions were delivered to the Mayor, tracking the evolution of the ecosystem by color-coding the cells red, yellow, and green.

This dashboard serves as a decision-support tool that synthesized three types of knowledge; a) political; b) local; c) scientific/modeller's knowledge into a one-page interface. (Clark et al, 2010 click here)

First, let's dissect a Mayor's executive/governance interventions based on Scharmer's Structures of Attention. The video cases emphasize a particular Structure of Attention, but may reflect multiple structures of attention.  

Table 1: Mayor's Intervention based on Mindset and Structure of Attention (adapted from Scharmer)

Structure of Attention	Mindset of Mayor	Role of Mayor	Case
Governance 1 Downloading habits of thought	downloading projects based on what I think you need	determining priority projects and allocating funds based on Mayor's personal worldview	White elephant projects
Governance 2 Factual, object-focused	evidence-based downloading of projects with limited dialogue or consultation; Technical Assistance (TA)	analyzing data and then aligning priority projects and allocating funds	Bulacan Social Research (click here)
Governance 3 Empathic Listening	reflecting upon how rules can be changed to make the ecosystem work better for you	dialogues with stakeholders to gain deeper understanding of complex interdependencies and counterproductive rules	Kauswagan (click here for video)
Governance 4 Generative Listening	creating spaces and cultivating conversations so that many stakeholders co-own and co-create solutions	creates spaces for dialogue and co-creation; creates social labs, leadership labs, and/or governance labs	Naga People Empowerment (click here for video)

Table 2: Structures of Attention by Scharmer

Sources:

https://www.presencing.com/sites/default/files/page-files/Theory_U_Exec_Summary.pdf

http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/08/05/heapol.czr054.full.pdf+html

http://neldax.yolasite.com/resources/01-%20Introduction%20to%20MLGP.pdf

https://research.hks.harvard.edu/publications/getFile.aspx?Id=600

Dimensions of Co-ownership in Bridging Leadership

Co-ownership is a core concept in Bridging Leadership. But what do we mean by co-ownership?

Here are a few definitions to help us better understand co-ownership in the context of leadership:

Co-owner: A co-owner is an individual or group that shares ownership in an asset with another individual or group. The co-owner of an asset owns a percentage, though the amount may vary according to the ownership agreement.
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/co-owner.asp

Empathy:the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also : the capacity for thishttp://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empathy
Kapwa, meaning 'togetherness', is the core construct of Filipino Psychology. Kapwa has two categories, Ibang Tao (other people) and Hindi Ibang Tao (not other people)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filipino_psychology#Core_value_or_Kapwa_.28shared_inner_self.29
In order to analyze the different dimensions of co-ownership within a case or phenomenon, the leader or analyst may dissect the psycho-social phenomena using these lenses:
1. Ladder of co-ownership - just as there is a progression among couples from the first look> to the first date> to marriage> parenthood; there is also a Ladder of Co-ownership. Are there stakeholders in different stages of commitment?  What are these stages? The Ladder of Engagement is a similar concept.
2. Depth/lalim of commitment to what is co-owned - the level to which the co-owners are bound to the commitment of co-ownership. How deep is the commitment to the commitment? Conversely, an analyst may ask "at what level will these stakeholders back out of their commitment?" Depth of commitment may be indicated through terms like "walang paki", "napipilitan", "ok lang" to "feel na feel", to "die-hard". Watch this video to see a deep commitment across multiple generations of leaders (click here). A personal narrative may reveal the depth of commitment. (click here)
3. Scope/sakop of co-ownership - the extension of the co-ownership mindset to more areas of adaptive work (from poverty to agriculture to peace-building) This video describes co-ownership that spans across sectors and agenda.(click here) 
4. Psycho-social unit of co-ownership/agency - There are often individual and collective units of ownership. Analyze the multiple sets of individuals and organizations that co-own in the system.  
5. Techniques used to induce co-ownership - What techniques or engagement mechanisms were deployed in order to cultivate co-ownership. This video shows how dialogue is a basic technique that can be deployed even in cultivating co-ownership within the family.
The following illustrative cases may be used to teach the dimensions of co-ownership.
Kauswagan Galing Pook Case (click here)Co-ownership in the family (click here)Culture-oriented Co-ownership (click here) 

Image Source:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BLfjIbgCUAAz8A6.jpg

Grounding Leadership Curriculla in Culture

by Elmer S. Soriano

 

Many leadership programs are based on western leadership concepts and books. Authors like Heifetz, Scharmer, and Greenleaf are among the more popular western leadership authors and their concepts have made their way into mainstream MBA and masters in public administration curricula.

The problem is that many of these concepts from the top authors are too post-modern for many learners to comprehend.

It is up to leadership course designers to adapt leadership concepts to culturally-compatible instructional designs that take advantage of the existing wisdom already within a culture or organization.

Below are Levels of Instructional Adaptation for Leadership adapted from Caldwell.
 
Level 1 - Limited

• lecturing concepts straight out of a textbook authored in a different cultural context
• minimal translation to mother-tongue
• teaching and measuring leadership solely from foreign author's framework

Level 2 - Minimal

• Teaching in the mother-tongue of the learners
• understanding learner's felt needs, life questions and specific history
• discovering their worldview presuppositions
• transliterating foreign concepts to rough equivalents in mother-tongue

Level 3 - Mid-level

• understanding how their formal and informal educational systems work
• anchoring lessons and concepts in real-world Leadership Lab projects
• learning how they react to and interpret different kinds of information
• discovering their methods of perceiving, interpreting, and evaluating issues

Level 4 - Maximal

• telling stories in culturally appropriate ways
• communicating leadership concepts in culturally appropriate ways
• dialoging with local oral and written organizational or sacred texts

 Source: Adapted from Larry W. Caldwell (20__)

Image Credits:
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-c-KZDQJrtLc/VzBoqdGxrpI/AAAAAAAADKs/_xKsl3OM9p4qu7VCbyxLcpz3arB6vKeEgCKgB/s1600/igorot-leader.jpg

Awakening Leadership among Jaded Civil Servants

by Elmer S Soriano

My greatest challenge has been to change the mindset of people. 

Mindsets play strange tricks on us. 

We see things the way our minds have instructed our eyes to see. - Muhammad Yunus 

How does one teach leadership to a young civil servant in an office that has been accustomed to mediocrity for over a decade, where low performance is the norm? What if for years, her municipal office has allowed crimes to go unpunished, or epidemics unaddressed, or malnourished children to go uncared for?

Harvard's Prof.Marshall Ganz teaches a course called Public Narrative: Conflict, Continuity, and Change which tackles this issue from the public narrative perspective. This blog entry attempts to explore the intersection between institutional mandates and leadership narratives.

De jure and de facto policies were discussed previously in this blog. A civil servant may find herself in a low-performing office or team that has performed poorly for over a decade. She may even find herself promoted to a leadership position in an office wherein she herself was guilty of promoting lousy behaviors as a younger employee.

In Figure 1 above, the declared ideal (de jure) policy is represented by the red box. An office or bureau may have performed at a mediocre level, making mediocre performance the implemented or operationalized (de facto) policy. In the yellow box, most of the office personnel benefit from and reinforce low performance, and a change agent within the office would find resistance from her officemates if a significant increase in performance targets is proposed.

A leader should not refer to her peers or the de facto policy, or else she will be misled into thinking that modest incremental change is good leadership, whereas she will just be reinforcing low targets and mistaking that for leadership.

A leader has to look within into his deeper values and expand her leadership to pursue the declared ideals. Of course, she will need to practice Adaptive Leadership within her office to induce change at a pace that her office can handle.

Emerging Philippine Public Leadership Development Ecosystem

I've been observing and directly involved in the various leadership programs in the Philippines and I'm assembling overview of the different friends that I'm seeing.

Galing Pook Foundation - started out as a recognition program local governments 20 years ago. Has started organizing fora and a governance innovation lab in the pastfew years

Zuellig Family Foundation - Implemented the Health Leadership and Governance Program with theDepartment of Health in 600+ municipalities.

Ateneo PhD in Leadership - The most leadership-centricPhD program in the Philippines. Other PhD in Education Leadership programs are designed for school administrators.

DSWD Leadership for Convergence Program - Training 1,600 social workers in Bridging Leadership oriented towards lifting families out of poverty.

The Silent Majority and Duterte Supporters - attempting to morph into citizen engagement groups.

Healing Broken Places: Urban Renewal Lab Experiment

by Elmer S. Soriano

There lies a small gem of a park in Baguio that's broken.

If we planted an Urban Renewal Lab beside it and challenged the youth to heal it, using a framework from Cornell on an online course, would this place get healed?

Relevant Links:
www.slu.urbanrenewallab.com
https://www.edx.org/course/reclaiming-broken-places-introduction-cornellx-envsci1500x-0

Redemption and Restorative Justice in Periods of Institutional Transition

by Elmer S Soriano

“Any fool can be happy. It takes a man with real heart to make beauty 

out of the stuff that makes us weep.” 

― Clive Barker

There was massive looting in the period immediately after Typhoon Haiyan ravaged Tacloban City, leaving over 6,000 people dead. Because families lost their household supply of food, water, and medicine supplies, fathers took along their able-bodies children to acquire supplies from groceries and malls, racing with each other households to get some infant formula, bread, clothes. An aquaintance in Tacloban who was looking for infant formula during that period saw a kid with several bags of powdered milk, and asked   friend who also participated in this mentioned that others also took home flatscreen TVs and other items that were not of survival value. 

How should a community or society deal with periods of individual and collective guilt? How can one apologize and make amends and move on?  

In South Africa, they created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to institutionalize redemption.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was a court-like restorative justice[1] body assembled in South Africa after the abolition of apartheid in the 1990s.[2] Witnesses who were identified as victims of gross human rights violations were invited to give statements about their experiences, and some were selected for public hearings. Perpetrators of violence could also give testimony and request amnesty from both civil and criminal prosecution.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_and_Reconciliation_Commission_(South_Africa)

How might one navigate through the period of institutional transition?

First, recognize that most stakeholders are honoring certain values they hold dear: family survival and security, protection from threats, medium to long-term liveability of the communities, integrity, rule of law. Stakeholders just express these values and deploy themselves in different ways.

Second, temporary or permanent changes in the rules will make stakeholders appear guilty in the eyes of others, regardless of where they stood, because the line (between correct and incorrect behavior) was moved.

The concept of Restorative Justice helps one navigate through the process of redemption.

Restorative justice is an approach to justice that focuses on the needs of the victims and the offenders, as well as the involved community. This contrasts to more punitive approaches where the main aim is to punish the offender, or satisfy abstract legal principles. 

Victims take an active role in the process. Meanwhile, offenders are encouraged to take responsibility for their actions, "to repair the harm they've done – by apologizing, returning stolen money, or community service".[1] In addition, the restorative justice approach aims to help the offender to avoid future offences.
The approach is based on a theory of justice that considers crime and wrongdoing to be an offence against an individual or community, rather than the State.[2]Restorative justice that fosters dialogue between victim and offender has shown the highest rates of victim satisfaction and offender accountability.[3]

         Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restorative_justice

Image credits:

http://stephenking1sts.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Shawshank-Redemption-Escape-in-the-rain.jpg

"Hugot" as Presencing: Transliterating Western Leadership Concepts to Asian Languages

I've been involved in teaching Bridging Leadership for a few years now, and we teach a concept from Otto Scharmer called presencing. 

Definition: - Presencing.

A blend of the words “presence” and “sensing,” presencing signifies a heightened state of attention that allows individuals and groups to shift the inner place from which they function.
https://www.presencing.com/sites/default/files/page-files/Theory_U_Exec_Summary.pdf

It's been a challenge teaching the concept of technique of presencing to others, since it's a "heightened state of attention...". We'd either just blurt out the definition and then hope that the learners understand what you mean, or take the learners to that heightened state, and then point out that they in the heightened state of attention called presencing.

Fortunately, the term "hugot" emerged recently in Filipino popular culture and it does resemble presencing.

Definition - hugot

The term “hugot” is a Filipino word which means to draw or to pull out. The usage of the hashtag “#hugot” became popular not so long ago and is usually used along with song lyrics, a quote, etc. that the person tweeting relates to; “#hugot” means the accompanying words draw emotions out of him/her. Hugot. Usually words with potentially and personally deep sentimental or emotional undertones. Because feelings come from "deep within" so you have had to "hugot" your emotions first "from deep within" before you would've actually blurted them out in somehow emotionally undertoned words — subconsciously or otherwise.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hugot

The translation of presencing to hugot is not perfect, but I think it works. I think teachers of leadership can help Filipino learners understand presencing through the concept of hugot. If we taught leadership in Indonesia or Thailand, we could also similarly look for a vernacular term that resembles presencing, and I am confident that there are such local terms.

Below is a comparison of the nuances differentiating presencing and hugot.

Element	Presencing	Hugot
Source of awareness	inner place, the "Source"	inner place; feelings; subconscious
How to induce this state of awareness	recall life journey, retell personal narratives, other techniques developed by Scharmer et al.	listen to sentimental songs, recall special memories
Manifestation	open heart, open mind, open will	(over)flow of feelings and memories
useful function	innovation, inspiration, sensitivity to the emerging future	unleash passion; communicate suppressed feelings

I think teachers of leadership would be more effective if we translated foreign leadership jargon into vernacular terms and metaphors so that our learners are better able to comprehend the concepts. I've started a English-Filipino leadership dictionary and anyone is welcome to add any relevant terms, whether you can translate them or not. Click here to co-create and co-edit the English-Filipino Leadership Dictionary.

Comparing Bridging Leadership with Traditional Masteral Curriculla

by Elmer S. Soriano

We asked some 25 university professors who taught Bridging Leadership (BL) to compare the BL framework and methodologies with their current graduate schools offerings. I asked them something like this: "Why we don't we teach leadership to young professionals by putting them through your your regular MBA, MPH, or MPA instead of through this Bridging Leadership course?"

A number of them were initially taken aback by the question. I think many of the professors thought of leadership training as Executive Education, that was somewhat academically more lightweight and less textbookish that their regular masteral course.

Here's a comparison of design elements that differentiate BL from the more traditional masteral classes. I threw in an additional column comparing the typical NGO training format.

Curriculum Design Element	Traditional Courses (MPA, MBA, MPH)	NGO Training	Bridging Leadership
Target Learners	Masteral students	Community members, development professionals	Current or aspiring leaders
Logic of Training	technical skills for employment after graduation	skills for livelihood and political "empowerment"	equipping individuals to induce institutional change during the course
Presumed Problem System	simple, complicated	complex	complex
Language Used	science, management	popular education	stories, systems thinking

Overall, the Some said BL unlocked passion and purpose among their learners in ways that their regular masteral classes did not.

  The Life Map Canvas is an alternative way of describing these elements, and we'll tackle that in a different blog. 

Image credits: http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2013/nelson-mandela-on-education-as-a-weapon/