Of Serendipity and Synchronicity

At lunch the other day, David Rymer was relating his favourite serendipity stories.  And boy does he have a few.  He has been collecting them for years.  He defined serendipity as those events that are somewhat unusual but that are noticed and in that noticing, provide some value to the observer.  In contrast, synchronicity is the meaningful coincidence between two seemingly separate events – some form of meaningful relationship between causally unconnected events.  I noted that it is often through serendipity, we can find synchronicity. 

We talked about innovation and the role that people in organisations need to play of looking for the unexpected, those anomalies that fall outside the norm, and to try and ascertain the meaning behind that difference.  It goes against the notion of seeking equilibrium or getting things back to the average.  We also talked about scientific research into anomalies – rather than the general thrust of science which is often towards testing hypotheses and discounting the aberrant findings

My view is that synchronicity can often be an end-state of strong emotional and energetic connections between people (and certain objects).  It goes above and beyond the old concept of sympathies which sought to explain connections between unrelated events before mechanistic science came along and discovered the basis of those connections; the cause of those connections.  And now, holistic approaches and quantum physics are trying to help us explain the synchronicity between seemingly unrelated events.  Perhaps as our knowledge of this area deepens, we may not just go “that was weird” when we observe synchronicity but relish it, enjoy the experience and actively look forward to the next surprise!

Gurteen Knowledge Cafe in Dubai

Went along to the Gurteen Knowledge Cafe last night here in Dubai, hosted by Five Dimensions, at the Hotel Grosvenor.  David ran a similar process to that at actKM last year (I could not see much difference in the slides at all but when you’re on a good thing….). 

The interesting thing (as with any of these workshops) is the level of engagement and conversation with the people, especially across different cultures.  David mentioned a Cafe that he ran recently in Asia where the participants refused to move between tables and others where engaging them in conversation was like pulling teeth.  I was particularly interested to see what it would be like in an Arab country where conversation is very natural and meetings always start with social chitchat. 

The conversations at the table were quite standard with people wanting to say their piece and engaging well in dialogue.  But the whole group conversation at the end seemed more like a series of monologues with people wanting to state their piece rather than continuing on a theme that someone else said.  There was not much dialogue, debate or true conversation.  Someone who knows the local culture stated that this was because the local environment is competitive and it is important to make your point rather than stay silent. 

Two other items were interesting.  One was the importance of job security for people which meant they felt they needed recognition for their work and their ideas.  This means that people tend to be quite loyal to the organisation, sometimes a good thing but not when it restricts idea generation and establishment.  The other was the high value placed on western knowledge with locals importing expertise from western countries – not bad if you are an expat consultant!

What’s that got to do with the price of petrol?

Andrew W asked me the other day about what it is like to live in Dubai as a futurist.  I’ll answer that question in another post but it’s interesting to see the local petrol prices.  In Australia, they are nearing AUD 1.50 per litre in comparison to the equivalent prices internationally of around AUD1.85 in France, AUD 1.95 in the UK and a measly 95 cents / litre in the US (I spent some time researching and doing currency conversions!).  This is about on par with a few years back when we took a round the world trip and noticed that petrol prices in the states were about 2/3 of those in Australia and in Europe it was about a third more or twice that of the Yankees.

But all of this pales in comparison to the UAE.  Over here, petrol prices are about 45 cents a litre.  When I first started driving in 1981, petrol was 34 cents a litre!  Last weekend, it cost me about $17 (51 dirhams) to fill up the Yaris with 8 gallons or about 36 litres of fuel. 

Now this means that there is no real desire for people to think sustainably when they purchase a vehicle over here.  I have not seen one Prius although I have seen lots of Hummers, SUVs and 4WDs.  There is no local tax on fuel and very few shipping costs.  For the locals, they could say that it is their resource and they want to maximise the economic benefits from their use of it.  But given the relative wealth of the locals, it does breed a culture of not caring about the sustainability issues associated with personal resource use.  And there is hardly any public transport here – a few buses and the commissioning of a new rail line tracking the main road.

The Eye of Seeing Hero Story Archetypes

It was a quiet evening here in Dubai so I decided to head off to the local cinema to catch the latest Jessica Alba film - The Eye.  Given my interest in eyes, and the fair beauty of the main character, I thought it seemed a good film to watch.  It ended up being an OK film, kept my interest all the way through with only a couple of guffaws due to the plotline.  Typical US Hollywood Hero Movie plot though.

There has been a fair debate on other blogs (Dave, Patrick and Graham) recently about archetypes.  In the Hero Story plot of Joseph Campbell and popularised by Viogler, there were 7 main archetypes and this film had nearly all of them. 

Hero - obviously Jessica herself who goes through all the plotlines including the return
Herald - the surgery and her sister
Shadow - death and disbelief
Mentor - the donor
Threshold guardian - the unbelievers, the ghosts, the kids, lots of these as it’s Hollywood!
Shapeshifter - possibly Alicia but it was all fairly predictable - an attribute of the donor
Trickster - not much comedic talent or cutting the hero down to size in this film.

The blog posts are primarily referring to culturally elicited specific archetypes rather than the above archetypes that are more universal and do not actually need to relate to a person. 

The last comment in the film is the standard “seeing is believing but sometimes you need to believe in order to see” line.  It’s something that I have used in some of my presentations as well that in many instances, you need to trust a situation in order to be able to see the knowledge inherent in it.  A closed mind will not see anything, a cynic may only see what he wants to see, although at the other end of the scale, blind faith will accept everything.  Too often, we fail to open ourselves to the unexpected or to be able to listen to the subtle.  In these cases, you cannot see unless you are prepared to open the door and personally experience the situation.

Regional Knowledge Resource Kit

My good friend Nerida Hart, who is now working at Land and Water Australia, has pointed me on a number of occasions to the Regional Knowledge Resources Kit.  I have had some cursory looks at it in the past but over the past couple of days I have looked at it in more detail and it is an incredibly valuable KM resource.  The work that they have done with the various regional bodies is amazing, brokering conversations amongst local practitioners to share knowledge and build connections. 

The Kit itself is full of great information and links to valuable resources.  It does not just have utility for regional land managers but for anyone who needs to work with a community to find out their particular needs, develop trusted relationships and develop strategies for implementing concrete actions that will create value for them.  One of the key insights for me from the conversation with Nerida today and delving into the site is that anecdote circles work best when the group knows each other a bit – so therefore it’s best to have anecdote circles during the middle of the process rather than at the start.

So make sure you add this to your KM favourites, the RKRK site.

Luke’s Dubai Adventure

For the past 6 months, our family has been working extremely hard to relocate my wife Lyn’s business (Kiva) to wonderful new premises.  And just when you think that things are getting close to normal, along comes an exciting new career opportunity for me elsewhere.

I am now in Dubai working with David Rymer on knowledge management projects for a business based in Dubai.  I arrived over here last Friday and will be here for about 6 months.  The work itself is fascinating, the experience will be fulfilling, and the money will help pay some bills. 

I will aim to post about some of the professional aspects and insights of the work on this blog over the next few months.  In the meantime, I have commenced another blog (lukedubai) that I will use as my travel journal for friends and family to see what I have been doing. 

Dubai is Corporate Disneyland, construction zone, global logistics hub, desert city and shopping mecca all rolled together.  I’m still getting my bearings and the culture change is slowly starting to subside.

Evaluating Conferences and Workshops using The Worm

At the Knowledge Management Round Table today, Michelle Lambert the convenor, trialled the use of “The Worm” as an approach to assess the energy levels and engagement levels throughout the day of the workshop.  The Worm has been run a few times in national debates during Federal Election periods to assess whether the selected audience prefers one politician over another.  I thought that it would be an interesting idea to use The Worm for participants to self-assess their energy and engagement levels during the workshop or conference as a form of feedback to the conference organiser to show what they really felt drawn to and when they went to sleep.

Michelle painted a good picture of The Worm and regularly asked the participants to not forget their worm, feel if it is wriggling, and make sure that they record it at regular intervals.  In any seminar or conference, it would not really be desirable to keep the energy levels constantly high the whole time but to have periods of reflection or quieter times to build up for the next big rush.  But what this approach attempts to evaluate is the turning points of what clicked with people and what turned them off.  Ideally, people would annotate their worm with notes stating just that and also noting the highest and lowest energy levels during the day.

 At the very least, it is a self-evaluation tool for the participants to check in with themselves, assess how they are going and record it rather than stare blankly at a powerpoint screen.  Preferably, the feedback on the collective Worms would provide a valuable insight for conference organisers into participant’s attention.

There are many variants of The Worm that could not just assess energy or engagement levels but emotional states (happy/sad), level of group interaction, or from a meta-perspective, an assessment of why they felt the way that they felt to gain a deeper level of self-introspection.

It would be really interesting Michelle to see what the results of The Worm were and whether people felt that it was useful or just another of Luke’s crazy ideas that fell flat …

Killing Innovation - A Manager’s Guide

I wrote a short article the other day about innovation and someone took umbrage at one of my lines that the public sector (as the traditional hierarchical bureaucracy) has 1001 ways to kill a good idea and that we need to move towards a model that has 1001 ways to advance a good idea.  Innovation can often be really difficult for managers who are under time and budget constraints to get the job done rather than look to do things differently. 

I came across this blog post which describes 5 questions that can be raised by a manager to kill innovation.  The beauty of responding with a question is that it makes the innovator have to justify their innovation to you through logical reasoning based on your own assumptions - a phantasmagorically circular way of killing innovation slowly but surely. 

I think we are now up to counting 1035 ways to kill innovation (although we cheated because we started at 1001)!! 

Over-consumption in Western Society - About Stuff

Saw a great video recently featuring Annie Leonard on “The Story of Stuff“.  It illustrates in just 20 short minutes the problems associated with the linear economic process we have in place in today’s society that is resulting in environmental degradation, a spiritual vacuum, and the treadmill of overconsumption.  It’s like reading Clime Hamilton’s Affluenza but viewing it instead as a simple story featuring systems thinking that is great for kids and adults alike.

Wonderful how these new Internet tools are so easily available and how simple stories can be constructed that are highly motivating.  A must for anyone with children - switch off the TV and spend half an hour around the computer screen watching this as a family and then discussing what you could do to make a little bit of difference.

Leadership vs Management: that old question

I am designing a conference program at the moment around the topic of leadership.  Looking around, i noticed this little quote by Steve Denning:

Managers are expected to accept whatever the organization wants and to make that happen. By contrast, leaders often challenge what the organization says it wants and create new goals.

That’s a nice little distinction that I am sure to use time and time again.