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Nothingness of possibility.
Category Archives for not very business-like
Listening: kids are really really good at it, and managers are mainly awful at it…
The first word of Miles Davis’ autobiography is LISTEN. He described jazz as being about “freedom and space to hear things”
I often declare that I will write a book called “Everything I Learnt About Management I Learnt From Playworking.” A bit like a preschool version of Mark McCormack’s “Things they don’t teach you at Springfield Elementary”. (But I digress,and I’m also in danger of revealing my punchline.)
🎶 You can’t improvise if you don’t listen.
🏭 You can’t manage if you don’t listen.
🗽You can’t lead if you don’t listen.
Here are somebody else’s wise words about listening: please listen…
“They are always listening. Not just to the words we say to them, but those we say in their presence to others. That is their real learning environment. When we managers take that seriously, that’s when our people begin to make us better managers, the kind who think about the words they say and the tones we use with the people in our lives. They make us work to become the managers we’ve always wanted to be, if only because that’s the sort of person we want them to be.
“Our staff don’t learn anything from obedience other than how to command and control, a dubious education at best. They learn everything else by listening (and watching, of course). Real learning requires processing, repetition, time, and experience to fully comprehend. It takes place on their schedule, not yours, which is why it can seem as if they are not listening. But they are: know it, and strive to be the manager you want them to be. That’s the real work of management.”
Read more here:
Thinking in Systems
Donella H. Meadows
“So, what is a system? A system is a set of things—people, cells, molecules, or whatever—interconnected in such a way that they produce their own pattern of behavior over time.
A system is an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organized in a way that achieves something. We can’t impose our will on a system. We can listen to what the system tells us, and discover how its properties and our values can work together to bring forth something much better than could ever be produced by our will alone.
There are no separate systems. The world is a continuum. Where to draw a boundary around a system depends on the purpose of the discussion.
We know a tremendous amount about how the world works, but not nearly enough. Our knowledge is amazing; our ignorance even more so…
You can drive a system crazy by muddying its information streams. Purposes are deduced from behavior, not from rhetoric or stated goals.
Missing information flows is one of the most common causes of system malfunction. Adding or restoring information can be a powerful intervention, usually much easier and cheaper than rebuilding physical infrastructure.
Remember, always, that everything you know, and everything everyone knows, is only a model. Get your model out there where it can be viewed. Invite others to challenge your assumptions and add their own.
Thou shalt not distort, delay, or withhold information.”
― Donella H. Meadows,
Thinking in Systems: A Primer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donella_Meadows
Donella H. Meadows (March 13, 1941 – February 20, 2001) was a pioneering American environmental scientist, teacher, and writer. She is best known as lead author of the influential book “The Limits to Growth” and “Thinking in Systems: a Primer”
( from the excellent: https://creativesystemsthinking.wordpress.com )
Paradigms are Made for Shifting, so we are told here…
Paradigms are Made for Shifting – http://wp.me/p4kRxV-159
It goes on a bit, and it’s about 40% mystical stuff.
Not sure what to make of it really.
Old management whine in VUCA bottles…
http://www.trainingzone.co.uk/lead/strategy/vuca-leadership-why-you-need-it-and-how-to-develop-it
Paradigm shift/leadingedge/bluesky/fad cycle/ same old same old.Yada
Yada
Yada yada.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemsley_Fraser
Buy our stuff.
Yada Yada
And…
I’m sure they are lovely people doing lovely things, andnotbut™, I’m afraid I have to say: old management whine in VUCA bottles…
This is why you should say no to Big Data
The following is taken directly from the link, with the tacit approval of the owner, who wishes to widely disseminate these views and information:
Competency Based Education: The New Reformer Scheme for Collecting Common Core Aligned Data from Children Every Single Day of the Week…
“CBE (Comptency Based Education) is a data driven education system that follows a set of prescribed standards and requires demonstration of “competency” before advancement. It has embedded testing within the curriculum that collects hidden streams of data via unknown algorithms. Stealth, continuous data–collected by vendors, can be shared with third parties–parental consent not needed. The goal is to digitalize education so data can be collected and, remember, data is gold.”
~Sue Kingery Woltanski
Competency Based Education: Destroying Public Schools One Profitable Data Point at a Time https://accountabaloney.wordpress.com/2016/01/26/competency-based-education-destroying-public-schools-one-profitable-data-point-at-a-time/
Competency Based Ed- the culmination of the common core agenda. https://stopcommoncorenys.wordpress.com/2015/11/03/competency-based-ed-the-culmination-of-the-common-core-agenda/
CBE Online is Neither Personalized Nor Higher-Order Thinking! (Nancy Bailey) http://nancyebailey.com/2016/01/23/cbe-online-is-neither-personalized-nor-higher-order-thinking/
Great Schools Partnership and the Covert Agenda of Assessment Reform (Emily Kennedy Talmage) http://emilytalmage.com/2016/01/27/great-schools-partnership-and-the-covert-agenda-of-assessment-reform/
Competency Based Education (Read with care, this reformer website puts you inside the Mothership of the new Common Core aligned Snake oil the reformers are selling) http://excelined.org/competency-based-education/
Digital Learning Now- From Cohorts to Competency – “provides specific guidance regarding the adoption of Common Core State Standards and the shift to personal digital learning.” http://digitallearningnow.com/site/uploads/2013/01/CB-Paper-Final.pdf
Sho-shin: rediscover beginner’s mind
Given that most self improvement stuff is pompous bollocks, here’s some that isn’t (link at the bottom)
It’s mainly really readable and about as cliché-free as this stuff gets, apart from the bloody bamboo photo.
I would add, because my ego wants me to, that if you are really good at your job (which you are, obviously) then you need this all the more.
If you have the choice of attending a meeting and either:
- knowing stuff that would be useful, or
- not knowing stuff that would be useful
to the people at the meeting, I would go with the not-knowing one.
#shotmyselfinfoot
___________ afterthought______
On the other hand, if you actually are a beginner, you need to work hard to get out of beginners mind as soon as you can, otherwise you’ll be really good at not actually doing anything.
