Happy Chinese and Korean New Year. It’s the Year of the Monkey, and isn’t necessarily good:
The Year of the Monkey, 2004, in the Hsia calendar, is symbolized by two elements � with wood sitting on top of metal. According to the cycle of birth and destruction, which governs the inter-relationship between elements, metal will destroy wood. Therefore, wood sitting on its destroyer � metal, is a symbol of disharmony and this may lead to international conflicts. The yang wood is always compared to a tall tree, with the characteristic of being proud, tough, stubborn and sticking to principles, inflexible and uncompromising. The metal sitting under the Yang wood is like a dagger cutting into the roots of the tree and kills it from underneath.
So be careful out there…
From Kevin Kelly’s blog, comes a review of the book Art and Fear which includes this point:
“The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality,” however, needed to produce only one pot -albeit a perfect one – to get an “A”. Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.”
Blogging vs. writing books, among many other lessons.
Froma comment left in my Maps and Territories blog:
“Seeing maps as places where secrets are burried, changes the use of them. Traversing every street is not generally a feasible goal but getting lost by calculation with a map can serve some of the same purposes. If in our notion of urban space its most interesting bits are not easy to get to or fully displayed, if we see a city as a puzzle or a set of riddles, we will believe ourselves closer to its heart when lost or going nowhere in particular.”
— From Chapter 7, The Mind’s Miniatures: Maps, p.131
Thanks anjuanzan.
Heath Row at the Fast Company blog points to this article on good vs. bad gossip in organizations.
Basically it says that bad gossip is bad for the organization, but when people say nice things about each other, that’s good for the organization.
That might bit of a bit simplistic synopsis, but I feel like these researchers have missed a big opportunity.
When I am working with organizations who complain that they have communication problems, I always ask about gossip. I ask how long it takes for a juicy rumour to propagate through the organization. People usually respond with some lightning fast time.
I always point out that this means that there is no communication problem, the problem is that people are just not passionate enough about issues that are “communication problems.” This always leads into nice discussions about working with more passion, rather than devising some useless set of easily broken communication commitments.
I am interested in understadning HOW gossip works, and harnessing that dynamic to deal with “communication problems” in organizations.
In my experience, communication problems generally fall into three types:
1. I can’t get the information I need. This is a dynamic in larger organizations where individuals feel like they don’t have access to information they need to work better, stay on top of the organization or be prepared for events. This complaint usually precedes an unworkable solution, whereby everyone guesses what everyone else needs and provides the information BEFORE the demand for it arises. I suspect that aggregated weblogs and RSS feeds might be a more realistic way of doing this, but the solution usually requires that the complainer actually learn where the information lives and go get it. Regularly scheduled Open Space meetings would be a good idea too, to connect those people who have the information to those who need it.
2. There are too many rumours/lies/trust issues here.. This one can result in pure poison. The fact is that you cannot stop people from telling lies, spreading rumours or abusing trust. You can create a work environment where these situations are minimized through management practices that are based on respect and trust. But the bottom line is that gossip will always be a part of groups. Dealing with this requires well grounded management combined with healthy individuals that have a capacity for absorbing negativity and letting it go. This is a life practice, and organizations are the perfect places to refine that practice. The bottom line is that wishing gossip away is just plain unrealistic, so individuals need to change their attitudes towards gossip. Trust me, it’s the easier of the two solutions.
3. Hoarding information. Knowledge is power. Hoarding knowledge means acquiring power, right? Some folks believe this and so they are reluctant to share information for fear that it will give their rivals at work a leg up. The fact is that knowledge is power in a competetive environment, but within an organization, not sharing knowledge is a huge competetive disadvantage. And, as Cluetrain points out, even withholding knowledge from your market may sink you in the long run. The world is opening up and success lies that way.
I’m still interested in harnessing the power of gossip to act as a lubricated information channel for useful stuff. Information spreads quickly because people care about it. If people find a way to care about work in the same way, work information will spread quickly and fairly accurately too. So what are the other characteristics of gossip that turn it from an obstacle to a tool?
My fellow Bowen Islander John Dumbrille is getting his new blog into second gear:
“Tom Peters’ and other’s vision of globalization, a vision which is coming true at a breakneck pace, will only be a fascinating, and rich future for those who are free enough to change. I don’t believe that it is inevitable that the income gap will continue to grow, and that the extremely poor will grow in numbers, covering the world more evenly. But to escape this we have to change – I do not think that books are enough or 3 hours of homework in grade 10 are enough, cramming for college entrance is enough, college specializaiton is enough. We cant outrun a train. We have to adapt.
Children have to be raised to be independent enough psychologically to be entrepreneurial. And for that to happen, education has to change – to move from mass systems of control and compliance, to systems that bring out the humanity and skills of a child, encouraging children to be themselves, stand in their own wisdom, and find their own way. I think this will require smaller classes and self-paced learning.
I see good examples of new successful models, e.g home schooling success stories, but I see few on a larger scale. The schools are underfunded, mothers and fathers are busy in jobs that they respond to with fear and compliance, qualities that are inevitably brought home with the bacon. Maybe new initiatives are coming. I hope so, as without this revolution, we’ll bring up another wave of highly educated workers and middle managers who are trained to serve in a system that disappears and takes the ladder with it.”
It bears mentioning that we are both involved in a wonderful community of homelearning families here on Bowen Island, working with our kids and each other to provide a creative learning environment outside of the school system. John and his family are helping to create that new world and those new initiatives.