Category Archives: global co-creation

New York’s New Mindset

Posted by Mickey Bradley on June 17, 2009 Comments Off

We often talk about inclusion as a means of creating higher performance, how tapping into the diverse experiences, ideas, and skills of people can transform and elevate organizational effectiveness. A great example is seen in Christopher Dickey’s book Securing the City, which chronicles how the New York City Police Department became one of the world’s premier terrorist-fighting agencies in the aftermath of the 2001 World Trade Center attacks.

Post 9-11, the NYPD faced a daunting reality: limited resources, a monumental task before them, and no time to waste. Many believed that the city’s sprawling diversity compounded the problem; with so many cultures at play (40% of the city’s population was born outside the United States), it was hard to see how the police department could effectively connect with all the neighborhoods and populations it needed to protect.

But Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and new Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence David Cohen saw it differently. Recognizing that the force itself included officers of many different backgrounds, they asked members of the department to come forward if they were interested in anti-terrorism work and spoke another language fluently. Approximately 1,800 officers responded. Kelly and Cohen had the officers tested and found that 700 of them were native speakers in languages considered important to combating terrorism—languages like Farsi, Pashtu, Bengali, Urdu, and Arabic, among others. (By point of comparison, the total number of students graduating U.S. colleges and universities in 2002 with degrees in Arabic was 6!)

The department immediately began training these officers for their new duties. Some were sent into deep cover in NYC communities and neighborhoods; others joined online intelligence gathering efforts. Dickey’s book cites plots foiled, conspirators apprehended, and devious activities interrupted as a direct result of this culturally savvy police force’s ability to reach into new communities. By 2003, the FBI and CIA were contacting the NYPD for assistance in counterterrorism operations.

The force has also recognized the need for a global approach. The NYPD now has officers stationed in Paris, Tel Aviv, London—cities that, like New York, are susceptible to terrorist attack. These officers learn new methods and tactics and communicate them back to their colleagues in the United States. When the Mumbai attacks occurred in November 2008, three NYPD investigators were on site before the siege ended.

There were many aspects of the NYPD’s efforts that made their work successful, but a key component was tapping into the diversity of its workforce in new ways that spurred high performance, and adopting a mindset that saw cultural differences as additive. When leaders began to widen their perspective about what skills were valuable, they discovered a huge reserve of potential in its members that wasn’t being tapped.

TED…The experience of a lifetime…every year

Posted by Frederick Miller on March 13, 2009 None comments

On 4-7 February I attended my second TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design), marking the conference’s 25th anniversary. Unlike last year when I was at the “overflow” site in Aspen while the main event was in Monterrey, this year I attended at TED’s new permanent location (for now) at the Performing Arts Center in Long Beach, California. Although I was sad that Tara Whittle (who brought TED into my life) and Judith Katz were at Palm Springs (remote site this year, 400 people), and I missed them, I was thrilled to be with 1,300 people from 51 countries experiencing TED live and not on TV.

TED does not disappoint. It is a place where people unveil their latest inventions, discoveries, ideas, and scientific breakthroughs. It is seeing and hearing genius, and being inspired by it. People connect and join together to create something that changes the world and they credit TED with both the meeting and the inspiration. Google and Apple Macintosh are some of the inventions/concepts that were first unveiled at TED.But TED is not a place for longwinded speeches. Some presentations run 3 or 6 minutes. Major presentations (of which there are about 20 a day) are maxed at 18 minutes–no overtime, even for presenters like Bill Gates and Al Gore. Say it in 18 minutes or host Chris Anderson starts walking up the steps. There is also a TED University that happens a few times during TED in a separate room, before the main sessions. At the one I attended, there were 18 presentations in 1 hour and 45 minutes.

So TED is a fire hose of knowledge coming at you from fields and topics far and wide. It is TED’s job to put before us the latest and most brilliant thinking on earth (with a United States and California lean). It is our J-O-B as “TEDsters” (yes, there is a little of a cult feeling) to bring the information and knowledge into our being, into our thinking and work, and to make something out of it.

This year’s TED included presentations on:
deep space…………………………………..deep seas
robotics……………………………………….electric/green cars
food security and safety………………vertical farming
saving orangutans……………………….wind suit flying
making cheese…………………………….giving away shoes to the needy
giving away rice on the Internet….rock climbing
giant waterfalls in NYC………………..blowing glass
bring creativity to the layout of newspapers……dance and music performances
what young men are learning from porno movies about what women want

I want to share some context and to give you a portion of the view from walking about TED for 3 days (8:00 am to 11:00 pm every day including a gala every evening).

Once again I was stuck with the elitism of the whole thing. This year I tried to refine my calling them elites…they are mostly creative elites. They are fun to watch and talk with and be around, but they are not my hang-out-with-for-the-rest-of-my-life group. I think Judith’s and my attendance is part of the cosmic joke that has us show up in places where a Jewish woman from Queens and an African American man from the inner city of Philly would never have imagined. Walking around TED, I bumped into Arianna Huffington, Glenn Close, Forest Whitaker, Paul Simon, Herbie Hancock (he performed, his 12th TED)–they are just hanging out for four days to learn and interact like the rest of us. There are few places where you can bump into Robin Williams and then sit next to Paul Allen (co-founder of Microsoft) or chat with Richard Rockefeller…definitely the creatives and the wealthy.

As for content, below are a few of my thoughts regarding some of the presentations I attended. You can see many of the TED presentations online at ted.com.

Juan Enriquez talked about the Economy. I was struck by a quote that he used that fits all our clients:

The key to managing crises
Is to keep an eye on the long term
While dancing in the flames
                                    Sir Philip Hampton
                                    Chair, Royal Bank of Scotland

And, in these times you must “Cut AND Grow.”

David Hanson is working on empathy in robots. WOW!!!! He talked about how Google search currently does not understand our intent when we ask a question and therefore gives us 100 answers, 99 of which are not what we are looking for…Some just the wrong category…right words, but not related to our meaning/intent. I took from David’s 18 minutes that as he programs robots with “empathy” it is one step from programming robots to understand our intent. So, robots will be/are able to think faster than us humans, to be more invincible than us humans, to have empathy, and understand intent.

The BIG Question becomes what is our value-added as homo sapiens at some point in time. It takes me back to TED 2008 and a BIG Question there (somewhat serious and somewhat not), but a WOW for me: Maybe we have this whole thing inverted with the machine, maybe we humans are here to enhance the evolution of the machine and not the other way around. Sure does seem like a case I could argue.

Bill Gates talked about how in a regular classroom, teachers are not told how good they are at their primary task of teaching students. For our KJCG clients (and others) it is redefining what is “good.” What is “good” leadership this decade? What should be measured? Should we still be focusing on feedback (maybe some) or on feedforward? (Yes, and a lot.) Lots of organizations are measuring leaders based on 80% delivery, projects, product process and 20% people. As one person said, we can get an 80 grade/B without the people part. This has to change. At minimum it needs to be flipped to 20%-80%. And we need to measure inspiring people to do their best work, to enable and facilitate partnership (person-to-person), collaboration (group/function-to-group/function) and inclusion (a system mindset and everyday behaviors). We need to change the feedback and feedforward for manager-leaders in our organizations. It needs to focus on how they inspire people, develop people, create sustainability with and through people, and create future leaders. And the most important source of feedback and feedforward is the experience of the people working with the leader.

One of the favorite statements that Judith Katz and I like to say is a quote from one of our favorite CEOs, Hal Yoh, of Day and Zimmermann:

                        “A leader’s job is to:
                                    Grow the business
                                                Grow your team
                                                            Grow yourself

If you are not doing all three you are not doing your job and doing what the organization needs of you.”

Ben Zander talked about three opportunities in every situation in life:

Resignation
Anger
Possibilities

I think there are probably a few more, and people often pick up one of these three. AND, Ben is probably one of the best “getting the audience thinking, learning and performing (singing)” entertainers/conductors there is. Always brings the crowd to its feet.

Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web, talked about the next evolution of the web–Linked Data. Linked data is about bringing related data together in very user friendly ways and creating data-to-data relationships, meaning and connections. This fits what Judith and I are working on with our clients and our next book: The Connected Organization. We humans are seeing the future through our technology and it invites us to think about the human interaction possibilities.

Nandan Nilekani made several good points about India, but the one that struck me was that India (and China) are going to skip the Industrial Revolution.

Oliver Sacks, made an intriguing comment that we see with our eyes, and we also see with our minds.

It speaks to the need for people to imagine the change they want. Judith and I have been urging the people in our client systems to create new stories, create a “Shared Narrative” that becomes a reality in their minds. It is clear to us that to move change fast, people have to see it in their minds’ eye. And we need to point out examples of the change-in-action so people can see and “touch” it.

A comment from TED (who knows from where):

Say “YES” and let the idea go forward.

Sounds like a wonderful way to live life and to enable creativity and empowerment. It is all about finding the “Yes.”

My Latin American Journey to Self Discovery

Posted by Donna on January 9, 2008 None comments

(This post was contributed by Guest Blogger, Organizational Development Consultant and member of our Community of Effort Donna Alonso)

My “Latin American Journey to Self-Discovery” was born from a spiritual awakening I experienced during the summer of 2003, shortly after I completed my advanced degree in organization development. This incredible idea came to me as I was feeling full of gratitude for life and filled with genuine excitement about life’s possibilities. It was a simple, yet, profound moment when the intense thought became an idea that became a dream that became a calling that became my inner voice and self saying, “GO to Latin America, live, learn and be with others!”

In 2005 and 2006, I launched my self-directed immersion program to explore three distinctively different Latin American countries: Puerto Rico, Panama, and Ecuador. This was not a vacation; it was a journey – one nurtured with incredible learning experiences that evoked everlasting change within my whole being.

Prior to leaving the United States, I researched and reached out to various organizations and made arrangements to volunteer with an American non-government, non-religious organization called “Global Citizens Network” (GCN) who partners with grassroots organizations around the world. I volunteered to work in two different communities in Ecuador right outside the city’s capital of Quito. I partnered with GCN because their mission speaks to my shared values of promoting peace, justice, cross-cultural understanding and global cooperation through the sharing of resources that will enhance the quality of life around the world.

During my travels, I lived with local families and used local hostels as needed to help me make the transition between families, communities, and countries. I frequented an established travel club and briefly attended language school – both provided great local contacts. I kept a journal the entire time I traveled to help me capture a real, pure essence of what I experienced. There are so many experiences in fact that it would take pages and pages to even begin to describe what was so generously given to me from the hearts and souls of the people I lived with and grew to know as family as well as others whom I met throughout my travels.

One of my most cherished experiences was the time I spent in the dry, mountainous, desert-like, Afro-Ecuadorian community called Tumbatu. I lived with an exceptionally wise and hard working couple, Marisol and Fabian, and their two, young children. Marisol is a vibrant, resourceful and dedicated mother and wife and a strong leader in her community. Fabian is a patient, reflective and supportive father and husband and a primary worker in the community’s local farm. They are very proud homeowners especially because they actually built their home themselves. They expressed their excitement and hopes for their home improvement plans and assured me that when I returned some day, they’d have indoor plumbing and running water. Fabian worked daily on the community farm to cultivate the land that produced beans and other crops. Marisol worked three days a week as a domestic worker for another family in a larger town on the other side of the river. She showed me how to wash my clothes in the village’s natural water system and make the best three bean salad and natural papaya shake! They welcomed me into their home and treated me like family. They shared their food, their home and their stories. Stories? Ahaaa, so many!

However, with all of this, my favorite times were the evenings I spent sitting outside with Marisol and Fabian and sometimes the children after a long day simply talking and sipping warm tea and passionately discussing a variety of subjects such as, politics, history, education, culture, economics, Spanish and English vocabulary and just every day matters. They helped me better understand the complexities of Ecuadorian history and culture and gave me an awareness and perspective I could only know from actually living and experiencing their world. They told stories about their families and how they met, and they shared their hopes and dreams. We laughed, I cried, we exchanged pictures and we vowed to somehow stay in touch.

You may have questions, like, “How are you different now as a result of this journey?” Or, perhaps, “What would you recommend to people who may want to do something like this?” How am I different: I returned to the United States one year ago and since then, I’ve heard family, colleagues and friends say, “You seem different” and, when I ask for more clarity, I typically hear “You seem calm,” or “You seem at peace.” Their observations are accurate. I feel changed at the core of who I am, and, I believe this change within me is still happening! This difference is most prevalent during times of uncertainty and resistance. Who I am today feels one with what I believe and what I do.

When I was in grad school, I learned about “the gift of presence” and how you can only acquire it when you “become whole and in access to and the courage to become more and more of who you are as a unique person – to change and grow from within.” It was then when I also heard for the first time the term “use of self” and the notion of “use of self as an instrument.” I believe the long term impact to what I experienced during my Latin American Journey is in how I embrace myself, and how I use myself to impact others. And, yet, I wonder, “How do I continue to use what I’ve learned and experienced to further my own development and how do I share what I’ve learned to enhance the development of others?” As practitioners who facilitate change, we have to be willing to continuously explore and challenge our own boundaries. My intent to immerse myself in this journey to self discovery was to stretch myself in a way I’ve never experienced before. The outcome taught me to pay close attention to the emotional reactions, biases and perceptions for myself and of others.

I enjoy doing organization development work because I get satisfaction from helping organizations learn how to change their environments in a way that sustains improved impact. If as the consultant practitioner, I am the primary instrument of the OD work, then my self-directed cultural immersion project was a great success. I came away with a deeper understanding of my emotional, perceptual, and cognitive processes. My journey to self discovery was a very special gift and, yes, I’d do it again when the time is right. So, stay tuned because my journey continues as I further embrace self and willingly explore my Spanish European ancestry during my next trip – Spain, 2009.

(Donna Alonso is an independent organization development consultant working with not for profit and for profit organizations. She facilitates small and large group sessions in a way that supports inclusion, identifies emergent themes and allows respectful and appropriate space for difference. Clients appreciate Donna’s ability to connect strategic goals to performance, champion diversity initiatives, and build authentic relationships. Donna received her advanced degree in Organization Development from The American University in Washington, DC. and National Training Laboratories (NTL) Institute, Alexandria, Virginia. She’s lived and worked in Latin America and volunteered for projects designed to promote social justice and preserve the culture of indigenous communities. Donna can be reached at donnaalonso at hotmail dot com )

We Are Building A Village And Its Name Is Kaleel Village

Posted by Corey Jamison on October 1, 2007 None comments

We are building a village. Its name is Kaleel Village and when I close my eyes I can see it. In time it may have roads, buildings, streets and subways, but still I stand here today with tools in my hands because when I close my eyes it is already built. There is hustle and bustle, great conversations of all kinds and the sparks of innovation cascading from every word, thought, and idea; and though we have yet to put our shovel in the ground when I close my eyes I can see Kaleel Village.

Kaleel Village will be many things to many people, but above all Kaleel Village will be about community; an inclusive community that unites and connects people in new and engaging ideas for organizational and community change. A village that will develop into what community means to you, to me, and to others who will join and connect with us. Kaleel Village may start small, but it will grow; the village will grow. When I close my eyes I can see the community; every person, thousands of them. People who want to show up completely, people who want to be present in life, people who want to start a new conversation about organizations and their culture, people who want to make a difference in the world and people who want to give back.

I want to build a village where the source of wisdom comes not from a select few but from the whole and where the spirit of problem solving and creation is collaborative; a place where everyone contributes and everyone is valued. In Kaleel Village members will communicate and share ideas with each other. Its members will explore new angles and generate new ideas. Members will evaluate new perspectives and begin new conversations.

The foundation of Kaleel Village will be social media architecture. That will be the primary tool to integrate, create, build, construct and develop Kaleel Village. We believe social networking, a virtual village, is central to the vision of what Kaleel Village can accomplish, and how it will bring people, ideas and collective action together to make a difference in people’s individual lives, their communities and their organizations.

Kaleel Village will be a different kind of community; a community of effort. One that will be a portal to connecting the dots between people, ideas, projects, groups, organizations and what we all care about the most; Inclusion, being seen, valued and respected for who we are. A village where people can come to contribute in many ways and then take action.

Kaleel Village is not a complex model. Remove the technology aspect from the equation and what you have left is community. Kaleel Village is about community. I want to build a village so here I am entreating you, each of you, to put your shovel in the ground next to mine. Together we will build Kaleel Village.

Building community one network at a time

Posted by Corey Jamison on May 23, 2007 1 comments

For months we have been engaged in a continuously evolving conversation about how social networking and other emerging technologies provides an opportunity for organizations to think differently about how they connect with their people, but it was moving from the theoretical to the practical that kept halting the conversation. Those roadblocks have now begun to disappear.

We recently attended the Virtual Worlds Conference in NYC to learn more about how Virtual Realities could help us add value to the services we provide our clients. We met speaker Ron Burns, president of ProtonMedia, who spoke of “macro-communities within an organization,” “crossing cultural divides” and “bringing cultures together where there are inherent differences in how people communicate” and it was then we knew that this was the reason we had attended the conference. Ron spoke our language.

We recently invited Ron to our offices where he demonstrated his Protosphere Platform and some other custom courseware. What impressed us about Ron was the human element with which he approached his technology and how he balanced it with the importance of collaborative and social virtual environments in providing a competitive advantage to organizations in the 21st century.

Ron said at one point. “You can’t put a technology band-aid on a social injury” and for me that said it all; more than any demonstration or PowerPoint presentation, more than any numbers, more than any well-written white paper copy. Though virtual world technologies can create new spaces to connect, dialogue and co-create, the endeavor of transcending cultural, hierarchical and generational divides without establishing inclusive mindsets and behaviors within organizations will only result in the “old” behaviors forming in a new technology container.

At least that’s how we see it.

Read more about how we see Web 2.0 technologies creating new possibilities for achieving inclusive work environments.

Read about KJCG’s recent strategic partnership with ProtonMedia.

Inclusion 3.5

Posted by The KJCG Team on April 30, 2007 2 comments

by Judith H. Katz & Frederick A. Miller

Inclusion 3.5 = Web 2.0 + Diverse Multigenerational Organization + End of Industrial Revolution

The need has long existed for organizations to be more inclusive of people—to create cultures where people feel valued, respected and seen for who they are. The advent of social networking and other emerging technologies provides an opportunity for organizations to think differently about how they connect with their people—and how people connect to each other; about the opportunities of having a diverse, high performing organization; and about moving the conversation to a new level based on the always-changing realities of today and tomorrow.

As Web 2.0 does not suggest a new version of the Internet, Inclusion 3.5 does not suggest a new version of Inclusion, but instead offers new possibilities for how creating an inclusive work environment can be achieved.

More than 100 years after the Industrial Revolution began, many organizations are still struggling with fully making the transition to a new age where people are more than hands and feet. But given the ever-increasing pace of change of the global marketplace, simply achieving a workplace where all people are encouraged to contribute and feel valued won’t be enough. As we begin the 21st Century we are entering a time when organizations will need to recognize the operational benefits and higher organizational success enabled by mass collaboration, global co-creation of knowledge and a diverse community problem-solving; an organization including as many people as possible, inside and outside the organization, in achieving its results.

Most 20th Century organizations are not ready for the degree of change that is predicted over the next 25 years. Some say it will be a factor of 4 to 7 faster compared with the last 25 years. For organizations that want to survive and thrive as 21st Century organizations, they will not be able to get there through incremental change. To create highly inclusive work environments, organizations will need to act quickly over the next 36 months. One organizational competence that will need to be developed is inclusive mindsets and behaviors that will enable local and global diverse ad hoc teams to quickly perform at high levels in order to address complex problems.

Too many organizations still operate with a linear mindset, a linear communication model, a linear diversity model and other linear approaches that simply cannot work in a non-linear world. Organizations will need to be more nimble and fluid, relying on networks rather than hierarchies, moving from command and control to transparency and open knowledge windows. Teams built for constant and unpredictable transformation will become the norm while collaboration and knowledge sharing will become the new currency for influence and results.

Web 2.0 alone will not bring down the walls blocking co-creation to the degree necessary for 21st Century success. Whereas collaborative software and approaches, peer-to-peer platforms and social networking tools can create new spaces to dialogue and co-create, and the possibilities of being able to cross cultural, hierarchical and generational divides without inclusive mindsets and behaviors, the “old” behaviors will just form in this new technology container.

Inclusion 3.5 is a radical change wherein communities of effort are diverse and global, a change wherein how we operate changes from a two-way street to a global network of interconnected paths that form an unlimited knowledge base, and a change wherein leveraging others’ differences, similarities and value-added talents results in an unsurpassed level of performance. As Inclusion 3.5 becomes a way of life in organizations, we will see the traditional walls and barriers break down as people both inside and outside of the organization join together to solve problems and bring sustainable solutions. In many ways, just as we could not imagine the explosion and impact of Web 2.0, we are embarking on a new journey ahead for what Inclusion 3.5 can bring to our organizations.

Linkage Summit on Leading Diversity Presentation

KJCG

Inclusion as the HOW^SM

Category Archives: global co-creation

New York’s New Mindset

TED…The experience of a lifetime…every year

My Latin American Journey to Self Discovery

We Are Building A Village And Its Name Is Kaleel Village

Building community one network at a time

Inclusion 3.5

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KJCG

Inclusion as the HOWSM

Category Archives: global co-creation

New York’s New Mindset

TED…The experience of a lifetime…every year

My Latin American Journey to Self Discovery

We Are Building A Village And Its Name Is Kaleel Village

Building community one network at a time

Inclusion 3.5

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Archives

Categories

Meta

Inclusion as the HOW^SM