2nd Draft… Climbing Ladders-Creating Futures: A Manhattan Project for Winona 10/12/07
- INTRODUCTION I’d like to make the case for a Manhattan Project, or a Winona Project, where we take seriously the challenge that we face and put our collective resources to a resolution that bodes well for our future. This is so much different that a physical issue, like building better bridges, or dikes for it involves doing something directly with how we think and make meaning at the start of the 21st Century.. It calls for a level of abstraction and self criticism that we’re not used to. I approach with a humility in this boldness. My continually questing draws me in this direction. I share how I begin to make sense of this from a study and synthesis and , also, share some of its counter culture implications. I welcome your challenges in this sense making that I think has a big bearing on future directions and possibilities.
The format-- this comprehensive paper will be written in several sections:
-Understanding The Human Condition (P 1)
-Our Capacities to Grow as Human Beings(P 3)
-Failing to Match Up to Today’s Demands(P 6)
-Reasons to Go Over Our Heads( P 7)
Economic( P 7), Environmental(P 9) . Citizenship(P 10), and Health(Wellness P 12)
-Patterns That Seem to be Limiting Our Living in Higher Stages( P 13)
The Dominator Model( P 14), Schools Low Demands( P 15), Model 1 Focus( P 16), Extrinsic
Performance(18), We All Went to the Same Schools( P 19), Ways of Reading(P 19) , Sociology of
Schools( P 20) , Appealing to Citizen Sentiments( P 22) , and 3rd Grade Sermons( p 23), Wisdom or
Conditioned Certainty( P 23), and Looking At a Risk Taker ( P 24)
-What this means for Winona?( P 24)
Leadership ( P 25)
Education ( P 26)
Faith Community ( 26)
Whole Community ( p 28)
-Understanding The Human Condition
I’ve been struck by this assessment of the human condition from Michael Quinn Patton’s book Utilization Focused Evaluation since I read it a decade ago.
The human condition: insidious prejudice, stultifying fear of the unknown, contagious avoidance, beguiling distortion of reality, awesomely selective perception, stupefying self-deception, profane rationalization, massive avoidance of truth---all marvels of evolution’s selection of the fittest. Evaluation is our collective effort to outwit these human propensities—if we choose to use it.
This evaluation that Patton calls for is us honestly reflecting on our actions and being open to feedback- it’s central to learning.This isn’t a way we like to think of ourselves, and our beguiling distortion of reality causes us to write it off as some fancy words from a university professor. I’d like to share a couple more books that add meat to this assessment.
The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb, a 2007 publication, is an account of our limited ways of knowing and beliefs that he doesn’t think will serve us well in a world that is being governed more and more by unpredictable extreme events that he calls Black Swans. He highlights the fundamental difference between life as we imagine it and life as it really is.
He offers many reasons and devotes whole chapters to why we have trouble acknowledging the existence of Black Swans, such as: confirmation bias (our tendency to reaffirm our beliefs rather than contradict them), narrative fallacy (our weakness for compelling stories), silent evidence (our failure to account for what we don't see), ludic fallacy (our willingness to oversimplify and take games or models too seriously), and epistemic arrogance (our habit of overestimating our knowledge and underestimating our ignorance). These reasons bear resemblance to some of Patton’s description of the human condition. ELABORATE
Fundamentally Taleb wants us to see that the world is unpredictable. He links our needs for predictability and confirming our theories, which we do with the fallacies he’s identified, to our ego driven attempts to control the world. He salutes the billionaire investor George Soros who when making a financial bet, keeps looking for instances that would prove his initial theory wrong. This perhaps is true self confidence: the ability to look at the world without the need to find signs that stroke one’s ego.
The book is rife with references to wise pronouncements that have been unheeded throughout the last five hundred years. For example, in 1690, Huet’s The Treatise on the Weakness of the Human Mind offers any event can have an infinite possibility of causes. Yet, were prone to fix in on ‘THE’ cause or the root cause.
In the mid 1500’s, Montaigne(Taleb’s hero) had his study lined with sayings referring to vulnerabilities of human knowledge. He fully accepted human weakness and suggested philosophy couldn’t be effective unless it took into account our deeply ingrained imperfections, limits of rationality, and the flaws that make us human. Taleb claims Montaigne wasn’t ahead of his time; it would be better said that later scholars (advocating rationality) were backward.
In contemporary times, Tetlock has studied political and economic experts. He found those that had bigger reputations were the worst predictors. There seemed to be a logic to such incompetence, mostly in the form of belief defense, or the protection of self -esteem.
Taleb comments on us having a cosmetic exposure to culture and a shallowness and lack of depth.
“ Alas, we are not manufactured in our current edition of the human race, to understand abstract matters- we need context.. Randomness and uncertainty are abstractions. We respect what has happened, ignoring what could have happened.. We are naturally shallow and superficial- and we don’t know it.”
Daniel Goleman, coiner and promoter of Emotional Intelligence, wrote a very significant book a decade earlier in 1984 called Vital Lies, Simple Truths that gives more backing to Patton’s human condition assessment. Goleman cites Anthony Greenwald’s article “The Totalitarian Ego” where Greenwald makes the case for the analogue between the self and dictator. He paints a portrait of the self from many areas of research. “The most striking features of the portrait,” Greenwald says, “ are …. cognitive biases, which correspond disturbingly to thought control and propaganda devices that are… defining characteristics of a totalitarian political system” While the self may be dictator, he adds, there may be good reasons: what seems “undesirable in a political system can nonetheless serve adaptively in a personal organization of knowledge”.
“People take credit for success, but not for failure, another form of egocentric bias.
A telling sign of self’s egocentricity is the failure of schemas to accommodate new information. ----- These self deceptions and biases are so pervasive, Greenwald argues, because they are highly adaptive: they protect the integrity of the self’s organization of knowledge. Specifically, they all reflect the self’s propensity to encode information around a central organizing principle: what matters to the self”.
Vital Lies suggests, “that information that threatens the self –does not support the story one tells oneself about oneself—threatens self esteem. When a threat to self concept looms, anxiety can be warded off by a healthy schema through an artful maneuver or two. Events can be selectively remembered, reinterpreted, slanted. When the objective facts don’t support the self system, a more subjective recounting can: If I see myself as honest and good, and events don’t support that view, then I can preserve self esteem by skewing my rendering of them. ---- as we have seen, the wherewithal to do this is entirely outside awareness.”
It seems were wont to deny this harsh assessment of our foibles or dismiss it as “the human condition” that’s a given in life; we can’t change nature. Having a fear of being shot as the messenger, I’d like to see these insights into our limits as passageways into elevating the human condition that can be done at the whole community level.
Over the last few years, I‘ve written some for community consumption regarding maturity models or adult development models. I’ve talked about Model 2 being a more mature way of being than Model 1. Or human sensitivities are more accounted for in the partnership than the dominator model. These articles can be seen at the Winona Council for Quality(WCQ) Web site in the Resources Section:
Maturity for A Community's Future
Seeing Connections:Winona’s Emerging Practices, Human Maturity, Potentials in Christianity, and the limits by Current Conformist Schooling
Christian Dimensions of Model 2
Labor Day Reflections on Emerging Practices
Upping the Ante: Being Overt About the Partnership Model and Winona’s Future
A Conversation on Love.
Our Capacities to Grow as Human Beings
Almost of quarter of a century ago, I had the good fortune of learning about the work of William Perry. He carefully studied the growth of cognitive and ethical behavior in students at Harvard over almost a half century. At the time I was on the faculty at the College of St Teresa, and Perry’s work gave me a lens to understand undergraduates. His work opened me to the psychology area known as adult development. So, since then, I’ve read and been guided by the works of such names such as: Clare Graves, Robert Kegan, Mary Belenky, Douglas Heath, Jane Loevinger, OJ Harvey, Lawrence Kohlberg, Carol Gilligan, Janet Hagberg, Bill Torbert, Susanne Cook-Greuter, Ken Wilber, Don Beck, Deanna Kuhn and James Fowler.
We don’t think of maturity in this more involved way in our common culture. We think of kids getting mature- we know stages of crawling, walking, babbling, speaking, etc. , but we don’t often think of elements of maturity as developing aspects of an adult person. We might say this or that person is acting immaturely or in a childish fashion. But we don’t say someone is immature because they only take a short time perspective, have shallow interests, lack an awareness of self, or act in a dependent fashion.
I’ve mentioned many , many adult development models. I feel that the Torbert/Cook-Greuter model is very comprehensive and offers such detailed insight into the human condition. Part of the frustration and conflict in society today is that there is such a range of value bases that people come from often without even the awareness of what is guiding their actions. Chris Argryis has written for years about the mismatch between our espoused theories and our actual actions- simply we don’t walk out talk.
Bill Torbert and Susanne Cook-Greuter posit 7 stages of leadership. In the text below, after each stage a % is given based on a sample of 4500 managers.
Opportunist(Needs rule impulses 4.3%),
Diplomat( norms rule needs 11.3%),
Expert(craft logic rules norms 36.5%),
Achiever (systems effectiveness rules craft logic 29.7%),
Individualist(relativism rules single system logic 11.3%),
Strategist(most valuable principle rules relativism 4.9%),
Magician(Deep processes and intersystemic evolution rules principles 2.0%)
A paragraph description of each stage is offered in the attached chart(see Appendix 1) entitled, “Stage Summaries of the Leadership Development Framework” Further, if you’d like to immerse yourself in this more there is an excellent article at Susanne Cook-Greuter’s web site Click on ‘Papers and Resources’ and then click on” A detailed description of action logics”. You need to register at her web site to read. Also, there’s some potential confusion as sometimes it’s called a 9 stage model, but you can see from the chart and list above only 7 stages are offered. The first stage, Impulsive Stage, is rare in adults as is the last stage which Torbert labels Alchemist and Cook –Greuter calls Ironist.
I’ve take the time to extract almost 90 bullet points that begin to differentiate the ladder of growth. We begin to see that common adages in organizations today- learn from mistakes, take risks, be creative, be open to feedback, don’t be so defensive- have very real developmental dimensions and can’t always be easily done. Do we want to understand this growth ladder? It’s not just easily traversed but it gives insights into markers that have been part of the human journey for millennia.
Opportunist
-life is zero sum ( I win, You lose) -1
-nose for opportunity-2
-manipulative and exploitive(see world only from their own perspective)-3
-self protective to maintain fragile selves- masks to protect -4
-don’t let others know what want or they can manipulate you-5
-blame others when things go wrong -6
- rules recognized but followed for immediate advantage and to avoid punishment -7
-rely on luck and magic to protect self-8
-don’t understand human interactions not based on power(so relationships volatile)-9
-feelings are externalized and protected outwards( little insight)-10
- see world in black and white-11
Diplomat/Conformist
-self identity defined by relationship to group (allows protection and share its power but price is loyalty and obedience)-1
-accept us and reject them-2
-need to be accepted so language positive(Mn nice) and full of platitudes-3
-quintessential conformists-4
-material assets and status symbols are important to one’s success-5
-to be liked is to have a pleasing personality( be nice, pleasant, and good looking) accept these norms without question-6
- negative feeling are projected outwards(they hate me)-7
-anger and disagreeable feelings are suppressed-8
-rules partially internalized and obeyed without question-9
-shame for undesired consequences of one’s actions-10
-wanting to be accepted; worry about what others think-11
-emerging problems are denied and whitewashed-12
-like organizations with clearly defined structures-13
- a defense is imagining what others want and then trying to deliver-14
-like to give others advice and tell what to do-15
-very threatening to be disapproved of -16
-open to taking abuse from others-17
-use short phrases, clichés, and exaggerated positive effect-18
Expert
- see self and object and reflect on self and can take 3rd party perspective(start of introspection/and self understanding) -1
- defense to be ultra-rationalistic-2
-differentiate and assert self hood-3
-deal with abstract concepts and objects-4
-see alternatives but lost in seeing too many possibilities-5
-know of general traits in personality and see self in linear time so willing to share more of inner nature-6
-psychology understood in terms of stable moods and traits of self and other-7
-assert more of their own wants and needs which were suppressed earlier-8
-need to constantly measure and compare;do others measure up to my ideas and standards-9
-want to be better than others and stand out from crowd-10
- fear of losing one’s sense of uniqueness if open up to others ideas so would lose their sense of certainty-11
- know answers, know what believe, feel righteous and often put others in “their’ place showing a sense of superiority-12
- live in a world where things are sure and clear and feel entitled to impose will on others-13
-very resistant and stable; no one can tell anything they don’t know or know better so ‘yes, but’ and oneupsmanship common —14
- discredit counter-evidence; rationalize and explain away what doesn’t fit their set beliefs so rarely at loss for answer-15
- blame others or structures-16
-have high moral standards and a strong sense of what should be-17
-concerned with fulfilling their responsibilities and duties so often compulsive and perfectionistic-18
-evaluate self with lots of shoulds and oughts that are well internalized-19 - …
-adept at finding new solutions, better ideas, more perfect procedures-20
-can’t prioritize among alternatives and don’t know when good is good enough-21
-don’t suppress aggression; have hostile sense of humor; ridiculing is good sport, enjoy oppositional battles-22
-ask many questions as leader so ‘why did you ?’ can be heard as blame; being in charge of one’s environment and pragmatic leader so do what I do-23
Achiever
- adds more to time dimension so thinking of past and future selves-1
-interpersonal relationships become more intense from interest knowing who others are so social contact become diverse and rich
while others’ expertise is valued as long as it doesn’t encroach on own sense making; agree to disagree with others -2
-can belong to diverse groups with different agendas and not feel torn-3
-interested in reasons, causes, goals, consequences, and effective use of time-4
-curious about what makes self tick; why do what do; what are root causes; believe truth about themselves can be found so become more interested in truth about self through feedback and learning to understand self backwards and forwards through time by noting dreams and pondering future goals. –5
-positive self regard based on successes and being masters of own ship -6
-reduction in egotistical and self centered behavior -7
-driven to improve world and not themselves and have a sense of responsibility to others, but see selves as indispensable, contributing members of larger society-8
-earnest conviction, seriousness, and idealism linked to action-9
-change others’ minds by evidence and arguments and not put downs-10
-self esteem from meeting own goals not needing others’ affirmation, but drive to succeed can lead to exhaustion as limits on self hard to self impose and rarely look at pace or staying in present moment or seeing things as parts of whole-11