Adaptive Problem Archetypes in Filipino Culture

Table 1: Agriculture Adaptive Problem Archetypes

Type	English	Filipino	Case
1	disowning problem	Paglaglag ng kapatid	Nabaha at nasira ang tanim ng magsasaka sa Mindanao. Hindi ko na problema yan
2	conflicting values and behavior	Naghiwalay na puso at kamay	Inipit yung cash advance pambili ng abono
3	unspeakables/elephant in the room	Anino na ayaw pagusapan	Agri supplier ng munisipyo si Mayor
4	work avoidance	Iniiwasan ng arinola	malnutrition sa mga GIDA at Indigenous Communities
5	conflicting commitments	Pinagsabong na magkapatid	Department or Agriculture-Department of Environmentpseudo conflict
6	penny smart, pound foolish	Tinubigan na gatas ng bata	Nag publish ng Ingles na Farmer's manual dahil mahal magpa translate
7	myths/widely held beliefs, cultural blind spots	Malawakang maling paniniwala	Katutubo na komunidad na walang pakialam sa kalusugan

References: Heifetz (200_)

Table 2: Health Sector Adaptive Challenges Archetypes

Type	English	Filipino	Case
1	disowning problem	Paglaglag ng kapatid	Namatay sa district hospital, di ko na problema yan
2	conflicting values and behavior	Naghiwalay na puso at kamay	Inipit yung cash advance ng ambulansya
3	unspeakables/elephant in the room	Anino na ayaw pagusapan	Botika ni Dok sa tapat ng ospital
4	work avoidance	Iniiwasan ng arinola	Maternal care in GIDA island brgys
5	conflicting commitments	Pinagsabong na magkapatid	DOH-PHIC pseudo conflict
6	penny smart, pound foolish	Tinubigan na gatas ng bata	Oversubsidizing hospital
7	myths/widely held beliefs, cultural blind spots	Malawakang maling paniniwala	IP walang pakialam sa kalusugan

References: Heifetz (200_)Archetypes

Fractal Learning

by Elmer S Soriano

A fractal is a mathematical set that exhibits a repeating pattern displayed at every scale.^[1] It is also known as expanding symmetry or evolving symmetry. If the replication is exactly the same at every scale, it is called a self-similar pattern.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal

I tried a highly fractal learning curriculum recently, where the patterns kept repeating at larger scales. Here's what I did:

I meet with four learners who were a subset of a bigger cohort of 50 learners in a leadership course. These learners were supposed to learn to be coaches, so I embedded a mini-coaching training within the broader 2-day course.

Day 1
Session 1 1030-12nn - I meet with the coaches and have Coaching Conversation Package A, where we discussed: 1) Life Purpose; 2) Preferred Future for 2017, and 3) get on the Balcony to discuss what and how we learned in 1 and 2. I give them instructions to similarly have Coaching Conversation Package A with a selected coachee over lunch. Since I am coaching them, let's refer to myself as Coach Level 1, and them as Coach Level 2.

Session 2 12nn-130 - Over lunch, the Coach Level 2 have Coaching Conversation Package A with a selected coachee. 

Session 3  1 130pm-230pm - After lunch, I meet with them again do get on the balcony and discuss what and how they learned as Coach Level 2. I show them a short video on Efren Penaflorida on multi-level leadership coaching and show them that we had 3 generations of learners since 1030am.

Day 2
Session 4  1030-12 nn - I show the same team another video by Joy Mateo of how narratives can engage people in repeating stories of empowerment. I instruct Coach Level 2s to organize a lunch conversation, where their coachees (Level 3) conduct Coaching Conversation Package A with a practice coachee.

Session 5 12-nn-1:30  Coach Level 3 conducts Coaching Conversation Package A, while Coach Level 2 is a process observer.

Session 6 - 1:30-230pm We get on the Balcony and analyze our learning methodology over the past 2 days. I point out features of Case-in-point that we did in multiple scales. I challenge them to coach their Level 2 coaches to similarly coach a Parent Leader.      

The Balcony Channel: Leadership by Changing a Group's Channel of Awareness

by Elmer S Soriano

Developing leaders requires not just the buildup of their toolkit or competencies, but  also shifting their Level of Consciousness (O'Brian, 2016; Scharmer 20__). The next challenge is explaining these concepts to an audience that did not have college education. 

I attempted to translate the concepts by likening them to channels on cable TV, pointing out the different units of analyses provided by the different channels.

Channel 1: The Selfie Channel - The percieving the world thru one's own self-centered worldview.
Channel 2: The Discovery/Science Channel - Interpreting the world primarily through science.
Channel 3: The Oprah/Empathy Channel - Interpreting the world through the Other person's worldview
Channel 4: The Balcony/Reality TV Director's Channel - Interpreting the world by observing emergence.


http://www.ottoscharmer.com/sites/default/files/2000_Presencing.pdf
https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/27112706/OBRIEN-DISSERTATION-2016.pdf?sequence=1

Social Impact Bonds: Changing the Rules of Health Financing

by Elmer S. Soriano MD

Grant funding for community development work has been significantly reduced in the Philippines, and the controversies around NGO scams have left both NGOs and government extremely paranoid about partnerships.

A forum on Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) was recently hosted by the Ateneo Economics Department to discuss SIBs as a potential mechanism for transferring funds to service providers including NGOs under a highly transparent and performance-based agreement. Funding would come initially from impact investors, rather than government.

 ASA Philippines Foundation, a micro-finance organization recently introduced a 2B Php Bond, pushing the frontiers of development financing in the Philippines. Though this is not strictly a SIB, the ASA bond already contains both the capital-raising and social development functions of SIBs.

A white paper entitled Scaling Tuberculosis Treatment thru a Social Impact Bond (Eddy, 2012) will be discussed in future  blog posts.

Sources: 

www.siblab.civika.com  

http://www.philstar.com/business/2017/02/05/1669077/micro-finance-ngo-issuing-p2-b-bonds 

http://www.instiglio.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Instiglio-White-Paper-Tuberculosis-Social-Impact-Bond.pdf

Leadership, Presencing, and That Thing Called Tadhana

by Elmer S Soriano

"Tadhana" is an old Filipino word that means fate or nature. Recently, the 2014 romatic comedy movie That Thing Called Tadhana made the term fresh and popular again. These days, tadhana connotes recognition of an emerging future and the need to move past old feelings, memories, and prisons (as Scharmer would call them) and operate from an openness to one's highest positive tadhana.

Which makes "tadhana" resemble "presencing". According to Scharmer, presencing means:

"liberating one’s perception from the “prison” of the past and then letting it operate from the field of the future. This means that you literally shift the place from which your perception operates to another vantage point. In practical terms, presencing means that you link yourself in a very real way with your “highest future possibility” and that you let it come into the present. Presencing is always relevant when past-driven reality no longer brings you forward, and when you have the feeling that you have to begin again on a completely new footing in order to progress...I use the presencing approach to facilitate profound innovation and change processes both within companies and across societal systems."

http://www.ottoscharmer.com/sites/default/files/2002_ScharmerInterview_us.pdf

Now it might seem a stretch to liken a theory of social evolution with a romantic comedy theme, but then again, the intention is to popularize the understanding of leadership theories by looking for similar terms in the vernacular. In the movie, the girl struggles to liberate herself from her attachment to her past boyfriend. The boy journeys with her and challenges her to open herself up to the emerging future, instead of clinging to the past.

In societies burdened by class structures, marginalization of the poor, leaders need to similarly invite others to open themselves to get past their history and perhaps even identities anchored on poverty.

The video below shows how a social worker Jo Mateo uses stories to invite poor farmers to work toward a more liberating tadhana narrative. Through her story, she articulates how structural barriers and social exclusion are realities which will perpetuate poverty (choosing karit scenario), and how responding/pursuing a positive tadhana (choosing panulat) allows poor farmers to liberate themselves from poverty, first through their dreams, and then through their daily actions choosing (presencing) to respond to the call of their preferred tadhana.

Image credits: https://presencing.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/Screen%20Shot%202013-11-04%20at%203.37.04%20PM.png?itok=38580jfY

Leadership as Ripening and Chunking

by Elmer S Soriano

“Rushing into action, you fail.

Trying to grasp things, you lose them.

Forcing a project to completion,

you ruin what was almost ripe.

Therefore the Master takes action

by letting things take their course.

He remains as calm at the end 

as at the beginning...

He simply reminds people

of who they have always been...” 

― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

Lao Tzu seems to have been describing "chunking" and "ripening".

Chunking or chunk formation is a concept from the learning sciences that has wide applicability in the leadership sciences.

What is chunking?
'Chunking' refers to organizing or grouping separate pieces of information together. When information is 'chunked' into groups, you can remember the information easier by remembering the groups as opposed to each piece of information separately. The types of groups can also act as a cue to help you remember what is in each group. 

How to chunk information
There are several ways to chunk information. Chunking techniques include grouping, finding patterns, and organizing. The technique you use to chunk will depend on the information you are chunking. Sometimes more than one technique will be possible but with some practice and insight it will be possible to determine which technique will work best for you.
Source: http://www.skillstoolbox.com/career-and-education-skills/learning-skills/effective-learning-strategies/chunking/

Chunking has something to do with synapses and short-term memory at the neurophysiologic level, and has a lot to do with individual and group cognition from the leadership perspective.

At the group cognition level, Heifetz cites Fisher (1980) on Small Group Dynamics , and uses the term "ripening the issue" as another way of describing the emergent and collective chunking.

An issue is ripe when the urgency to deal with it has been generalized across the system. If only a subgroup or faction cares passionately, but most other groups in the system have other priorities in their mind, then the issue is not yet ripe. Determining ripeness is critical because a strategy of intervention to ripen an issue that is only localized is different from a strategy to deal with a ripe issue that is already generalized. (Heifetz, 2009) 

The Art of Hosting, Deep Dive for Design Thinking, and booksprint are forms of generative dialogue that facilitate the emergence of individual and group chunks within groups. The 1957 movie 12 Angry Men is an excellent learning resource for learning the emergent dynamics of chunking and ripening.

Sources:

The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World by Ronald Abadian Heifetz, Alexander Grashow, Martin Linsky p.126

http://thenewagemovement.com/main/wp-content/uploads/Heifetz.NotesOnGroupDynamics.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxLHWgQ0cHk
Fisher, R. Aubrey, Small Group Decision Making, 2nd Edition,   McGraw‐Hill 1980
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/3f/c2/23/3fc223d45d3fad8aaefb983ed3f59226.jpg

Dramaturgy: Improv, Emergence and Leadership as Experience Design

by Elmer S Soriano

All the world's a stage, 

And all the men and women merely players; 

They have their exits and their entrances, 

And one man in his time plays many parts. 

                        -William Shakespeare

Dramaturgy is the study of dramatic composition and the representation of the main elements of drama (Wikipedia)... and this concept has been used by Goffman, Ganz and Pine in the context of leadership.

Basically, the idea is that humans can see themselves as part of an unfolding real-world drama, and a leader can influence this unfolding story by providing alternative interpretations. Robert Kennedy did this masterfully in his April 1968 speech where he proposed an alternative perspective on the MLK assassination. Adichie talks about the Danger of a Single Story and why leaders need to intervene by providing multiple interpretations of the world's emerging stories. Campbell alludes to leadership as the process of inviting others to participate in their own Heroes Journey.   

Teaching Cases/Videos:

Actions are Illegal, Never People: Jose Antonio Vargas 

Our Return on Investment: Sabsy Ongkiko

Jo Mateo Public Narrative

Sources and Image Credits:

http://www.lovelydenver.com/components/com_biz/models/images/upload/2145683706_Improv-Comedy-Club-denver.jpg 

https://www.amazon.com/Experience-Economy-Updated-Joseph-Pine/dp/1422161978

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dramaturgy