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

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

Dynamics of Ownership based on Scharmer and Heifetz

by Elmer S Soriano

A young female physician friend shared recently how she had not yet started the program for drug-users in her town, despite the fact that rehabilitating 800,000 drug users is an urgent and large scale problem in the Philippines these days. She said she had not yet been trained to address this problem. A hidden perspective is that a young female physician faces personal security risks when she interacts with drug users in a small rural town. 

The Bridging Leadership framework (by AIM and Zuellig Family Foundation) propose "ownership" as a core principle in Bridging Leadership. Heifetz and Scharmer both describe the "ownership" mindsets of leaders but from slightly different perspectives. 

Heifetz could describe the doctor's mindset as a form of "work avoidance" because the thought of doing the adaptive work on local drug-users could feel too "distressing", or "too hot" for this female physician. She may be conscious or only subconsciously aware of this distress or disequilibrium that she faces. She therefore conveniently declares that she has not yet been trained as a polite way of dis-owning the problem. (See Figure 1). 

Scharmer would describe the situation as the doctor operating from "me-world" and "it-world", resorting to polite talk or talking tough as opposed to owning the issue at Level 3 and Level 4. (See Table 1 and Figure 2).

This is part of the Adaptive Leadership-Bridging Leadership Dictionary initiative.  

Fig.1: Adaptive  Learning

Table 1: Phrases as Reflections of Structures of Attention/Ownership

Structure of Attention	Thinking  (Individual)	Phrases (Individual)	Phrases (Group)	Phrases (Institutions)
Level 1 - Operating from the old me-world	Downloading habits of thought	That's not my job description. That could be my job but I don't have the required inputs (training, budget, etc) so I can't do it.	I'm already doing my job and fulfilling my role.	That isn't on our plan for this year. Let's include that in next year's plan and budget. (Or some other organizational excuse.)
Level 2 - Operating from the current it-world	Factual Object focused	What are the performance gaps? Of the gaps, which are assigned to me?	That's not my job. I've done my part.	Let's refer the client to the assigned service provider (whether or not the providers are adequate.)
Level 3 - Operating from the current you-world	Empathic Listening	How can I care for the client-partner as myself?	How can we help the client-partner as if we were the client?	How can we change our rules so that we thrive and create shared value with our client-partner?
Level 4 - Operating from the highest future possibility that is wanting to emerge	Generative Listening	What is emerging? What patterns are being formed? What is called of us?	How can we do things differently? What rules are getting in the way of our preferred future? How can we modify the rules that don't work?	How can we create a space so that we have ongoing adaptation/ transformation?

Sources:

https://www.presencing.com/sites/default/files/page-files/Theory_U_Exec_Summary.pdf

Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading (2002) by Martin Linsky , Ronald A. Heifetz

http://irregularleadership.com/wp-irregdir/uploads/2015/04/Screen-Shot-2015-04-10-at-12.38.59-AM-1024x591.png

http://www.adaptiveleadership.civika.com/home/resources/al-bl--dictionary
www.bridgingleadership.aim.edu
www.zuelligfoundation.org 

Walang Paki, Absencing, and Cognitive Distancing from the Poor

by Elmer S Soriano

A few years back, I had a friend from Sydney visiting me in Manila. We were in the car stopped at an intersection when a street child knocked at window. She was jolted by the sight of a human just inches away from her, looking her in the eye, begging for help. 

I, however, had been desensitized by years of exposure to street children. The common practice is to knock twice from the inside of the window to dismiss them, or to simply look away.

How can a society become desensitized to the plight of the poor?  

"Walang paki'' is short for "walang pakialam", which translates to "no accountability, responsibility, or care".

These terms roughly correspond to Scharmer's "absencing" (see video) which he explains as:

"The cycle of absencing unfolds through blinding and denial rather than seeing; entrenching and desensing rather than sensing; holding-on instead of letting go. By doing these things, we create an illusionary map of reality that results in killing the new instead of birthing and co-creating it.

 Lott (2002) explores the same concepts from the class and race perspectives and describe  "cognitive and behavioral distancing from the poor" as

"...a dominant response is that of distancing, that is, separation,exclusion, devaluation, discounting, and designation as “other,” and that this response can be identified in both institutional and interpersonal contexts. In social psycho-logical terms, distancing and denigrating responses operationally define discrimination."

Filipino Psychology	Scharmer	Lott
bulag, nagbubulagan	blinding
manhid, walang paki	desesnsing
nagmamatigas, nagpupumilit	holding on
mata pobre; hampas lupa; nilalait		Symbols of ridicule
Tinuturing na basahan		"nonpersons"; not worthy of recognition;
Walang pinag-aralan		Stereotyping; symbols of ridicule"

The Filipino terms here are drawn from a more critical or judgemental voice, where there is a premise or moral expectation of the "other" should see or empathize. Lott, however, 

From the designer's perspective, the Deep Dive evolved into Human-Centered Design as antidote to absencing. The Empathy Field Guide organizes the feelings that one may encouter as one walks in someone else's shoes.  

From the social development perspetive, leaders should be able to name the class stereotypes and social psychology blinders that inject cognitive distancing from the poor. Issues and biases that accompany race, class, gender, etc. have to be named in order for these stereotypes to be less blinding. 

Sources:
Lott, Bernice, Cognitive and behavioral distancing from the poor.
American Psychologist, Vol 57(2), Feb 2002, 100-110.http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.57.2.100
Scharmer, Otto, http://www.ottoscharmer.com/sites/default/files/2011_BMZ_Forum_Scharmer.pdf

Image credit:http://exploringyourmind.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/partners-in-a-play.jpg

Generative Governance: Typology of Governance Frames based on Theory U

by Elmer S. Soriano

How does one develop tools to guide Mayors through the different "structures of attention" all the way to generative governance, going beyond project management? The image above is an example of a Mayor's dashboard that was adopted in 600 municipalities. Using this one-page Mayor's Dashboard as reference, regular coaching/advising sessions were delivered to the Mayor, tracking the evolution of the ecosystem by color-coding the cells red, yellow, and green.

This dashboard serves as a decision-support tool that synthesized three types of knowledge; a) political; b) local; c) scientific/modeller's knowledge into a one-page interface. (Clark et al, 2010 click here)

First, let's dissect a Mayor's executive/governance interventions based on Scharmer's Structures of Attention. The video cases emphasize a particular Structure of Attention, but may reflect multiple structures of attention.  

Table 1: Mayor's Intervention based on Mindset and Structure of Attention (adapted from Scharmer)

Structure of Attention	Mindset of Mayor	Role of Mayor	Case
Governance 1 Downloading habits of thought	downloading projects based on what I think you need	determining priority projects and allocating funds based on Mayor's personal worldview	White elephant projects
Governance 2 Factual, object-focused	evidence-based downloading of projects with limited dialogue or consultation; Technical Assistance (TA)	analyzing data and then aligning priority projects and allocating funds	Bulacan Social Research (click here)
Governance 3 Empathic Listening	reflecting upon how rules can be changed to make the ecosystem work better for you	dialogues with stakeholders to gain deeper understanding of complex interdependencies and counterproductive rules	Kauswagan (click here for video)
Governance 4 Generative Listening	creating spaces and cultivating conversations so that many stakeholders co-own and co-create solutions	creates spaces for dialogue and co-creation; creates social labs, leadership labs, and/or governance labs	Naga People Empowerment (click here for video)

Table 2: Structures of Attention by Scharmer

Sources:

https://www.presencing.com/sites/default/files/page-files/Theory_U_Exec_Summary.pdf

http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/08/05/heapol.czr054.full.pdf+html

http://neldax.yolasite.com/resources/01-%20Introduction%20to%20MLGP.pdf

https://research.hks.harvard.edu/publications/getFile.aspx?Id=600