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Qs regarding the project

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Site Map

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Here are some questions I have heard participants in response to the

programmes we

host here.

Please feel free

to comment or ask

questions. I

will respond

to your

questions.

THE QUESTIONS:

Is this a performance review or measurement system?
So, then in what way does it enhance the ways we measure our performance?
If it is not the above, then what is it for?
Why should this benefit us?
Do you have an example of how it has been used in Botswana?
Do you know if it is has been used in other countries?
Who is Dr Peter Senge?
When did this work get published? What is the research that applies to this
work?
Is there a global network?
From where you've come from, in Singapore, how is this work used?
Can you say more about the facilitator of this programme?

DETAILED RESPONSES:

Is this a performance review or measurement system?

No, it is not.

In what way does it enhance the ways we measure our

performance?

If no,

why not?

It chooses not to go down that pathway because this body of work

believes

that only

when an organization chooses not to be disciplined

around certain

core ways of being,

would it need to find ways to measure

/ enhance

performance. If it were otherwise

disciplined in its ways of

being it would not

need to measure performance to enhance

performance (the addage, '"What

gets measured gets done!" would be

bygone

ays of

the past)

If it is not the above, then what is it for?

The programmes in this project

takes most everyday notions of learning,

i.e.

it is a

process whereby

individuals enhance the capacity to do what

they want

and taking that

the aggregate of organizations. So Learning

Organization is

really

nothing more than

an organization that continually

enhances the

capacity

to create outcomes (as distinct

from leaders

having to manage

performance) those members as a whole really want

create.

It actually comprises five

disciplines

i.e. Personal Mastery, Shared

Vision,

Mental

Models, Team Learning and Systems Thinking. Each of

the five

disciplines represents a

lifelong body of study and practice for

individuals and

teams in organizations.

Business and other human endeavors are systems, bound by

invisible

fabrics of

interrelated actions

, which often take years (the process of

change) to fully play out

their effects on each other. This is often the

reason

why issues become resistant to

change. And since we are part of

the

lacework, it’s doubly hard to see the whole pattern

of change.

Instead there is a deep tendency to see the changes we need to make

being in our

outer world, not in our inner world. The central message of

the five

disciplines is more

radical than “radical organization design” –

which our

organizations and patterns of

change work the way they work,

ultimately

because of how we think and how we interact.

It is by changing how we think that we can change deeply embedded

policies

and

practices. Only by changing how we interact can shared

visions, shared

understandings,

and new capacities for coordinated

action be established.

However, instead of the above, we tend to focus on

snapshots of

isolated

parts of

the system

, and wonder why our deepest problems

never seem

get solved. Learning

Organization is a conceptual

framework, of

knowledge

and tools, to make the full

patterns clearer, and

to help us see

how to change

them effectively and often at

substantially

lower costs.

Why should this benefit us?

Most stubborn problems (that resist change) stay the way they do,

because

we have lost

sight o

systemic interrelatednes

that influence the

ways we

interact with each other

and therefore create the thoughts that

we carry and in

turn these trigger our behaviours,

actions and entrench

our deepest attitudes,

beliefs, our visions and therefore our

strategies.

These take years to fully play out their effects and it is easy that such

interrelations

escape our attention. The more we are detracted from

seeing

these, the more they

eventually take on a cause-effect relation that

becomes

cyclical in na

ture

or are called

"circles of causality".

Once these are entrenched, the

knock-on effects typically are:

Spiralling costs (the dearth of every cycle of economic recession that
really has stayed unfazed despite attempts to expand our influence (by
globalizing one's “conglomerate”));
Declining work attitudes (which we then work hard to shore up with
coaching / mentoring programmes), improper strategy planning and
implementation and worsening project work results (which we attempt to
prop up with performance management systems and accompanying
"carrot and stick" HRD/HRM measures);
Meanwhile we as leaders lose all patience to look for causes beyond
our immediate spheres of influences. Individuals then either work hard
to protect one's turfs and / or clamber on top of each other to widen
one's ‘power bases’ and to create destinies and “conglomerates” that
matter to us. Just one big vicious cycle!

Yet throughout it all, we lose sight of these systemic interrelations or as is

said

Systems Thinking "systemic awareness or intelligence" and

continue to fail

in our best

efforts.

So we are not seeing and learning as an organization aspects that are

key for

sustaining profound change. After the programme, one will have

understanding of

the core competencies required for building learning

organizations and will have the

experience of participating in a learning

community that uncovers these "systemic

intelligences". You will have an

enhanced ability to think systemically, communicate

effectively, and lead

honourably.

Do you have an example of how it has been

used

in Botswana?

How about three? Some insights from the application of the tools include:

Outcome of this work in Water Affairs Department: That the water
shortages in the country may be reversed through the restoration of the
factors that have inhibited or weakened the effects of the water cycle in
the country. That as much as one ‘mines’ water one also needs to be
addressing and resorting factors that would strengthen or restore the
rainfall levels falling within the country. These include building of canals
to capture storm water/runoffs, sealing water evaporation over the
dams, engaging in waste water treatment and/or conservation
programmes. The effect of all these is to capture up to 94% of the
rainfall that is lost to the country today. That is the equivalent of 15x
more water levels than we capture today from our rainfalls. The direct
impact of these is increased crop production across the country that can
help to reverse the effects of the desertification, improve water & waste
conservation habits by citizens and these in turn work cumulatively to
restore / strengthen the water-cycle in the country. The cycle suggests
we could even begin to see more rainfall happen eventually in the
country.
Outcome of this work for the Department of Tourism: The extent to
which foreigners’ become tourists of the country is a function of the
extent locals travel within and outside the country as ‘tourists’
themselves. The less the latter happens, the more the effort and
resources one needneeds to attract tourists to one’s country.
Outcome of this work for Ministry of Agriculture: That rate of contribution
of farming to the country’s GDP is dependant on farmers sees
producing crops and cattle going beyond subsisting the family’s needs
to include seeing the nation's needs. This distinguishes the
opportunistic farmers from those who lead the changes and keep
reinventing themselves. The more farmers shift that view, the easier one
begins to perceive farming as a long-term strategic intervention.
Farmers need to prepare their plot today (small well-focused actions) to
reap results for the future.