At Braintrust Conference, Arizona 2004:

My presentation published on web is a bit more than I said. But faster to read...The important summary based on Dag Andersen is available. Funny pictures and metaphores. A kickoff to your mindset? Get a new view. Lead yourself through a better life and gain a more healthy business culture (I think I said; "...out of puberty"):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you for joining this difficult and fuzzy area of knowledge sharing, -creation and Intellectual Capital. My background is education and practice within IT, Business Process Reengineering, Organizational Development and Strategy. The last years; the Knowledge Management and IC "view".

 

My study- and spare time for the past few years has been spent on a community in Norway called Mindstep, connected to the Intellectual Capital Forum. Mindstep is a website with articles, books and meeting-information with focus on KM, IC and Personal Development. This forum for IC, has a consortium which is developing the IC model and bringing with it the shared experiences from the work being done with intellectual capital.

 

The IC forum gained international recognition resulting in the "Best Work 2001 award" from the Sveiby Knowledge Associates. Thomas Stewart mentioned it in his book "The Wealth of Knowledge"�as a new, Norwegian consortium "I particulary like".. Norwegain books about IC and KM have also been developed by the network Mindstep works in.

 

To get through the three aspects of the �exploration' of ethics, I tell mostly the movements I have observed and tried out, and how I practice within this. 

The handout contains the best pieces of this work. It's about a brand new value view, which legitimates and put together the puzzle pieces of all movements and changes concerning human beings, leadership and emotions. I recommend reading the summary,  as it completes or explains the transformation puzzle, which is in a mess right now. Let's repeat the message, the three statements.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.Section: COLLABORATIVE CULTURES, KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY

Until now we have designed organizations from a small perspective of goals and visions. Systems for measurement such as IC, EFQM, BSC and ethical accounting attempt to support a wider perspective of values. However, they do not yet capture the essential nature of the knowledge economy. Few organizations cover the needs of both society, business, community and the individuals - the way they could have. The solution to those challenges are not technological, but mostly a question of values. A broader and clearer view of the goals we want to reach is what we are looking for - the sort that appeals to the deeper human values.

The key here is to visualize a broader criteria for an organizations success, the quality of the jobs, employee-satisfaction, culture-, relationships-, commitment- and the HC-Index, CSR* etc. And all of them can be built into an intellectual capital model, if that's best for reporting to owners, boards, investors, and so on, and also best for the strategy processes.

*) We see the increasing focus on Corporate Social Responsibility and also some positive research results by Ethics Resource Center in Washington Their survey showed that the ethical programmes helped the behaviour and they used "reporting" when some broke the communicated values. A new English survey on ethics show that it has a motivating effect, also. But when the top leader group is not following the ethics, the anonymous reporting shows four times as many rules broken�

A Norwegian professor and leader of the Center for Ethics and Leadership warns against strictly top down rules, when that is all that is done. It's something we must all be involved in, and establish it as values for our culture, not only as rules. She says the most important is to build it into the attitude, - in the daily behaviour-, not only as an "insurance policy". And I will add here (as a "kick" to KM, and a "kick" to etich work:) connect it to the knowledge culture and knowledge economy, where values for a new leadership style and a new relationship type is the key issue! 

The models of Intellectual Capital, EFQM and Knowledge Ecology etc, have many such healthy relationships and cultural components, but these are mostly not visualised and focused on enough. May be because it's not so measurable, and it is may be the most difficult asset to improve���

A statement from a well known Knowledge Ecology guru is a vision I have followed in my KM work, both in Hydro Texaco and for the society we are involved in;

The single greatest challenge lies not in organizing for learning, but in creating an environment that is conductive to learning. The major element for creating this is relationship. Relationship is an environment of respect, trust, lack of fear, openness and generosity. When relationship is pursued, it generates an increasing spiral. -McMaster  

For the businesses and the society it will be a period of fundamental transformation. Philip Kotler talked (to a Norwegian business school, in november 2003) about social responsibility, that it will be positive to the bottom line. The customer prefers that attitude. I think we now look further than just the bottom line, and deeper than to the organizations brands. Businesses will gain win win situations based on its human capital and culture. That comes from the inside of each individual person!! - It counts much more than 'helping Unicef 'and not at all change the inside of the organization. (Such as the relationships between employees and to the customers.)

We must find the change in each heart, not only in the organizations surface; PR and branding programmes . In the next "age" the new caring attitude will become the norm.

Let us begin with some wellknown KM challenges:

1. Rethinking Old Tools: This new economic era has been referred to by various authors as: the Intangibles Economy, the Knowledge Economy, the Experience Economy, and the Idea Economy. Dream Society came from Danish future science. Emotional Economy is also on our lips. Whatever name it goes by, it is rewriting the rules of business and forcing a radical rethinking of corporate values and business models. This radical thinking is like an answer to the nature of human being.

2. New business thinking around intangibles and intellectual capital is a healthy phase, possibly a transitory one, in the evolution of Western thoughts. (From the Cartesian mechanistic worldview.) We long to heal the split between the strong human values we hold dear and old business models where they are irrelevant(Verna Alle). Often, or till now, people will genuinely embrace new thinking or absorb these new concepts, but in service to old management principles.

We talk about a bigger personal change we maybe not manage so fast ��The field is divided among those who are truly pushing the boundaries of thought and those who think they are doing something new, but are really coming from an old mindset. Organizational changes requires the ability to see knowledge patterns and build systems that free people to do what they do best, with appropriate networked technologies and information systems to hand. (Verna Alle says much of these in the 'New Tools for a New Economy' article.) 

We see an increasing focus on talent, learning, acceptance of intuition and creativity, and the support of each individual's burning vision. The idea of personal development, self-leadership, care and emotional energy is the essential key to a society which is filled up with resources and assets to fulfill the needs of human beings.

We have a live example here: The first corner of the IC model, as used in Hydro Texaco is the Human Capital Index. We use 6 measurable indicators based on 25 years of research by the Gallup Organisation. The aim of this study has been to identify what makes good leaders good. Which assets are the most essential for Human Resources productivity, based on their energy/motivation. The results are described detailed in the book "First, Break all the Rules". (Buckingham/Coffman 1999).

The more engaged and involved employees are, the more productive employees you get.

And not only satisfied (as many other heavy surveys measure). The enthusiastic co-workers are more profitable and more customer-focused. The questions we ask, the indicators we measure, is about talent, development, care, being seen and heard, have good relationships at work, and access to the necessary tools .

Values, such as trust and respect for individuals, that support knowledge creation and value conversion, widens the pipeline so to speak and increases or constricts the movement and exchange of knowledge. There is a definite progression towards thinking about the enterprise from a more sociological perspective. �Social concerns do play an increasing role in Europe. The discussion is endless about something as core as trust in the European KM Forum (www.knowledgeboard.com ). Scientists are focused on social capital and the European Union statements are reflecting it.

The real question is how will we address them?

These values are countered by the hierarchy, the culture, the control-mechanisms and our interactions, often filled with unfortunate values. They must be replaced with new ones. Can we bring coherence and integrity to our business models in light of the higher values that we hold dear? I came from Norway, Lillehammer Saturday (8.th February) with that type of work in my bag: - How did we in Hydro Texaco discuss it and take it seriously? (..fuzzy tasks with ethics/values.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The picture illustrates that 80% of business assets are intangibles, called 'intellectual capital'. In addition - here we talk about the ethical values and norms beyond the social capital , the human capital (the roots of the culture). 

At Lillehammer we followed an innovative approach, which pushes out the ten step model you have on the Braintrust IIR CD (based on Ingebrigt Steen-Jensen), but it is a combination of that approach too:

1. FIRST - we showed 'the Modern Times' by Chaplin. (Scientific Management.) The workshop was arranged by facilitators from Knowledge Management Consulting (Human Kapital Gruppen).
    
2. SECOND - we introduced the cauliflower as the brain - in two pieces. Today we challenge the right brain, and the emotional way of thinking.
    
3. THE BIG QUESTION; - Related to the Human Capital Index focus - the leadership style and the culture we need: "Which values do we hold dear for better relationship and leadership?" We also went through the values that our franchise - and marketing department has communicated through PR and branding .

The values we discussed (mostly wellknown, established values, but some new), was:

� OPENNESS � COURAGE � INTEGRITY � JOY, BEING ENGAGED ï¿½ TRUST � COMMUNITY

 

THE LAST TASK: What does those values mean TO ME in my daily behaviour ?

Small groups presented their most important examples on behaviour. Here comes the innovation of IC in Scandinavia: We measured in which degree we live up to the behaviour that we found essential by ourselves, to gain the culture we want to have.

The 6 behaviours we tried out, as an Value Capital Indicator was simple:

I show care, I do what I say,  I always speak openly and truthfully, I always say what I mean, I encourage my colleges, I listen active to what others say . In each of them we gave ourselves a score (1-5p).

My God  - how this corresponds to this talk in Arizona - the brain power challenges..

You can ask openly which values (norms for daily behaviour, actions) are destructive, make you angry, decreases your motivation and visa versa. Or put in another formulation; what rules, �games' or conflicts of interests make your day worth the half of what it could be? What makes you proud?

When I left, to catch the flight to Chicago, they where having  conversations, dialog and smalltalk on an  informal basis, around fireplaces, - a really  optimal event�

"Ethical shortcuts may gain a short financial win only to undermine growth of intangible values and assets such as social capital, relations, the brand image, sustainable development, sustainable leadership."

 

As other Scandinavian examples, we know Nokia as a value driven corporate. I also know that Norsk Hydro, one of Hydro Texaco's owners, is focused on ethics, viability and sustainability. By the way: In the same frame as Norsk Hydro, we will maybe use e-learing to communicate visions and values also in Hydro Texaco.

The Innovative Intellectual Capital approach:

Those measures we did for showing a level of Value Capital Index will be integrated in the (IC) model together with Customer Capital Index and Human Capital Index. In a three dimentional graph we then  can point out where we are (by now) and where we want to be ("tomorrow") in this intangible value "fog". 

CORPORATE MINDSET SUMMARY

Today we have a unique opportunity to help organizations shift from the mechanistic linear thinking from the industrial age to a more dynamic view of the world, being ushered in by discoveries from a wide variety of scientific and human behaviour fields. Then we reshape assumptions, beliefs and mental models of what constitutes success. In practice we then work with values, attitudes, relationship competence, EQ, culture, IC. We then gain higher level of Knowledge economy/society. When real relations and real thrust dominate, we know that

A) knowledge is created and shared many times as much, and

B) daily greediness/ego-interests and also the large scandals decreases. (We know Andersen/Enron had it's �Rules of Ethics', but did they internalize it? The difference between Rules and Culture is decisive.)

C) In addition; the stress and burned-out attitude of people and society by now, will possibly decrease by selfleadership, personal visions and values, and the �captain of your own life' syndrome. We talk about that it in next section:

 

2. Section: CARPE VITAM, HOMO LUDENS, PERSONAL MINDSET

Personal movements related to Ethics, Mindsets and values mentioned above:

The latest management theories have the human aspect strongly represented. It's obviously reflected in all the movements. I know about a Norwegian (Randi Noyes), now world famous because of her book in the US: "The Art of Leading Yourself. Tap the Power of Your Emotional Intelligence". The "Business Book of the Year" in USA in 2003. She is mostly in US as a coach for leaders. For over 20 years, she has provided leadership coaching to hundreds of top executives and corporate clients such as AT&T, Dupont, Exxon, Mobil Oil and Phillips Petroleum, Scandinavian Airlines, and Total/Fina/Elf��

"When you use your brain you can do a very good job, but not before you use your heart you will be excellent!" she says.

An English, professor (Meredith Thring), says that he hopes our children will not be like us. (He thinks about the outer guided, under-developed consiousness/common sence. We are smart rats or burned out soules?) Robyn Allan describes it well: If we look at the interactions in business with focus on relations, we can see that the ego-self-interests attitude and the win/lose approach is dominating. Classic economy, acting to maximize individual gain is a short time rationality. Cooperation and trust is a long term rationale.

When market economy relies on ego-self-interests, scarcity and fear, it tends to kill the natural spirit in people. Let sharing, creativity, joy and freedom build the new economy.

With other words: CHANGE THE WAY WE RELATE TO EACH OTHER AT THE WORKPLACE. 

That's an undermined challenge and key issue for the responsibility of the manager of the knowledge worker. In addition: there is also a world of difference between doing something you have to, and doing something you want to. The unnatural behaviour we emphasize by systems, rules and values which deny dignity, integrity, self respect and passion, play an important role in our crisis of productivity, lack of innovation and it gives many people burned out condition. 

We need to explore the character, skills and abilities a business person needs, to build relationships and foster good communication and care. Connected to the point above we have many spiritual movements, focused on Soul and Spiritualism, we can see businesses are trying to adapt and accept this. We can see how businesses often miss the connection to the bottom line, which is in the interest of the owners and the top leader group. But when it comes "packed" as Social Capital or Human Capital, and you can lean on science, it both sounds and works better.

Emotional Leadership -  Emotional Economy

Coffman says a  good leader will say to the employee: "Be good at what you do - in fact be better than me, because I get a kick out of your growth and development". A bad  leader says "be good, but not better than me". He also emphasizes TRUST, empathy, emotional intelligence. In Norway we had a discussion on the aspect of �Care' in good leadership - because a financial company celebrated an 'all time high' Human Capital Index, and they believed in the connection to the bottom line� I know that that aspect is found essential in Nonaka's science about Tacit Knowledge, Knowledge Management and Innovation. And it is a sort of "double checked" by Gallup's impressive science (mentioned above). Media focused on the fact that women had a higher score in their HCI. It strengthen female attitudes! (Is'n't it okey to become a bit more human?) The media speaker, a professor in art history, wondered if the greedy capitalism then exploits women. (The King Kong picture) I think our Human Capital approach is healthy to male as well as female leaders. It causes many engineers and economists to writhe in their chairs. - In spite of that science, we find it a bit "cute" to work with both care and Emotional Intelligence in our development of leaders

I see the resistance in some, maybe in all of us,  and 'though gets thougher' when it comes to ethical values.....

If we instead of preferring people under us that are mirroring our selves, if we like them when they are not homogenous to us. If top-leaders are willing to find courage to support plentitude and diversity in their group. If top leaders dare to have meanings that are more than 10% divergent from the CEO's - without fearing for their positions; (concerns all levels) - What a dynamic, learning organization. We still talk about values, culture�

 

 

Now, closer to the solution : DIALOGUE

Dialogue is the most essential power of human interaction, and important to have face to face often enough. Dialogue comes from the Greek word 'dialogos', componed of �logos' = word and �dia' = through. It is the opposite of discussion, where everyone tries to winn. It has a fabolous effect on talk, as in turning to one another, when we listen more than we talk. It is also reflected in therapy, coaching, creative techniques, learning processes, relations psychology, EQ, and so on.. We see a lot of stuff on dialogue and conversation from the newest complexity science. We hear Nancy Dixon and many other community- and KM experts are emphasizing that. (Nancy used here at the conferenece the NASA/Challenger case to explain the effect of bad conversation). We are normally in a selfdefence position, and that's a barriere to the flow of knowledge sharing, creation, sense making, changes, innovation. David Bohm said it most precisely many years ago, when stating that

"If people were to think together in a coherent way, it would have tremendous power. Coherent movement and thought, also at a tacit level."

And again, - how we manage this, is also a question of values, culture, behaviour, relationships.

 

Homo Ludens

When people are not machines, and leaders, and married couples, and parents are not control freaks, we know that human beings will blossom up and develop. We are born with an extreme hunger for learning and challenges. The risk attitude. The courage. The motivation. The inner self esteem. Brains are motivated by learning, by an incentive center, equal to sex. The mastering of new skills gives us a kick and motivates us. That's the emotional driving force we are born with, but which is mostly disturbed, destroyed by our culture. We start our lives with an inner motivation for learning, trying and failing without fear. We have the qualities we later ask for, as adult business people. We have positive and creative life qualities as self-esteem, dignity, cooperation, creativity, curiousity, happy by learning, - and courage. But life's brutal reality (socialization) promotes other skills; external motivation, humiliating, fear, duty, self defence, competition, self assertiveness.

We are as "real, living and caring" human beings, not so blind controlled or managed by outer stimulants, but many percent more by dreams, identity, belonging, good relationships, curiousity, dignity, cooperation, and not at least the pleasure by learning, trying out. We of course need some outer driven incentives, but we must increase the inner driven motivation. When I watch the development of Scandinavian raise of children, I see the same movements. The key is respect, understanding feelings, not misusing the position�..be a coach instead of a control freak, give the children values to live after and develop from, not rules, fear and duty. To remind you - we also here talk about values, culture, care, respect..

Our MINDSETS by now: 

Our collective mindset, with support from many academic communities, is the issue that we are "Punished by Rewards". (Alfie Kohn, am. psychologist). We have a nearly blind believe in external (outer driven) motivation, thus then our market society is 95% controlled by such fundamentalism. May be the performance society has gone too far. We measure and perform better and we see and seek only the measurable assets. Now we try measuring the un-measurable. If you cannot measure it you cannot get any priority. And it must have a linear causality (cause/effect). . Or?

Aren't we all trapped by all this transactions, trading, rational/physical , visible economy ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is it on time to say STOP or BEND OVER?

In the light of all these signals, The Turning Point is very close. The space for talent development will increase by values and respect and dialogue in both career and marriage. We must interfear with freedom, diversity and integrity.

 

 

3.d Section:  A NEW SOCIETY AFTER THIS MATERIALISM?

Future scientists say we enter a new era, a new age which will be the most chaotic and challenging of them all. The change will be so fundamental as we earlier used our resources to cover our basic needs, this time we will live for our dreams and emotions. As �Aquarius', the song in Hair told us - we can guess it will be the age of the emotional, holistic and spiritual sign. The age we are leaving are then the strongest period for engineering and rational economy, which is often fragmentet and more or less one dimentional. You get the same signal from future science, modern marketing (Dream Society), political scientists, philosophers, social antroplogists and astrologes. From Eastern and Western culture, in many different scientific communities, they see the same change with different "glasses".

Here we have a Norwegain philosopher, the uncle of Arne N�ss, with the same name, the famous climber who died 4 weeks ago. (Earlier married to Diana Ross). He (the 92 year old uncel) try to tell us about emotions and courage to live by couriosity. His books are named �Life Philosophy', �The Free Human Being' and so on.. At a Knowledge development conference last year he told business people about how essential etich and filosophic questions are when we get educated and in the business culture. He believes in an inner voice, which points out the direction you might choose.

 

We need a well developed consiousness. A loader voice than the external control, the outer driven motivation. - That's my mantra here.

 

 

You then increase your inner motivation�.. Another filosopher I met when presenting his book at the Forum of Intellectual Capital, on 14th. January 2004, and there fulfilled my puzzle: He, the political scientist and philosopher, tells us that our lives and business  looks different around the next bend. We leave the total �transaction- and market controlled' society. I think we are in the bend right now  ! 

 

After 500 years of materialism, since the renaissance, we are stumbling around in the big Goal. We have reached the highest level of material status, most of us, but we wish more of it.. The epoch we like to call "the modern era" which began with the Renaissance five hundred years ago, bears evident signs of coming to its end. This epoch can just as well be recognized as "the materialistic era"; it is characterized by both its perception of reality and its value systems being materialistic. In fact the period of transition (to the fifth step of culture) now begun. We are standing before a new reality.

The most fundamental changes we are facing are non-physical of nature.

Because centuries have made us accustomed to seeing the physical dimension as the only "real real", we have trouble discovering the new reality that we have in prospect. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The philosopher Dag Andersen sees those 5th. Step development parallel with our own foetus- and childhood, I recommend warmly to read the handout. He also refer to a Chicago professor: about the FLOW - a sort of self motivation in challenging learning and mastering. When you feel you can't stop....  The difference from the physical and rational presence is that we turn more and more councious the energi beyond the emotions.

The leaders of the future understand how they develop individual and collective energi.

Instead of the materialistic transactions logic - give and take, this law of nature tells us that emotional energy not is a scarse good, but that it will grow the more you use it. "The winners" of the future will be the ones who practise give-give relations.... The first rule in the 5th Society is that the more emotional energy you give away, the more you will have. When the outstreem increases, so do the instream. The competitive society and the ego-society is a system where the individuals mutually control each other in more or less give -and-take relationships. But emotional energy is not in shortage.Here you can download the Andersen Summary (Word doc.)

 

CONCLUSION - short debrief

Basically, we are now too controlled by a narrow image of the world - specifically, the belief in the "struggle" to survive and the machine metaphor. These two ways of looking at the world have predominated for decades now, and have percolated down into our lives, so that we think that such things as struggle, fierce competition, control, planning, rigidity, and so on, are the ways life is, and are the ways to organize. The emotional view is very different from what the Darwinists and the machine-as-metaphor people have said. According to the studies of evolution, biology, physics, nature, etc., the world is a lot more interested in cooperation, connections, synergy and freedom than we thought. And we can, if we're brave enough, allow these images of the world to pervade our lives and our companies. Most management theories and methods are based on control and competition. That's too rationalistic and egocentric: Instead, give more of yourselves, stop allowing wheedle and unhonesty for positions and power. It includes the fear Nancy Dixon discussed.(The fear of being seen as stupid, the hiearchic system.) 

Our education and childhood made us believe that individuality and competition are basic facts of life. We then developed fear. But this idea does not match the perception that life is effectively growing and diversifying over our planet. This can only be explained if we understand cooperation and creativity to be the basic facts of life.

The need of idenity, belonging, involvement, trust in relations is a treasure!

And the payback comes to each's individual life quality, every knowledge organization and every society the organizations contribute to������.

 

The best present is to give more of yourself, listen to the dreams, have open, respectful dialogues, coach employees to develop and take responsibility, emphasize a better understanding of your own and other peoples emotions, share and care in a network. Develop stronger consiousness, respect and joy - it makes healthier cultures. Happy people�

Leadership is then to develop employees, culture, organization and society, more Free, Warm and Brave. Maybe more fuzzy.

Let us dear to try the next step, out of puberty! Thank you, all of you. - Torny Anina Boel

Samtlige Power Point bilder

Torny Anina