A New (?) Way of "Knowing"
Posted By Rob Millard - 0 Comments -
A basic challenge facing strategists is ensuring that the foundation for their thinking is sound. Herein lies the root cause of most strategy shortcomings including the frequent disconnect between strategy formulation and execution.
Eleanor Rosch, professor of cognitive psychology at the University of California at Berkeley, is on a quest to re-invent psychology. Her insights show new ways of looking at strategy, too. Science, she says, [and many other fields including strategy,] needs to be performed with the "mind of wisdom."
Not just knowledge, but wisdom. Wisdom, she says, derives from two different kinds of knowing: analytical knowing and primary knowing.
Analytical knowing is well understood. Here, the world consists of separate objects and states of affairs. We identify and study each component and sub-component of the world, (or, for instance, a professional service firm and its market.) Conclusions are drawn about each and, to the extent possible, about the interrelationships between them. These are drawn together to create a picture of the firm's competitive position. Then, actions are deduced that the firm needs to execute in order to sustain itself now and into the future. McKinsey's principle of MECE ("mutually exclusive, comprehensively exhaustive") is probably the ultimate business application of this concept of analytical knowing.
Primary knowing is different. Rather than deconstructing the firm into component parts, it is about understanding the "interconnected wholes." This is more difficult because western society has, for the past few centuries, based its thinking almost exclusively on analytical knowing. Primary knowing in western society (not so in the East) has been relegated to religion and deep philosophy that most management theorists dismiss as being irrelevant to hard-core business. A fundamental disconnect therefore often exists in firms between this and "the numbers."
But reality has a way of asserting itself. Few strategists would still argue today that analytical knowing, alone, is adequate. As we thrash about for solutions, primary knowing is emerging again as a legitimate strategic concept. This is what Malcolm Gladwell's books Tipping Point and Blink are about, although they barely scratch the surface. To return to Eleanor Rosch:
Primary knowing arises by means of "interconnected wholes, rather than isolated contingent parts and by means of timeless, direct, presentation." It is direct, rather than through "stored re-representation." It is open and spontaneous, as opposed to being based on a process of analysis and decision-making. A sense of unconditional value, as opposed to unconditional usefulness, is at its core. It is compassionate, because it is based on wholes that are recognizable as larger than oneself.
Woah! Hold on. Compassion? In most successful firms, this is very low on the list of qualities valued. Sustained production of high quality work is what hacks it. Compassion 'per se' does not imply tolerance of weakness, though. The concepts that Rosch expounds have close parallels in ecology, where "survival of the fittest" is the most basic of rules. The primal value in an ecosystem is the ability to survive today and to reproduce in an evolutionarily successful manner. Nowhere is the parallel between business and ecology closer.
Strategy must be crafted with genuine appreciation of and "compassion" for the complexity, interconnectedness, even beauty of the "whole" in our firms; not just the component parts. This requires engagement at an emotional level ("the heart of the heart of the heart," as Rosch puts it,) as well as the analytical level. It means suspending preconceptions; allowing insights from the firm as a whole to inform and direct our thinking; letting go of what works only in isolation in our area while harming "the whole." It requires courageous conversations and an uncommon level of selflessness.
Primary knowing cannot be found from without; only from within. Subject "I" versus object "it" thinking is perfect for analytical knowing, but not for primary knowing. The subject in primary knowing is an integral and empathetic part of the object, not an impartial observer. Ignoring primary knowing in the strategy process leads inevitably to unintended consequences. A vicious circle then usually follows as more analytical knowledge is applied to correct the unanticipated consequences, leading to yet more fundamentally flawed action. Life becomes a continuous firefighting exercise of attempting to control the uncontrollable.
This is one of the most important themes emerging in strategic thought and I will certainly be blogging more on it in future. The material above comes mostly from Presence : An Exploration of Profound Change in People, Organizations, and Society, written by Peter Senge, and three others. The epiphany-like experience related by one of the authors in Chapter 4 alone is worth the ticket price. Those that were put off by the density of Senge's signature (and undisputedly seminal) work, The Fifth Disciple, need not worry. This book is a far lighter read.
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