When we grow old and lose our sight, one-in-ten of our brains will invent images that can be both surprising and challenging.
Surprising because the "hallucinations" come and go suddenly. Challenging because we think we might be going mad.
Oliver Sacks, the famous neurologist, assures us that such people are not crazy. The brain is forming the images in the imagination, simply because "we see with the eyes and the brain as well".
When some people lose their vision, constellations of cells in their brains where millions of images are encoded, can become hyperactive. They start to fire off and you begin to see things. It's like a movie over which you have no control in the form geometric shapes, cartoons or people, often with accentuated features such as big teeth. Soundless and without a story line.
All you can do is watch, unlike psychotic hallucinations, which argue and interact with you.
Sacks explains that a mere 1% of us have the confidence to speak up about this kind of condition. Most of us keep quiet, worried that we might be diagnosed as "crazy" and locked up or given inappropriate treatments.
Sacks is best known for his heart-felt stories about brain malfunctions and how they change our lives. His best-selling book Awakenings, tells the true story of a group of patients, frozen like statues, unable to speak or move on their own, and how they responded to the "miracle drug" L-Dopa. The patients were survivors of the 1920s sleeping sickness epidemic, encephalitis lethargica. L-Dopa helped to unfreeze their movements, but only for a short time.
Sacks admits to experiencing some of the geometric hallucinations which, like his tinnitus (ringing in the ears), he tries to ignore.
So here is a workshop to explore some of the issues that arise from this talk:
1. Why, in these times of unprecedented knowledge creation, would people be fearful of revealing to their families and doctor, unusual events in their inner world?
2. Make a list of variations to the human condition where fellow humans might take action against you because of a condition or experience which seems weird, either out of fear or lack of knowledge.
3. What are some of the deep 'hidden assumptions" about variations in the way our bodies work that cause people to be mis-diagnosed or maltreated by the "caring professions" in some unreasonable way?
4. If the loss of capability in a functional network such as the human brain can stimulate "hallucinations" what might the declining capability in a social or corporate system produce, metaphorically speaking?
5. What kinds of fears/prejudices might we need to be aware of and guard against that could arise as a consequences of failing system capability that produces the metaphorical corporate/social equivalent of "hallucinations"?
Friday, October 9, 2009
Thursday, October 8, 2009
The "true facts" about "carrots and sticks"
If creativity and productivity are going South in your organization it could be the "carrot and stick" incentives on offer.
Dan Pink, author of A Whole New Mind, shows there is a huge "mismatch between what science knows and business does" about getting the best out of people.
Business continues to use financial rewards designed for a late 19th and early 20th century workplace when higher pay, bonuses and other rewards (and punishments) improved productivity of workers engaged in routine and mechnical work, like the factory production line.
All this has changed. The old ways of rewarding people are not working any more.
A whole raft of scientific studies now show that financial and other incentives are the least effective way to reward the people in "right brain" jobs. It's all about solving wicked problems, creativity and creating new knowledge that can't be automated or sub-contracted to unskilled workers in low-cost countries.
For this kind of 21st Century work, the intrinsic motivators of "autonomy, mastery and purpose" deliver the most sensational results in postcodes like 95128 (Silicon Valley, CA) and 02139 (Cambridge, MA) and countries like Australia and India.
So knowing this, why do we still keep on paying the bankers of Wall Street and the CEOs of big companies huge bonuses to turn our financial system and our corporate sector into rubble?
Pink shows that knowledge and wisdom workers respond positively to the very human desire to exercise control over our lives, to do what we think is important, to choose our own directions. We also love to do it incredibly well and feel proud of our achievements. And do so in the service of a cause much bigger than ourselves.
It's the new way that up-and-coming software companies treat their employees. Instead of rules, time clocks and managerial control, it's ideas like "Fedex day" where all the programmers do whatever they please and create some new software fix/application overnight. And celebrate together over a beer. It's the amazing 50% of new software products coming out of Google produced during the 20% of the time they can do whatever they want. Its the amazing productivity of the millions of people who worked tirelessly to create Wikipedia, for NOTHING!
And, says Pink, it's not a socialist conspiracy. Nor a philosophy. But as Washingtonians would say, "a true fact".
Here's a workshop to deal with your productivity/creativity gap:
1. What's the mood of your organization, how does it feel about itself and what it does? Is it a party, a wake or something else?
2. List all the jobs in your organization where the staff are motivated by EXTRINSIC rewards (money, bonuses, sanctions etc.) and describe how they are rewarded.
3. List all the jobs in your organization where the staff are motivated by INTRINSIC rewards (autonomy, mastery and purpose) and describe how they are rewarded.
4. What programs (e.g. bonuses, piecework rates) does your organisation have in place to recognize and reward success at "left brain" routine work that can be automated?
5. What programs (e.g. FedEx days, celebrations) does your organisation have in place to recognize and reward success at "right brain" problem solving, decision making, improvement and creativity tasks?
6. Thinking about your "productivity/creativity crack/gap/gulf/chasm" (if any), what could you do NOW to allow your people take control of their lives, be brilliant, and serve a higher purpose?
Dan Pink, author of A Whole New Mind, shows there is a huge "mismatch between what science knows and business does" about getting the best out of people.
Business continues to use financial rewards designed for a late 19th and early 20th century workplace when higher pay, bonuses and other rewards (and punishments) improved productivity of workers engaged in routine and mechnical work, like the factory production line.
All this has changed. The old ways of rewarding people are not working any more.
A whole raft of scientific studies now show that financial and other incentives are the least effective way to reward the people in "right brain" jobs. It's all about solving wicked problems, creativity and creating new knowledge that can't be automated or sub-contracted to unskilled workers in low-cost countries.
For this kind of 21st Century work, the intrinsic motivators of "autonomy, mastery and purpose" deliver the most sensational results in postcodes like 95128 (Silicon Valley, CA) and 02139 (Cambridge, MA) and countries like Australia and India.
So knowing this, why do we still keep on paying the bankers of Wall Street and the CEOs of big companies huge bonuses to turn our financial system and our corporate sector into rubble?
Pink shows that knowledge and wisdom workers respond positively to the very human desire to exercise control over our lives, to do what we think is important, to choose our own directions. We also love to do it incredibly well and feel proud of our achievements. And do so in the service of a cause much bigger than ourselves.
It's the new way that up-and-coming software companies treat their employees. Instead of rules, time clocks and managerial control, it's ideas like "Fedex day" where all the programmers do whatever they please and create some new software fix/application overnight. And celebrate together over a beer. It's the amazing 50% of new software products coming out of Google produced during the 20% of the time they can do whatever they want. Its the amazing productivity of the millions of people who worked tirelessly to create Wikipedia, for NOTHING!
And, says Pink, it's not a socialist conspiracy. Nor a philosophy. But as Washingtonians would say, "a true fact".
Here's a workshop to deal with your productivity/creativity gap:
1. What's the mood of your organization, how does it feel about itself and what it does? Is it a party, a wake or something else?
2. List all the jobs in your organization where the staff are motivated by EXTRINSIC rewards (money, bonuses, sanctions etc.) and describe how they are rewarded.
3. List all the jobs in your organization where the staff are motivated by INTRINSIC rewards (autonomy, mastery and purpose) and describe how they are rewarded.
4. What programs (e.g. bonuses, piecework rates) does your organisation have in place to recognize and reward success at "left brain" routine work that can be automated?
5. What programs (e.g. FedEx days, celebrations) does your organisation have in place to recognize and reward success at "right brain" problem solving, decision making, improvement and creativity tasks?
6. Thinking about your "productivity/creativity crack/gap/gulf/chasm" (if any), what could you do NOW to allow your people take control of their lives, be brilliant, and serve a higher purpose?
Sunday, September 27, 2009
3.8 million years of R&D
Nature has spent 3.8 billion years perfecting how to make stuff without messing up its' own back yard.
Humans have taken just 40,000 years to pollute our oceans, raise the earth's temperature, change the climate, pollute the rivers and streams, eradicate numerous species and generally poison/pollute the world we share with millions of other organisms.
Janine Benyus, author of Biomimicry: Inspired by Nature, shows that humans use a heavy-handed approach to making things using the full spectrum of elements from the periodic table via a "heat, beat and treat" process that produces 96 per cent waste and a mere four percent that's useful.
On the other hand, nature makes stuff using the lightest possible touch, at room temperature and pressures by recombining in clever ways a small sub-set of the chemicals at its' disposal. The result is an environment which is sympathetic to other life forms.
Benyus asks three qestions about what nature can teach us. How does nature make things, make the most of things, and make things that disappear into systems or become part of systems?
She puts up twelve big design ideas such as self-assembly at room temperature. Carbon dioxide as a feedstock to make stuff from glucose and protein chains. Harvesting light directly. Power shapes that reduce friction or improve flow. Extracting water directly from the atmospshere. Using "green chemicals" rather than the dangerous and toxic. Metals without mining. Timed degradation.
Here's a workshop to explore the possibilities:
1. Brainstorm some ways Benyus 12 rules might change our world and the tools we use.
2. What would it take for hard-rock miners to make the switch to extracting minerals using biological rather than physical processes?
3. If we could self-assemble tools and products at room-temperature, using a small sub-set of the least toxic elements, what would be the impact on our environment?
4. What do you know about how nature works that could change the way we design, organize and operate organizations for the better?
5. Brainstorm a list of possible uses for surfaces that are self-cleaning?
6. What might a farm be like if it was part of nature? What new rules might farmers follow?
7. What if we could grow houses, or parts of houses such as light collecting surfaces. What might they look like or be like to live in?
8. If we could unlock nature's rules for timed degradation, what could we use this technology for?
9. If we could convert sunlight directly to usable forms of energy in the way plants do with the same kinds of efficiencies, what impact would this have the social and physical world?
10. What new powers might humans acquire using new kinds of tools we create that not only mimic nature but become a part of nature?
Humans have taken just 40,000 years to pollute our oceans, raise the earth's temperature, change the climate, pollute the rivers and streams, eradicate numerous species and generally poison/pollute the world we share with millions of other organisms.
Janine Benyus, author of Biomimicry: Inspired by Nature, shows that humans use a heavy-handed approach to making things using the full spectrum of elements from the periodic table via a "heat, beat and treat" process that produces 96 per cent waste and a mere four percent that's useful.
On the other hand, nature makes stuff using the lightest possible touch, at room temperature and pressures by recombining in clever ways a small sub-set of the chemicals at its' disposal. The result is an environment which is sympathetic to other life forms.
Benyus asks three qestions about what nature can teach us. How does nature make things, make the most of things, and make things that disappear into systems or become part of systems?
She puts up twelve big design ideas such as self-assembly at room temperature. Carbon dioxide as a feedstock to make stuff from glucose and protein chains. Harvesting light directly. Power shapes that reduce friction or improve flow. Extracting water directly from the atmospshere. Using "green chemicals" rather than the dangerous and toxic. Metals without mining. Timed degradation.
Here's a workshop to explore the possibilities:
1. Brainstorm some ways Benyus 12 rules might change our world and the tools we use.
2. What would it take for hard-rock miners to make the switch to extracting minerals using biological rather than physical processes?
3. If we could self-assemble tools and products at room-temperature, using a small sub-set of the least toxic elements, what would be the impact on our environment?
4. What do you know about how nature works that could change the way we design, organize and operate organizations for the better?
5. Brainstorm a list of possible uses for surfaces that are self-cleaning?
6. What might a farm be like if it was part of nature? What new rules might farmers follow?
7. What if we could grow houses, or parts of houses such as light collecting surfaces. What might they look like or be like to live in?
8. If we could unlock nature's rules for timed degradation, what could we use this technology for?
9. If we could convert sunlight directly to usable forms of energy in the way plants do with the same kinds of efficiencies, what impact would this have the social and physical world?
10. What new powers might humans acquire using new kinds of tools we create that not only mimic nature but become a part of nature?
Saturday, September 5, 2009
A new fractal future?
For most of the past few thousand years of human civilization, our thinking has been dominated by geometry. The line. The circle. The ellipse. The square. The triangle.
The geometric is reflected in everything we do. The shapes of our buildings, the designs of our tools, the mental models we use. It is both the basis of our incredible success as a species and a millstone around our necks that gets heavier by the day.
According to ethno-mathematician Ron Eglash, geometric thinking dominates everywhere in the world. Except Africa, where villages, homes, living spaces and their tools are fractally organized.
Fractals or self-similarity is how the real world works. The trunks and branches of trees. The blood vessels and capillaries of our bodies. Rivers, tributaries and streams and the patterns they carve out of mountains and deltas. The feathery path that lightning blasts through a resistant atmosphere. The design of a nautilus shell and the peacock's tail. Snowflakes. Our DNA.
It is this new kind of self-organising thinking that the rest of the world needs now to help us design systems that mimic, reflect or are a better fit with nature. To clean up the mess we have made of the natural world through our over-use of geometry.
Which could be just the kind of inspiration Africans need. To see their culture as a resource for the kind of new thinking the world needs right now.
Here's a workshop to explore the possibilities:
1. What are the big differences between seeing the world in terms of circles/straight lines/polygons and seeing the world as a fractal?
2. In what ways does geometry (circles, lines, squares etc.) restrict how we see and what we can do in the world?
3. What might be the advantages of using self-similarity and self-organisation as the way we design products, services, organizations and how we interact with each other?
4. What might a fractal social relationship be like? Give examples of fractal relationships with employers, parents, children or friends.
5. What might a self-organising/fractal learning program look like/be like?
6. Choose one of these concepts and describe in detail what a self-similar version might look/function. Hotel, transport system, garbage disposal system, book, play, dance, social occasion, family or house/home.
7. Apply the concept of self-similarity to solving one of these world problems. Poverty, war, famine, disease, global warming, virus, dislocation, terrorism/freedom fighting.
8. What features/aspects of self-similarity could we use to design organizations and social systems.
9. How could you use knowledge about fractals and self-organizing systems to create wealth in the 21st century?
10. How can Africa use its deeply embedded knowledge of fractals and self-organizing systems to contribute to a new and more powerful/fulfilling future for the people of the continent of Africa and the world?
The geometric is reflected in everything we do. The shapes of our buildings, the designs of our tools, the mental models we use. It is both the basis of our incredible success as a species and a millstone around our necks that gets heavier by the day.
According to ethno-mathematician Ron Eglash, geometric thinking dominates everywhere in the world. Except Africa, where villages, homes, living spaces and their tools are fractally organized.
Fractals or self-similarity is how the real world works. The trunks and branches of trees. The blood vessels and capillaries of our bodies. Rivers, tributaries and streams and the patterns they carve out of mountains and deltas. The feathery path that lightning blasts through a resistant atmosphere. The design of a nautilus shell and the peacock's tail. Snowflakes. Our DNA.
It is this new kind of self-organising thinking that the rest of the world needs now to help us design systems that mimic, reflect or are a better fit with nature. To clean up the mess we have made of the natural world through our over-use of geometry.
Which could be just the kind of inspiration Africans need. To see their culture as a resource for the kind of new thinking the world needs right now.
Here's a workshop to explore the possibilities:
1. What are the big differences between seeing the world in terms of circles/straight lines/polygons and seeing the world as a fractal?
2. In what ways does geometry (circles, lines, squares etc.) restrict how we see and what we can do in the world?
3. What might be the advantages of using self-similarity and self-organisation as the way we design products, services, organizations and how we interact with each other?
4. What might a fractal social relationship be like? Give examples of fractal relationships with employers, parents, children or friends.
5. What might a self-organising/fractal learning program look like/be like?
6. Choose one of these concepts and describe in detail what a self-similar version might look/function. Hotel, transport system, garbage disposal system, book, play, dance, social occasion, family or house/home.
7. Apply the concept of self-similarity to solving one of these world problems. Poverty, war, famine, disease, global warming, virus, dislocation, terrorism/freedom fighting.
8. What features/aspects of self-similarity could we use to design organizations and social systems.
9. How could you use knowledge about fractals and self-organizing systems to create wealth in the 21st century?
10. How can Africa use its deeply embedded knowledge of fractals and self-organizing systems to contribute to a new and more powerful/fulfilling future for the people of the continent of Africa and the world?
Monday, August 31, 2009
A new purpose for school education
According to education supremo Sir Ken Robinson "schools kill creativity". And although all children are born talented, mistake making is so stigmatized they become frightened of being wrong.
Creativity is now more important than literacy to cope with a world of accelerating change, where knowledge reaches its use-by-date in decades rather than centuries.
He says schools are designed as a competition to educate people from the waist or neck up, and "slightly to one side". The winners are people who become lecturers and professors who "see their bodies as a form of transport for their heads".
We place the sciences and mathematics at the top of the learning hierarchy, the social sciences in the middle and the creative subjects such as drama, art, dance, and physical education at the bottom. Robinson argues it should be the other way around.
What we now have now is a left frontal lobe learning system, that educates young people out of their creativity. We socialize them into giving automatic "correct" responses to closed questions. We squander their talents and preparedness to take risks. We equip them for jobs that will not exist when they complete their studies.
And so the wonderful right frontal lobe ability to create and implement new ideas becomes lost to society, except for the very few, who rebel against the system.
Here's a workshop to creatively explore what we would like the education system to become in the future:
1. What would the learning system be like if it was designed for a rapidly changing world with a greater focus on creativity?
2. List and describe the major changes in the world we might expect over the next few decades and the impact this will have on the lives of people in the 2030s. (e.g. entertainment+education > edutainment etc.)
3. Describe the lifestyle of a typical 30 year old citizen living in 2030. How will he/she live?
4. What kind of work/activities will people enjoy in the mid 21st Century? Name and describe the new activities e.g. nano-medic, replacing body parts with nano-machines.
5. What will relationships and family life be like in the mid 21st Century?
6. What kinds of skills, values, attitudes and outlook will a 21st Century citizen need to be successful in business/community/life?
7. What does our school, college or university currently do very well upon which we should build or focus? (e.g. drama, art)
8. What are the aspects of our school, college or university we would want to change/improve over the next 20 years?
9. What kind of learning experiences will we need to create for young people to acquire the skills, values, etc. to be effective and successful in the next century?
10. What will our school to be like (structure, relationships, culture, staffing, technology, linkages)?
11. Describe a day in the life of a student at our school in in the mid 21st Century.
12. What should be the key goals for our students in the mid 21st Century? How will we/they know if they have been successful?
Creativity is now more important than literacy to cope with a world of accelerating change, where knowledge reaches its use-by-date in decades rather than centuries.
He says schools are designed as a competition to educate people from the waist or neck up, and "slightly to one side". The winners are people who become lecturers and professors who "see their bodies as a form of transport for their heads".
We place the sciences and mathematics at the top of the learning hierarchy, the social sciences in the middle and the creative subjects such as drama, art, dance, and physical education at the bottom. Robinson argues it should be the other way around.
What we now have now is a left frontal lobe learning system, that educates young people out of their creativity. We socialize them into giving automatic "correct" responses to closed questions. We squander their talents and preparedness to take risks. We equip them for jobs that will not exist when they complete their studies.
And so the wonderful right frontal lobe ability to create and implement new ideas becomes lost to society, except for the very few, who rebel against the system.
Here's a workshop to creatively explore what we would like the education system to become in the future:
1. What would the learning system be like if it was designed for a rapidly changing world with a greater focus on creativity?
2. List and describe the major changes in the world we might expect over the next few decades and the impact this will have on the lives of people in the 2030s. (e.g. entertainment+education > edutainment etc.)
3. Describe the lifestyle of a typical 30 year old citizen living in 2030. How will he/she live?
4. What kind of work/activities will people enjoy in the mid 21st Century? Name and describe the new activities e.g. nano-medic, replacing body parts with nano-machines.
5. What will relationships and family life be like in the mid 21st Century?
6. What kinds of skills, values, attitudes and outlook will a 21st Century citizen need to be successful in business/community/life?
7. What does our school, college or university currently do very well upon which we should build or focus? (e.g. drama, art)
8. What are the aspects of our school, college or university we would want to change/improve over the next 20 years?
9. What kind of learning experiences will we need to create for young people to acquire the skills, values, etc. to be effective and successful in the next century?
10. What will our school to be like (structure, relationships, culture, staffing, technology, linkages)?
11. Describe a day in the life of a student at our school in in the mid 21st Century.
12. What should be the key goals for our students in the mid 21st Century? How will we/they know if they have been successful?
Friday, August 21, 2009
Are their eyes shining?
When you interact/engage with another person as a speaker, playmate, spouse, lover, parent, sibling, boss or co-worker do you leave them with "shining eyes"?
According to orchestra conductor Benjamin Zander, the ultimate test of a successful interaction is whether their eyes are alive in some new way. Not just a twinkle. But beaming.
It's all part of the process of perfecting our co-performance with others.
He demonstrates the progress of pianist from neophyte to expert. First we hear the stilted performance of a hypothetical seven year old who emphasizes every second note. Then the passable performance of an eight-year old who stresses every fourth note. Next the competent performance of a nine year old who gives weight to every eighth note. And finally the remarkable "one-buttock" performance of the same hypothetical player, now aged 11.
In the presence of a one "buttock player" we are transported from the first note to the last in one undivided stream of consciousness, enveloped in the richness of the journey. Like a bird soaring over fields on its' way to another world, so immersed in its' greater purpose, "it does not notice the fences" below.
As a conductor, Benjamin Zander says he makes no sounds at all. Instead, his job is to make the performers look good. To be powerful. But completely silent he is not. His body speaks volumes, a conversation, not with himself, but with the audience.
Perhaps he has an overdeveloped Broca's area, the part of the frontal lobes where speech and gesture orchestration lie side by side. Partners in performance. The empathy center of the brain where the same "mirror neurons" fire when we watch a performance and when we perform the actions ourselves. The part of the brain that helps us form an image of another person and what they might be thinking or feeling.
Benjamin Zander is a "gestural chatterbox". His whole body is constantly in motion. The raised buttock. The lift of an eyebrow. Waving arms and expressive hands emphasizing ideas. Physically "speaking" with the audience. Striding around the stage seemingly at random but with deliberate purpose to warmly "embrace" everyone with whom he comes in contact. Clapping the audience for their excellent co-performance. Connecting with people and the emotions they are expressing to help reveal the inner, blossoming you.
An orchestrator of music and the mind.
So here's a workshop to explore some of Benajamin Zander's ideas:
1. What's the difference between those who are "passionate" in your organization/family/team/community and those who have no interest whatsoever?
2. Explain how Benjamin Zander engages his audience passionately in the music. How did thinking about a departed loved one help reveal the beauty/wonder of the music?
3. What are the features of a "one-buttock" organization/family/team/community?
4. How would you go about creating a "one-buttock" organization/family/team/community?
5. What happens to people when you as their leader have a wonderful dream but "you are not sure whether they will be up to it"?
6. What are the essential elements of co-performance?
7. How does believing in what you do change your role as a leader?
8. What "notes" do you play in your world that make the previous "notes" sad, happy, amusing or surprising?
9. No one is tone deaf, otherwise we could not change the gears on our car or tell the difference between speakers' accents. How do you people deny their abilities so you don't participate more fully in your organiation/family/team/community?
10. Explain how you would walk/talk if everyone loved what you do? How would you perform differently?
11. If you could engage with people's passions (instead of trying to grow the market for your ideas from 4% to 5%) what would you need to do in your organization/family/team/community?
12. How could you "light up a village" with shining eyes? Describe something wonderful you could do....voice and gestures please.
13. In a world of co-performance what new names/labels do we need for "audience", "leader", "conductor", "speaker", "performer", etc.?
According to orchestra conductor Benjamin Zander, the ultimate test of a successful interaction is whether their eyes are alive in some new way. Not just a twinkle. But beaming.
It's all part of the process of perfecting our co-performance with others.
He demonstrates the progress of pianist from neophyte to expert. First we hear the stilted performance of a hypothetical seven year old who emphasizes every second note. Then the passable performance of an eight-year old who stresses every fourth note. Next the competent performance of a nine year old who gives weight to every eighth note. And finally the remarkable "one-buttock" performance of the same hypothetical player, now aged 11.
In the presence of a one "buttock player" we are transported from the first note to the last in one undivided stream of consciousness, enveloped in the richness of the journey. Like a bird soaring over fields on its' way to another world, so immersed in its' greater purpose, "it does not notice the fences" below.
As a conductor, Benjamin Zander says he makes no sounds at all. Instead, his job is to make the performers look good. To be powerful. But completely silent he is not. His body speaks volumes, a conversation, not with himself, but with the audience.
Perhaps he has an overdeveloped Broca's area, the part of the frontal lobes where speech and gesture orchestration lie side by side. Partners in performance. The empathy center of the brain where the same "mirror neurons" fire when we watch a performance and when we perform the actions ourselves. The part of the brain that helps us form an image of another person and what they might be thinking or feeling.
Benjamin Zander is a "gestural chatterbox". His whole body is constantly in motion. The raised buttock. The lift of an eyebrow. Waving arms and expressive hands emphasizing ideas. Physically "speaking" with the audience. Striding around the stage seemingly at random but with deliberate purpose to warmly "embrace" everyone with whom he comes in contact. Clapping the audience for their excellent co-performance. Connecting with people and the emotions they are expressing to help reveal the inner, blossoming you.
An orchestrator of music and the mind.
So here's a workshop to explore some of Benajamin Zander's ideas:
1. What's the difference between those who are "passionate" in your organization/family/team/community and those who have no interest whatsoever?
2. Explain how Benjamin Zander engages his audience passionately in the music. How did thinking about a departed loved one help reveal the beauty/wonder of the music?
3. What are the features of a "one-buttock" organization/family/team/community?
4. How would you go about creating a "one-buttock" organization/family/team/community?
5. What happens to people when you as their leader have a wonderful dream but "you are not sure whether they will be up to it"?
6. What are the essential elements of co-performance?
7. How does believing in what you do change your role as a leader?
8. What "notes" do you play in your world that make the previous "notes" sad, happy, amusing or surprising?
9. No one is tone deaf, otherwise we could not change the gears on our car or tell the difference between speakers' accents. How do you people deny their abilities so you don't participate more fully in your organiation/family/team/community?
10. Explain how you would walk/talk if everyone loved what you do? How would you perform differently?
11. If you could engage with people's passions (instead of trying to grow the market for your ideas from 4% to 5%) what would you need to do in your organization/family/team/community?
12. How could you "light up a village" with shining eyes? Describe something wonderful you could do....voice and gestures please.
13. In a world of co-performance what new names/labels do we need for "audience", "leader", "conductor", "speaker", "performer", etc.?
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Our aquatic origins
Octogenarian Elaine Morgan has been fighting for most of her adult life to gain acceptance for her aquatic ape theory that humans evolved in an estuarine environment rather than the Savannah.
There are big difference between us and other primates. We live on the ground. They live in the trees. We are naked. They are hairy. We walk on two legs. They walk on four, although they wade through water on two. The fossilized pollens found with ancient human remains are not found on the Savannah.
Most other naked mammals such as the dugong, walrus, dolphin and hippopotamus live in water. Even the ancestors of elephants and rhinoceros
Humans are one of a group of creatures with control over our breathing which is a precursor to the development of language. The other primates can't talk. We have a layer of fat just under the skin which would insulate us better in water. They have hair which works best in air. We are streamlined and built for diving into and swimming in water. They are not.
So why has it taken so long for this idea to take hold?
Elaine Morgan cites Thomas Kuhn whose theory of scientific revolutions contends that when a theory gets into strife scientists just carry on as normal. They pretend nothing has happened. Worse still, this "head in the sand" approach is far from rare. It happens all the time.
Why then do scientists ignore the mounting evidence and stick with the Savannah hypothesis? Why do the academic journals refuse to touch the theory, even with a "barge pole?" And why does the theory get lumped in with UFOs, astrology, extra sensory perception and poltergeists? Or is the theory fundamentally or just a little bit flawed?
Here's a series of workshop questions to explore why scientists are sometimes slow to change their minds:
1. Brainstorm a list of DISPUTED theories (and what they claim) for which there is little or no scientific support/proof. e.g. phrenology, phlogiston
2. Brainstorm a list of SUPERB theories (and what they claim) for which there is substantial scientific evidence/support/proof.
3. How would you explain the reluctance of scientists to consider the aquatic ape theory?
4. When Rupert Sheldrake's book "A New Science of Life" - in which he described his theory of "morphic fields" to explain patterns of biological development was first published - some of the establishment said it was "a book fit for burning"? Why might some scientists react like this?
5. What does it take to shake off an old scientific view and adopt a new theory?
6. What explanation can you give for the widely held belief (48% of Americans, 2007 Newsweek poll) that the world was created during the last 10,000 years?
7. Why do you think some scientists continue to support old theories rather than new theories which offer a better explanation of the phenomena?
8. What explanation can you offer for other great schisms in science e.g. instructionist vs. constructivist models of learning, behaviorism vs. socially mediated psychology, big bang vs steady state theories of astrophysics, animal cognition vs animal instincts?
9. Explain why you agree/disagree with the following statement: "Fundamentalism is a belief in an outmoded point of view no matter what."
10. What parallels, if any, might there be between the evolution of ideas and biological evolution?
11. Describe an experiment to more thoroughly explore the aquatic theory of human development. What should be the key elements of the research?
12. If you were given the task to "market" the aquatic ape theory to the world, what would you do to help spread and gain acceptance for the idea?
There are big difference between us and other primates. We live on the ground. They live in the trees. We are naked. They are hairy. We walk on two legs. They walk on four, although they wade through water on two. The fossilized pollens found with ancient human remains are not found on the Savannah.
Most other naked mammals such as the dugong, walrus, dolphin and hippopotamus live in water. Even the ancestors of elephants and rhinoceros
Humans are one of a group of creatures with control over our breathing which is a precursor to the development of language. The other primates can't talk. We have a layer of fat just under the skin which would insulate us better in water. They have hair which works best in air. We are streamlined and built for diving into and swimming in water. They are not.
So why has it taken so long for this idea to take hold?
Elaine Morgan cites Thomas Kuhn whose theory of scientific revolutions contends that when a theory gets into strife scientists just carry on as normal. They pretend nothing has happened. Worse still, this "head in the sand" approach is far from rare. It happens all the time.
Why then do scientists ignore the mounting evidence and stick with the Savannah hypothesis? Why do the academic journals refuse to touch the theory, even with a "barge pole?" And why does the theory get lumped in with UFOs, astrology, extra sensory perception and poltergeists? Or is the theory fundamentally or just a little bit flawed?
Here's a series of workshop questions to explore why scientists are sometimes slow to change their minds:
1. Brainstorm a list of DISPUTED theories (and what they claim) for which there is little or no scientific support/proof. e.g. phrenology, phlogiston
2. Brainstorm a list of SUPERB theories (and what they claim) for which there is substantial scientific evidence/support/proof.
3. How would you explain the reluctance of scientists to consider the aquatic ape theory?
4. When Rupert Sheldrake's book "A New Science of Life" - in which he described his theory of "morphic fields" to explain patterns of biological development was first published - some of the establishment said it was "a book fit for burning"? Why might some scientists react like this?
5. What does it take to shake off an old scientific view and adopt a new theory?
6. What explanation can you give for the widely held belief (48% of Americans, 2007 Newsweek poll) that the world was created during the last 10,000 years?
7. Why do you think some scientists continue to support old theories rather than new theories which offer a better explanation of the phenomena?
8. What explanation can you offer for other great schisms in science e.g. instructionist vs. constructivist models of learning, behaviorism vs. socially mediated psychology, big bang vs steady state theories of astrophysics, animal cognition vs animal instincts?
9. Explain why you agree/disagree with the following statement: "Fundamentalism is a belief in an outmoded point of view no matter what."
10. What parallels, if any, might there be between the evolution of ideas and biological evolution?
11. Describe an experiment to more thoroughly explore the aquatic theory of human development. What should be the key elements of the research?
12. If you were given the task to "market" the aquatic ape theory to the world, what would you do to help spread and gain acceptance for the idea?
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