Prasad Kaipa
© 1999
A description of inter-and intra-generational sustainability, based on the "Napa Tetrahedron," of a general model for sustainability usable in many situations and by many groups to provide a tool for communities to define the elements they value and need to work together toward common goals.
"We struggle between 1% of what we know and , 1% of what we don’t know, but rarely come across the 98% of what we don’t know that we don’t know."
Buckminster Fuller
Return to Table of Contents
Information has been the key resource shaping the information age economy of the 1990s. Phones are liberated from wires as cellular phones are beginning to replace conventional phones, and televisions are tethered thanks to the global explosion of cable broadcasting systems. Silicon Valley model in the United States is being emulated around the world. Economic growth is being led by products and services related to intangible information.
For the first time in human history, information, and intellectual property are the key factors to wealth creation and are the primary source of power. These factors have created a new paradigm in which information-based economic growth is the dominating force in the world today. Imagination, creativity and human knowledge are ‘capital.’ When properly invested, they can result in very high returns, of innovative products and services, competitiveness and sustainable development in the 21st Century.
We have invented many devices and tools to save us time, but we seem to have no time for the family. We can now communicate through various devices (phones, pagers, and e-mails), but they take away our solitude and reflection time. We have entire encyclopedias on the Internet, but its dominant use so far has been purveying pornography. There is no doubt that human intellect is being unleashed more powerfully than before, but at what cost? Many times, this power is achieved at the cost of our quality of life, value systems, family structures and the common good. We know knowledge is fueling the economic engine, but do we really know what knowledge is? How does it lead to understanding? How do values and beliefs fit in with knowledge and understanding? What is wisdom? We also want to know answers to questions such as "What is the context in which knowledge becomes meaningful?"
As we move into the 21st Century, learning and thinking are going to be two critical competencies that help us navigate through the knowledge economy. Thanks to pioneering books on emotional intelligence (Goleman 1996, Sawaf and Cooper, 1997), there is more and more awareness of emotions and their relationship to human behavior. Our ability to think about the ‘box’ that we live in and the ‘autopilot’ assumptions that we make, and our ability to learn and unlearn, all determine our journey on the path to knowledge and wisdom. This article is about exploring those relationships between knowledge, learning and thinking and proposing a ‘knowledge architecture’ or a road map that allows us to explore and understand patterns and principles that can serve us well on our journey into the next century. Let us begin by distinguishing data, information and knowledge, as there are no universally acceptable definitions for these words.
UNDERSTANDING DATA, INFORMATION, AND KNOWLEDGE
Data points are the primary building blocks of communication. Like letters of the alphabet, they are the bits which, when ordered, become information (like the words on this page). According to Russ Ackoff, " Data consists of symbols that represent objects, events and/or their properties. They are products of observation…Like metallic ores, data are of little or no value until they are processed into useful forms." Gene Bellinger states, in an article titled "Knowledge Management -- Emerging Perspectives", "[data] is just a meaningless point in space and time without reference to either space or time."
Look at the image below. What do you see?
Some people see a circle. Some others see an egg, an orange, an earth, a ball, a plate, etc. The only limitation to the description of above object is your imagination. Because it does not have a context of its own, you can give any context to it and argue with others that you are right (and you are). They could do the same with you too. We can get into conflict about whether it is an orange or a ball till we understand that it is our perception that makes this image to be either an orange or a ball (or something else). We are seeing relationships that don’t objectively exist outside of our perception.
Now let us see the object in a larger context. What do you see now?
You may describe it as the number ten. Some others might disagree and describe the image above as a ‘plate and a knife,’ ‘a ball about to hit a wall,’ etc. When we perceive an image or an incident, we do so from one context, even though we may think that it is the only way to perceive it. Many times, positions get taken and the other perceptions (from other contexts) get ignored (even though both may be equally valid). When we are open to look at the image (or an incident) from another angle, we may "see" another point of view. We only see what we have seen before, till we learn to see all over again!
Let us look at the image again in an even larger context. What do you see now?
So, you want to change your mind again about what you perceived earlier? When context changes, even though data remains the same, you begin to perceive "new" relationships that create "different" information; you begin to recognize your own perceptive filters. Let us take one more step and see the image in still larger context.
Do you see that the ‘zero’ or ‘circle’ or ‘egg’ that you originally saw could be anything you make it to be? The first image never changed even though we revealed different contexts around it.
Data, in and of itself, is always out of context. We search for a context to make sense of it if or when we observe it. When found, this context reveals the order, structure, or relationship that organizes the data into information.
Therefore, information is a function of processed or structured data and it has to do both with data and its relationships. When companies do data mining, they are searching for relationships that are overlooked in the first glance. By identifying and establishing new relationships between seemingly unrelated data, new marketing and organizing opportunities are opened up.
When I search on the Internet for a piece of ‘information,’ say Apple stock, many search engines look for both Apple and stock. While some of the links that are returned might have something to do with Apple stock value, there could be many links that have more to do with Apple orchards or chicken stock. Why? Even though ‘Apple stock’ is information to you, it is data to the search engine and search engine results are information that contain the ‘data’ in context.
There are newer search engines like Google and Ask Jeeves that go one step deeper and look for relevance and context much more than others. For example, if I enter ‘Apple stock’ in Ask Jeeves I get several questions related to my query for which Ask Jeeves has answers. I could click on the appropriate question and find the answer that I was looking for. Similarly Google depends on relevance and what previous users selected as the basis for creating its search index.
On the other hand, if I go to the Southwest Airlines website, I will not be able to just say ‘fly to San Diego’ and find what I am seeking. I need to answer several questions about my needs, such as date and time of travel, fares, class of service etc. before the query is sent back to its database. What you are looking for in the SWA website is a specific flight with a specific fare. The answer to your specific query could be only one or none that match your criteria. Why? What you are asking for is no longer information but contextualized information.
When the data’s structure becomes a familiar pattern, the data tends to become "invisible" (i.e., how many of us ever notice the letters, as opposed to the words, on a page?). Instead of focusing on the relationships between data points, when we observe patterns of information, we arrive at knowledge. In the above example of flying to San Diego, we want to ‘know’ how to get from San Jose to San Diego on December 6th in the morning without having to stop over in Los Angeles. This is knowledge and no longer information.
Knowledge has been understood as a process, object, or capacity. It has both tacit and explicit characteristics. Knowledge also seems to have objective and subjective components. The term itself is ambiguous and seems to be contradictory and complex. John Seely Brown of Xerox PARC refers to knowledge as ‘sticky (hard to transfer)’ and ‘slippery (perhaps expensive to generate, but with a extremely low marginal cost of diffusion)’. According to Gene Bellinger, "When a pattern relation exists amidst the data and information, the pattern has the potential to represent the knowledge …The patterns representing knowledge have a tendency to be more self-contextualizing."Allee (Allee, 1997) offers, "knowledge is experience that can be communicated and shared" (pg. 42), while Peter Senge (Senge, et al, 1999), defines knowledge as "the capacity for effective action" (pg. 421). According to Tom Davenport and Larry Prusak (Davenport and Prusak, 1999), "knowledge is as much an act or process as an artifact or thing" and must be valued in all its guises.
What makes knowledge so important? It has been recognized as the key driver for the economic growth in the late 20th Century and knowledge and its offspring, innovation, play critical role in competitive success of businesses. In the next few paragraphs, let us understand what knowledge is and what its characteristics are.
What does knowledge give us? Knowledge gives us the ability to identify patterns and hence provides the ability to predict the future behavior of that particular set of information on a reliable basis. All patterns, however, do not represent knowledge, as the patterns can be dynamic and change over time.
Let us take a very simple example. What is the next number in the following sequence?
3,6,9,12,…?
When you identify the pattern in the number sequence (i.e. current number + 3 = next number), you acquire explicit knowledge about the sequence itself, not just the next number. Some times, you may not overtly notice the pattern but still have the ability to predict the next number. In such a case, you have tacit (as opposed to explicit) knowledge that you can use but not necessarily share with others.
While information provides us objective descriptions, knowledge provides us subjective interpretations. For example, an address describes where a building is located. However, to get there, we also need directions from where we are. These directions, then, are an example of knowledge. Knowledge answers the question of "how to" whereas information answers the question of "what, when, where and who."
Look at the following sentence. "Get me some water."
The letters in the sentence above are data points. The words in the sentence are information. Our interpretation of this instruction is knowledge. One can interpret this sentence as a simple request, a rude order, or an urgent entreaty. The tone of voice and the context in which the statement was made (i.e., after a bowl of hot chili or in front of a bush fire) are additional pieces of information that we use to determine what knowledge we perceive.
This example illustrates that knowledge is context sensitive. As it is our interpretation of information, knowledge has a large subjective component. Different people can interpret the same information in many different ways.
Knowledge also has a strong collective component. This component is primarily shaped by cultural and systemic influences. While the sentence, "Get me some water" would be considered rude in some cultures, it would be perfectly acceptable in others.
Examine the following sentence. "The stock price of Apple is $100/share."
Knowledge also has a tacit dimension. For example, if one knows that one year ago the stock price was $13/share, this information communicates that the company’s market value has increased. Knowledge also has a shelf life factor. The sentence regarding Apple’s stock price is only true for the time and date is was quoted.
Finally, in order for this knowledge to be knowledge, it must be functional; in other words, one must have the intention to use this information (i.e., detailed instructions on building a rocket ship would be useless information to most people). Thus, we experience information overload when we receive unasked for and/or unwanted knowledge and we don’t know how to put it to use.
We have identified the following key characteristics of knowledge, which we will discuss further below:
Let us go back to our Apple stock example. We know that in 1997 Apple share price was less than $30 and at one point, it was close to $15 a share. In summer of 1999, it was about $55 and in late November it is about $100 a share. When you notice the pattern and have some awareness about company plans, its revenues, market share and new product reviews, you may come to a decision that Apple share price may go to $150 over the next few months, and it is now a good time to buy Apple stock. What you have is tacit knowledge about Apple and you are ‘predicting’ how well its stock will do over the next few months. This is exactly what financial analysts do based on what they have read, heard and seen about Apple’s performance. It does not mean that Apple stock will reach $150, but if you have really studied patterns of stock market and Apple specific information, you may be willing to bet on your "predictions" and gain (or lose).
In the above example, you can see all the six characteristics of knowledge: 1) The subjective nature of predictions of future stock price, as well as objective information about products, competition, etc.; 2) The context sensitivity of Apple stock price compared to the NASDAQ market as well as the economy of the US market place at any point in time; 3) All the information the analyst uses to make her predictions is publicly available (unless she has some inside information), and anybody could have used that information; 4) How she arrived at any specific number and specific prediction has a tacit nature to it because it depends on how she interprets the interconnections. It is explicit when more than a sufficient number of analysts arrive at similar conclusions. 5) Her predictions about Apple’s stock price has a limited shelf life as new information released from Apple or its competitors in the future could change her predictions. On the other hand, her predictions and movement of stock during that time period are available as information for anyone to read, giving an infinite life as a process that establishes the credibility and reputation of the analyst. 6) Her predictions are functional because you can take action (buy or sell stock) when they were made.
We can see, therefore, that knowledge, while having characteristics of information, is not information. Rather, it is the process of making sense of information. Patents, recipes, formulae, instructions and designs are examples of knowledge. Without the context, cultural, tacit and time dimensions, however, this "knowledge" may be little more than information. Thus, knowledge has more to do with who is interpreting the information (and their own experiences, biases, principles and values) than the objective information on which it is based.
I like what Robert Cole (Cole, 1998) says in his introduction to the special issue on ‘Knowledge and the Firm’: ‘Knowledge that is visible tends to be explicit, teachable, observable in use, simple, and independent. Knowledge that is intangible tends to be tacit, less teachable, less observable in use, more complex and an element of a system.’
How does knowledge address values issues? By itself, it doesn’t. Let us first take a simple example of Cisco Systems. It has been growing through acquisitions and has made more than 40 acquisitions recently. When you know that your company is talking to Cisco, you may tell your friends about it, and they could all buy your company stock while it is still low. Once the word is out that Cisco is considering buying your company, your stock might skyrocket and you and your friends could make tons of easy money. Values and principles shape ones perspective and it is easy to justify many actions like this by saying to oneself ‘everyone does it around here.’
Values and assumptions also determine how we approach knowledge creation, dissemination and transfer. Some of these are clearly cultural. In fact, western managers tend to focus on explicit knowledge or ‘low hanging fruits’ while eastern managers seem to focus on tacit knowledge. Don Cohen (Cohen, 1998) depicts the contrast between the Eastern and Western approaches to knowledge as the following scheme:
|
West |
East |
|
Focus on Explicit Knowledge |
Focus on Tacit Knowledge |
|
Re-Use |
Creation |
|
Knowledge Projects |
Knowledge Cultures |
|
Knowledge Markets |
Knowledge Communities |
|
Management and Measurement |
Nurturing and Love |
|
Near-Term Gains |
Long-Term Advantage |
Nonaka (Nonaka, 1998) brings in the concepts of love, connection, trust, commitment, and care to characterize the concept of Ba. It means a ‘place’ or ‘field’ or a shared mental or physical place or a combination of both. Gordon Petrash of Dow Chemical focuses on leveraging intellectual assets for more value and knowledge projects as a way to integrate knowledge management into people’s jobs.
What are the principles, assumptions and values that guide the acquisition and use of knowledge? Knowledge by itself does not address this question directly, though our interpretations (knowledge) are based upon one’s own principles and values. (In this sense knowledge and technology are analogous: the application of both depends upon the values of the user.) Knowledge also has a quality of a "completeness" that information lacks, although this quality of completeness is often based on unexamined values and principles. When examined, these values and principles provide the framework within which that knowledge becomes meaningful.
Let us explore a societal example that is outside the context of technology. "Cults" come about because the cult leader presents a seemingly coherent and "complete" story to the followers, thus making their actions look consistent within a framework. To the "mainstream" population, the same story looks meaningless or absurd because they do not share the same set of principles. Our judgment of the "validity" of such knowledge is determined by the set of values and principles by which we live. Understanding comes when we begin to distinguish our own validational approach and why we do what we do.
Each of us has a set of standards (which we have so far been calling values and principles resulting from experiences and biases) that we acquire, mostly unconsciously, from a variety of sources such as family, religion, culture, media, and society. These internalized standards give meaning and understanding to deeper existential questions that each of us ask ourselves at different times in our lives. The more we understand our own dilemmas and inner guidance system that we help navigate our life, the more we consciously and congruently understand the principles by which we live.
The gap in understanding oneself prevents us from breaking out of inertia to take action. In an article "The Smart-Talk Trap" (Pfeffer and Sutton 1999) , the authors question why businesses, knowing that action is where the rewards are, continue to engage in smart talk and perpetuate a thinking-doing gap in organizations. What makes us say something, believe in it, have the know-how to execute it and still not do so? While there may be many rational and logical reasons for taking an action, having know-how alone does not necessarily make me comfortable in taking a new step in an unknown direction. What does it take to translate ideas into action? Where does the inertia come from? It has more to do with ‘how we feel’ and how comfortable we are with the status quo and our ‘images’ and ‘identity’ (in other words, our state of ‘being’). This is an internal ‘gap’ that comes from a lack of understanding about our own states of inertia.
The external ‘gap’ in understanding could be between perceptions of other people vs. our own perceptions . Somebody might feel that we overdid a job while we might think we could have done much better if only we had more time. The perceptions depend on expectations and standards of the person judging it. Until we bridge the internal gap, bridging the external gap is much harder. Becoming aware of internal gaps and how to bridge them is where our feelings, standards, values and belief systems come into play. The more we become aware of our internal or ‘self knowledge,’ the more capability and competence we develop in bridging gaps between thinking and doing.
Understanding is the next evolutionary step up from knowledge. It is contained in the explanations and answers to "why questions." It helps us gain causal connections. "Aha" experiences and insights are the result of a deep understanding of why things happen the way they do. Based on your understanding you see data, relate to information, identify patterns and gain knowledge. It is all a matter of degrees of understanding. In fact, knowledge without understanding is like growth devoid of development. You can know more or better than other people, but do you really know how to know? Without knowing how to know, your ability to communicate and develop yourself and others is limited. You might grow as a manager but do you know how to develop yourself as a leader? Ackoff says (Ackoff, 1998) ‘Rubbish grows but does not develop. Professors can develop without growing. Growth does not necessarily involve an increase in value; development does’.
Understanding does not necessarily have to relate to cognitive reframing alone. Our ‘understanding’ comes from not just thoughts and actions but from physical postures, deep rooted feelings, unexamined attitudes and perspectives that we hold. In fact our competence and capacity to act are closely connected with our understanding of the context. Certain kinds of understanding are emotional and others are physical. Emotional understanding is sometimes referred to ‘chemistry’. Physical understanding could be connected with habits and autopilot patterns. Such understanding is used effectively for behavior modification. Many Eastern exercises like Tai-Chi, Yoga and western approaches like Neurolinguistic programming (NLP) draw upon physical understanding.
Understanding has a critical role to play in technology development. IBM, Almaden Valley has been working on ‘emotion mouse’ that paces the speed with which the information is presented and scrolled on the computer screen to the galvanic skin response, pulse rate and muscle tension of the user. Biofeedback systems have been used for 15 years to bring about behavior modification. "State-dependent" learning approaches like accelerated learning methodologies also emphasize understanding as a key milestone. In the 21st Century, education is poised to embrace this kind of understanding, thanks to technologies like virtual reality and the Web. Distance and time are no longer limitations to learn, act, communicate, or perceive.
Data does not have a context. Information is about perceiving data in a context or a relationship. Knowledge is about perceiving patterns and the context instead of just focusing on the ‘content’. Understanding is about creating a new context. That is when we gain a perspective. We begin to understand principles by which context is created, and we can consciously shift our point of view and our perception. We could shift our point of view about things, about others or about ourselves. When we begin to move from an objective domain of understanding others (and the external world) to the subjective domain of understanding oneself (normally referred to as meaning creation), we enter the domain of self knowledge.
Self Knowledge and Meaning Creation
Self knowledge is being addressed more and more in business literature and information technology research. Peter Drucker addresses the need for increased self knowledge for knowledge workers to build organizations of the 21st Century. Daniel Goleman frames self knowledge in the context of emotional intelligence and as a basic characteristic of a leader. Both are arguing for developing internal navigation systems that shape our perceptual filters, habit patterns, worldviews and perspectives in leading ourselves and others in organizations. The need for personalization or a customization engine is considered to be a critically missing piece in completing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software packages and E-commerce engines. If the visitor to a website is not finding any meaning or connection to himself or herself, the ‘stickiness’ of the site is not high and the visitor leaves taking all his buying power with him/her.
Knowing about oneself or self knowledge traditionally has been the subject of religions and spiritual literature. When books like ‘In Search of Meaning’ and ‘Meaning and Medicine’ were published in the early 90’s, they were considered to be ‘new age’ literature. But as the 21st Century is dawning on us, more and more people are beginning to reexamine their own lives and looking for something that gives meaning beyond money, security and comfort.
Lack of self knowledge indicates that we are unaware of our own values, assumptions and attitudes and are unable to connect between our own thoughts, words and actions. The conscious and unconscious or subconscious parts of our own psyche act independently, resulting in an increased number of psychological and physiological disorders. It is being recognized that stress has been an important cause of many illnesses of the 90s and with continued information overload and movement towards efficiency at all costs, it will become a bigger issue than before. We are also recognizing that our behaviors are many times addictive, showing up in not only addictions to food, alcohol, cigarettes and drugs, but also to television, pornography, Internet and work. With the economic paradigm (another word for perspective or point of view) being the dominant one, there has been an outcry about values.
Values or the lack thereof have been a topic of conversation not only in political circles but also in social circles. When we hear about Columbine high school killings in the USA or the murder of a 2-year old by preteens in UK, we recognize that it is not a national phenomenon but a global one.
We have the know-how and we have the resources. The question though is do we have the will or intention to change the direction of our actions? It is not about ‘not knowing’. It is about feeling the need and ‘being the change that we want to see in the world’ to quote Mahatma Gandhi.
On reflection, we have come to a point where we are beginning to see a need to supplement conventional scientific approaches with other approaches that are not quite ‘scientific.’ Our orderly, bounded and simplified approaches to dealing with problems no longer give satisfactory and workable solutions in this complex world. We are getting into messy, unbounded, tacit and complex domain of subjectivity.
Interestingly, the subject of complexity and chaos has evolved into a new field thanks to pioneering work of the Santa Fe Institute (in addition to many other scientists and scientific institutions around the world). Gene Bellinger (Bellinger, website) quotes Csikszentmihalyi (Csikszentmihalyi, 94) defining complexity based on the degree to which something is simultaneously differentiated and integrated. According to Bellinger, ‘high levels of differentiation without integration promotes the complicated’ while ‘that which is highly integrated without differentiation produces mundane.’ We are interested in neither the mundane nor the complicated, but the complexity that exists between the two attracts us immensely. Csikszentmihalyi calls this state ‘flow, the optimal state of experience.’ He says that when the challenge is not too much higher than or not too much lower than our skill level, we could get into a flow state. In sports this state is called ‘being in the zone.’ In spiritual literature this is referred to as an ‘aha’ state or ‘becoming one with the action’. In that state, Michael Jordan, one of the greatest basketball players, is quoted as saying ‘you can’t do no wrong.’ This is the state where things are simple but not simplistic.
Oscar Wendell Holmes is quoted as saying that he would not a spare a fig to get simplicity on this side of complexity but would be willing to give his right arm to get to the simplicity on the other side of complexity. Wisdom, Bellinger claims ‘is sort of simplified complexity.’
Paths to wisdom begin with knowledge. It is not just knowing about the "objective universe," but rather asking oneself ‘why’ questions, that enables one to move towards understanding. Alternating ‘why’ questions with ‘how’ questions develops competency. When we turn the focus onto oneself and reflect on ‘why and how’ questions, we develop self knowledge. The path to wisdom is knowing when to differentiate, when to integrate, when to go after what one intends and when to let go and ‘flow’ with the challenges presented.
Wisdom is not necessarily ‘not wanting,’ but rather about not ‘getting too attached to wanting.’ It is about having a clarity of intention and commitment to action but not necessarily addiction to the desired result. While it looks paradoxical, wisdom is about discernment and flow between integration and discrimination. Russ Ackoff (Ackoff 1999) defines wisdom as ‘the ability to perceive and evaluate the long-run consequences of behavior.’ He also says that while efficiency is increased through data, information, knowledge and understanding, wisdom addresses effectiveness. ‘One can grow without wisdom but one cannot develop without it’ according to Ackoff.
How do we build a path of wisdom on which an economic engine fueled by knowledge could move into the 21st Century?
We begin with two critical competencies that underlie knowledge revolution: learning and thinking. Learning for the 21st Century is not just acquisition of skills and knowledge, but also competence building and capacity development. The first two helps us build tools and technology and the other two leads us on the path to wisdom. Moving from data to wisdom through information and knowledge requires different kinds of learning at different stages, such as proposed by Gregory Bateson, that would require a separate article.
Thinking is not equivalent to ‘having thoughts’ and is not just connected with intellect. It is the ability to activate intelligence (both cognitive and emotional). We require intelligent approaches to not only acquire knowledge but also create new meaning and discern what is appropriate knowledge that allows us to move on the path to wisdom.
We have been interested in kinds of learning and thinking that provokes and evokes new knowledge creation. We have been exploring ways to architect knowledge through conversations. We have found dialogues are effective means to bring out tacit knowledge to explicit. Inquiry as opposed to advocacy creates a field of trust, openness and care. Language when probed into and conflicts when explored without animosity can provide access to metaphors and stories that shape our values and assumptions. Story telling and visual representations clarify meaning and create scenarios in which one can begin to think about the ‘whole system.’ Combining some of these characteristics, we have evolved a unique process and methodology by which people engage in deep conversations and explore paradoxes and conflicts to come up with a shared conceptual framework that encapsulates their inquiries, stories, shared vision, intentions, competencies, desired outcomes, possible scenarios and actions.
In the next section, we describe one such approach to sustainability that we engaged in during the summer of 1997 in Napa Valley, California.
Sustainability means different things to different people. Every person defines it in a particular way based on their affiliations, interests and past experience. When the Napa group met in July 1997, it was very clear right in the beginning that we have to agree on what sustainability means and what we can commit to and work towards. We chose to come up with a new phrase ‘Generational Sustainability’ as the North Star for the group to navigate by. Different cultures (Native Americans, Somalians, Asian Indians, for example) think about their legacies and the impact of their current actions on future generations before they make any significant decisions. Generational Sustainability represented, for us, something that we could look forward to and something that is not yet part of our current thinking. In other words, we would like to do something that pays off now and will continue to pay off well into the future without having adverse effects.
When we looked at the phrase ‘Generational Sustainability’ it did three things for the group. It gave us a direction to work towards (with the word sustainability, we were really getting stuck in making sure that the word represents each of our sometimes conflicting interests). Secondly, we got motivated to explore what that phrase represents. There is no baggage associated with ‘Generational Sustainability’ and it motivated us to work together and explore possibilities to make it a reality. The term embraces both inter-generational and intra-generational sustainability, allowing a focus on equity for all. Finally, there were no known ways to get to our North Star, so this challenged our thinking in finding ways to move towards ‘Generational Sustainability.’
While it was wonderful that we came up with a North Star for our work together, how do we move in that direction? What will it take for us to get there? What kind of scenarios do we envision as outcomes when we do reach the North Star? What competencies do we need to develop to go from here to there? These are questions that we explore in the remainder of this section. It was important that we come up with a systemic and integrative framework that combines our vision with current reality and helps us with implementation guidelines. We will focus on such a framework and you can create a three dimensional model of the framework itself and work with it as you implement your vision.
Setting a goal or aspiring to reach new heights is the first step to moving toward our North Star. The main reason why visions fail is because people do not identify and address their ‘barriers to progress’ clearly. A boat properly tied to the dock cannot leave the dock just by setting the course for the ride and revving up the motor. We must untie it so that we are free to leave the dock without causing damage to the boat or the dock. Being clear about our barriers to progress helps us accomplish that. We decided in our Napa meeting to address the ‘core incompetence’ that holds us back in making progress towards our North Star. We knew after two hours of conversation that ‘change’ alone is not sufficient. Transformation is required for us to begin the journey towards ‘Generational Sustainability.’ Change requires modification of our existing conditions whereas transformation requires alteration of our assumptions, paradigms and worldviews as well as a willingness to change our behavior. We require a transformation of our mindsets and transformation in relationships ---the way we work with each other. Transformation helps us to see our journey with new eyes and helps us to develop attitudes and actions that allow us to move towards our North Star. Without transformation, we may have a lofty vision, but reaching it becomes doubtful.
As we began to identify our North Star and Core Competency, we introduced a framework that allowed us to think of them representing two of the four cornerstones of a tetrahedron. A tetrahedron is a three dimensional geometrical figure with four corners and four identical triangular faces, similar to a pyramid. We can map four variables onto the four corners of the tetrahedron and understand the relationships between those four variables through the connecting edges. The interactions between the four corners, taken two corners at a time could be mapped onto each edge of the tetrahedron, as four corners interact in six ways. Each face of the tetrahedron contains three of the four corners, and each face is given a distinct name synthesizing the three interactions (edges) between the three corners shown on that two-dimensional face.
The individual components of the tetrahedron signify the following:
The strategic intentions may have polarities which create a dynamic tension, as often occurs in real life between competing interests and goals. Together they comprise a powerful model usable for many different purposes.
Our tag line for the Napa Group is "Generational Sustainability begins with Transformation," and that is where this notion came from. Once the journey begins though, we need additional tools to help us navigate. We identified two phrases, ‘Individual Opportunity’ and ‘Common Good,’ as two polarities that balance our journey. If we look back at the boat metaphor, Generational Sustainability sets the direction, Transformation releases the boat from the dock, Individual Opportunity and Common Good act as oars to row our boat. Just like real oars, focusing only on Individual Opportunity or Common Good one at a time will make our boat go in circles and not towards our stated goal, our North Star. While the USA values individual opportunity, it does not always support the common good. On the other hand, many other countries focus on the common good; they may not provide individual opportunity for people. Hence we felt our two oars do a good job of bringing what our forefathers in America stood for while including and transcending what the rest of the world is striving for. It was a big ‘aha’ for the group to agree on these two ideas.
The four concepts we have so far represent the cornerstones of our work together. These four cornerstones represent a ‘strategic vision’ in which our book and our work can make a significant contribution to the world in which sustainability is increasingly becoming important.
Figure 1 shows the inter-relatedness of our four cornerstones. They are all interconnected and all four are equally important. Figure 1 is called a tetrahedron in geometry language, and it has some special properties. Every corner is connected with every other corner, and every face is connected with every other face. In mathematics, the tetrahedron is known as a three dimensional solid with minimum volume and maximum stability. By the way, you can rotate the tetrahedron in any way you like and still it will retain its shape.
Why is it important that I am describing a tetrahedron? Because the four cornerstones of our strategic vision are mapped onto this three-dimensional object and the rotational symmetry, interconnectedness, stability and simplicity are characteristics we value. Why, you may ask. It is a simple representation of the interconnected system in which we live, and when we ignore one component explicitly or accidentally, it will have repercussions somewhere else. It is common that when we have four strategic objectives, we focus on three out of four and feel confident that we covered our bases. In this case, when one of the four cornerstones is missing, the tetrahedron flattens to become a triangle. The system loses three out of four triangles even though we have three out of four cornerstones. This indicates that even though we are focusing on 3/4s of the vision, we are missing out on three faces of the four-faced tetrahedron! In other words, we stop looking at three possible alternative scenarios when we ignore one of the cornerstones and our strategic vision is no longer systemic. Let us explore what this means to our sustainability framework, in more detail, in the next section.
Let us assume that we have identified three cornerstones–Generational Sustainability, Individual Opportunity and Transformation–and ignored or eliminated the fourth cornerstone, Common Good. You can call this scenario 1 and that scenario could be explored and mapped onto the face of the triangle that contains the three corners. In the Napa meeting, we identified that face name (scenario 1) to be ‘Path with Heart.’ Why? Because we are paying attention to the individual opportunity as the path towards generational sustainability through transformation, the name 'Path with Heart' describes the scenario well. Please note that in this scenario, there is no concern for ‘common good’ on a path with heart! So path with heart is one possible outcome that we want to get, but we also want to include common good. We explored the other three scenarios, each time choosing one face with one missing cornerstone. When transformation is left out, we have ‘Quality of Life’ scenario as the face for the triangle with Common Good, Individual Opportunity and Generational Sustainability as cornerstones. We have an excellent ‘Quality of Life’ that does not include and actually locks out possibility for transformation. When we ignore Generational Sustainability, Individual Opportunity, Common Good and Transformation form a triangle with the face named ‘Freedom.’ This scenario has a lot of freedom but no vision for future generations.
The fourth scenario is called ‘Wisdom’ because it has Common Good, Generational Sustainability and Transformation as cornerstones. It is not about any individual or current opportunity but about the collective and the future.
When we explored the four scenarios, we realized that each of them are desirable and each of them miss an important cornerstone. If we look at the all the four together, we realize that they feed on each other. In some respects, each scenario or possible outcome is incomplete and together they create a bi-directional cyclical flow among themselves (Figure 2). We want a dynamic situation where we focus on one scenario at a time fully knowing that other scenario will take over after some time. This is like seasons!
Once we identified scenarios or possible outcomes by looking at the intersection of three cornerstones, we were quite interested in interaction of individual cornerstones with each other. We believed that in bridging the polarity between the cornerstones we could identify the competencies that we require to move from the current reality to the desired future. For example, when we investigated the two cornerstones, Generational Sustainability and Individual Opportunity, we found that ‘Responsibility’ could bridge both the cornerstones quite well. It is in taking responsibility for the generational sustainability that the true individual opportunity rests. Similarly when responsibility is taken in creating individual opportunity, the generational sustainability becomes meaningful. By describing it this way, we could see that the word ‘Responsibility’ truly includes and transcends the essence of both cornerstones it bridges and when we develop competency in this area, we begin to shape and define the desired outcome (or scenario) we earlier named Quality of Life.
Similarly, Governance was the word we chose to bridge Individual Opportunity and Common Good. It is not big government or small, but appropriate governance structures that ensure individual opportunity is not eliminated when we focus on the common good. The common good is kept in mind when we look at our own individual opportunities.
Finally the words we came up with to bridge other cornerstones are:
These six become the core competencies that we need to develop and build the sustainable future that we intend to create while moving towards the Generational Sustainability vision. When we put the entire framework together, we get Figure 3, which is the tetrahedron opened like a flower at the middle triangle. This tetrahedron now contains all the elements of our strategic vision: cornerstones, future scenarios and competencies that get us to those future scenarios.
Since we built this framework, it has been presented in three different conferences and has drawn a lot of interest. A residential community being developed in Romeoville, Illinois is attempting to understand and incorporate various features and components described in this tetrahedron.
The 21st Century is going to be about creating pathways to a sustainable future. Creating a shared understanding of what data, information, knowledge and wisdom mean to us and how they interrelate enables us to define and move along those pathways. Applying our model of knowledge architecture from a deep place of spiritual values, principles and beliefs allows us to evolve a deeper understanding of what a sustainable future could mean to us and how we can pursue it. The framework above contains essential ingredients to be explored in building our future. The final step of course is the choice that we make: Do we build using the knowledge architecture and a path to wisdom in the 21st Century, or do we continue to do what we have done before, expecting different results?
Prasad Kaipa is the managing director of Mithya Institute for Learning and works with organizations on developing knowledge architectures, intellectual capital and igniting creativity and innovation in knowledge workers. Prasad has worked with companies like Cisco, Boeing, HP, Xerox and Ford as a consultant to executives on strategic thinking, leadership development and knowledge business modeling. He can be reached at pkaipa@mithya.com or (408) 871-0462.
Return to Table of Contents