November 01, 2005
Agile, Cognitive Scripts and Diversity
Steve L. Robins, Professor and Diversity Trainer speaks about Unintentional Intelligence:
M1 (mindlessness) + M2 (multiple redundancy messages) = UI (unintentional Intelligence)
He explains that cognitively we can only do one thing at a time. Our brain writes cognitive scripts for what we do, so we can be efficient by not having to spend time thinking carefully about everything. We do this for anything from breathing, brushing our teeth and driving. We have very good cognitive scripts for complex tasks.
M2 (multiple redundancy messages
Because of this state of mindlessness, if we get the same message over and over again we have no defense against it. We can brand products, concepts, professions (i.e. a nurse is a woman a doctor is a man)... we brand people, race. We can get 13 year old girls to want to kill themselves because they are not thin enough.
Robins did the following experiment with us to demonstrate this point: He told us to repeat the word “top” ten times and after the tenth time he asked us the following question, which we were supposed to answer without thinking: “What do you do when you get to a green light?” We all said stop. He went on to point out that if with such a simple exercise he could get us to give the wrong answer, when we all knew the right answer, then a lot of different kind of beliefs about different races can also affect us even if they are not true.
Robins went on to talk about how to change these pattern: Neurons in the brain are connected by synapses, every time we act the body releases a protein in the synapses that when repeated solidifies the pattern down in our brain. In order to form new patterns a person has to have a chance to practice that pattern over and over again.
In our working cultures we have all kinds of cognitive scripts related to how we see and value diversity and these are formed partly by the multiple redundancy messages sent to us by our culture, our own lack of knowledge and experience of different perspectives and ways of seeing the world (because we tend to naturally associate with people who are like us) and our organizational culture that generally tends to value a certain kind of personality over another.
So what does this have to do with Agile? Well, so much of agile is about innovation and amplifying learning. Corporate cultures are not typically examples of thriving places that value diversity (and I don't mean just having affirmative action programs, but beyond that, having a working culture that allows people to bring their diversity into the work place and rewards it). Diversity is a direct challenge to our mindless orientation towards work. It can challenge us to be more mindful, and mindfulness is an important basis of amplifying learning and being innovative.
I find the concept of cognitive scripts a helpful one for my own approach to Agile Work. Part of the work of a Process Facilitator is to help people to become conscious of their cognitive scrips, nurture diversity in the group so that cognitive scripts can be challenged to give birth to innovation. The key to this kind of change is for the Process Facilitator to work closely with team members to create repeated opportunities for this kind of interaction so that new cognitive scripts can be written.
It is helpful for the Process Facilitator to work with team members to reflect on the relationship between multiple redundancy messages as they relate to Agile Work. For example when starting an Agile project, beginning by reflecting on the fact that Agile Work transforms our competitive orientation towards work into a collaborative orientation. An examination of the multiple redundancy messages we receive in popular culture and corporate culture about these two orientations may be very useful for team members to become conscious of, if they are to make this shift in thinking and practice. As an exercise, a Process Facilitator could simply ask the team to list examples of corporate and media messages that support competition and those that support collaboration.
Posted by Shabnam Tashakour at 08:08 AM | |
October 26, 2005
Notes from The Sixth International Transformative Learning Conference Michigan State University Oct 6-8, 2005
Steve L. Robbin, Grand Valley State University, Professor and Diversity Consultant
His mother married an American Serviceman in Vietnam in the 1970's and came to America. It was a bad time to come from Vietnam. He used to get beaten up at school. She never commented on this but when she would be cleaning him up the tears would be rolling down her face. She had come to America in hope for a better future for herself and her child and this was not it.
One time when he was away at university she called him saying that she had bought new furniture for her house and the store had delivered old furniture to her and refused to take it back. So he made a fake lawyer letter head and wrote a stern letter to the shop and soon after they delivered the new furniture with a dozen roses.
Soon after he married his mother called him and said that you have your wife to take care of you now. One week later he got a call from the police that she had hanged herself in her home.
When he had his first child he started to reflect on these experiences and to question some of the views he had about race and racism. Up to this point he had held conventional stereotypes of lazy Blacks, Hispanics etc.
Are we interested in diversity training or diversity education. Ask anyone with kids which they would prefer for their children: sex education or sex training?
You grow up in a middle class neighborhood with professional parents who tell you that you can do anything if...? "you work hard". At the conceptual level we believe American society to be based on a meritocracy but at an operational level other realities affect the degree of success a person achieves: wealth, connections and access.
An African immigrant to America (a workshop participant)shared her experience of what the concept of working hard meant for her: a black person can work 10 times harder, losing her soul in the process and for what? To get to the top and be hated by whites for it.
"Truth is the condition that allows suffering to speak." Cornell West
From the lens of "if you just work hard" truth and suffering looks like whining and complaining.
Sense of entitlement
The same workshop participant told the story of having worked for many years as a nurse and several other jobs at the same time and finally bought a house. She invited her white neighbor who was kicked out of his home to live in her house. After some time of supporting him (cooking for him and cleaning up after him), because of the demands he was making on her she asked him to leave. He refused telling her that she is only an immigrant to this country and that he is entitled to stay in her home because this is her country and she has benefited from this.
The American dream of solving the problem of poverty through material gain (working hard) has become intolerant of suffering and hardship. If you don't overcome this suffering you should not talk about it.
Attribution Theory
1) We live in a just world and you reap what you sow
2) Fundamental attribution error: internal locus of control (they are there because they did something wrong)
3) Ultimate attribution Error: external locus of control (she got the job because of affirmative action)
People like Condoleezza Rice and Tiger Woods, Opera etc are held up as the rule and not the exceptional successes that they are.
Who here considers themselves nice?
N.I.C.E not inclined to critically examine
What is racism
Racism is a sociological idea
Any ism is a system of values, beliefs, behavior. What do you need to create a system? Power.
A Racist is: racial prejudice + power + discriminating action
Now Orleans situation:
Myopic - view things not in context of historical racism... problem to see things in perspective because people in power explain things away very well
"Racism without racists" De Silva the idea of this book is that you don't even need racists anymore to have racism because of the systems of society.
"White washing race: the myth of a color blind society." book to read
Shift from the manufacturing economy to knowledge economy is taking poor people out of the economy. In the past poor people could work in factories, earn better salaries and improve their material condition.
1995 the human genome project- one human race
In America one can change race depending on what state one lives in.
A mathematician spent a lot of time calculation how removed people are to each other and found that the farthest removed one person can be to another is 52nd cousin. Concept of race is very problematic
you can change your race based on what state you live i.e. one drop rule or one eight, or one sixteenth makes you black.
The first case in American history challenging the concept of all white men having rights was a Japanese man arguing that he should have the same rights as a white man because his skin is white. It was ruled that one had to be Caucasian and white to have rights. The next case was brought forward by an East Indian man who said that he was Caucasian but he lost because he wasn't white enough.
Posted by Shabnam Tashakour at 04:49 PM | |