Tue, Oct 24, 2006
The Joys of Being an A-Lister
#
I've enjoyed the
responses to
my
posts about
the CIA workshop last month. The most
surprising and amusing response has come from skeptics who have
labeled me and the others who spoke at the workshop of being
"A-listers." (LCT)
I know something about A-lists. I went to Harvard. I knew many brilliant, cool people there, so I know that
A-lists can deserve their reputations. I also knew many idiots there,
so I know not to make too much of A-lists. (LCU)
I'm not naive about what it means to be an A-lister. I know that
folks look at me differently when they discover that I went to Harvard
or that DougEngelbart is one of my mentors. I know that most of my
business comes via word-of-mouth, which is a fancy way of saying
"reputation." (LCV)
I know all of these things, and I don't give a damn about any of them.
I worry about being the smartest, most capable person I can possibly
be, and about being the best human being I can possibly be. I apply
these exact same standards towards others. I don't worry about what
lists I or others are or aren't on. (LCW)
This attitude not only pervades my personal and professional life, but
my philosophy about collaboration. Given the right space and
good process, I believe that large, diverse networks will always
be smarter than any individual. I shy away from work where people are
looking at me to tell them what to do. My goal is to help groups
achieve their potential, not to convince them of how smart I am. (LCX)
The authors at Kent's
Imperative wrote an
insightful essay on how large-scale collaboration can affect how
intelligence is gathered and analyzed. I thought everything they wrote
was spot-on except for their read on last month's CIA workshop: (LCY)
The rapid rise of distributed collaborative analysis through the
blogsphere has been an amazing thing to watch.... (LCZ)
The community would do well to pay attention to this phenomena. Some
tentative steps have been made at documenting and re-creating this
dynamic, most notably in response to the 2004 Galileo Award paper,
"The Wiki
and the Blog", by Dr. Calvin Andrus; but much work remains to be
done. It is not at all clear that the primum mobile has been
established to support this effort within the walls. And your authors
in particular are unconvinced that the best way to drive this effort
is through the use of
Beltway consultants
"debriefing" teams of
"A-list" and
technology
savvy bloggers. The native development of a culture of discussion and
exchange, enabled by the new technologies and freed from the
constraints of stifling managers and visionless mid-grades, is not
something that will emerge from even the best run boardroom meeting,
no matter how well intentioned. (LD0)
What is most disappointing, however, is that out of this process
(however flawed) no doubt emerged more insight and innovation than has
been seen from many of the so-called academic experts championing
intelligence studies. (LD1)
I don't blame them for interpreting the positioning of the workshop
the way he did, and I actually liked the post a lot. However, their
interpretation of the workshop is wrong in subtle ways, and there are
larger lessons that warrant discussion. (LD2)
First, I would hardly equate a two-day workshop to a strategy of
bringing in A-list consultants to "drive this effort." We weren't
there to kick-off some huge consulting gig to transform intelligence.
We were there to talk to the CIA, and all of us were just as motivated
to learn from them. This attitude was reflected in the process of the
workshop itself. (LD3)
When MarkOehlert asked me to participate, most of the "panelists" had
already signed on, and three things stood out to me about the group.
First, two of the participants -- JayCross and MarciaConner -- came
from the learning world, not the world of blogs and Wikis, although
both are active bloggers. (As it turned out, Mark falls under this
category as well.) Second, we all cared more about helping than
selling. Third, we all shared similar philosophies about
collaboration, although I was undoubtedly the most zealous of the
lot. Before signing on, I sent Mark an email suggesting that we not do
a panel or presentations, but instead try something more collaborative
and meaningful. Mark responded with a smile, and said, "We're going
to get along just fine." Turns out he was way ahead of me. (LD4)
The end result was a facilitated conversation between the CIA and the
outside world, a conversation that the CIA could not have easily had
under normal circumstances due to real constraints (unlike the
artificial constraints that many organizations impose on
themselves). There was also an important secondary effect that
resulted from the workshop process: StoneSoup?. This particular
network inside the CIA became aware of itself. The champions within
the organization were evident right from the start, and the
conversation was as much between the analysts themselves as it was
with us. (LD5)
Second, bringing in outsiders can have a catalyzing effect on
transforming an organization's culture, provided their role is framed
correctly. We weren't there to fix anything. That would have been
naive, because there was no way we could have fixed anything. We were
there to tell stories and participate in discussion. (LD6)
The path to shifting a dysfunctional culture within a homogeneous
organization is to expand the network, to make the problem bigger.
The CIA is not the only organization working on these issues, so by
including other organizations in the conversation, you enrich your
network and raise the collective intelligence of your group.
Outsiders in the right roles are critical to change. If you try to
solve the problem in a bubble, you are more likely to kill the
organization than you are to change anything. (LD7)
I have no illusions about whether or not we changed anything in those
two days. My goal was to expand the group consciousness, if only
slightly, and we certainly achieved that. That's a small step in the
right direction, but much, much more needs to be done. (LD8)
/collaboration |
Posted at 9:17am
Comments
Comments disabled until future notice. If you'd like to contact me, use my i-name (=eekim).