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Learning To Read The Signs— Why Practice Pragmatic Inquiry

 

Each day of our lives, we are confronted with facts, problems, conversations, situations, ideas, issues, opportunities and challenges that demand our attention. This is especially true now, in light of the overwhelming evidence of potentially catastrophic climate change which is threatening to overshadow the perennial economic, business, social and political concerns. 

 

Usually we react to this daily flood of information and events almost automatically by fitting them into our existing patterns and habits of thinking and behaving. (And if the facts and events don’t fit into our patterns of belief, we tend to ignore them.) That’s because we assume we know what’s going on — what the facts and events mean — and based on these assumptions, we decide what to do. But the information and events are no more than signs, clues, evidence or symptoms and our interpretations of them may not be the best choice, especially since our complex environment is always changing!

 

The importance of a question...and a baseline answer.

 

Learning begins when some fact, idea, incident or challege opportunity comes along that forces us to stop and begin to question or doubt what we know or challenge what we value; what we call a Challenge/question Cq. We now state what we know and value as assumptions which are treated as an hypothesis to be tested. We begin to re-think our experiences, our plans and what we know and value, and then search for new explanations. We are, in effect, reinterpreting the meaning of our experiences into new belief patterns.

 

This is why the method of inquiry outlined in this Lab Journal can be so helpful — by challenging our assumptions and providing a time-honored and well-tested practice that can help us interpret the signs in new ways. The result of the Inquiry may range from a small adjustment in plans to a complete change in direction.

 

Kinds of Inquiry Questions 

 

Every inquiry begins with a question, idea, problem, need, issue, doubt, opportunity or challenge—your Challenge/question Cq — and a tentative answer that will drive the Inquiry. Here are questions that have begun Inquiries in the past. 

 

Organization Values and Vision Inquiry

This is for senior executives or members of a senior management team who need to inquire about their Organization’s Values and Vision.

 

• What are the Values of the Organization? Why are they important?

• How have they been formed and tested? What is the evidence?

• What is the Core Purpose and Goal of the Organization — what is our reason for existence? What business are we in?

• What is our culture? What do we need to affirm or change?

• What are our Social and Environmental Responsibilities?

• What is our view of the future?

• How will we shape/intercept it?

Result: Own Who You Are — Organization Brand.

 

Strategic Market Planning & Problem Solving Inquiry

This is for senior executives or members of a group who face a particular challenge or issue concerning their relationship with the marketplace and within the organization:

 

• Who are our customers?

• What needs in society do or can we meet?

• What are our core competencies? Are they relevant & differentiating?

• Is our strategy sustainable?

• What is our brand reputation to our stakeholders?

• What direction should we pursue?

• What action should we take?

• What investments should we make? 

• How do we innovate and renew?

Result: Own Your Business Idea and Direction — Strategy.

 

Personal Inquiry

This is for students beginning their careers, executives contemplating a career change and senior executives reflecting on their legacy. Individuals inquire about the essence of their leadership beliefs in order to determine where they should make the investment of their careers relative to a company, industry or profession. 

 

• What Values and Visions are driving my behavior, decisions and actions?

• Whom do I want to serve — what Market, Population, Community or Audience?

• What needs do they have which I can meet?

• What are my ideas to meet these needs?

• Why am I pursuing a business career? (What am I passionate about?)

• What challenges do I face?

• What are my competencies?

• What are my personal and career goals?

• What is my “calling” — the work that I cannot not do?”

• With what Organization, Industry, Profession or Group do I want to serve? 

Result: Own Who You Are — Personal Strategy and Brand.

 

Possible question starters: Jim Collins and Michael Porter on strategy

The three questions that must be answered in the development of “Own Who You Are” (what Jim Collins calls the “hedgehog” concept) are:

 

1. What can you be the best in the world at?

2. What drives your economic engine?

3. What are you deeply passionate about?

 

“Level 5 Leadership” — Harvard Business Review July 2005, Jim Collins

 

Michael Porter has an equally simple framework for questions:

Strategy...

• is the creation of a unique and valuable position, involving a different set of activities.

• requires you to make trade-offs in competing — to choose what not to do.

• involves creating ‘fit’ among a company’s activities.

 

“What is Strategy?” — Harvard Business Review Nov-Dec. 1996, Michael Porter

 

All it takes to begin a Pragmatic Inquiry is a serious challenge, question, need, concern, idea, doubt or opportunity. 

 

 

What are the defining characteristics of a leader: “Why Knowing Yourself Matters” 

There are many definitions of a leader, but they generally center on being able to enlist others in a project the leader thinks and feels is worth doing. In order to do this, the leader must have first embraced the work themselves. As many have put it, the leader must “be authentic to be trusted.” The PathFinder Inquiry helps you to “know thyself.”

 

Communication

Many scholars on leadership hold to the importance of being able to communicate to others — what Noel Tichy calls “the ability of the leader to give meaning to work and enlist others in the task”, and as Warren Bennis has put it, “A leader is someone who can express themselves fully.”

 

We agree. It follows on the leader’s ability to articulate what and why they hold the views they do. And we believe that its foundation is the Values and Vision of the individual and the organization they serve.

 

It also is very important to understand that this began as searching for the truthful ground for communication based on your values, core purpose and goals and then express these in the unique marketable advantage. The result of your work was to be able to explain this memorably and persuasively to others.

 

Therefore the issue of leadership creating shared meaning through communication is a major outcome and result of the inquiry.

 

And we discovered that this applies to individuals as well as organizations. Hence Dean Woo’s observation about PathFinder applying to both.

 

Narrative—Importance of Developing a Story to Communicate

Inquirers are encouraged to see their inquiry unfolding as telling a story with the movement and drama that entails. They can then see better the direction their path has been, is going and give them choices to make for future direction.

 

This narrative approach engages those who are very sure and getting what they want out of life — their life plans — but are now up against some challenge, ‘those whose plans seem to be going awry’, and those who see their lives as seemingly random, existential reaction life.

 

Based on the evidence of their experience, from the events, coincidences, chance occurrences, there seems to emerge connections, patterns, and a direction. We often here this referred to as a “life’s work” or as a “Calling”; some higher purpose that seems to continually appear to us as we search for the meaning and direction of our lives. 

 

That is why many of the early pragmatists referred to the continuum of the pragmatic process as “the pursuit of the truth we do not yet know, leading the action we have yet to take.” Many saw the discipline of science much as a detective does, making sense of clues to determine what happened, is happening, and might happen.

 

Every story begins with a situation with characters engaged in some situation, uncertainty, conflict, etc. As you will see in the “Begin” section, the various uses of the PathFinder depend on properly framing, the challenge as a question which begins the drama of the Inquiry. 

 

Once they are engaged in a Challenge/question Cq, they can then begin to see their question in terms of having a past, a present and a future. They can then draw on their life experiences.

 

That is what engages people to explore their story and find meaning leading to “what happens next.”

 

To put this in more conventional terms: The goal of the Inquiry is helping individuals either collectively or individually make better decisions concerning strategy (which can also be thought of as a business way of telling a story.) 

 

But you can also see that if you accept the premise that both individuals as well as groups are engaged in a drama or “story”, it can be used at any stage of a career. Everyone is on a path making decisions all the time, either inside a corporation or on their own. All these involve choices, investment and risk; the stuff of strategic decisions. 

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.