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March 2024
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LOYALTIES11/1/2023 An association executives told a crowd that in her next strategic planning exercise, she will hire this person who happens to be a member of the association and had been waiting for her turn to be contracted. It seemed that they get to contract only those consultants that are already part of the association for the longest time. It seemed that it's part of the reward and seniority system. It seemed that looking beyond their walls is counter to how they operate and think. It seemed that for all their talk on innovation and fearlessness, they fear outside experts and perspectives. It's the same thing when a senior executive at an academic institution noted that they only get the big firms for management consulting. Why? What's the point? We can't lie about where our loyalties ultimately rests. Usually, relationships fossilized and so does thinking and then it becomes a force of habit, not a stroke of innovation.
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ENDING WITH GRACE9/11/2023 In my book, Provocateurs, Chapter 8 talks about Envisioning the End you Intend. A foundation I have followed through the years is closing down its operations for good. I got the chance to talk to the current Executive Director about the rationale and the processes they're working leading to this path. Ending with grace is a purpose-driven response to closures, good byes, and changes. This means a lot for those who were part of the organizational journey from the very start, the founders- Board, Staff, members, grant recipients, and the people on the ground who were touched by the impact funding and breakthrough activities. This means a lot as well to those countless people in the community who were involved in some ways or another to the activities and programs and celebrations of solidarity with the people in the South. I am quite shocked at first as an outsider to hear this but I salute the courage to truthfully assess their situation. This is a very difficult decision to make and no Board, staff, or members would take this further unless it's considered to be (at that time) the best alternative amongst other options. As a consultant and advisor, I can't get into the minds of the decision-makers but I believe that there is a bundle of rationales that are taken into consideration in such an undertaking. But what happens next is not really much discussed but fortunately, my book looks at many such wondrous things that can take place after closures. Evidence is replete with many spin-offs, small and large that can I heard from the Executive Director that a bunch of members is meeting informally over coffee. All good things will end eventually but this is an interesting development to watch. We can all learn from this process and be amazed as to what 'reimagining the futures' would be like for this community.
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NON-THINKING6/5/2023 With the talk of ChatGPT as the game-changer in education, training, and literacy, what actually changed was the training on non-thinking. A colleague of mine who is an instructor was just so happy that ChatGPT is around to help him with case study formulation. I get the convenience but I fear the far greater implications to the education process where every student, faculty, trainer, and executive would just depend on the technology to tell them what to think and not just how messages can be permutated in million ways. I believe that technology for good is good but technology without mediation, controls, and governance could spell doom for humanity. The already social media-raised generation is now saturated with every gizmos and gadgets so that they don't have to live the real life, work hard, and achieve success based on what they put in but live in virtual life where virtual reality is manufactured based on their preferred version of reality. When I wrote my book, I relied mainly on basic editing software which is a great help for a professional with English as her second language. While this is so, I made sure that I write using my own voice, my wording, my inflections, which would make me different but also interesting. Imagine countless of books and manuals written these days where every wording, tone, content are regurgitated by AI and machines? We will sound exactly the same, as in robotic. We will be mouthing each other's messages and will echo what is mainly acceptable in the mainstream, whoever that mainstream dominant voice in the multiverse is. The days of being unique is over. Conformity powered by technology here. But with all the investments in education, this is not something you would want to have attained after a number of years of schooling, higher education, executive trainings for professional development, and so on. If schools are not putting guidelines on this thing, we might as well homeschool our children so we they don't get what the machines pick and serve on a silver platter on to our kids' brains. Get out of this conditioning before it's too late. |