essential conversations how using basic anthropology will improve your outcomes albert linderman,...

Essential conversations

How using basic anthropology will improve your outcomes

Albert Linderman, Ph.D., CEO, Sagis Corporation

[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

My attitude: You are the theorist of your world

My goal is to understand how you see and work within that frame of understanding

This brings with it certain feelings, depending on the situation and project: vulnerability, uncertainty, anxiety, confidence

Copyright © 2013, Sāgis Corporation www.SagisCorp.com

How I Approach Working with Organizations

Each time you work with an org (or a new division or dept) you are essentially doing ethno-research

Right ethno-research, wrong ethno-researchInterviewing is at the heart of ethnographyKnow how to ask the right questionsKnow who to ask

Our goal today—to understand principles of efficient and effective conversation with clients


Organizations are societies with a culture

They know what they want but they don’t always know how to explain it to someone else.

Your clients often mistakenly assume that you:

Know what they are trying to accomplishKnow how their systems workKnow what is more or less critical to themOther??Copyright © 2013, Sāgis Corporation www.SagisCorp.com

Organizations and the humans that run them

Projects and initiatives lose momentum Internal and external relationships disrupted - with customers, suppliers and distributors Communication suffers Blind spots cause problems Resources shifted to training rather than work Documents/processes must be re-created

From the Client’s PerspectiveEffects of Poor Software

Design

Cost Metrics: Lost Sales/Decreased Time to Productivity/

Higher Operating Expenses, etc.Copyright © 2013 Sagis Corporation www.SagisCorp.com

Why Working with Clients Can be Complex: Handling a continuum of

knowledge Explicit knowledge Tacit

knowledge

“Surface Knowledge” “Deeper Knowledge”


The continuum is found on both the individual“expert” level and the larger system level

Identifying Organizational Knowledge

“Explicit”

“Tacit”“Tacit”

“Explicit”

Descriptions

Procedures

Explanation

s

Relations

Strategies

Evaluations


Complex Organizational Knowledge

The baseline facts (who, what, where, when) that contribute to an expert’s

activities.

Descriptions

The way the system is organized

with its multiple elements.

The efficient and successful actions that are

an expert’s repeatable activities.

Procedures

The sequential actions (human or machine)

embedded in the larger system.

The reasons why an expert’s activities

contribute to his/her success.

Explanations

The reasons why the system behaves the way it does between its elements.

The way in which an expert leverages his/her social

network.Relations

The way in which individuals and other

systems affect the system in focus.

An expert’s plans and executions toward a vision. Strategies

The deliberate and emergent responses the

system undergoes within its environment.

An expert’s perceptions and convictions that drive his/her actions in business

contexts.

EvaluationsThe capability of the system

to adapt and transform itself.



Clients don’t know what they know.

The complexity of organizational systems and culture leads us to conclude that we need to understand how to ask the right questions so that we discover what they

know

To accomplish this we need a basic understanding of human sense-making

How do I know what I think till I see what I say as well as how I say it.

People Organize Experiences Into Time Segments

Micro

Macro

Time

Moment by MomentDay by DayWeek by WeekYear by Year

March 27

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

28 29 30 31 April 1 2

3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16

17 18 19 20 21 22 23

24 25 26 27 28 29 30

April 06

Some Experiences Seem Longer, More MeaningfulWhile Others Seem Short & Meaningless

People can remember in vivid detail important experiences in their life - a critical work project, an award, 1st semester of college, a wedding,

a child’s birth, foreign travel, and so on.

Each one of these experiences can be remembered as a whole or as a series of short segments.

Time

Your experiences are made up of actions (initiated by you or by someone/something else that affects you).

These actions are anchored in your memory at a particular time and place.

As You Move Through Time You Are Always “Making Sense” Of Your Situation

Time

When you make sense you: assess the situation, explore questions, harbor feelings.

You may also at this point in time: draw conclusions, make decisions, formulate wishes.

There Is A Time-Gap Between Actions

Gap

Social & Family I nfluencesIQ & EducationPast Experiences

Language & CultureValues

Time

You draw from your internal resources (who you are) to make sense of this moment which is anchored in time and place.

The process of how you pull pieces together for the moment can be illuminated.

Your Sensemaking Moment Can Be Illuminated

Time

GapSocial & Family I nfluences

IQ & EducationPast Experiences


Through careful interviewing the process of how a person constructed (made sense of) moments along the way can be

illuminated.

Experiences Consist Of A Number Of Actions & GapsMoving Through Time

MoreConscious

LessConscious

Time



This interviewing requires multi-level questioning to bring less conscious elements of sensemaking to the surface.


MoreConscious

LessConscious

Time



This will illuminate the “why” of a person’s actions and reactions.


MoreConscious

LessConscious

Time



Where does Sensemaking come from? B. Dervin

Built on the nearly universal way humans experience their move through time and space

By anchoring their talk around actions, the sensemaking under the surface can emerge to consciousness when the right type of questions are askedCopyright © 2013, Sāgis Corporation www.SagisCorp.com

Sensemaking Questions

Level 1 questions—Anchored to time and space

Situation—How do you see yourself/your context?Questions—What are you trying to figure out? What questions do you haveEmotions—What are your emotionsConclusions/decisions—What conclusions and decisions are you making at this point in timeMagic wand/wishes—What are you wishing for? If you had a magic wand what would you have happen?


Categories of Sensemaking Questions

Level 2 questions—Anchored to Level 1 responses

“What is leading you to see yourself this way?” and/or “What influences you to see yourself this way?”“What leads you to ask these questions?” and/or

“What is influencing you to ask these questions?”“What is leading you to feel this way?” and/or

“What influences you to feel this way?”“How would that help?” or “What leads you to that?”“How would that help?” or “What leads you to that?”


Categories of Sensemaking Questions

essential conversations how using basic anthropology will improve your outcomes albert linderman,...

Documents

sgis corporation

sagis corporation

experts activities

hisher actions

experts repeatable activities

experts perceptions

clients dont

relationsthe way