Salsa, and the Art of Organization Effectiveness and Leadership Development

Among other things, I am a salsa instructor—a passion that is completely in tune with everything else I perform professionally, and the values that pervade my life. The key to becoming a great salsa dancer is the same as creating a great organization (and, not coincidentally, the foundation of great, contemporary education): connection, context, complexity, and connotation. Leads and follows must, first and foremost, be connected and in touch with each other. They must learn to clearly signal and read the next move, the next pattern, and the changes in direction and momentum that flow throughout the dance. Advanced dancers know that, while the lead directs the movements, the follow sets the style, and both must complement each other, dancing collaboratively to create a beautiful, flowing, and passionate dance.

Regardless of their relative skill, the partners must respond to the context provided by the music. They must follow not only the tempo, but the mood, theme, and sometimes lyrics should also be reflected in the grace and passion of the shared movement. Rather than simply responding to the external context of the music, the dancers must allow the music to flow through them, enabling meaning-rich connection to emerge as they combine their connected interaction with the environment of the music. This necessarily means that the dance is complex: a number of simple elements that interact among connected, but otherwise independent, autonomous agents, resulting in the emergence of patterns that cannot precisely be predicted beforehand from the starting conditions.

Finally, the fourth “C,” connotation, or the creation of meaning. When I dance in the role of instructor-with-student, we create a certain and very particular meaning, irrespective of my partner's gender or our relative dance roles (that is, me in either the lead or follow role). That meaning emerges from the other three “Cs”: the connection in our roles; the context of both the music and the instructor-student relationship; and the complexity of the learning process. On the other hand, when I dance with one among some of my favourite partners, the connotation or meaning is completely different, particularly with a passionate song.

Reinforcing and augmenting the foundation of the four “Cs” is one simple idea—what it is that I do, whether in my role as dance instructor or as lead with a partner:

I create a great environment of engagement.

When I perform in the role of Organizational Therapist, when I’m invited as a Leadership Coach, when I’m asked to facilitate processes of Organization Transformation and Change, the same principles apply: I create a great environment of engagement that enables organizations and their leaders perform like advanced dancers.

Organizational leaders must, first and foremost, be connected and in tune with the other members of their organization—and those members extend beyond those who might merely be on the payroll or attend at one or more particular offices. There must be clear and consistent signals indicating the next move, the next pattern, and the changes in direction and momentum for the organization. And although the leader might direct the movement, it is the other members – all the participating constituencies who are affected by the organization’s motion – who set the style of interactions. All members and constituencies must mutually complement the collective organization, and “dance” collaboratively in accomplishing the organization’s goals and aspirations. Most important, this collaboration is responsible for creating the desired effects in the total organizational environment, and enacting the organization’s emergent and collective values.

Healthy organizations are thus informed by the 4 Cs: connection, context, complexity, and connotation. They are connected among their members and constituencies through valence relationships. Because of these connections, each constituency introduces an often unique context that flows through and is incorporated into the organization and affects its emergent behaviours. In this sense, the organization does not instrumentally respond to an external context like a beginner dancer counting out the rhythm, but rather becomes part of the overall environment, allowing the “music” – the environmental stimuli – to flow through it and provide organizational impetus. This, in turn, means that simple, deterministic analyses (such as those provided by the more instrumentally focused structural contingency theories) are not entirely helpful; a more appropriate analysis is based in complexity. And that means that leaders must learn to be cognizant of emergent meaning, or connotation, as they consider both more immediate tactics, and strategies to address longer-term objectives.

More than all of this, healthy organizations are passionate. They are passionate about being present in the environment of their connected constituencies. They are passionate about engaging with their various partners. They are passionate about creating a beautiful and elegant flow of desired and intended effects throughout the metaphorical ballroom floor of their industry, or market, or community, or other social environment on which they dance and enact their collective organizational aspirations.

In my role as therapist, coach, and facilitator, I help organizations, their leaders, and all their constituent members collaboratively create this passion through authentic connection, appreciation of diverse contexts, understanding organizational complexity, and enabling emergent connotation or meaning.

Most of all, I do one, consistent thing: I create great environments of engagement.

(For those who might be a little more left-brain-oriented, here is a detailed, specific exposition of what I do.

[Technorati tags: organization development | organization effectiveness | organization change | organization transformation | leadership development]

"You Will Be Charged! Ignorance is No Excuse!"

How's that for a nice, friendly introduction to Toronto-the-(once)-good? This was how a Japanese visitor to our fair city was greeted late last evening (after midnight) by one of our uniformed city ambassadors, otherwise known as a TTC fare collector at Spadina station. TTC Customer Service Advisory Panel, please take note.

A young Japanese man, Toronto guide book and tourist map in hand, had erroneously walked in through the bus driveway into the station. Somewhat confused by the non-obvious (to his eye) design of the station, he exited through the turnstile, and came around to show his weekly transit pass to the collector. (Yes, of course there is the "no entry" sign, but, hey: foreign visitor, rudimentary knowledge of conversational tourist English, and how well would you do against signs in Kanji?).

The collector was suitably incensed at the effrontery of the young man, and proceeded to give him a suitable dressing down, accusing him of a crime, informing him that he could be charged, and repeating these in that way some people have of dealing with those whose English is not up to scratch: louder and more insistent means that it becomes more understandable. The young man replied that (a) he had valid transport media (the weekly pass); (b) he was a foreigner and was unfamiliar with the particular ritual with respect to open driveways into a subway station (I'm paraphrasing); and (c) he understands and won't do it again. The collector wouldn't take (c) for an answer and continued with threats to have the young man arrested and charged, repeating, "Ignorance is no excuse!"

The collector is right: ignorance is no excuse. But, of course, I'm referring to the ignorance of the collector himself. Ignorance of customer service is no excuse for rudeness. Ignorance of your role as a goodwill ambassador of Toronto is no excuse for reading a visitor the riot act, especially if he's not rioting. Ignorance of the black eye our transit system has been wearing these past months over fare-collector rudeness (among many other things) is no excuse to add to the blackness regularly demonstrated by the good - and I used that adjective advisedly - members of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113.

As for me, I helped diffuse the situation as I paid my fare, and ushered the young man towards the correct subway platform. His comment to me was that he could not believe the rudeness - it was, after all, a simple mistake, and he was not trying to avoid paying a fare. I expressed my agreement, apologized to him on behalf of the truly good citizens of this city, ensured he knew how to get to where he was going, and wished him a much better and more enjoyable stay in what is normally a great place to visit.

Hello TTC? Hello Gary Webster? Hello Bob Kinnear? Is anybody home? Is anyone there really serious about your business? And, far more important (notice what I do as a professional practice - second item, and check out "The Messages" - up there in the top right corner of the webpage), does anyone realize that such front-line behaviour is indicative of some very serious, systemic issues that still infect your organizational culture?

[Technorati tags: ttc | toronto transit commission | collector | customer service | gary webster | bob kinnear]

Hiring Strategy - Experience or Education? Wrong and wrong...

Friend Larry Lyon pointed me to a post entitled, Don't Hire Experience, Hire Learners. The gist of the post is a response to an article in the Australian Financial Review which suggests, “most employers say that if you have to choose between getting an MBA or getting two more years of experience, you’re much better off with the experience.” The post goes on to respond with a quote from the book Rework, which says, “Of course, requiring some baseline level of experience can be a good idea when hiring. ... There’s surprisingly little difference between a candidate with six months of experience and one with six years. The real difference comes from the individual’s dedication, personality, and intelligence.” The post concludes that demonstrated ability to learn - like hiring an MBA - is a better indicator of success than mere experience.

Not exactly. This reasoning is an example of a false dichotomy, missing the essence of what's really going on in terms of effects and causes (in that order!).

My recommendation in response to all of this? Hire learners, yes. Hire MBAs? This is a dubious decision at best, because they don't necessarily know how to learn; rather, they know very well how to play a very particular game. To paraphrase a highly recommended radio documentary from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: MBA - Mostly Bloody Awful (also, Mediocre But Arrogant, and Management By Accident).

Learning requires one to be comfortable with admitting what you don't know - MBA grads typically don't qualify. Learning requires having an open mind and not sticking to the "trite and true." Most people who have been in the work force for years in a BAH organization where they're supposed to shut up and do their job don't qualify.

Instead, hire the radical. Hire the iconoclast (I'm looking for work, by the way - I can actually help with these sorts of issues). Hire the person who dissents with virtuous subversion. Hire the curious. Hire the person who lives a culture of inquiry.But first, ensure that you are a leader who truly welcomes diverse voices that provide radical worldviews, and introduce virtuous subversion. Ensure that you encourage a culture of inquiry throughout your enterprise, and that you, yourself are truly a reflective practitioner. Be a learner among learners.

[Technorati tags: leadership | organizational learning | culture of inquiry]

On Values, Vision, Tactility, and Mission in Contemporary Organizations

I had the good fortune to meet Ellen Hayakawa recently, and share a brief conversation (as well as a couple of blues dances). Ellen’s work is complementary to mine—she focuses on spirituality in a corporate setting, and “exploring the relationship between spirituality in the workplace and sustainability.” The conversation we shared enabled me to reflect on the relationship among tactility, vision, and values, and how several distinct ideas often become conflated, and therefore, confused in many people’s minds.

In the conversation, Ellen mentioned using a ground of personal and collective spirituality to enable an appropriate focus on “mission, vision, and values.” I had several comments in response—predictable comments for those who know me. First, I observed that the order of these aspects of individual and collective guidance were in the wrong order, exactly backwards as far as I was concerned. For me, values must come first, then an appropriate sensory metaphor (more on this in a moment), and finally the so-called mission, objectives, goals, tasks, and direct action towards accomplishment. Second, as I discovered in my research, vision as the dominant sensory metaphor for organizations, has pretty much run its course through the Gutenberg-inspired epoch that ended with modernity. In a world that is ubiquitously connected and therefore pervasively proximate (UCaPP), tactility is a far more appropriate – not to mention useful and socially cognizant – sensory metaphor.

Ellen argued her defence of both the order and sensory metaphor admirably. In doing so, she helped me to sort out some of the connections between the individual and the collective, and the relationship between one’s own sense of place and purpose in the world and that emergent sense characteristic of UCaPP organizations, namely the “place of organization,” or organization-ba.

The idea that mission is central to an organization comes from the modernist conception of what I call the “primary-purposeful organization.” Essentially, this means that an organization’s purpose – its mission – is primary above any other consideration. That purpose is imposed on everyone who joins the organization so that all are contributing to accomplishing the mission, goals, and objectives towards a common end. Fair enough, as far as it goes. But, what becomes quite fascinating to me is that, in a primary-purposeful organization, vision often seems to be an adjunct that is almost reverse-engineered to justify the mission. I have seen too many organizations engage in so-called visioning sessions that are actually attempts to align a conception of vision – often merely a future projection of goals and outcomes – to back-justify the mission at hand. And that mission is inevitably and directly tied to some sort of fungible Economic (tradable exchange of value, whether money is involved or not) connection with well-identified constituencies. So, as Ellen indeed describes it, the order of “mission, vision, values” is the way it’s done in most organizations. Understand the primary purpose – mission – reverse-engineer a consistent future for the organization’s direction – vision – and then ensure that the espoused values align with both. In a sense, this order hearkens to Argyris and Schön’s single-loop learning in which what is espoused becomes well-aligned with what is actually done, all in the name of consistency (yet another hangover from the Enlightenment). That Ellen can help organizations inject a spiritual sensibility and sense of wellbeing, enabling its members to connect with their own spiritual centres, is unquestionably admirable and worthwhile, because doing so in an instrumentalist, primary-purposeful ground is such a tough road to hoe.

Ellen’s insistence on the importance of vision is not the usual argument that I hear from other, more-conventional and traditionally socialized OD consultants (like, “you can’t know where you’re going unless you have vision”). Rather, Ellen directly connects one’s individual vision with one’s personal values and therefore, sense of direction in the world. Here is where I think traditional vocabulary becomes both limited and limiting. Values, as one of my friends likes to remind me, are those aspects, characteristics, behaviours, and attributes that one wants to promote, preserve, and protect. They indeed speak to how one locates oneself in the world, and creates connections that reflect the ba-aspects of connecting, binding, or valence relationships. As one understands one’s own values, and collectively and collaboratively joins with others of like-mind to promote, preserve, and protect those aspects, the process of organizational emergence begins to occur (even within extant primary-purposeful organizations) in a way that is intrinsically consistent with values, and indeed, the potential of human spirit and spirituality as Ellen so elegantly puts it.

From collective values, the nascent valence-conceived organization can then begin to understand what effects it aspires to create in the world. These effects – distinctly different from outcomes, goals, and mission – can be expressed among the five valence relationships (Economic, Socio-psychological, Identity, Knowledge, and Ecological), and represent the organization’s tactility, answering the question, whom do we want to touch, and how do we want to touch them today. For someone coming from a ground of spirituality in the workplace, this idea of touch and enabling effects in one’s wider social, emotional, material, and spiritual environment provides far better guidance for actually doing things than beginning with striving to accomplish an arbitrary goal somewhere in the future. Consistent with pervasive proximity in a UCaPP world, tactility is immediate and sustains; vision can be (and often is) illusory, transitory, and always in the distance (think, “mirage”).

If you, like Ellen, construct your organization based on mission, vision, and values, then welcome to the world of modernity. I’m sure you would do really well in the 20th century, and create great opportunities, and a strong sense of doing what is right for spiritual sustenance. However, if you truly want your organization to be consistent with the world as it is today – firmly located in the UCaPP world of the 21st century – it may be time to reorder your fundamental organizational priorities and retire that old chestnut of vision as the dominant, guiding sensory metaphor—an artefact, after all, of post-Enlightenment thinking. In other words, it may be time to consider transforming your vision of organization itself into one that is valence-conceived, and therefore organic, alive, and vital.

In my practice, transforming organizations and leadership today begins with articulating individual and collective values. The process of transformation proceeds by translating those values into mutual tactility, thereby enabling the organization to create its place – organization-ba – among the various diverse constituencies it touches. From this place of fundamental guidance, the organization can then determine what it must accomplish – its goals and objectives – to enact the effects that manifest its values. Not only does this process enable a far healthier organization, it sets up the organization for its own sustainability, and as a contributor to collaboratively sustaining our world.

Values. Tactility. Accomplish. Sounds like appropriate and useful guidance to me.

[Technorati tags: ellen hayakawa | values | vision | mission | tactility | sustainability | organization development | organization transformation]

Tomorrow: Online with the Globe on Narcissistic Leaders

I've been invited to participate in an online conversation at the Globe and Mail site on the topic of their recent article, Narcissistic Bosses and Why You Should Love Them. I'll be joined by Eric Cousineau, the person about whose presentation at the Toronto OD Network I wrote a couple of years ago. It will be interesting to see what he has to say (I'm guessing that we won't necessarily see eye-to-eye on this one). The article cites author and academic Michael Maccoby, who:

...views narcissism as being largely beneficial, if not inevitable, in entrepreneurs and chief executives – beneficial because narcissists are innovators, inevitable because narcissists, being ambitious, are the most likely to rise to the top.

Really. I can't say that I agree with him about narcissists being innovators necessarily, but certainly about them rising - or perhaps stomping on people below - to realize their ambition of being at the top and in charge. His key thesis, that good leaders have an "interrelated set of skills - foresight, systems thinking, visioning, motivating, and partnering - that he terms 'strategic intelligence'" is generally unassailable. However, suggesting that these are exclusive traits of narcissists - even so-called productive ones - is nonsense. And putting up the strawman that the opposite of someone with "strategic intelligence" is a "consensus-building bureaucrat" offensively ignores the reality of collaborative leadership in a contemporary context.

The online conversation is here, and runs from 10 to 11 a.m. EDT, tomorrow, Friday, August 6. If you're available, please hop online and join the conversation. 

[Technorati tags: narcissistic leader | michael maccoby | eric cousineau | leadership]

PBS Frontline: College Inc.

Catching up on some old blog reading, I came across this exposé - or should I say, "investigation" - done by PBS's Frontline on for-profit, higher education corporations in the United States. The short version of the story is pretty straight-forward: Many regionally-accredited colleges in the US (and elsewhere) face significant financial pressure. Regional accreditation is the key criterion through which a college's programs qualify for US Federal Government student loans programs. For students who do not qualify for, or cannot afford, admission to either a state college or private, not-for-profit university, these for-profit institutions provide a way of obtaining at least a nominal, accredited qualification that may enable them to compete in a job market that increasingly demands formal qualifications. Put all of these factors together and you get the recipe for a perfect business: high demand among an under-serviced market, with immediate funding provided by the federal government, and those on-the-deferred-hook being promised that the value of their asset (the over-priced house... err... degree) will cover the future repayment of a loan they maybe shouldn't have qualified for in the first place.

Enter the private investors. There is considerable profit to be made by siphoning money from the federal purse now, to be repaid by anonymous individuals in the future, via investing in these down-at-the-heels colleges whose primary asset is not the quality of their research or, more importantly, the quality of their instruction, but rather the fact that their programs qualify for federal student loans. Hence, the astounding rise in market capitalization and economic valuation of such businesses as Grand Canyon University, Argosy University, Education Management Corporation, DeVry University, Chancellor University whose own claim to fame is the marketing potential of the Jack Welch Management Institute (ironically, among the close-up shots is a listing for a course in Business Communications and Ethics taught at that Institute), and the granddaddy of them all, University of Phoenix. The fact that the resulting average student debt load from these schools is almost double that of private (i.e., expensive) not-for-profit universities, and the employability of its graduates is apparently a fraction of that of traditional, higher-education institutions should not come as a surprise. The issue for the traditional business mind (hello, Mr. Welch!) is profit, so long as it violates no laws. The long-term effects, actual suitability for purpose, and consequences for any other constituency whom the business touches - those are apparently not part of "business ethics" in many traditional constructs.

The video is 55 minutes, but worthwhile viewing by anyone concerned with the state, and future, of higher education. What is considerably troubling to me as an Adult Educator is that many traditional, well-respected universities are beginning to follow the supposed economic imperative to be run more like a business, especially when it comes to the factory-model of undergraduate education (hello, University of Toronto!).



I should note that the program did not examine "hybrids": those traditional universities that have out-sourced the management and technical logistics of their distance-education programs to for-profit education corporations, while retaining control of their academic standards, faculty, and admissions.

[Technorati tags: for-profit college | argosy university | education management corporation | devry university | chancellor university | grand canyon university | university of phoenix]

Organization Therapy and Healing: The how-to guide

I’ve been asked a few times recently to explain just how the process of organizational therapy and healing works. “So what exactly do you do?” is how the question is sometimes framed. More often, though, it’s along the lines of “I think my company / activist group / community organization / social justice movement can use some of what you do—how can I explain it to my boss / management / the leadership?”

Is Your Organization Ready to Heal?
Not all organizations – even if they are in trouble – are able to hear the type of guidance I offer. Just as individuals in crisis may try to motor through on their own, or focus on getting things done irrespective of their emotional and spiritual wellbeing (that, of course, affect how well they can get things done), an organization in crisis, transition, or cultural disarray may instead focus on tangible results irrespective of its members wellbeing.

First, therefore, the legitimated leadership in the organization have to recognize that they have some sort of problem, crisis, or at least large-scale discomfort that they would like to fix. Moreover, they are able to identify this sense of unease with problems concerning organizational culture, or dysfunctional human dynamics among their members.

Leaders might frame that concept in a variety of ways: morale issues; trauma and stress related to layoffs, mergers, or acquisitions; regular escalating conflicts among people; systemic complaints about lower and middle management abuses; or similar signs and indicators. The leadership cohort also have to at least minimally realize that the problems won't be fixed by the proverbial rearranging of the deck chairs on the sinking ship (a.k.a. restructuring or a new org chart), or by a simple “town hall” or “all hands” meeting (although the town hall thing could serve as a wake-up call), or even through a leadership retreat event in which the organization’s vision becomes revision and the mission is put in remission. Something new must be tried.

Beginning Something New
This is where I come in. We have an initial conversation in which I attempt to get a first assessment on where, how, and when the organization is feeling pain. It could be coming from clients ("some of our best clients are telling us that they really don't like doing business with us like they used to"). It could be increased grievances against management. It could be more incidents of supervisor abuse or subordinate insubordination.

During that initial process of conversation and assessment (which could actually be several individual conversations followed by a group conversation in which I play back what I've heard—of course unattributed to any particular individual), I describe how I view organizations in the general case (i.e., using Valence Theory vocabulary). I may even give some generic (sanitized for confidentiality) examples of other organizations in similar straights that have been helped. I then coach the leadership through devising a discovery plan which has the aim of understanding the issues—and especially the issues that wouldn't come out when people are feeling unsafe. This often begins to look like a plan for an Action Research type of intervention.

Action in the Research
The findings of the Action Research investigation (and the duration of this varies immensely) are brought out in a process of formal dialogue (à la David Bohm) in which the legitimated leadership folks are in dialogue, and some non-leadership members are the process observers. This dynamic helps to model the erosion of hierarchical privilege and the beginnings of inclusive, more participatory, and collaborative leadership.

At this point, subsequent work depends entirely on what is found, and how the organization's members want to proceed. I should mention that by "members," I ideally mean everyone whom the organization touches via the five valence relationships, although at the early stages and iterations, management are sometimes more reluctant about including external "holders of stake." To begin the process of rebooting the organizational culture, I often advise beginning with a values and tactility session, as I describe in my thesis findings, that facilitates organizational members’ understanding of precisely what and how the organization wants to be. From there, the specific issues that were discovered during the first AR intervention can begin to be addressed in the context of the explicit set of organizational values, and the answer to the organization’s tactility question: whom do we want to touch, and how do we want to touch them today?

As a matter of fact, I just did a mini-version of this yesterday for the annual retreat of a volunteer, activist organization of which I am an ally. The action research part wasn't necessary, since the membership were polled with respect to specific initiatives and undertakings that were deemed important for re-booting the group after a successful, but seriously draining initiative that occupied them for the past, nearly two years. We did the values and tactility session using a close variation of a conversation café model, and I facilitated working through the proposed initiatives based on the fundamental cultural understandings that emerged from that opening session. As well, I helped them model changes in interpersonal dynamics and behaviours that, traditionally for this organization, inevitably resulted in huge gaps between espoused and in-use theories of action when it came to internal meetings. Much of what the group decided came out of a judicious application of my ideas of Effective Theory. They even adopted the UCaPP model of creating reference groups [see the section on "Sustaining a Complex Culture"] for new members. At the end of it all, they marvelled at how well the day went, how much they had accomplished, how good they all felt about the process, and similar sorts of wonderful and validating epithets about how I helped them to create a great environment of engagement among their members. Put simply, that's what I do.

Now, what can I do for you and your organization?

(For those who might be a little more right-brain oriented, here is a more creative exposition of what I do.)

[Technorati tags: organization therapy | organization healing | organization development | leadership development | leadership coaching | strategy | executive coaching]

Logic vs. The Bureaucratic Mind: Guess which wins?

The Ontario Government is a marvel of bureaucratic thinking (but don't worry Toronto City Hall, and the Harper Conservative Regime - you're both doing really well in bureaucratic race to the bottom). The recent eco-fee-asco is not only politically damaging, revealing as it does the malaise that seems to pervade Queen's Park. It is actually far worse in its implications of a government so out of touch with sustainability issues, so blinded by a linearizing bureaucratic logic, so ineffective that it cannot perceive the effects of anything that it does, that it is hard to know where to begin, either in one's critique, or an effective remedy.

Here's the back-story: Money is a force-motivator. In other words, one can very crudely change behaviour by adjusting the amount of money one associates with that behaviour. Charge five cents for a shopping bag, and people will reduce their consumption of shopping bags, because it's not too difficult to bring your own. Bureaucratic logic (in this case, a.k.a. by its proper name, reductio ad absurdum) says that by charging some number of cents for containers of toxic products, people will reduce their use of toxic products. We can always bring our emptied plastic water bottles to refill with bleach, laundry detergent, and other household cleansers. And, if we really don't want to cart our own fluorescent tubes and those CFP "bulbs" the government has been foisting on us to the solid waste transfer stations so that we can sit in the queue among the garbage trucks, we could always reuse them as lawn ornaments. Or something...

In practice, eco-fees are a good idea IF AND ONLY IF they are applied to those who can actually do something about toxic and excessive packaging. Throughout the world - and especially in Europe - manufacturers are responsible for the disposal fees associated with their packaging - the packaging over which they have exclusive control. The result is a significant reduction in excess packaging because the fees placed on the manufacturers are indeed a force-motivator. Consumers have been known to unpack gadgets, small appliances, and anything else that is feasible in the stores, resulting in stores and manufacturers having a positive incentive to reduce trash.

Not so here, among the self-interested, so-called stakeholders (and I do absolutely hate that term). In this case, the self-interested holders of stake who form the euphemistically named Stewardship Ontario are the very manufacturers and retailers who would be stuck with the bill, if they didn't have the power to simply say, "consumer pays." Among the bureaucrats, there is no thought given to the logic which responds, "but consumers can't do much to change the packaging"; manufacturers and retailers can, so they should be the ones on the hook. Simple, logical, effective, and not so bureaucratically absurdum.

One additional point: the bureaucratic approach to fast-and-loose accounting, that allows the government to say, "it's not a tax" with a straight face, because Stewardship Ontario is technically not the government and, you know, only governments can collect taxes, doesn't fool anyone who doesn't want to be fooled. What is completely amazing to me is that Minister Gerretsen seems genuinely surprised at how poorly this all turned out. Then again, he is only advised by bureaucrats - unable to either perceive quality or innovate.
[Technorati tags: eco-fee | stewardship ontario | sustainability]

The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything - Especially Social Media Marketing

A number of confluences over the past couple of days with respect to advertising and marketing, social media, memes, and cultural evolution. In response to a tag from my friend, Leigh (and if you're in marketing, you'd do yourself a favour to have a conversation with her), here's the answer to the question about why social media and digital strategies  work, don't work, sometimes work, are a big waste of time, are the greatest thing since Burma Shave, and combinations and permutations of the above.

People are social beings. Always have been. They enjoy sharing experiences. Always have done. When we fundamentally change the way we share our experiences, we change the ways in which we interact with one another, and that changes everything. In other words, "the medium is the message." And, by the way, we've recently changed the way in which we share our experiences, so remember the old assumptions about interacting with each other? They're now sort of wrong, and we need to understand the effects of those changes, so that those who get paid to capitalize on human interactions can actually earn their keep.

Clear?

[Technorati tags: marketing | advertising | social media | digital strategy]

First they came...

With apologies to Martin Niemöller:

FIRST THEY CAME for the History and Philosophy program at OISE,

and I only signed the petition because I was in Adult Ed.

THEN THEY CAME for the Comparative Literature program originated by Northrop Frye,

and I didn't speak up because, who needs critical literary theory anyway?

THEN THEY CAME for all the language and culture programs,

and I didn't speak up because, you know, English is good enough for the global economy.

THEN THEY CAME for those who deal with contemporary issues in a way that is not mainstream,

and by that time, there were no organic intellectuals who could think outside of hegemony; who had any understanding of the importance of cultural context; who could fathom that the contemporary world is fundamentally different from 20th century industrialization; who could realize that there is more to the complexity of the world than only Science, Technology, Engineering, Medicine, Business, and Government Policy...

...and by that time, there was no one left who understood what speaking up really meant.

[Technorati tags: university of toronto | centre for comparative literature | school of languages and literature]

Leadership and the Complexity of Social Networks and Public Policy

Matthew Taylor from The RSA has a very simple, and worthwhile, blog post about the importance of understanding complexity approaches to public policy initiatives with respect to using social networking and technologies associated with social media. I'll reproduce most of it here because it raises critical issues for traditionally BAH organizations in general:

Two general points stand out:

• Social networks are important; understanding and using them can make a significant contribution to tapping into civic capacity and meeting public policy goals.
• Social networks are complex and the way they operate unpredictable.

Together, these findings suggest a major shift in the methodology of public policy.  Traditional policy interventions – particularly in relation to social problems – have these characteristics:

• They are large scale and expensive.
• They aim for relatively marginal improvement in outcomes e.g. a few percent lower unemployment or higher pupil attainment.
• They seek to minimise risk through systems of regulation, audit, and accountability.

But these design features do not fit the characteristics of social networks interventions, which are:

• They will usually fail.
• Occasionally small interventions will have major impact through contagion effects.
• Sometimes interventions will have an impact very different to those planned (sometimes good, sometimes not).

An emphasis on social networks changes not just the focus and design of public policy, but the whole way we think about success and failure.

What Matthew identifies as the characteristics of public policy initiatives - large scale, expensive, aiming for marginal improvements of quantifiable outcomes, while minimizing risk through control systems - are key determinant characteristics of BAH organizations, irrespective of their public/private/social-economy sector. These sorts of controls preclude emergence by eliminating complexity effects. Rather, they implement what I describe as the BAH Theory of Change (see here, especially with respect to Change, Coordination, and Evaluation). The emphasis is on control, so that planned and predicted outcomes can be measured to demonstrate to those to whom one is individually accountable that, "See? I am suitable for this office that I hold because I can control and manage and accomplish what I say I will accomplish."

However, as I point out, that sort of leadership mentality is a BAH artefact, that is, an artefact of Industrial Age thinking. Any leader who holds this view, and in the same breath utters the phrase, "social media," (or any of its analogues, like Twitter, blogs, wikis, Facebook, viral videos, or similar), simply does not understand, and should be demoted to become the factory floor foreperson! The reality of today's UCaPP world is complexity, and that means unpredictability, and realizing that small interventions can have large systemic effects through massively interconnected feedback and feedforward networks. It means one must remain cognisant of secondary and tertiary effects, and rethink what it means to be successful in effect, rather than in outcomes. Here is the difference in mentalities:

BAH organizations replace the complexity of human dynamics in social systems with the complication of machine-analogous procedures that enable interdependence through interdependent action, individual responsibility, and hierarchical accountability. UCaPP organizations encourage and enable processes of continual emergence by valuing and promoting complex interactions, even though doing so necessitates traditional, legitimated leadership ceding control in an environment of individual autonomy and agency, collective responsibility, and mutual accountability.

Which one works for your government's public policy or your organization depends entirely on the culture of the organization in question. Which one works for today's public policy or today's organization is obvious in a UCaPP world. The key question for leaders is, "Do you want to be relevant, or obsolescent?"

[Technorati tags: complexity | leadership | social media]

Bureaucracy and Innovation

Two things that go together like screen doors and submarines. In my research, I noted that BAH organizations are unable to innovate (and unable to perceive quality). Today's Globe and Mail provides a data point that is consistent with this observation: the decline of Microsoft.

But why can’t Microsoft innovate? And couldn’t that change? No, because no one wants to work there. It has become like working for a large bureaucracy – stifling and sterile. More important: no one’s getting rich off Microsoft stock options any more. Everyone wants to work at Google or Apple. Microsoft has no history of innovation, and therefore no culture that the innovative find attractive.

For innovation to occur, even in an otherwise BAH organization, one requires at least pockets of UCaPP - places in which the ba-form of the valence relationships can flourish. The more organization-ba one has, the more innovation can occur. Simple, right?


The corollary, therefore is, the more you want innovation in your organization, in your education system, in your public sector institutions, the more imperative it becomes to transform away from bureaucratic and administrative controls, and status hierarchies.


[Technorati tags: innovation | bureaucracy | microsoft]

The Crisis of Capitalism, and Effective Theory

Those who know me well know that I do not particularly hold with Marxist discourse, nor do I believe that revolution of the proletariat (often performed as absurdist theatre via labour unions of the privileged) is entirely appropriate for the contemporary world. Therefore, none would be more surprised than I to realize that David Harvey's message of The Crisis of Capitalism (via the wonderful RSA Animate series) resonates completely with where I'm standing lately. Taking a neo-Marxist analysis of the latest, recent global financial crisis - an analysis that is too often lacking among mainstream economic and business journalism - Harvey observes that the crisis stems from what he calls, "the internal contradictions of capital accumulation ... and the role of crises in the whole history of capitalism." He notes that the last global financial crisis in the 1970s arose from the excessive power of labour, and the solution was to discipline labour in domestic markets (essentially by shipping labour production to markets that could be more easily exploited, a.k.a., so-called offshoring, as well as through neo-liberal political economies championed by Margaret Thatcher in the UK and Ronald Reagan in the US). But the problem this time is considerably different. The root of the problem is "the excessive power of capital, and in particular, the excessive power of finance capital."

Harvey goes on to explain that part of labour's punishment since the 1970s is to repress wages globally. This, however, has the unfortunate effect (if you're a capitalist) of also repressing demand. Hence, in order to bolster demand, capitalists pump up the credit economy to such an extent that it becomes unstable, and boom...  He goes on to explain the theory, "that capitalism never solves its crisis problems. It moves them around geographically." It becomes obvious, of course, that in the contemporary reality of a global economy (from which we truly cannot retreat), there are no more shells under which to hide the peas!

There is another problem, as well. In an Industrial Age mentality, there was an alliance between the financiers and the true capitalists - the ones who assembled labour, capital, and means, created production (yes, on the backs of the workers... sigh...) and earned profit, part of which was subsequently reinvested to increase production ability and access to markets. Today, however (and this is where Marxist analysis hits its limit), the original alliance between finance and capital breaks down as the financiers become (even more) greedy (than they originally were), and realize that the Marxist cycle that requires production to produce capital no longer applies. As money is now a cyber commodity, reproducing among electrons as they flow around the globe, financiers actually become richer as both labour and (traditional) capital become poorer through loss of real earning power and hence, real demand.

Harvey, although claiming to know the nature of the problem (with which I agree), also says quite explicitly that he doesn't know the nature of the solution. Well, that's not entirely true. He states very clearly that, we have a duty, those of us who are academics and seriously involved in the world, to actually change our mode of thinking." Yes! Absolutely! That is why I developed Valence Theory - to change our collective mode of thinking about how people come together, not merely in (conventionally thought of) organizations, but in the larger, global organization that comprises all of business, all of governments, all of civil society, all of indigenous peoples, all of the environment - all of everyone. We're all in this together.

The first step, I think, is to change our notion of what it means to be effective. Rather than simply limiting an understanding of effectiveness to accomplishing predetermined goals and objectives, or accessing and deploying ways and means, or both, effectiveness means being cognisant of the multiple levels of effects we enact through the decisions we make and the actions we take. For example, an effective analysis of Reaganomics, and the absurd subprime lending practices would have allowed policy makers to anticipate the inevitable outcome, as opposed to economists falsely claiming that no one could have predicted the fall. An effective analysis of offshoring policies and practices would have anticipated the demise of the very businesses that gloated about the efficiency of offshoring labour, and the coming crisis that has resulted from Western enterprises also (if inadvertently) offshoring its design, engineering, research, and innovation practices - those aspects of business that, in the 1980s, were claimed to be that which differentiated American industry from Chinese or Indian manufacturing.

A change of thinking? Absolutely. And absolutely necessary to think in terms of effects as Effective Theory demands, rather than in terms of simple outcomes - and certainly instead of money-as-scorecard. It is quite simply a matter of the type of world in which you want to live.

Here's the video. It is certainly worth the eleven minutes to watch.


[Technorati tags: david harvey | capitalism | political economy | marxist analysis | effective theory]

New Scrutiny for a New Age

While the fiasco that was G20 policing only seems to be getting worse, and those who claim legitimated public authority, like Mayors, Premiers, and Chiefs of Police (not to name names or anything) are finding that unquestioning respect for their authority is diminishing among those who are most aware, astute, and thoughtful, AND the credibility of those who claim said authority is - how can I put this delicately? - in the dumper, perhaps it's time for a new approach to the entire problem.

The Royal Society for the Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce - the RSA who is also responsible for the delightful and thought-provoking series of RSAnimates - has an interesting post from their Executive Director on Accountability and Public Scrutiny. Although Matthew Taylor is referring directly to the current situation of "hung Parliament" in the UK, some of his ideas apply equally well to a reconsidered analysis of how the G20 weekend in Toronto went horribly wrong (at least from the perspectives of preventing vandalism, enabling legitimate protest, and quelling some brutish police officers overstepping their legal authority). Taylor lists four elements of what he calls "post-bureaucratic" public scrutiny:

First, a much deeper and more imaginative commitment to public and user engagement in scrutiny. Like for example the award winning panel in Cheshire West and Chester which put huge efforts into engaging young people themselves in an assessment of services for ‘looked after children’.

Second, scrutiny has to offer a different order of evaluation – more rounded and in depth – than can come from other forms of performance assessment. Local government Secretary of State Eric Pickles has talked about ‘armchair auditors’ using new data sets like those now available on central and local public spending. Scrutiny has to show it can complement these forms of DIY accountability.

Third, scrutiny needs to spend less time on exploring whether policy solutions work and more on whether agencies are defining the problem adequately. A focus on problems inherently leads to a viewpoint which is both more ‘joined up’ and which sees the vital importance of public mobilisation.

Fourth, this focus on problems builds a bridge from scrutiny about the past to deliberation about the future. If scrutiny is going to be seen as relevant and worth funding it has to as much about getting policies right for the future as about reflecting on performance in the past.

I think the key for Canadian public policy - especially with respect to future engagements between the forces of authority and the forces of the public - lie in items three and four. ensure that the right questions are being asked, and deliberate about the future of policy rather than on defending or justifying past performance (which, one must emphasize, cannot be sloughed under the proverbial carpet). Very few of the right questions were being honestly asked by those in authority who held a primary focus on control (rather than enablement). Very few of the right questions were being honestly asked by those in the public who held a primary focus on speaking out (rather than being heard).

The result was clear: those who wanted to speak out were effectively, if brutally in many cases, controlled. No one was enabled to be heard. Sadly, the powers that be are not only unwilling to engage - in the attributed words of Police Chief Bill Blair, "I couldn't care less" - they are unable to engage. Equally sad, those who need to be heard have only learned to shout into the air; they too are unable to truly engage those with whom they disagree (largely because of their learned behaviours of confrontation and dialectical revolution, coming as they do from Marxist epistemology and ontology).

These are 20th century (and earlier) behaviours. It is long past time for all constituencies to come into the contemporary world and start to learn how to be effective today.

[Technorati tags: public scrutiny | protest | confronting authority | speak truth to power]

First-hand Testimony of Sunday's G20 Corral at Queen and Spadina

This first-hand account from my friend, Terra Dafoe, who was detained with her boyfriend at Queen and Spadina for four hours in the pouring rain. They were heading home and were among the hundreds of innocent bystanders rounded up for allegedly "breaching the peace" by, you know, walking home. Here's an excerpt:

At this point it began to rain and thunderstorm. Like most of those around us, we were in shorts and t-shirts so it didn’t take long for the pellets of rain to drench most of us to the core. A handful of people, including some elderly huddled underneath shelter next to the McDonalds. Police promptly ordered them to stand in the rain instead. We waited for hours in the cold intense rain; rain so hard the nearby DVP flooded. Some police joked about being cold too, even though they were in full riot gear, and told us to ‘stop pretending,’ as we shook violently from the cold. At least one man right beside Lucius collapsed and was promptly dragged out of the crowd by police. We were offered nothing in the way of comforting words and one officer told a group of people to use their body heat to keep each other warm, telling a distasteful joke about who stays warmer, a naked farmer or one in full clothes. Some officers who interacted with us, also used this time to belittle us...

Despite Police Chief Bill Blair's protestations to the contrary, this was not warranted. They weren't looking for any sort of criminal conspiracy, nor were they protecting the peace. The police had been embarrassed the day before and this was their last opportunity to retaliate. "Charter rights? Not on my watch!"

By the by, Terra isn't some activist flake, by any stretch of the imagination. She's doing a PhD in Counselling Psychology, and her research involves new methods to assist the rehabilitation of particularly egregious criminal offenders. Her boyfriend, Lucius, is a CBC producer. Not to equate Chief Blair with the egregious criminal offenders with whom Terra works, but it occurs to me that the Chief could probably benefit from some of Terra's methods.

[Technorati tags: terra dafoe | lucius dechausay | queen and spadina | g20 | police brutality]

Understanding Bill Blair, Dalton McGuinty, and David Miller

I love it when current events validate my research, and theories of organization and leadership. I have often been left with a sense of wonderment at people whom I would expect to be basically ethical when they act in sometimes egregiously unethical manners. How could Dalton McGuinty claim that draconian, anti-Charter regulations are in keeping with the values and standards of Ontarians? Why does David Miller deny that we need an independent investigation into the countless allegations of police excesses during the G20 weekend - an investigation that would vindicate his Top Cop if indeed, as the powers-that-be claim, there was no wrongdoing? And why oh why does Police Chief Bill Blair step deeper and deeper into the muck, and then proceed to stick his mucky foot deeper into his mouth? (Yeah, I know, big yuck factor there, but this whole mess is pretty yucky. Here's a clue: pink-washing isn't an all-purpose cleanser.)

Would you be surprised if I said that Valence Theory offers an explanation? I didn't think so...

It's all right here, under the section "Coordination":

When a person’s Identity-valence relationship to the organization is predominantly fungible, there is, by definition, a tradable value associated with the status, class, and privilege that the Identity connection conveys. It becomes difficult for that individual to separate a personal view from that of the organizational role since it is nearly impossible for someone so constructed to publicly separate his or her self from that f‑Identity-valence connection. Thus, it is not uncommon for an individual to feel compelled to assume either an untenable, illogical, seemingly irrational, or unethical position with respect to a particular issue because s/he presumes – often incorrectly – that is the appropriate position for the Identity-role to assume. Because the person cannot separate him/herself from that f‑Identity-valence connection, s/he (to paraphrase Marshall McLuhan) loves her/his label – Identity – as her/his self. Amidst the dehumanizing influences that characterize BAH organizations, a strong, extrinsically created, f‑Identity-valence connection helps to disconnect the individual from acting on personal judgements, feelings, and core values...

...Put another way, a BAH manager will ask him/herself the f‑Identity question: “What decision would a manager in my position take; how (that is, through what defensible process) would s/he come to that decision?” In contrast, a UCaPP manager would ask an Identity-ba question: “What decision accurately represents the collective values of this organization to create the intended effects – the tactility – to which this organization aspires?”
Considered in a slightly different way, understanding the action of f‑Identity can help explain seemingly arbitrary, onerous, or self-righteous decisions that occasionally occur in BAH organizations.

So the solution to this sort of behaviour is really very simple. If you hold high office or a position of responsibility, all you have to do is - as my grandmother used to say - settle down and act like a mensch!

Update (30 June 2010): Jon Stewart has noticed exactly the same phenomenon with Candidate Barack Obama becoming President Barack Obama. (Linked clip from June 15 available only in Canada; Americans must visit Comedy Central's site for the clip).
[Technorati tags: bill blair | dalton mcguinty | david miller | leadership | role | organization behaviour]

What is Democracy Without the Rule of Law?

It is a very simple principle, one that dates back to the earliest document that began the entire experiment in rule by the people in the 13th century, the Magna Carta. The basic premise upon which our country is based is that no one is above the law of the land. We all, each and every one of us, those with power and privilege and those without, are all subject to the same supreme law of the land: the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This is most especially true of those who are empowered with the ability to detain and arrest, and to carry and use weapons that can inflict considerable injury and death. Those who are charged to protect life and property must not be allowed to abuse the trust that we have vested in them to behave with exemplary adherence to the law of the land.

This weekend, seemingly charged with the heady power of secretly passed new regulations of arrest, and the apparent freedom inherent in a lack of scrutiny and oversight, some individual police officers and commanders overstepped their powers. Some perpetrated untoward and unprovoked violence against journalists and private citizens seeking to exercise their Charter rights to voice their opposition to political policy enacted by their, and other, governments. These violations that may be tantamount to illegal action must be investigated by an independent tribunal, and those who may be guilty of such violations must be held accountable under the law.

It must be said, and I will happily acknowledge, those officers who exhibited considerable restraint when being deliberately taunted by some protesters who sought only to provoke a confrontation. There is no condoning such provocation, even in the name of free speech. If one's objective is to be heard on issues like poverty, homelessness, water rights, aboriginal rights, oppression of women, or a hundred other important causes, it makes absolutely no sense to distract from those important messages. Equally, kudos for the officers who arrested would-be members of the so-called Black Bloc early Sunday morning to prevent additional violence and mayhem akin to the shameful display of Saturday (and where were the jackbooted hoards with their shields and riot batons during the car burnings and window smashing?).

However, Bill Blair's insistence that his troops were enabling free expression and lawful dissent seems considerably disingenuous in the face of Saturday night's abuse of demonstrators and journalists in front of the Novotel Hotel, Sunday's mass arrests of innocent bystanders, and the unlawful detention of hundreds for four hours in the pouring rain. This last hurrah seems like a collective "Fuck You, Civilians" - a parting shot by the Integrated Security Unit's less-than-finest. A truly sad display of collective arrogance among those who are licensed to perpetrate violence at their leisure.

And so, a Call for Accountability. Click on the link, join the group, and invite your friends. It is important that there is a precedent set; that no person, even empowered by secret laws and regulations, can violate the law. If individual police officers know that they can be held to account for their collective action as a mob of thugs, they may think twice about such actions the next time. And, with a taste of the power of a police state, you can be sure there will be a next time.

Unless, of course, we all act to hold them answerable according to the Law.

Update (28 June 2010): Steve Paikin, host of TVO's The Agenda, is one of the most credible, honest, and upfront journalists I have had the pleasure to work with. Here he is with his first-hand, eyewitness account of police excess and unprovoked violence on Saturday night.


And, for those who do not believe that Toronto Police could possibly be behind the torching of the cars and the smashing of windows as agents provocateurs, here is video proof of a someone dressed in Black Bloc garb, being protected behind police lines, with threatening actions towards citizen videographers by plainclothes, undercover agents.


[Technorati tags: g20 | police | violence | abuse of power]

Dark Days for Toronto, and for Canada

The G20 summit was touted by its supporters as an opportunity for Canada, and specifically Toronto, to be spotlit on the world stage - as if that in and of itself should be considered a virtue. However, what has indeed been held under the bright lights are the excesses of privilege, and the sad reality that Canada is more plutocracy than democracy. Much has been written questioning the unimaginable amount of money that has been spent on these few days. I'm waiting for the exposés that reveal which contractors-linked-to-Harper-Conservatives have newly lined pockets as a result of these wasteful expenditures, but that's for another day. My immediate concern is the glibness with which the Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has so casually been thrown under the police van, and truncheoned into submission under the heavy hand of pre-fascist tendencies.

Some may accuse me of hyperbole and over-reaction. However, consider this completely disrespectful - dare I say shameful - riposte proffered by our provincial premier, Dalton-the-Glib:

“I just think it’s in keeping with the values and standards of Ontarians,” McGuinty told the Toronto Star on Friday amid a battery of complaints from opposition parties, city councillors, civil libertarians and regular Torontonians that the new rules were kept secret and, some say, may go too far.

 Secret regulations that reverse the rights of citizens? No notice, signs, or warnings of new rules of arrest and search and seizure without cause? These are supposedly "in keeping with the values and standards" of the citizenry? In whose wet dreams would those be, Dalton-the-Self-Exalted? It almost goes without saying that no-notice-change-of-law are not in keeping with the values of ANY citizen with whom I am an acquaintance!

Quite a while ago, I posted two references to the creeping infiltration of a police-state mentality into what are otherwise democratic societies governed by rule-of-law. These are well worth reviewing now. One is Dr. Lawrence Britt's Fascism Anyone? The other is a reflection on How Police States Begin. It is important to say that I do not believe that we are YET living in a police state. However - and this is a HUGE however - what Police Chief Bill Blair, OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino, Premier Dalton McGuinty, and Prime Minister Harper all have in common is a sometimes not-so-tacit desire to eliminate that pesky inconvenience, the supreme law of the land, the Constitution and Charter of Rights and Freedoms. With their demonstrated attitude that so profoundly violates the fundamental, espoused values and standards of Canadians none of these men deserve the offices, nor the trust and responsibility, that have been vested in them.

[Technorati tags: g8 | g20 | public works act | charter of rights and freedoms | dalton mcguinty | bill blair | julian fantino | stephen harper]

From Hyper-Consumption to Collaborative Consumption

Those who have attended any of my keynotes over the past few years will know that I always find a way to introduce collaborative construction as one of the dominant effects of the UCaPP world. This is the idea that people with whom we are in pervasive proximity - and therefore in relationship - collaboratively construct the various and sundry cultural artefacts that populate our lives and help us to create meaning in a complex world. This, of course, includes collaborative construction of identity, among the most interesting aspects of the collaborative construction phenomenon.

Rachel Botsman offers a brilliant observation of how the idea of collaborative construction can be extended by graphically noting how hyper-consumption that characterized the 20th century has given way to collaborative consumption in the contemporary world. Even if you have already heard of Zipcar, or Freecycle, or Couchsurfing, (and there are many more mentioned) - and especially if you haven't - watch the video. It will expand your mind.

Collaborative Consumption Groundswell Video from rachel botsman on Vimeo.

[Technorati tags: collaborative consumption | rachel botsman]

If you find a lawyer with a sense of humour...

...you'll have to kill him. Being able to perceive humorous parody and being litigious are apparently mutually exclusive. Just ask the purveyors of "Unicorn - the new white meat."

Note to lawyers: the suggestion to perpetrate any sort of violence on lawyers with senses of humour is itself a parody of lawyers without a sense of humour; to understand said parody one first requires a sense of humour which itself precludes the understanding of such understanding, to wit, the requisite sense or perception of humour being a necessary prerequisite to the perception or sensing thereof, thereby comprising an act analogous to that of begging the question in the first and second parts of said understanding of the understanding of the prior understanding.
[Technorati tags: lawyer | unicorn | it's a joke]