Frist Discipline Metaphoria; Stories for FacilitatorsFirst Discipline, FD, is the discipline of disciplines, the foundation to all other disciplines.The self mediates in the transformation of data to information and knowledge, creating sense, meaning and structure. Thus FD is the study of the self in relation to the whole.The concept of self holds good at the level of the person, family, groups, organizations, and society. Mastery of the process is critical to co-creating a more desirable future.One of the imperatives to the approach has been to develop a meta framework that holds together different disciplines attenuating variety and reducing complexity. Though IT addresses a large part of the issue, the interface between technology and human mediation continues to pose daunting challenges to sustained high performance.Growth is a process of resolving issues of identity and moving from dependence to independence and to interdependence. Individuals, teams, organisations and communities need to go through the process. Copying from less complex contexts will not suffice to stay ahead. It is essential to go far beyond imitation to create competitive advantages. FD offers an integration tool and methodology to address these challenges and disconnects. Through visual semiotics, it incorporates eco-literacy, the new spirituality of work, system thinking, cultural archetypes, continual renewal, mental maps, personal mastery and other unifiers to work together like an operating system of the self at different levels. Aligned with a proven methodology, transfer of learning is achieved and the competences acquired at a faster pace in comparison to any other approaches.The FD framework is a collection of visual frames as a tool to provide inputs for discussion and convergence Reality is perceived as well as created by the mental models which have evolved over the history of humanity. If the world has turned out to be imperfect, it has more to do with these models of the world than the world outside. The visual semiotic tool points to a coherent whole leading to a new way of looking at reality, the new eyes and a new vision. A new vision is the first step to creating a more desirable future. As in the case of a terrestrial journey, the approach incorporates positioning, measurement, feedback and self correction, functions that are carried out by the compass, clock and the feedback system that enables the traveller to be on course.FD is the study of self, the learner and the process of learning. FD is a lifelong discipline that is obsolescence proof. How and what we learn as individuals and community /communities will decide our common future. Targeted learning is context and problem specific and seeks to connect, reflect and catalyze- better, faster and deeper. The pace of learning is the differentiator in the race for market share. Technology and the internet have changed the paradigms of learning. The full impact is not felt since habits linger on. It is feasible now to leave rote learning to the memory devices freeing time and effort to more productive applications. Learning to meet the requirement at the time it is required is feasible. The self mediates in the process of transformation of data to information and knowledge creating sense, meaning and structure in turn leading to learning and improvement. Mastery of this process at the level of individuals, organisations, community and society at large is critical to the emergence of a more desirable future.Icons and symbols, like road signs and traffic signals, can function like a compass. The Graphic User interface accelerated the emergence of a connected world. Within the networks is silicon which has the innate quality of connecting and forming very long chains. Digital and other deeper disconnects of multiple dimensions slow down the journey toward the higher evolutionary potential in us, individual or collective, creating serious threats to the very survival of the species. Marshall Goldsmith tells us ‘What Got You Here Won’t Get You There’. If we go by history we will not go very far.The nature of the common journey is that we want to move towards our completeness and to greater completeness. Let us say that the journey begins now. I am in Bangalore and the time is 10 AM, 31 May 2008. We need a compass/map and the clock to do this. I would like to go to Mumbai. The direction too is fixed. As I take every step on my journey to Mumbai, I need to make sure that I am moving in the right direction and not away from it. This is reflecting looking back and forth to make sure that the process is in control. The three keywords are Position, Direction and Reflection the basic essentials to take on the physical world. Given the other requisites one is certain to reach Mumbai. Without the first three all the rest will not take me to Mumbai.Mapping the physical world has become very precise in our times. Between Galileo’s telescope and more powerful ones like the Hubble and Ahmed Zeweil’s femtoscope, are the very large and the very small – farther and the deeper. The observer connects the two attempting to comprehend the whole. Yet we will never comprehend the whole in its totality. At best it will always remain an approximation and there will always be unknowables. What we can comprehend of the physical world is so vast that a system is required to navigate. The journey of life is much more than a journey through external space since we are much more than our physical selves. How does one position oneself for this journey? It is the self which fixes the position, direction and reflect on itself as to the progress of the process. The observer and the observed are parts of the same system. Mapping the whole system, physical, non physical, external and internal and evolving a navigational tool is one of the basic requisites for the journey on that less travelled road.From 1981-to 1990, we worked towards evolving an integral visual semiotic tool, the self-management /first discipline framework, FDF, a road map for life’s journey that could connect across multiple dimensions. Eco-literacy, the new spirituality, system thinking, cultural archetypes, continual renewal, mental maps, personal mastery, and many more unifiers are embedded in the tool. The FDF is a navigational tool of the self – individual and or collective. The old road is the road by default and the new road is the road by design. The choice is between weapons of mass dialogue and weapons of mass destruction. But dialogue is not in our habit since Socrates. Politicians and priests preach, professionals prescribe, teachers lecture, parents advise. Dialogue needs adults, not leaders and followers or shepherds and the sheep.Some learning is possible only through parables or stories. Stories synchronise brains. The story outlines that follow can be used to develop the connecting, catalyzing and reflecting skills. A story acts like a map, a metaphor and can be used to connect the internal and external territories to unearth something that people already know at deeper levels.E.g. connectivity and the structure of silicates, maps and meta maps, programs and meta programs, competencies and meta competencies, archetypes and designMore metaphors1. Story of One , Differently Abled Child and the Teacher2.Mental maps – Eagle’s giftThere lived an eagle on a tree that stood beside a well. Down in the well lived a community of frogs. Every night the parent frog told its children a collection of bedtime stories. The eagle in the tree used to listen to these stories and decided to play a prank on the frog. So one pleasant morning, when the air was slowly warming up, the eagle swooped into the well, grasped the parent frog in its claws and rose up into the sky. The heights and the fear of death overtook the frog, but in the meanwhile the eagle let go of the frog. While falling back into the well the frog had just a glimpse of the larger world outside the well. The eagle went back to the tree and waited for the sun to come down and to hear the new stories.What will be the story of the day?The participants are to write down a story and the trainer gives the feedback based on participants’ stories. Switch the roles of Eagles and trainers so that trainers don’t come to assume that they are the eagles. One has to be an eagle and at times a frog depending on the context.The human condition is like that of the frog in the well. The mental maps are influenced by the ‘well’ we live in. They are improved with every bit of learning. The developmental process involves revision and improvement of the mental models or maps. Facilitators play a very critical role and to fulfil these roles they need to have the necessary competencies.3. The Chandrasekhar Effect.Chandrasekhar is a very saintly soul who has a weakness for liquor. One morning we found him in front of his regular hangout. Chandrasekhar was relieved to meet some familiar faces. He came out with a question which he wanted to ask somebody who is familiar. Even at this stage he was aware that his condition might make him ask stupid questions and he did not want to be humiliated. The question was “Where am I?” We take the most fundamental for granted which takes us farther away from reality. When our basic assumptions, the home position, are wrong it is certain that we will reach some place where we never wanted to be. Any process of improvement calls for fixing a starting position, deciding on the direction and reflecting/review with reference to the starting position. A large number of people were asked this question as to what our basic needs are and the first reply is always the text book answer, “food, shelter, and clothing”. But for the person who has decided that life itself is meaningless none of these matter. If they are asked to respond to a question like “How many sides the coin has?” the answer is always the same – two, though with a little bit of clarification they will soon shift their original positions. One of the obstacles, as old as history and symbolized in the story of Babel, to reaching a solution to the issue is the semantic confusion and that there is very little convergence between the domains that have the potential to offer solutions.4. Blind men and the elephant5. Don’t shoot the messenger6. Mahabali and Vamana7. Taj Mahal / cathedral BuildingEmperor Shajahan asked the same question to the three stonecutters. “What are you doing?”The three answers are:“I am earning a living”,“I am polishing stones, and I am the best stonecutter available”“I am building a monument which is an expression of the love of the emperor to his beloved and this stone that I am polishing will be the corner stone of the monument”It is obvious that the third mason is more likely to meet the standards for quality and quantity and that if all the three are to meet these and other standards – of effectiveness, excellence and zero defects – the third mason’s vision is to be shared. When we work more and more with intangibles and the slave driver is replaced by one’s own self this becomes all the more difficult but essential to keep the network as one, connected.9. Indra and the pigs – Resistance to change.Indra once transformed himself into a pig just to find out why pigs enjoyed wallowing in the mud. He remained there till Narada searched him out and compelled him to go back to his former self. It is quite possible that we get stuck with poor performance and come to accept that this as the limit of our possibilities till a compelling experience/crisis or vision might lift us out of the situation.10. Frog soupA frog is placed in a bowl of cold water. Turning on a heater gently warms the water. The frog initially enjoys the warmth and feels comfortable. The increase in warmth is so gentle that the frog does not notice it. The warmth gradually increases; the frog falls into a stupor and eventually turns into frog soup. The opposite possibility is that of continual renewal, to respond creatively to the process on a real time basis.The story is quoted in two of the popular books on management, The Renewal Factor (Waterman) and The Fifth Discipline (Peter M Senge). The frog in the cold water initially enjoys the increasing warmth of water in which it is immersed and by the time it is unbearable it is immobilized and incapable of escape from death. The process of continual renewal is the opposite of this whereby individuals, institutions or a community continually respond to the environment and improve their contexts. The process is qualitatively different and most often ignored in the preoccupation with the short term. U.S. companies now lose half their employees every four years, half their customers in five, and half their investors in less than twelve months[ii]. The returns on investment, yield rate of stocks, market capitalisation or increase in value of ESOP by themselves are not sufficient measures of success. Corporates need to be concerned about the internal as well as the broader external community also, other than the shareholders and the targeted market segments.11. The Cannon Shot/The Two RoadsThe road by design and by defaultThe two roads, one by design and the other by default and the moment of truth.What we believe as maturity, normal, is a HABIT, history, the roadblock.The system at physical birth is comparable to the bullet that leaves the barrel of a gun.The bullet is helpless to influence its trajectory.Most systems, individuals or institutions seldom go beyond this level without that choice, a conscious decision to evolve, becoming aware of the position, direction and reflecting on the progress.When it happens the bullet goes into orbit.The linear is the road by default, the road to death, accidents, burnout and the road on which time runs out.The other is the road to eternity, continual renewal and timelessness by CHOICE, the conscious decision to be on the road to continual IMPROVEMENTs, creating the future NOW, by DESIGN, a future better than the present.The cannon shot does not have the potential to become aware of it’s self. Individuals and organizations have the unique capability of self-observation and self regulation which implies the possibility of improvement. This is what qualifies us to be termed human. The cannon shot that goes out of the cannon has no possibility of becoming aware of itself and the outcome is already determined at the moment of its departure from the cannon. But the more advanced of human creations like those of sophisticated machines do have more and more of self-regulation built into them. Thus in the case of space vehicles and satellites, extent of self-regulation and the possibility of controlling the behavior of the system from outside the system increases. The extent of self-regulation, the possibility of reflecting on one’s behavior and even laugh at it, is what draws us apart as a class, from the rest of the systems. In the case of the cannon shot gravity operates mercilessly and ultimately the shot is overtaken by it when the shot reaches terra firma. In the case of individuals and organizations, it is the vision that keeps them going. The vision is liable to be corrupted and needs to be renewed continuously. Just as gravity operates continuously, the forces of decay too is natural to all systems. In nature decay and renewal are continuous and it follows that for organizations to sustain growth, the effort at renewal too needs to be continuous’.12. Ashram and the prophets - Leadership, Creating and Renewing Vision and Shared Values.There is an ashram in which four sanyasins struggle to make both ends meet. There has been a golden time for the ashram when crowds used to flock together to the ashram but now the ashram has fallen on bad times with no visitors and no income. One of the sanyasins hit upon the idea of visiting another sanyasin in a distant place to seek help. They set out on the journey together, meet the sanyasin and present the problem. The sanyasin sends them back with just one piece of advice – One of you is a prophet. The sanyasins are not able to find out who the prophet is but over time the ashram renews itself and recovers the lost glory. ”.13. First monkey – Creative communitiesThere live a community of monkeys in an island. They had never eaten the nuts of a particular tree. A curious little monkey picked up one of these nuts, dips it in seawater and eats it. It finds that the nut is very delicious. Rest of the monkeys slowly follows the little monkey one by one. Eventually the nut becomes a common meal for all the monkeys and when a critical number of monkeys pick up this habit, the behavior spreads all throughout in no time, all over the world. The group soon emulates the behavior of the first monkey. When the group size crosses a certain critical mass, the new behavior is manifested globally without any apparent interconnections. Something, which was beyond the realm of possibility, has now become possible and collective learning results. The phenomenon is observed in many other situations also. Fostering individual creativity within the organizational community is integral to continual renewal. Besides, the context now offers the possibility of creative individuals to make much larger global impact. The typical examples are the emergence and growth of startup IT ventures during the last two decades.14. The Emperor’s Chill- Daniel Quinn15. Sheet of Rubber and the Football – Centralization and decentralization, Yes and No, Static / Dynamic16. Caterpillar and the Butterfly, Seed to Tree, Cream to Butter, Ahalya, Pygmalion and Galatea , Rama and Ahalya17. Less is more18. Complex vs simple2×2=44×4=1616×16=256256×256= ?19. Blindness, Seeing, Jose Saramago20. Magister Ludi, Herman Hesse21. TimeMastery of time involves going beyond the ordinary or common to the transcendental experience of time. The common understanding is very essential to deal with the day to day world but this is never the complete story. It is only a partial truth (illusion). Time /timelessness is another duality, gate, to learning the direct (mystic) experience, freeing one from the entanglement of a linear experience of time.There is nothing linear about nature. Linear time kills in many ways. Timelessness, eternity, is a common experience if one reflects over those experiences when time stood still, while you were in love vs. waiting for a P breakts22. Timelessness/Real timeReal timeWhat black is to white is time to timelessness, as memory is to forgettingLinear time meets memory at ground zeroTo beget the NEWAs the eagle soars up in the sky details get blurredBut the essential is not lostIt swoops down faster to the goal.Knows when to strike and when to sailTo switch between time and timelessnessWhat to gather and to leave behindComplete the learning so as to forgetLearn history so that history is not repeatedBoth personal and collective, for the flow of life to go onBury the dead so that renewal rules, not death and decayFree the ground for the dance of eternity – timelessness23. Habit/New habitsTranscend habits by more powerful habits.Habit is history that keeps us stuck. Even death is a habit and fear of death is the mother of all fears which drives many businesses. Resistance creates resistance. If the child wants to touch fire we can tell her don’t do it – a sure fire way of achieving what we never wanted. Instead show her the butterfly. Her attention is shifted to something beautiful. Big time improvement strategists play the latter game. They don’t preach change. They play the game of radical improvement through which people come together as one, in relationships, internal and external alignment, creating history. In the process we move forward, get unstuck. Everyone wins and none loses.Amor is the Roman god of love. The root from Sanskrit ‘amar’ means immortal and ‘amrut’ is that which makes one immortal – knowledge. Work is love expressed – Kahlil Gibran. The path to immortality, exceptional performance, is possible only through transformation of work as expression of the self, an expression of loveWe are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is then not an act but a habit – Aristotle