In order to facilitate effective collaboration and build smart & empowered partnerships, we want to make our company vision, goals and strategy visible to the rest of the system.
Four Realms: Art, Philosophy, Science and Math
I used Jean Russel’s four types of inquiry and organized them into concentric rings starting in the center with the source of creative impulse and moving out toward clarity, confirmation and truth.
Art & Science as applied to Business
You start at the bottom with the vision that we are working to create in the world. Then you move up and make theories and assumptions at the level of philosophy. Soon you’re able to form specific hypotheses as you transition into the scientific realm. Then you create tests and experiments in the form of real world projects (this is the actual work itself!). Then you gather data and experience to move toward the mathematical ideal of pure truth.
How an Organization Learns: Clear Feedback Loops
Once a line of inquiry reaches the point of outcomes that can be seen, experienced or measured, our findings can be distilled into open documentation that we publish to the world (PDF’s, blog posts, discussions, etc). At this point, we can reflect back and ask, “does our hypothesis seem to be supported? Is it reasonable to continue with our assumptions and theories of change?” Now its time to feed back down and alter or strengthen our assertions at the philosophical level and begin another cycle, having developed organizational learning and wisdom along the way!
