LILA ~ Learning Innovations Laboratory at the Harvard Graduate School of Education

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  1. Marga Biller

    Know What You Don’t Know : How Great Leaders Prevent Problems Before They Happen

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    Michael Roberto shared his finding that leaders at all levels must hone their skills as problem-finders to identify and correct problems and prevent catastrophe. Roberto identifies seven skills and capabilities necessary to become an effective problem-finder. To research this point, extensive interviews were conducted with roughly 150 managers of enterprises from private and public sector, often across different levels within the same company. Individuals were asked to describe how they tried to prevent failures from taking place. Roberto identifies seven skills and capabilities necessary to become an effective problem-finder. This reminded me of the work that Markus Baer presented describing the issues that experts face in problem formulation. He mentioned that expertise can make it difficult to make sense of things collectively and that expertise impacts collective sense-making. Therefore, he proposed that problem solving may be better thought of as problem formulation. Moving straight to problem solving can create problems; it often works better to focus more energy on formulating the problem. To read the summary of Michael Roberto book titled: Know What You Don’t Know : How Great Leaders Prevent Problems Before They Happen click the more button.
  2. Marga Biller

    Critical Knowledge Transfer by Dorothy Leonard

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    As you may recall, Dorothy Leonard who is the William J.Abernathy Professor of Business Administration Emerita at Harvard Business School joined the LILA Community during the last several years as part of her research into the recently published book "Critical Knowledge Transfer." It is based on original research, numerous interviews with top managers,and a wide range of corporate examples, When highly skilled subject matter experts, engineers, and managers leave their organizations, they take with them years of hard-earned experience-based knowledge—much of it undocumented and irreplaceable. Organizations can thereby lose a good part of their competitive advantage.
  3. Marga Biller

    Unlearning in Action: Practice Without Helmets to Reduce Concussions

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    Concussions are a big problem for football teams. To address the problem, new regulations were issued regarding safe tackling. This presents a challenge for players who were taught to tackle using their helmet (head first). So how to help them unlearn this practice and learn a new technique that will lead to safer ways to tackle and reduce concussions? Enter Erik Swartz, a University of New Hampshire professor of kinesiology who studies movement. He suggests that getting to the root of the problem – technique may do the trick. Instead of clashing helmet-first, he suggests that the better approach is...
  4. Marga Biller

    Member Feedback October 2014

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    Karin Morrison:  It was wonderful being back at LILA with you and the LILA team and participants. It was such an interesting event with such rich discussions and so much to think about and already I am connecting things I have learned with what I am doing in my work. I appreciate you try some experimental activities to support our learning. Thank you very much. The Gists worked well and I think that as it becomes a routine, something  we use at different times, it will be very helpful in what we do in our own contexts. I value the...
  5. Marga Biller

    Team Feedback October 2014

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    What went well Passion in cafes Gists Speakers were well prepared Puzzles Use of the throughlines:  is it too many competing structures on the table now?  Should we use them at the next meeting?  Dave will think about it. Gists will people produce integrative gists rather than collections Will people produce personalized gists that apply to them in their organizations or general ones Journals weren’t formally introduced. Is there a time for the group to talk about journaling and capturing gists.  Can we get input from members on what would be helpful. How can we use the brief more in...
  6. Marga Biller

    Genesis of GPS as Flexpertise

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    "An environment that encouraged people to think broadly and generally about task problems and one in which inquisitive kids felt free to follow their curiosity." Equally important, it was an environment wherein kids with an initial success could turn to colleagues who were broadly expert in relevant tasks, because of the genius of the Laboratory Directorship, colleagues who were also knowledgable about hardware, weapons and weapons needs. Finally we agree that it probably couldn't have happened without Frank McClure and Dick Kershner. They were unique."
  7. Marga Biller

    Dr. Jens Beckman shared his work on developing flexible expertise

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    Dr. Jens Beckmann is the Deputy Director of Research in the School of Education in Durham University in the UK, where he researches the assessment of intellectual abilities. He was previously the Director of the Accelerated Learning Laboratory (ALL) at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, where he was part of research team investigating the impact of a “2-year leadership training program for mid-level managers from large organizations” (Birney, Beckmann, & Wood, 2012, p. 573). This training program provided fertile ground for his study of cognitive flexibility, which can “broadly be defined as the ability to deal...
  8. Marga Biller

    Dr. Erik Dane shared his research on Flexible Expertise

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    During the October gathering, were joined by Dr. Erik Dane wh0 share his research on the topic of Flexible Expertise.         Dr. Dane is Associate Professor of Management at Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University. His research focuses on cognition in the workplace. Through field research and laboratory experiments, he examines topics such as attention, creativity, expertise, intuition, and mindfulness (rice.edu). In a recent article, he writes about the trade-offs between expertise and flexibility. His construct of “cognitive entrenchment” explains when expertise may lead to inflexibility and when it may lead to flexibility. To learn...
  9. Marga Biller

    Managing Complexity – How Organizations Navigate Strategic paradoxes

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    Managing Complexity – How organizations navigate strategic paradoxes Dynamic work environments are complex and the changing conditions of ambiguity, uncertainty, conflicting goals, contradictory messages, and competing perspectives create barriers to effective performance. We are asked to take a long-term view and to make short-term decisions that increase profits. We are asked to learn new things and to perform at highest levels. We need to innovate and to operate in predictable ways. We oscillate between centralized and decentralized operational structures. We organize work closely for control and want people to show initiative and self-organize. We encourage collective identity and reward individual...

Harvard Graduate School of Education