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

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  1. Using the past to create the future with Davide Ravasi

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    How do organizations use their history to understand and reform identity to support transformation?   Radical change can often be destructive so it is interesting to note how organizations look back to their history to create continuity in org identity while changing. Davide’s more recent research identifies the variety of historical mechanisms that organizations use to shape identity. One way is using collective memory – the shared memories of communities that get passed down, the rituals of remembrance, and symbolic objects and places to embody collective memory. For example, corporate museums are places that give quite a bit of evidence of...
  2. Who are we as an organization and how did we get there?

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    f organizational identity is a self-reflective relatively mindful answer to the question of who we are as a organization, were does this come from? Davide Ravassi's work into organizational identity has examined various aspects of an org such as the emotional conceptualization, what is central and distinctive, deeply held beliefs, and claims and narratives that are reflective in the commitments. Interestingly, he has found that identity is revealed through conflict – when resources are scarce, when there is urgency, when there is some event that causes disruption. Also, foundational traits are acquired at the beginning of the organization: they are early imprints.
  3. Who are we? Organizational Identity content and its effect on members’ identification.

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    Shelley Brickson – University of Illinois-Chicago   Shelley shared her work on organizational identity, which is a member shared understanding of what is central to an organizational character, distinct and relatively enduring about the organization. These can be “what we do” and/or “who we are.” The latter is more character-based and describes commitments, values, etc.   How does identity shape patterns of behavior? This is a driving question of her research.   First we should understand, “who is the organization?” This involves identity orientation. I key idea is that people have different senses of self: individualistic, relational, and collectivist.   Shelley’s work...
  4. Marga Biller

    Can we measure collective intelligence in teams?

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    Until recently, organizations thought that if they wanted to create “smart” teams, they just had to hire smart individuals and put them together. But researchers have discovered that is not the case. Other explanatory factors account for the performance of teams more than simply the combined intelligence of individual team members. Anita Woolley has specifically focused on examining if there is an underlying collective intelligence (CI) that lets some teams perform better than others and, if so, can we measure it, use it to predict team future performance, and reliably create it?
  5. Marga Biller

    What do the members in your organization actively do to pick up weak cues signaling threat and/or opportunity?

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    During the December 2018 LILA member call, Professor Claus Rerup provided some insights into these questions. His research focuses on what he identifies as attentional triangulation – how a group of people (e.g., teams and organizations) avoid missing cues about threat or opportunity. Paying attention to the right kinds of cues is likely a mechanism toward achieving this year’s theme of collective mindfulness. When teams and organizations do not act in collectively mindful ways and are on autopilot, it is likely at least in part through lack of attentional triangulation.
  6. Towards Collective Mindfulness – Michael Pirson

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    The world is full on complex problems, ranging from global warming to economic disparities, to ongoing ethnic conflicts. Michael reminded us that mindfulness approaches involve contemplative action, restoring harmony, and questioning status quo. Mindlessness approaches are easier and involves apathy and actionism, questioning harmony and resorting status quo.
  7. Marga Biller

    2018-2019 LILA Theme: Collective Mindfulness – Shaping the Human Systems in Organizations

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    Drawing on the fields of cognitive psychology, neurocognitive science, collective mind theory and organizational science we will explore questions such as what are the mechanisms that support collective mindfulness? How might we shape the social systems to create thriving ecologies? How might the macro and micro narratives come into conversation to further strategic paths? How can collective mindful organizing amplify the desired states? We will engage the theme through these three topics.
  8. Marga Biller

    Collective Mindfulness: Shaping the Human Systems in Organizations

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    LILA Theme for 2018-2019:  Collective Mindfulness:  Shaping the Human Systems in Organizations In dynamic environments, how might we create the conditions that improve the quality of interactions in order to nurture collective sensemaking and collective action?   What are the states of dynamic organizations as they evolve and change?   Exploring collective mindfulness—defined “as the collective capability to discern discriminatory detail about emerging issues and to act swiftly in response to these details (Weick, Vogus & Sutcliffe) might provide some answers.  This year, LILA turns its attention to understanding how to nourish the organization and the systems whose future we hope to...

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