Cultivating an Enabling Context with Care
What kind of enabling context, curated through care, can we create for our people? How can we foster an environment where knowledge, both explicit and tacit, flows freely?
More than 20 years ago, my friend John was guided by a West African drum master. Before he met the drum master, he was learning drumming with a man named Jude (I cannot recall his name but Jude sounds close), who happened to use a wheelchair and had taken up drumming to work with young people who were in transitional care. That is, kids in a delicate space between a disjointed home and the school-to-prison pipeline. They needed an exceptional level of care. John, who is trained as a therapist, worked there too.
Jude used the drum to heal (others and himself) and build community with the young people. The more he drummed, the more people, joined him, including John and many others. They eventually formed a group. The group continued to grow and was invited to venues around the region to perform.
Many times, I was the fortunate recipient of the healing energy of drum circles around Atlanta, at John and his brother David’s (whom I lived near) homes. We made music, memories, and magic together in those sessions. I cannot recall all of the sessions, but I remember that I was left with a learning that I could not and cannot articulate in words until this day.
As the Jude-formed band evolved, they invited the drum master on at least two occasions to work with the whole band, in small groups, and one-on-one. They also hosted workshops open to the public, which helped fund the trip.
After each time the drum master came, I recall John communicating something different than I had previously experienced with him. John is frugal with words. He is an introvert and empath, but he is not wildly vocal.
Yet, with the drums, he speaks wordless tomes with a few slaps, bass, and tones on the djembe. I learned more about John's emotional content in his drumming, prior to that I was only observed the near equivalent when we used to lift (very heavy) weights (with John leading David and me by example to push ourselves during masochistic leg workouts) together in our 20s and 30s.
What is your Thrive Score?
In those lessons, the drum teacher transferred something to John that transcended physical technique. The master cared for John, not necessarily in the touchy-feely, affective sense that it often connotes.
Rather, caring in the sense of philosopher Milton Mayeroff shares in his book On Caring.
He says, “To care for another person, in the most significant sense, is to help him grow and actualize himself. . .Caring, as helping another grow and actualize himself, is a process, a way of relating to someone that involves development, in the same way that friendship can only emerge in time through mutual trust and a deepening and qualitative transformation of the relationship.”
I learned about Mayerhoff's classic work after being exposed to Dr. Georg von Krogh, a professor at the ETH Zurich. Professor von Krogh, among many other scholarly contributions, has written extensively on knowledge enablement (as opposed to “knowledge management,” which von Krogh’s co-authors Nonaka and Ichijo deem nonsensical because they assert knowledge cannot be managed in their book The Knowledge-Creating Company), in particular tacit knowledge transfer.
I met Dr. von Krogh at the genesis of forming my DEI theory of change, which I call Inclusion System Design and Development™ in Reconstructing Inclusion. Now, it is evolving into the E.M.E.R.G.E.N.T. Inclusion System.
What stood out most in listening to him and reading his book was the idea that care is an essential element of sharing and creating knowledge. To von Krogh, without the enabling context that caring creates, neither explicit nor tacit knowledge can be sufficiently transferred from one colleague to the next.
“For any given project, knowledge creation has to happen in a caring atmosphere, one in which organizational members take an active interest in applying the insights provided by others. Regardless of the phase of knowledge creation, good relations purge the process of distrust and fear, and break down personal and organizational barriers.”
He continues, “Effective conversations allow for higher creativity; stimulate the sharing of tacit knowledge, concept creation, and justification; are essential for developing a powerful prototype; and lubricate the flow of knowledge across various organizational levels.”
The notion of caring as von Krogh co-opts from Mayeroff has shaped a sub-framework of our overall model called the C.O.S.T. (Care, Openness, Safety, and Trust ) of Inclusion. Some clients have used and reframed it, replacing inclusion with Belonging. One could say there is such a C.O.S.T. of DEI. Of course, following von Krogh and his co-authors, the idea transcends any particular space and, like a robust approach to DEI, is essential for most areas of business where people exchange, collaborate, and create together in implicit and explicit ways.
Before I met Dr. von Krogh, I didn’t have a term to apply to my friend John’s relationship with his teacher and the subsequent drumming mastery that I saw as their relationship deepened. John’s teacher created an enabling context for him to absorb an essence that could not be taught by simply teaching different ways to make a sound on the instrument.
It was much more meaningful than that. Care-enabled, tacit knowledge transfer created the conditions for John to thrive. Causally, John’s embodiment of the care and accompanying knowledge have enabled him, for two decades, to generously and generatively share his gifts–adding something extraordinary and soul-reaching to each of us who have been receivers of his vibrations. Whether it has been in the throes of a hypnotic dance with a crowd of newly-bonded friends or going deeper into oneself, John has thus contributed to all of our thriving with his rhythms.
What does an enabling context, curated through care (as described above) create for your people?
I hope this was helpful. . . Make it a great day! ✌🏿
In this episode of the ‘Reconstructing Inclusion’ podcast, I chat with Laura Smith, a celebrated organizational researcher and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) strategist. Laura shares her journey from Detroit to Europe, her encounters with distinct cultures, and the notion of work in different countries. She highlights the significance of DEI in startup and scale-up companies, discussing a data-driven approach to understanding employee safety, company culture, and readiness to respond.
I think part of the caring you thoroughly explain above is willingness and recognition of willingness.
In leadership roles, I found it profoundly productive to use the verbiage, “Are you willing to help me with/ do X?” I always wanted to respect the Truth: that everyone always has a choice, even when it’s “their job” to complete X, because it alters the focus away from obligation and towards agency and value.
I believe my language signified I was trusting their intentions because they had to have first chosen to be part of the organization and I wanted to affirm their belonging.
I think of it as “I’m leading you to making a choice to contribute because you are important and make an impact here.”
Your “On caring quote” is definitely an impactful one when considering leadership because it acknowledges that each person is a whole person. “Qualitative transformation of the relationship” wouldn’t be possible without that understanding.
Do you believe that relates at all to the idea that everyone has something to offer? And is that always relevant as a practice in an organization, or simply as an acknowledgment? (I’m thinking about top-down organizations) Maybe it’s most important to be permeable with those who work together departmentally?