Joseph Manuel

Joseph Manuel Quick Facts

Gender: Male, Age: 61

Location: Bangalore

Education:

University of Kerala
National Dairy Research Institute, Bangalore, 1971-73
Indian Insitute of Management, Bangalore, 1979-81

Work:

1973-79, with a cooperative of dairy farmers
1981-84, with a management institute
1985-2007 with a cooperative of fishermen

1990, Developed the  Self-Management/First Discipline Framework (FDF)

Since 2008,  Chief Knowledge Architect, First Discipline (FD)

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 may not be felt immdediately as 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 SMF  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.  

Contacting Joseph Manuel