John Lewis: Profiles in Knowledge
This is the 98th article in the Profiles in Knowledge series featuring thought leaders in knowledge management. John Lewis is a CKO, consultant, speaker, author, and coach on the topics of knowledge management, organizational learning, and leadership. He is a scholar-practitioner who has pioneered new business and learning models, found in his books, The Explanation Age and Story Thinking.
John has worked for several leading global organizations and his career highlights include launching GPS satellites and being recognized by Gartner with an industry best practice paper for a knowledge management implementation. He earned his doctorate degree in educational psychology from the University of Southern California, with a dissertation focus on mental models and decision making. John lives in Glen Allen, Virginia.
Background
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Profiles
John Lewis is Digital Learning and Knowledge Strategist and Owner at Explanation Age. He is a member of the Review Board for the Journal of Knowledge Management and Associate Editor of the Journal of Innovation Management. John is also a founding member of EBLI (Evidence-Based Learning Institute), where has served as its President.
His research interests are in cognitive psychology, educational psychology, and organizational psychology. His unified model for learning and change, ADIIEA, is the first strategic business model designed specifically to support a learning organization. This unified model is featured in his book Story Thinking: Transforming Organizations for the Fourth Industrial Revolution with replacement models for Bloom’s Taxonomy, Double-Loop Learning, Six Sigma, and Policy Making.
At SearchBlox, John served as Chief Knowledge Officer and provides thought leadership on insight engines and cognitive computing. Their enterprise search products securely deliver the right data to the user. John was at Iknow as Change Management and Leadership Specialist and was Co-founder and Leadership Coach at The CoHero Institute for Collaborative Change Leadership.
John earned his Doctor of Education Degree in Educational Psychology from the University of Southern California, with a dissertation focus on mental models and decision making. He earned his Master of Arts Degree in Instructional Design and Technology from San Jose State University and received its outstanding graduate research award. He earned his Bachelor of Science Degree in Mass Communications with a Mathematics minor from Towson University and an Associate of Arts Degree in Computer Programming from the College of Southern Maryland. He also earned a Six Sigma Certification (Green Belt).
Previously, John worked for several leading global organizations including Adobe Systems as Manager of the Instructional Design, for PricewaterhouseCoopers as Principal Consultant, for Capital One as the Head of Call Center Knowledge Systems, for Lockheed Martin as Lead Instructional Designer, and for the Applied Research Lab at Penn State University.
As a consultant, he was acknowledged by Gartner with a business KM Best Practice paper and has delivered a Thought Leader presentation at the Canadian Society for Training and Development conference, and a Masters Series presentation at the International Society for Performance Improvement Conference.
John Lewis, Ed.D. is a speaker and mindset coach for change, learning, and leadership. He has authored the books, The Explanation Age (beyond the information age) and Story Thinking (beyond storytelling). John was the Chief Knowledge Officer at SearchBlox Software Inc., where he brought his expertise to enhance the enterprise search journey. He is also on the advisory board with the Lifeboat Foundation, a member of IIKI (International Institute for Knowledge and Innovation), and an associate editor for Leadership and Organizational Behavior with the Journal of Innovation Management.
His unified model of change represents the fundamental structure of stories, and encompasses a majority of earlier models, including Kahneman, Kolb, Kotter, and Kubler-Ross. It solves for the “fragmentation” problem described by Peter Senge and fulfills on the quote by W. Edwards Deming: “We will never transform the prevailing system of management without transforming our prevailing system of education. They are the same system.”
John Lewis is a leadership coach, teacher, and speaker, with a background in psychology and experience in Big 4 management consulting. He has also been an adjunct professor on the topics of organizational learning, thought leadership, and knowledge and innovation management. His book, The Explanation Age, was described by Kirkus Reviews as “An iconoclast’s blueprint for a new era of innovation.”
John was a co-founder of The CoHero Institute for Collaborative Change Leadership. He facilitated team workshops and teaches the certification program for Change Leaders and Change Coaches. He also provided coaching for the CoHero Leadership Profile assessment which helped leaders understand their strengths related to leading change. John has a certificate in Leadership Coaching with The John Maxwell Team and a certificate in Six Sigma.
John delivered a keynote presentation at the International Conference on Interdisciplinary Research Studies. He also spoke at the Georgetown University Institute for Transformational Leadership Conference, the International Conference on Intellectual Capital, and the European Conference on Knowledge Management.
Content
I was just 6 years old when I attended the 1964 New York World’s Fair, but I remember seeing the fair’s theme which was prominently displayed: “Peace Through Understanding.” The memory that stands out for me was not the amusement park rides or cotton candy, but the questions I had at an early age about this event: “Is peace such a difficult goal, and don’t we already have an understanding?” Over the years, the answers have become more apparent: “yes” and “no.”
To reach a shared understanding, “Knowledge for Development” cannot be just another knowledge-sharing program – it needs to provide transparency into the “process” that creates and defends knowledge – particularly the policymaking process. When a cognitive model of policymaking is directly compared to the practices of politics, we begin to see the difference between sensemaking and corruption, and the difference between a knowledge-driven policymaker and a politician. One such cognitive model is called ADIIEA (pronounced uh-dee-uh), based on the six phases of the change cycle: Automation, Disruption, Investigation, Ideation, Expectation, and Affirmation. Using this cognitive modelling approach towards a shared understanding, we find that knowledge is just an output, and policy is just a type of knowledge that defines a mandated routine.
A knowledge society requires shared values and a shared understanding of the natural storytelling pattern behind lessons and change, from which knowledge is derived. And shared understanding within this cognitive model requires more than publishing the decisions that have been chosen – it also requires providing the trade-offs and error preferences with the options that were not chosen. It requires more than a compelling argument behind the vote – it requires access to the argument behind the dissenting opinion.
A functional knowledge society cannot be obtained until we acknowledge that we are born as “learners” and not “knowers.” With this fundamental acknowledgment, there are implications for discovery education, corporate innovation, and governmental policymaking. A functional knowledge society is one that may be best called a transparent learning society.
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Content by Philip Sisson
Community, Training, and Conferences
KMWorld Conference
Maximizing knowledge value with conversational AI by Sydney Blanchard
John Lewis, chief knowledge officer, SearchBlox Software Inc. and Explanation Age LLC, focused his section of the keynote on the digitization of dialogue, examining how AI can bridge the gap between novice queries and expert content.
Lewis argued that search is the method in which enterprises unlock knowledge. There are two mindsets that further surround this concept: innovation and productivity. When GenAI hit the scene, it seemingly struck the metaphorical gold of these two attributes.
However, Lewis suggested that this may not be the reality.
“The hype curve for ChatGPT was off the chart,” said Lewis. “It was the hammer and anything it looked at was a nail.”
“Everything as a nail” fundamentally lacks nuance, generating a wild misunderstanding of how to leverage GenAI to its maximum capacity and efficacy.
Lewis then introduced SearchBlox’s unified AI strategy as a remediation of this GenAI issue, which features an intersection between search, FAQs, and chatbots. This included the following technologies:
SearchBlox’s unified AI strategy enables organizations to create personalized, configurable AI implementations that offer chatbot insights based on an enterprise’s unique content, accompanied by a user-friendly UI.
SearchBlox’s offering takes the disruption out of GenAI, empowering it to spark KM joy as opposed to AI-phobia.
Transforming KM strategies with Story Thinking at KMWorld 2022 by Stephanie Simone
Storytelling uses story as a communication strategy and Story Thinking uses story as an operational strategy. Story Thinking goes beyond the foundations of story psychology and focuses on applications for KMers.
At KMWorld 2022, John Lewis, chief knowledge officer, SearchBlox Software Inc. and Explanation Age LLC, discussed story structure as a fundamental sense-making framework, during his workshop, “Beyond Storytelling: Using Story Thinking For KM Strategies.” Specific approaches and exercises were included to support strategies around KM systems, cultures, leadership, knowledge sharing, project documentation, evaluation, and continuous improvement.
KMWorld 2022 is a part of a unique program of five co-located conferences, which also includes Enterprise Search & Discovery, Office 365 Symposium, Taxonomy Boot Camp, and Text Analytics Forum.
“In a nutshell, we know we’re wired for story,” Lewis said. “We want to think about how we create knowledge, capture it, and transfer it.”
Epistemology is a study of what we know and how we know. Knowledge and information management should be applied epistemology, Lewis said.
“Story is a map, everything happens on it,” Lewis said.
Knowing the underlying framework allows us to work more efficiently and effectively. It’s not about what you think, but what you think from.
The classic story pattern is called The Hero’s Journey, he explained. This was popularized by Joseph Campbell, which shaped George Lucas’s Star Wars saga.
“You didn’t just do something, it changed you,” Lewis said. “There’s a cycle that looks something like this.”
A generic story pattern is a story that begins and ends in a settled state, like gravity, that takes more energy to overcome. Marketing uses this concept operationally, he noted.
The underlying story structure for workability beliefs include:
Working in automation is the beginning and end of transformational change and you’re operating on autopilot. Key disruption characteristics prioritize situations that are out of the ordinary. It is the key to innovation, Lewis explained. Disruptions are not problems.
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Investigation allows you to ask questions to understand and reveal. Ideation is brainstorming and diversity of initial ideas. Questions create and clarify designs and plans. ?Expectations are the development of ideas, capabilities, and people. Affirmation confirms what we thought works.
“When we’re in a story, we’re operationalizing it,” Lewis said.
KM strategies should include KM systems throughout the Story Thinking cycle to maximize organizational peak performance. Utilizing a story structure while sharing knowledge can create a more robust experience, according to Lewis.
A productivity tip Lewis offered was organizing email with Story Thinking. Every conversation, decision, and activity happens somewhere in the Story Thinking cycle.
Learning involves periodic “revolutions” when the current model cannot be maintained, Lewis explained. There are two primary navigation paths for Story Thinking, this includes: The Full Cycle and the Half-Pipe. The Full-Cycle is for meaningful learning and thinking while the Half-Pipe is for rote learning or thinking fast.
“Creativity is an innate ability, and we have to get back to that,” Lewis said.
Good change management includes stakeholders during the entire change cycle. It engages everyone in the organization in the change process to address root problems. Sometimes the strategic improvement needed is so large that it requires multiple cycles of transformational change. Each generation funds the R&D for the next generation, Lewis explained.
According to Lewis, the ILEDEM Story Thinking change method when approaching projects includes:
“A problem can become an opportunity,” Lewis said.
Strategic planning is being challenged by the need for companies to operate faster and with greater agility, he explained. Change is happening so fast that leaders need to capture ideas conversationally within teams.
Given the non-linear growth patterns between our desire to influence versus our desire to understand, the “sophomore leader” emerges early as the leader in many organizations due to their leadership confidence. However, this can be dangerous as the sophomore leader doesn’t have enough experience to influence those around them even though they may have a great deal of knowledge, Lewis explained.
“Learning is not one-dimensional,” Lewis said.
The key is to operate from a learning-based model—where learning is not an “add-on” to business, but they way of business—and this is what Story Thinking is about.
3. 2021
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2. The Profundity and Bifurcation of Change: The Intelligent Social Change Journey?(5 book series) with Alex and David Bennet, Arthur Shelley, Theresa Bullard, and Donna Panucci
3. The Intelligent Social Change Journey: Foundation for the Possibilities that are YOU! with by Alex and David Bennet, Arthur Shelley, and Theresa Bullard
Kirkus Discoveries
Lewis poses the tantalizing proposition that poor results in education, innovation and policymaking are rooted in a breakdown between the rational mind and the fundamental models that govern institutions.
Lewis’s guide to the changing landscape of modern society calls for a new method of processing information.
The mental models that drive businesses, schools and government institutions are outdated, Lewis contends. In today’s economy, ideas are currency and creativity is essential to effective decision-making. So why rely on old, factory-inspired thought models from the Industrial Age? Lewis argues that it’s time to move into the “Explanation Age” with a new model more aligned with how the human mind actually learns. Drawing from the brainy field of epistemology, he aims to combine “First Philosophy” with today’s technologies. Doing so, Lewis says, will allow readers to recognize that explanations, not simply data and information, provide the foundation on which innovation stands.
Once we understand our own “Innate Lesson Cycle,” Lewis says, we’ll embrace mental models that produce pioneers and thought leaders rather than simply experts. Corporations will cultivate inventiveness, not just productiveness; Internet search engines will present explanations, not just data. Armed with tools like the “Options Outline,” policymakers will be able to untangle society’s most contentious issues, such as climate change.
Grasping the topics Lewis covers may require more than one reading, but his nimble style and simple analogies can make intimidating subjects more accessible, although readers may be put off by the book’s many diagrams, which sometimes stumble when translating complex ideas into visual form. This can be forgiven because the text never strays far from practical, real-world applications: Lewis applies his concepts to everything from how the Wright brothers built their airplane to the invention of the Post-it Note. His “8 Degrees of Reason,” alongside other models, illuminates not only how people learn but also, he says,?how you know what you know. Ultimately, wisdom still reigns, but it rests on lessons and decisions—not just data and knowledge.
An iconoclast’s blueprint for a new era of innovation.
Contents
Part I – Change
1. Story-based Change
2. Chancing Mindsets
3. Continuous Improvement
Part II – Learning
4. Continuous Feedback
5. Objective-based Learning
6. Continuous Learning
Part iii – Leadership
7. Leading Learning Organizations
8. Leading with Transparency
9. Collaborative Policymaking
Summary: Applying Story Thinking
Appendix: Model Comparisons
My Review
John Lewis has written an important new book on?story thinking?and sensemaking, including sections on change, learning, and leadership. The purpose of John's book is to prepare organizations for a fourth industrial revolution based on a new capacity to change and learn.??Story Thinking?can be applied by knowledge managers, change agents, learning professionals, and leaders of all kinds.
Thrilled to see John Lewis featured in your Profiles in Knowledge series! ?? As Albert Einstein once said, "The only source of knowledge is experience." John's innovative approach in blending business with learning exemplifies this beautifully. Keep up the fantastic work! ????
Congratulations John!! Well deserved!
Chief Knowledge Officer, Speaker, Author: Story Thinking
10 个月Thank You Stan, for such recognition and for your leadership within KM. I am truly blessed. Knowledge, Explanations, Learning, Stories – these are the fundamentals of management, education, and also this experience of being human. I have spent most of my professional life learning about these topics and adding my own discoveries as well. Perhaps it is because I really believe the theme of the 1964 New York World’s Fair, which I saw when I was only 6 years old: Peace Through Understanding.