It’s a Flat World in Singapore

When Aaron Maniam opened our reflections session at the Principles of Graphic Facilitation session in Singapore with a “double loop learning” graphic I was hit by just how flat our world has become.  He is a young strategist working for the Ministry of Trade’s Future Group. He had volunteered to lead the day two opening, and on his own framed the activity by asking his colleagues to share some single and double loop learning’s.

Aaron Matlam at PGC in Singapore

He didn’t reference Chris Argyris, who developed the concept. Memories of him at the Inventing the Future of Management conference in Half Moon Bay last year flashed through my mind. He’s in his 80s now and slowing down, but Aaron is young and speeding up, and here was this idea clear over here in Singapore. Aaron asked his colleagues what it meant. Many of them knew! Single loop learning includes the prima facie facts and understandings, someone said. Double loop learning includes reflecting on how we learn, and how we went about the process of getting the facts.
“Spend a little time in your journals identifying some examples of each,” Aaron suggested. “Then we will share them.” WOW. This fellow was skillful. The exchange session was sensitive and interesting. I had a new activity for my own tool chest! Not only were these strategists and learning and development participants in the workshop smart, they all speak English fluently, since that is Singapore’s official language. Some 50%of the country is Chinese but they don’t want to be seen as a direct extension of China.

A second experience flattened the world for me even more. Jason Bay is a colleague of Aaron’s, another young Singaporean who spent some time at Stanford in the early 2000’s. He came up at the break and said “do you now Geoff Ball?” “Do I now him!” I replied, “he was the person who first introduced me to Group Graphics back in the 1970s.”

“Well I sold my car to him in 2005 and he has an IM for you right here.” I looked down and there was a hello message from Geoff to Jason on his cell phone, asking him to say hi. Now how can the world get smaller?

Jason Bay Presents Roller Coaster Scenario

Later in the day Jason presented one of the graphics his breakout group had developed for a scenario about Singapore’s future called “The Roller coaster.” It shows China and the US as two dragons engaged in a tense competition, with the economy roaring up and down. Singapore’s trade is mostly to Europe and the United states, and it is being heavily effected by the economic downturn. The paper said December port use was off 20% from a year ago. This could mean a 3-5% contraction.

We are all interconnected, that is for sure. I love the idea of The Grove’s work taking root here on the other side of the world. Maybe it will help with the turnaround.