Bi-weekly reflections from the field. Exploring the tensions, questions, and ways of knowing that shape how we lead, communicate, and build organizations.
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Entry #2 - On different ways of knowing: who is included and excluded?
Published 26 days ago • 4 min read
A shot of Purpose
On different ways of knowing: who is included and excluded?
If we are to understand curiosity as a refusal of power structures and entrenched ways of doing and knowing, what does that reveal about how we know and what we do? As I continue to explore the effects of curiosity, I think back to the beginning of my career. A fresh graduate with limited working experience, I sat in front of leaders with feelings and intuitions. When I was asked to contribute to strategies, I spoke not from a place of objective and factual knowing, but from a place of intuition. Countless times I was shut down, only to be proven correct a few weeks or months later. Asking questions out of curiosity was tolerated, but adding language to the sacred process of sense-making was often rejected. Only now do I begin to realize that this wasn’t about inexperience but about which kinds of knowing were allowed to speak.
There is a plane that we work on in the arts which exists between observation and sense-making. A space that evades language but is rich with knowledge. Thanks to Joan Thanks to Joan Mulvihill’s thought leadership, I encountered Dr. Chris Seeley’s work, who coined the idea of artful knowing – language that describes this liminal space.
Seeley talks about ‘Artful Organizations’ and ‘Artful Knowing’, concepts that embrace alternative ways of knowing. Her ideas are rooted in Heron & Reason’s work which divides the knowing into four different categories: experiential, presentational, propositional and practical. Art happens when we make sense of experiences through intuition, poetry, physical embodiment, and other non-propositional ways of knowing. For example, an actor will know when a moment is right without needing to name it or a leader will feel that the team is misaligned before data confirms it.
Illustration of the four ways of knowing by Heron & Reason
When do we see this type of knowing in business?
Our knowledge primarily rests on the propositional and practical plane – theories, concept, guides, spreadsheets, data, and step-by-step instructions guide our decision-making and strategies. Leadership often rejects someone’s opinion if they are not grounded in so-called facts and hard data. While there is merit to wanting to back up a strategy with facts and figures, we are excluding a significant portion of our working population.
An executive with 30+ years of experience will have built up a store of knowledge, inklings, and pattern recognition that can’t easily be explained by hard data. They will describe a ‘gut feeling’ that led them to a conclusion. When was the last time “gut” was celebrated in business – not as instinct alone, but as accumulated, embodied expertise?
Curiosity cuts beneath the spreadsheets and data to reveal the underlying assumptions and entrenched ways of knowing. I wonder if following curiosity and presentational knowing is one of the keys to unlocking innovation and more human business practices.
The problem is not that artful knowing is unreliable, but that it is politically inconvenient.
When we have to explain our knowledge, we lose complexity.
The wondrous aspect about experiencing art is that there is no right or wrong way to interpret a piece. However an audience member receives and perceives an artwork, piece of music, or play is the right way for them. There is complexity and depth when an artist doesn’t overexplain the piece.
This complexity in business is flattened by hierarchies and the prioritization of propositional and practical knowing. When we priotize this way of being, we exclude the juniors who have inklings and feelings free from years of conditioning and seniors who are experienced enough to have gut feelings, yet are often discouraged from voicing them.
Our ancestors had amazing abilities to retain stories, transmit oral narratives and histories. Frances A. Yates wrote about these abilities in her work The Art of Memory. She describes a level of imagination and focus our ancestors had to build memory palaces and situate characters in vast imaginary spaces to draw from them when relaying the wisdom of times passed. She traces the decline of these practices throughout history to the dawn of the printing press and beginning of industrialization.
We have outsourced this incredible ability of imagination in our age of hyperproductivity. Now we give our thoughts to AI and note apps to free up mental capacity to draw out even more information and add language to our experiences that everyone can understand. The fight to get back in touch with our intuition will become an uphill battle.
Can we learn from artists’ way of sense-making and embracing knowledge to live more curiously in our businesses and drive innovation?
I see these dynamics in small teams and moments between managers and managed, or personal conversations before the board meeting when a leader can be approached and convinced. But rarely do these dynamics seem to play out in the larger context of a business.
What might become possible if we trusted ways of knowing before language arrives?
With curiosity,
Sebastian
PS: This research practice is ongoing and you can find the resources that have inspired this entry below. If there are any types of sources that come to your mind as you read, please share them. All is welcome, from recordings, poems, and fragments, to fully fledged podcasts, books, and journals.
If you have questions or suggestions, please reply to this email! If you know of someone who might enjoy this content, share A Shot of Purpose with them.
Sources:
Seeley, Chris with Thornhill, Ellen.
Artful Knowing and Artful Organizations. 2014.
(Referenced in relation to alternative ways of knowing in organizations, particularly presentational and artistic forms of sense-making that operate beyond propositional and practical knowledge.)
(Referenced as the point of introduction to Chris Seeley’s work and as a source of ongoing inquiry into creativity, leadership, and the intersection of arts and business.)
Bi-weekly reflections from the field. Exploring the tensions, questions, and ways of knowing that shape how we lead, communicate, and build organizations.
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