Ithuta JV

Source - Article by Bob Andrew

The famous English Franciscan friar and philosopher Roger Bacon (c. 1214-1294) must have worked in project management. In a well known quotation of his, he stated a critical factor that is relevant to managing a project team or any team: “there are in fact four very different stumbling blocks in the way of grasping the truth...the example of weak and unworthy authority, longstanding custom, the feeling of the ignorant crowd, and the hiding of our own ignorance while making a display of our apparent knowledge”.

Roger Bacon was also known as Doctor Mirabilis (Latin: ‘wonderful teacher’) as he constantly taught all around him the importance of the scientific method and the use of empirical methods. He distinguished between experience, which he defined as knowledge of ‘singular’ things, and experimentation, which he saw as knowledge gained by observation and intellectual reasoning. For him, there are only two ways to acquire knowledge: reasoning and experience. Reasoning allows a conclusion to be drawn, but does not make the conclusion certain. The conclusion only becomes certain if it is proved or discovered by experience. The strongest arguments prove nothing so long as the conclusions are not verified by experience. Bacon was far ahead of his time in his advocacy of experimentation, insisting on observing things for himself instead of depending on what someone else had written or spoke about.

Bacon’s work pioneered the scientific method and in many ways was the forerunner of many modern management techniques, like adaptive management and action learning.

Adaptive management (often described as ‘a spoonful of rigour to help the uncertainty go down’) is a structured iterative process of decision making and continual monitoring to accrue information needed to make the next decisions. One of the key features of adaptive management is the continual exploration for fresher and deeper discovery for learning, unlearning and relearning for what is needed to confidently engage the future. There is a willingness to endure discomfort and disequilibrium, to try new things, to risk failure and have the courage to challenge existing ‘successful’ models of leadership.

Action learning relies on action, and knowledge gained by that action, to improve performance. It is essentially learning-by-doing and teaching through observation, examples and repetitions, exactly what Roger bacon was saying in the 13th century.