Gurteen Knowledge Letter December 2022 Issue 270

Gurteen Knowledge Letter
Issue 270 – December 2022

As we approach the end of another year, I would like to wish all of you a wonderful holiday season and a prosperous New Year.

I have been publishing this newsletter since May 2000. Yes, that’s over 22 years! There are still quite a few of you who have been receiving it all that time. Here is the first issue – as you can see, it has changed quite a bit in format and content.

1. The amazing ChatGPT will blow your mind
   The only way to truly appreciate it is to check it out
2. Webinar Recording: Introduction to Conversational Leadership
   A short webinar
3. Talk enough but no conversation
   Conversing is different from talking
4. LessWrong: Aiming to be less wrong about the world than the day before
   Improving human reasoning and decision-making
5. History of Conversational Leadership
   1985 to today
6. The simple power of complex stories
   Thaler Pekar | TEDxTralee Ireland
7. Academic papers on the Knowledge Café
   Using the Knowledge Café in academia
8. Help Keep My Work Alive
9. Unsubscribe
10. Gurteen Knowledge Letter

If you have been reading all the hype about ChatGPT and are a little skeptical like I was, go try it out.

I started by asking it some simple questions, such as the one below, and was impressed by the answers.

"What is Conversational Leadership?" gave me this:

Conversational leadership is a style of leadership that involves actively engaging with team members through open, honest, and respectful communication. It emphasizes the importance of dialogue, collaboration, and relationship-building in order to create a positive and productive work environment.

Conversational leadership differs from traditional leadership styles in that it values the input and ideas of team members and encourages them to participate in decision-making processes. It also involves actively listening to and addressing the concerns and needs of team members, and fostering a culture of trust and transparency.

This style of leadership can be effective in a variety of settings, including business, education, and government, and is particularly well-suited to fast-paced, dynamic environments where quick decisions and collaboration are key.

Credit: ChatGPT

I then asked it to write some WordPress PHP code for me and was shell-shocked. It returned perfect commented code in less than a minute, which would have taken me an hour to write and debug and even longer when I was less familiar with WordPress.

For example, I asked it to create a WordPress shortcode that retrieves a Wikipedia summary. It returned perfect code in less than a minute. When I wrote similar code myself a few months ago - it took me the best part of a day.

ChatGPT will have a massive impact on my productivity in further developing the WordPress site that underpins this blog/newsletter/blook and my writing. I doubt I will copy text verbatim, but if I do, I will credit it to ChatGPT. And in the same way, as I clip articles and blog posts to Evernote to inform my thinking, I will do the same with ChatGPT.

ChatGPT is not perfect but make no mistake, although it is hard to predict its impact, it is undoubtedly a game-changer.

Here is an excellent article where you can learn more about ChatGPT - What is it, what is it good at, and will it replace Google? but as I said above, go try it out.

John Hovell,  Saule Menane, Donita Volkwijn, and I recently gave a webinar introducing  Conversational Leadership. We were delighted that over 170 people registered from 40 countries, and 70 people participated - a big thank you if you joined us live.

However, if you missed the webinar or could not make it, here is the recording.

In the new year, we are running a 5-part-day online workshop on Conversational Leadership - you can find complete information and register here.

An Early Bird Discount of 25% is available if you book before December 31st.

More and more, I am starting to differentiate between talk and conversation, although in everyday usage, I use the words interchangeably.

I also write less about talking and more about conversing. So much so, as I edit my blook, I am replacing talk and talking with converse and conversing where appropriate.

Samuel Johnson made a similar distinction in the 18th century.

We had talk enough, but no conversation; there was nothing discussed.

Credit: Samuel Johnson

So what is the difference? David Weinberger suggested a difference in the Cluetrain Manifesto:

To have a conversation, you have to be comfortable being human - acknowledging you don't have all the answers, being eager to learn from someone else and to build new ideas together.

You can only have a conversation if you're not afraid of being wrong.

Otherwise, you're not conversing, you're just declaiming, speechifying, or reading what's on the PowerPoints.

To converse, you have to be willing to be wrong in front of another person.

Conversations occur between equals.

The time your boss's boss asked you at a meeting about your project's deadline was not a conversation.

The time you sat with your boss for an hour in the Polynesian-themed bar while on a business trip and you really talked, got past the corporate bullshit, told each other the truth about the dangers ahead, and ended up talking about your kids - that maybe was a conversation.

Credit: David Weinberger

And in my blook, I distinguish between what I call real conversation and conversation in an everyday sense - in other words talking.

In drawing this distinction, I have realized just how few real conversations we have; in fact, I'd venture to say that some people go their whole lives having talk enough but no conversation.

LessWrong is an online forum and community dedicated to improving human reasoning and decision-making.

We seek to hold true beliefs and to be effective at accomplishing our goals.

Each day, we aim to be less wrong about the world than the day before.

Credit: LessWrong

Like me, you may find this a fascinating website. I love the idea of working each day to be a little less wrong about the world. It has undoubtedly been my objective to make better sense of the world these last few years.

I have been developing and writing about the concept of Conversational Leadership since early 2014, but the term has been in use since at least 1985.

In this post, in my blook, I attempt to trace its history.

You may enjoy this TEDx talk by Thaler Pekar about The simple power of complex stories and the kind of stories that are most likely to build trust and overcome resistance.

The idea reminds me a little of the work of Ellen Langer, which I mention in a post in my blook about speaking with less conviction.

Since I developed the concept of the Knowledge Café and started running it 20 years ago in 2002, a few academics have picked up on the idea and used it for teaching, learning, and sharing knowledge among students and lecturers alike. It has also been used in research.

These experiments with the Café have been very successful. I am surprised the Café has not been widely adopted in academia, especially given Eric Mazur's work at Harvard on peer instruction.

You will find a small collection of papers written by these academics here, along with a few reports and articles about the Knowledge Café.

Help Keep My Work Alive
For almost 25 years, I’ve been sharing the Gurteen Knowledge Letter each month, and many of you have been reading it for five years or more. My Knowledge Café also reached a milestone, celebrating its 20th anniversary in September 2022.

If my work has made a difference to you, I’d be grateful if you could consider supporting it. A small monthly donation or any one-off contribution would greatly help cover some of my website hosting costs.

Thank you to the 50+ patrons who already support me – your generosity means a lot.

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Gurteen Knowledge Letter

The Gurteen Knowledge Letter is a free monthly email newsletter designed to inspire thinking around Conversational Leadership and Knowledge Management. You can explore the archive of past issues here.

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Feel free to share, copy, or reprint any part of this newsletter with friends, colleagues, or clients, as long as it's not for resale or profit and includes proper attribution. If you have any questions, please get in touch with me.

David Gurteen
Gurteen Knowledge
Fleet, United Kingdom

Gurteen Knowledge Letter November 2022

Gurteen Knowledge Letter January 2023