CONTACTS 
0201 - Chips & Tech.                      408 434 0600
020101 - Mr. Morris E. Jones
020102 - Sr. Vice President =4283 Ext
0202 - PG&E Grid Customer Services        415 973 1014 fax 8426
020201 - Mr. Bill DeHart, PMP
020202 - Project Manager =415 973 1014 pger 510 472 2288; Project Management

SUBJECTS
Tape Recording Meetings to Evaluate SDS
Psychologically Demanding to Discover Error
SDS Pressures Performance and Guides it
Story Brain Stores Linkages of Data to
Ignorance, Fear, Denial
Raise Issues Not Temperatures
Hero SDS Record Helps People Solve Problems by Providing Useful Intel

1209 -    ..
1210 - Summary/Objective
1211 -
121101 - Follow up ref SDS 40 0000, ref SDS 39 0000.
121102 -
121103 - Seem to have made progress this evening overcoming the erroneous idea
121104 - that the SDS record should contain only "facts," but must, as well,
121105 - provide context to produce a "story" that is comprehensible, without
121106 - hurting anyone's feelings.  Concerns about "accuracy" seem to reflect
121107 - unease about, and desire to avoid, the appearance of having overlooked
121108 - background and options that warrant consideration.  There was no
121109 - discussion of SDS directory structure for developing an SDS Windows
121110 - program.
121111 -
121112 -
121113 -
121114 -
121115 -  ..
1212 -
1213 -
1214 - Discussion
1215 -   ..
121501 - I initially called Bill DeHart to get his input on the dilemma
121502 - of people saying they want only the facts, but do not want a
121503 - transcript because it is too big and discursive, so a judgement has to
121504 - be made about what to capture and some context is needed to give it
121505 - meaning, as discussed with Morris on 970125. ref SDS 40 459H
121506 -
121507 - Bill seemed to agree that the SDS record needs to tell a "story" that
121508 - has meaning, also, discussed on 970125. ref SDS 40 U24N
121509 -
121510 - He feels a little frustrated by the difficulty of explaining this
121511 - distinction.
121512 -
121513 -
121514 -
121515 -
1216 -
1217 -
1218 - 0929 called Morris
1219 -   ..
121901 - Explained my concern from our discussion on Saturday, that
121902 - Morris' frustration with the SDS record seems to present an insoluable
121903 - challenge.
121904 -
121905 - Morris initially suggested segmenting analysis and strategy from the
121906 - facts of the meeting.  He recalled being disappointed at seeing in the
121907 - SDS record of our meeting on 970106 a reference to Tom Landauer,
121908 - ref SDS 36 ME6M, because he feels strongly that we did not discuss
121909 - Landauer at that time.  The SDS reference to Landauer says:
121910 -
121911 -       Morris and I discussed ["meaning drift"] last July when we
121912 -       reviewed Tom Landauer's paper on LSA "knowledge acquisition"
121913 -
121914 -   ...and further on 970116, ref SDS 36 UJ4G, the 970116 record says
121915 -   about Landauer:
121916 -       ..
121917 -       Subject identification is discussed in Tom Landauer's
121918 -       paper on "Plato's Problem"   Morris reported having read it to
121919 -       prepare for his presentation at Asilomar, and we discussed it a
121920 -       little on 960721. ref SDS 29 1812  A key finding Landauer makes
121921 -       is that word and word pattern meanings change over time based on
121922 -       circumstance,
121923 -
121924 - These examples illustrate the SDS record process of aligning current
121925 - considerations and providing context to show continuity of prior
121926 - thought and action, essential to effective leadership.  It is
121927 - difficult to recognize how this context does anything but assist the
121928 - busy executive, the busy mind, as Wayne Wetzel related on 911205 in
121929 - explaining advantage of executive support enabled by SDS. ref SDS 3
121930 - 8402
121931 - ..
121932 - Morris suggested this evening that we create a function in the
121933 - new SDS program that color codes "analysis" and "strategy" so it can
121934 - be extracted in some reports.
121935 -
121936 -
121937 -  ..
121938 - Com Manager Sensitive to Feelings Everybody a Hero
121939 -
121940 - We considered the benefit of Communication Managers to provide context
121941 - from alignment with original sources, because busy executives do not
121942 - have enough time to perform research.
121943 -
121944 - Morris seemed to indicate that this is valuable, but he wants to avoid
121945 - distribution of records showing executives may have overlooked key
121946 - correlations and implications, to lower staff and to those outside the
121947 - organization. He noted that SDS provides a powerful forum for advocacy
121948 - which is not available to others.  It causes fear, anger and
121949 - frustration by executives, who otherwise feel good about their skills,
121950 - decisions and effectiveness, because they are ignorant of
121951 - correlations, implications and nuance that analysis and alignment in
121952 - SDS reveals.
121953 - ..
121954 - The Com Manager role to raise issues not temperatures, as we
121955 - discussed on 950909. ref SDS 16 XL7H
121956 -
121957 - Effective intelligence must be accurate, while, also, sensitive to
121958 - feelings.  The Communication Manager makes the customer "feel good" by
121959 - looking good and being the hero in the record.  Generally, the aim is
121960 - to avoid causing anyone to feel bad or look foolish.
121961 -
121962 - SDS records for offical events are prepared with this in mind.  An
121963 - example can be seen from the record on 960715 reporting results of the
121964 - Asilomar Conference, which says in part....
121965 -
121966 -       Pete Offringa gave a solid explanation of leadership practices.
121967 -       ref SDS 24 EJ6J
121968 -       ..
121969 -       Doug Ballon did a good job of condensing his 3 day seminar
121970 -       on Covey. ref SDS 24 QL4F
121971 -
121972 -       ...Russ gave an excellent presentation on project management.
121973 -       ref SDS 24 1352
121974 -
121975 -       ...David Buoncristiani did a great job. ref SDS 24 0866
121976 -
121977 -       ...David [Vannier's] delivery was outstanding in explaining the
121978 -       challenge of technology to help leaders deal with the complexity
121979 -       of modern management. ref SDS 24 1123
121980 -
121981 -       Morris Jones was very effective on Obstacles to Leadership.
121982 -       ref SDS 23 0990
121983 - ..
121984 - Even though Asilomar did not meet some objectives, the feelings
121985 - of speakers were supported.  Similarly, at PG&E and recently at the
121986 - Corps of Engineers this need was recognized in notes of official
121987 - meetings. Morris said he read notes of a meeting for the Oakland
121988 - Harbor project, which I sent a few months ago, as information.  He
121989 - recalled this evening that it was well done.  He complimented the
121990 - writing.  I was suprised because when I have sent sample reports he
121991 - has advised they were not received, or were too garbled by the
121992 - Internet for him to read.
121993 - ..
121994 - He asked why the Port of Oakland turned against Communication
121995 - Metrics?
121996 -
121997 - I explained that the Port of Oakland has a contractual relationship
121998 - with the Corps of Engineers on the Oakland Harbor project which gives
121999 - them a duty to perform politically sensitive environmental work that
122000 - impacts the Contractor's ability to perform its work.  This narrow
122001 - operational responsibility had two dynamics: (1) they criticized Corps
122002 - of Engineers management in meetings with the Contractor which posed
122003 - potential liability for COE and harmed its ability to administer the
122004 - contract; and (2) the Port seems to have issued verbal instructions to
122005 - the Contractor at meetings which conflict with agreements they made
122006 - with the EPA.  SDS records showed that COE management was professional
122007 - and revealed the Port's conduct.  As a result, the Port maintained
122008 - that the SDS record was not needed.
122009 - ..
122010 - I explained the goal of the notes for our meeting on 970116 was
122011 - to convey information which he asked about, i.e., define
122012 - "fractionalized subjects" and figure out how to help busy people deal
122013 - with them. Distinguishing how much of the answer was conveyed during
122014 - our discusiosn and how much was from prior and collateral sources
122015 - seems less important than presenting the information so we can jointly
122016 - consider it in building a better tool.
122017 -
122018 - This, however, seems to be an erroneous perspective.  In some cases in
122019 - order for people to address the substance of an idea, the idea must be
122020 - presented in a manner that does not make them feel uneasy.
122021 -
122022 - Upon discussion, Morris seemed to recognize it is much easier to ask
122023 - that the record be segmented into facts, analysis and strategy than it
122024 - is to prepare such a record, because people do not want a verbatim
122025 - transcript and so it is necessary to provide context to fulfill the
122026 - mind's penchant for storing information in comprehensible stories.
122027 - ..
122028 - The Communication Manager therefore must write more palatable
122029 - stories.
122030 -
122031 -
122032 -
122033 -
122034 -
122035 -
122036 -
122037 -
122038 -
122039 -
122040 -
122041 -
1221 -