TALE: A Possible Theme called “Ecological Strategic Cognition”

The Ecological Practice Approach to Strategic Cognition

The above picture represents a Possible Theme called “Ecological Strategic Cognition”.

• Name: Ecological Strategic Cognition
• Clue: … (August 3) | Thinking, Doing, and Moving (August 4)
• Type: knowledge theme
• Contributors: …
• Related themes: Theory-based Reflection, Value Circle, Context (Mind), Early Discovery
• Reference: Mental Moves: The Attachacne Approach to Ecological Creative Cognition

The theme of “Ecological Strategic Cognition” was inspired by the Strategic Curation Model that was born from the Life Strategy project in Dec 2022. You can find more details in Life Strategy: Ecological Strategic Cognition.

I consider the Strategic Curation model as a new approach to Strategic Cognition which is about strategy-related thinking and doing. The new approach emphasizes the “thinking-doing” connection, spatial cognition, and temporal structure. Since the approach is based on the concept of “Thematic Spaces” which is a core idea of the Ecological Practice approach, I name it Ecological Strategic Cognition.

In Dec 2022, my primary focus was the possible book Advanced Life Strategy. The Strategic Curation model was developed as a map to visualize people’s thoughts about some strategy-related concepts or ideas in order to understand people’s predictive model.

Why do I return to the theme of “Ecological Strategic Cognition” today?

On July 31, I closed the Mental Moves project with a possible book titled Mental Moves: The Attachance Approach to Ecological Creative Cognition (Introduction, Table of Contents). In general, the book is about my reflection on Creativity.

Inspired by the book, I detached the theme of “Ecological Strategic Cognition” from the Life Strategy Center and attached it to TALE (Thematic Analysis Learning Engagement). Now we can see it as an independent knowledge element.

This article aims to highlight some ideas about the theme of “Ecological Strategic Cognition” for further discussion.

6A Aspects of Ecological Strategic Cognition

The term “Strategic Cognition” represents the Cognitive Perspective to theory building and empirical research in strategic management. Its focus is cognitive structures and processes in organizations. Some scholars also pay attention to the Top Management Team (TMT)’s cognitive style and bias.

For the Life Strategy project, I use “Strategic Cognition” to refer to strategy-related thinking and doing. Since the Life Strategy project’s primary unit of analysis is individual life development, I don’t have to consider the complexity of organizational structure. Thus, the term “Strategic Cognition” is very close to Rationality.

The Life Strategy project adopts the Anticipatory Activity System framework to study Advanced Life Strategy. The framework highlights two aspects of Strategic Cognition: Anticipation and Activity.

I also published the “5A” Slow cognition model on Oct 12, 2022. I use the following five keywords to summarize my creative pattern behind the journey of Slow Cognition:

• Aspirations
• Aspects
• Approaches
• Attachances
• Achievement

I consider Strategic Cognition as a process of Slow Cognition.

Inspired by the above two frameworks, I use the following six words to emphasize aspects of Ecological Strategic Cognition.

• Anticipation (Aspirations — Achievement)
• Activity (strategy as a process of discovery and performance)
• Approach (knowledge for strategic thinking)
• Affection (the emotional aspect of strategic activity)
• Affordance (material opportunities for immediate thinking and doing)
• Attachance (strategy as moving between thematic spaces)

Ecological Strategic Cognition is about Rationality and Intelligence, as well as Anticipation, Activity, Approach, Affection, Affordance, and Attachance. These 6A aspects of Ecological Strategic Cognition point to a new approach to Strategy-related thinking and doing.

Thematic Spaces of Strategic Activities

A core idea of Ecological Strategic Cognition is the concept of Thematic Space.

Originally, I only considered the five-space model for Strategic Curation Activity. Inspired by the Mental Moves: The Attachance Approach to Ecological Creative Cognition, I realized that there are more thematic spaces for strategic-related thinking and doing.

• Three-space model: The ECHO Way, The 5A Slow Cognition Model
• Five-space model: The Strategic Curation Model, The Ecological Transformation Framework
• Seven-space model: The Kinds of Project Engagement model
• Sixteen-space model: The Thematic Matrix Canvas
• Eighteen-space model: The Platform Genidentity Matrix

I have developed many knowledge models or knowledge frameworks. Some of them are based on the concept of thematic spaces. See the above list. Though these models were not initially developed for strategic activities, we could use them for strategy-related thinking and doing.

This is a significant insight!

Thinking, Doing, and Moving

The concept of Thematic Space is a core idea of the Ecological Practice approach which is inspired by Ecological Psychology, Activity Theory, and some social practice theories.

If we return to the Ecological Practice approach, we will find the following connection:

Thematic Space = Cognitive Container

The concept of Container is the primary concept of the Ecological Practice approach. It refers to the unit of analysis: “Container (Containee)”.

In a broad sense, the Ecological Practice approach has its philosophical roots in traditional Pragmatism and contemporary embodied cognitive science.

In 1942, Stephen C. Pepper pointed out that there are four root metaphors of world views or conceptual systems: formism, mechanism, contextualism, and organicism in World Hypotheses: a study of evidence. In 1987, Altman and Rogoff reviewed the world views of psychologists and suggested a similar typology: trait, interactional, organismic, and transactionalism.

Source: Michael Mascolo

According to Harry Heft (2012), the foundation of various ecological approaches to psychology is transactionalism, “Frameworks more sympathetic to ecological thinking had been simmering among psychology’s early writings, notably in William James’ radical empiricism and Kurt Lewin’s field theory, but became realized only in the 1960s through the works of James J. Gibson, Roger G. Barker, and others. These frameworks share many of the assumptions of the ecological sciences and, collectively, can be located within a transactional worldview.”

The major difference between the interactional worldview and the transactionalism worldview is their unit of analysis.

• Interactional worldview: The unit of analysis is the individual viewed as a bounded, independent entity, operating separately from the surrounding, while subject to influences from outside its boundaries.
• Transactionalism worldview: The unit of analysis is the person-environment dynamic system. The components of this system operate in a relational, interdependent manner, rather than as independent entities.

The Ecological Practice approach adopts the Transactionalism worldview and its unit of analysis is the person-environment dynamic system. In this way, Strategic Cognition is an unfolding process of developing strategy-related mindsets and tacit knowledge in the real world.

Moreover, Ecological Strategic Cognition emphasizes the notion of “Moving” because it is related to “Points of Observation” and “Significant Insights”.

Inspired by James J. Gibson’s ecological psychology, I use the term “Points of Observation” to build a typology of Perspectives:

• Theoretical Perspectives: they are based on theoretical approaches. They are not based on our practical interests and points of observation.
• Practical Perspectives: they are determined by our practical interests, not by theoretical approaches and points of observation.
• Ecological Perspectives: they come from the changes in our points of observation.

There are three aspects behind the above typology of perspectives. If we reorganize these ideas and consider two stages such as I SEE IT and I WANT IT, we can develop a new heuristic tool.

The I SEE IT stage is about Discovery while the I WANT IT stage is about Decision.

The I SEE IT stage focuses on the Strategic Discovery Activity and its primary outcome is the Significant Insights.

How does a Significant Insight lead to a new action or a new activity?

This question indicates the I WANT IT stage where we consider Practical Interests, Present Capabilities, and Present Resources for our present decisions.

The Ecological Practice Approach

The Ecological Practice approach is a radical account with its transactional worldview. The approach is inspired by ideas from multiple disciplines. Thus, it is an interdisciplinary study itself. However, the Ecological Practice approach has its own focus: ecological complexity, which means the relationship between “the structure and dynamic of environments” and “human action and social practice”.

The term “ecological” of “ecological practice” refers to Gibson’s scientific research on the relationship between organisms and environments and his philosophical stance “ecological realism”.

According to Edward S. Reed(1988), “Gibson’s psychology united experience and action, whereas James’s psychology had applied only to experience and Holt’s only to action…For Gibson, the pragmatists’ extension of the concept of experience to include activity and knowing as well as the simpler forms of feeling had to be accompanied by an extension of the concept of reality to include more than physical entities.” (pp.53–54)

The term “practice” of “ecological practice” refers to Donald Schön’s distinction between action and practice. Schön used reflecting-in-action for immediate situations while reflecting-in-practice refers to cross-situation level.

Thus, the “ecological practice” is inspired by ecological psychology but goes beyond it in order to cover both immediate situational actions and cross-situational practice.

From 2019 to the present, I have developed several versions of the Ecological Practice approach. The following three models of the approach can be used to understand different levels of Ecological Strategic Cognition.

Strategic Situation at Micro Level

The germ cell of the Ecological Practice Approach (see the diagram below) can be used to understand Strategic Situations at the micro level.

The above diagram combines three core concepts of the Ecological Practice approach together: Affordance, Attachance, and Containance. The term “Offers” is an affordance-inspired concept, it refers to opportunities afforded by the Container. The group of “Offer — Act” forms “Event” which changes the status of the Container. The new status of the Container affords new opportunities which guide new acts and events.

Strategic Field at Meso Level

We can use Strategic Field or other words to name the meso level of Ecological Strategic Cognition.

At this level, we can use the following models:

• Three-space model: The ECHO Way, The 5A Slow Cognition Model
• Five-space model: The Strategic Curation Model, The Ecological Transformation Framework
• Seven-space model: The Kinds of Project Engagement model

For example, the diagram below represents the ECHO Way. Three spaces mean two actual containers and one potential container.

If you have read my previous articles, you know this diagram is the basis of When X Meets Y (WXMY) and HERO U. I named the potential container (Container Z) Echozone which refers to a creative space containing echoes between Container X and the Container Y.

The Echozone is located at the field level of the Ecological Practice Approach.

For Ecological Strategic Cognition, ECHOZONE can be a space for Collaboration, Competition, or Transformation.

You can find more details about it in The ECHO Way (v2.0).

Strategic Landscape at Macro Level

I use “Landscape” to name the macro level of the Ecological Practice Approach.

Based on the concept of Container, I coined two related ideas: Network and Platform. The Network refers to the pre-container status which means pieces loose coupling outside the container. The Platform refers to the post-container status which means pieces loose coupling within the super large container. These three ideas form a triad: Network — Container — Platform. I consider the triad as the basic form of collective contexts.

The Landscape of Ecological Practice Approach

The above diagram represents a large map of the ecological practice approach. Here we see three basic types of collective context and attaching/detaching acts inside contexts and between contexts.

The “Network — Container — Platform” schema is an abstract model. We need to translate it into concrete models for particular knowledge challenges. For example, I developed the following model for Platform for Development in 2021.

The Ecological Practice approach doesn’t have a concept of “Project”.

However, we can consider a Project as a Container at the concrete practical level because Project is a social container that has a clear boundary. We can deal with the concept of Platform-ba in the same way. The Platform-ba can be considered a Network because the human activities of a group of people can be understood from the perspective of the social network and the network of activity.

You can find more details in Platform, Platform-ba, and Platform Ecology.

For Ecological Strategic Cognition, the “Network — Container — Platform” schema offers a simple solution for understanding the Structure and Dynamics of Social Ecology.