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Originally published December 6, 2023

Stan Garfield
19 min readDec 7, 2023

This is the 98th article in the Profiles in Knowledge series featuring thought leaders in knowledge management. John Lewis is a CKO, consultant, speaker, author, and coach on the topics of knowledge management, organizational learning, and leadership. He is a scholar-practitioner who has pioneered new business and learning models, found in his books, The Explanation Age and Story Thinking.

John has worked for several leading global organizations and his career highlights include launching GPS satellites and being recognized by Gartner with an industry best practice paper for a knowledge management implementation. He earned his doctorate degree in educational psychology from the University of Southern California, with a dissertation focus on mental models and decision making. John lives in Glen Allen, Virginia.

Background

Education

  • University of Southern California — Doctorate, Educational Psychology and Technology, 1993–1997
  • San Jose State University — Master’s, Education / Instructional Technology, 1987–1989
  • Towson University — Bachelor’s, Mass Communications, 1980–1982
  • College of Southern Maryland — Associate, Computer Programming, 1978–1980

Experience

  • Explanation Age LLC — Chief Story Thinker/Owner/CKO, 2009 — Present
  • SearchBlox Software, Inc. — Chief Knowledge Officer, 2021–2023
  • Iknow LLC — Knowledge Management / Change Management / Leadership Specialist, 2016–2021
  • Kent State University — Adjunct Faculty, 2012–2020
  • The CoHero Institute — Co-founder / Leadership Coach, 2013–2019
  • Capital One
  1. Senior Manager, eCommerce, 2005–2009
  2. Head, Knowledge Systems, 1999–2005
  • PwC — Principal Consultant, 1998–1999
  • Penn State University Applied Research Laboratory — Research Faculty Member / Consultant, 1995–1998
  • Adobe — Manager of Instructional Design, 1994–1995
  • Sun Microsystems — Project Manager, 1990–1994
  • Lockheed Martin — Manager, CBT, 1983–1990

Profiles

Lifeboat Foundation

John Lewis is Digital Learning and Knowledge Strategist and Owner at Explanation Age. He is a member of the Review Board for the Journal of Knowledge Management and Associate Editor of the Journal of Innovation Management. John is also a founding member of EBLI (Evidence-Based Learning Institute), where has served as its President.

His research interests are in cognitive psychology, educational psychology, and organizational psychology. His unified model for learning and change, ADIIEA, is the first strategic business model designed specifically to support a learning organization. This unified model is featured in his book Story Thinking: Transforming Organizations for the Fourth Industrial Revolution with replacement models for Bloom’s Taxonomy, Double-Loop Learning, Six Sigma, and Policy Making.

At SearchBlox, John served as Chief Knowledge Officer and provides thought leadership on insight engines and cognitive computing. Their enterprise search products securely deliver the right data to the user. John was at Iknow as Change Management and Leadership Specialist and was Co-founder and Leadership Coach at The CoHero Institute for Collaborative Change Leadership.

John earned his Doctor of Education Degree in Educational Psychology from the University of Southern California, with a dissertation focus on mental models and decision making. He earned his Master of Arts Degree in Instructional Design and Technology from San Jose State University and received its outstanding graduate research award. He earned his Bachelor of Science Degree in Mass Communications with a Mathematics minor from Towson University and an Associate of Arts Degree in Computer Programming from the College of Southern Maryland. He also earned a Six Sigma Certification (Green Belt).

Previously, John worked for several leading global organizations including Adobe Systems as Manager of the Instructional Design, for PricewaterhouseCoopers as Principal Consultant, for Capital One as the Head of Call Center Knowledge Systems, for Lockheed Martin as Lead Instructional Designer, and for the Applied Research Lab at Penn State University.

As a consultant, he was acknowledged by Gartner with a business KM Best Practice paper and has delivered a Thought Leader presentation at the Canadian Society for Training and Development conference, and a Masters Series presentation at the International Society for Performance Improvement Conference.

KMWorld

John Lewis, Ed.D. is a speaker and mindset coach for change, learning, and leadership. He has authored the books, The Explanation Age (beyond the information age) and Story Thinking (beyond storytelling). John was the Chief Knowledge Officer at SearchBlox Software Inc., where he brought his expertise to enhance the enterprise search journey. He is also on the advisory board with the Lifeboat Foundation, a member of IIKI (International Institute for Knowledge and Innovation), and an associate editor for Leadership and Organizational Behavior with the Journal of Innovation Management.

His unified model of change represents the fundamental structure of stories, and encompasses a majority of earlier models, including Kahneman, Kolb, Kotter, and Kubler-Ross. It solves for the “fragmentation” problem described by Peter Senge and fulfills on the quote by W. Edwards Deming: “We will never transform the prevailing system of management without transforming our prevailing system of education. They are the same system.”

Information Today

John Lewis is a leadership coach, teacher, and speaker, with a background in psychology and experience in Big 4 management consulting. He has also been an adjunct professor on the topics of organizational learning, thought leadership, and knowledge and innovation management. His book, The Explanation Age, was described by Kirkus Reviews as “An iconoclast’s blueprint for a new era of innovation.”

John was a co-founder of The CoHero Institute for Collaborative Change Leadership. He facilitated team workshops and teaches the certification program for Change Leaders and Change Coaches. He also provided coaching for the CoHero Leadership Profile assessment which helped leaders understand their strengths related to leading change. John has a certificate in Leadership Coaching with The John Maxwell Team and a certificate in Six Sigma.

John delivered a keynote presentation at the International Conference on Interdisciplinary Research Studies. He also spoke at the Georgetown University Institute for Transformational Leadership Conference, the International Conference on Intellectual Capital, and the European Conference on Knowledge Management.

Content

  1. Story Thinking Cycle (Innate Lesson Cycle)
  2. Option Outline
  3. 8 Degrees of Reason
  4. The Symbiotic Table of Knowledge
  1. The Bifurcation: The Choice. A Self Readiness Assessment to prepare for the profound choice facing humankind today
  2. Presentation: The Explanation Architecture for General Artificial Intelligence
  1. Enough information already: Bring on the Explanation Age with Art Murray
  2. The curious case of a broken crumb trail with Art Murray
  3. Bringing together innovation, learning and people with Art Murray

K4DP: Knowledge for Development Partnership

I was just 6 years old when I attended the 1964 New York World’s Fair, but I remember seeing the fair’s theme which was prominently displayed: “Peace Through Understanding.” The memory that stands out for me was not the amusement park rides or cotton candy, but the questions I had at an early age about this event: “Is peace such a difficult goal, and don’t we already have an understanding?” Over the years, the answers have become more apparent: “yes” and “no.”

To reach a shared understanding, “Knowledge for Development” cannot be just another knowledge-sharing program — it needs to provide transparency into the “process” that creates and defends knowledge — particularly the policymaking process. When a cognitive model of policymaking is directly compared to the practices of politics, we begin to see the difference between sensemaking and corruption, and the difference between a knowledge-driven policymaker and a politician. One such cognitive model is called ADIIEA (pronounced uh-dee-uh), based on the six phases of the change cycle: Automation, Disruption, Investigation, Ideation, Expectation, and Affirmation. Using this cognitive modelling approach towards a shared understanding, we find that knowledge is just an output, and policy is just a type of knowledge that defines a mandated routine.

A knowledge society requires shared values and a shared understanding of the natural storytelling pattern behind lessons and change, from which knowledge is derived. And shared understanding within this cognitive model requires more than publishing the decisions that have been chosen — it also requires providing the trade-offs and error preferences with the options that were not chosen. It requires more than a compelling argument behind the vote — it requires access to the argument behind the dissenting opinion.

A functional knowledge society cannot be obtained until we acknowledge that we are born as “learners” and not “knowers.” With this fundamental acknowledgment, there are implications for discovery education, corporate innovation, and governmental policymaking. A functional knowledge society is one that may be best called a transparent learning society.

ADIIEA: An Organizational Learning Model for Business Management and Innovation

Change and sustain management within the innate lesson cycle

Quotes

Link

Questions

  • You will only find answers to the question being asked.
  • Knowledge is no longer the ultimate power — questioning is power.
  • You can lead a horse to knowledge, but you cannot make it thirst.
  • All knowledge is just an answer to a question. We should teach questioning skills before knowledge.
  • You are what you ask.
  • One man’s HOW is another man’s WHY.
  • Are rhetorical questions really rhetorical?
  • Are you asking me a question from curiosity or from conviction?
  • We control our destiny from the balance of curiosity (?) and conviction (!).
  • Curiosity killed the cat, and conviction killed the rat.
  • Three strikes and you’re out because three curiosities brings conviction.
  • Without curiosity, there would be no significant innovation, or significant foul-ups.
  • A fact is just today’s conviction, which may or may not be true, today or tomorrow.
  • Are you fact-finding or truth-seeking?
  • There will always be those who give themselves the false sense of limited choices.
  • Question everything, including the limitations of your perspective.
  • You can keep people from questioning if you can convince them it’s still working.
  • You will eventually lose if you refuse to muse.
  • If a leader is not leading change, then what are they leading?

Learning

  • We are born as Learners, not as Knowers.
  • We learn by trying, not by doing.
  • If learning is fun, then learning about learning should be ecstatic.
  • Starting with WHY is good (your motive). Starting with WHEREFORE is better (your story).
  • Learning is the gaining of knowing, satisfied with some degree of reason.
  • The fast learner can recite the answers, but the slow learner can solve the problems.
  • You can teach wisdom to the ignorant but not to the arrogant.
  • Most people are Knowers not Learners, because they know how to memorize (and defend) but not how to learn (and unlearn).
  • The worst possible mental state of any organization is having a poor definition of learning.
  • To become a Thought Leader there is a period of time that must be spent being a Pioneer.
  • Thought Leaders understand that learning is more than just memorizing “what works.” They also know what to do when it “won’t work” and what to do when it “could work.”
  • Perspective drives perception. What you see is what you are positioned to see.
  • Situational awareness requires an understanding of both the observed and the observer; both insight and perspective; both evidence and premise.
  • Too often, we view innovation as an unpredictable event, which is set apart from us, as if there is no way to prepare for, initiate, and capture the process.
  • Judgment helps us learn, but condemnation only serves our confirmation bias.
  • Single loop learning is for productive goals; double loop learning is for inventive goals.
  • Productive goals involve mistakes; inventive goals involve learnings.
  • History repeats itself for one reason and one reason only: the generational loss of lessons through the erosion of appreciation within education.
  • Appreciation is a required organizational learning objective, regardless of whether Bloom can measure it in the classroom or not.
  • When you can teach a course on Critical Thinking, but can’t test the students for understanding, pedagogy is the problem, not the curriculum.
  • All organizations are “learning” organizations — some with more learning disabilities than others.
  • The only real sustainable solution is a real learning organization.
  • Education is currently run from evaluation models, not learning models — and the base measurement is memorization skills, not questioning skills. This is why we are unprepared for the Fourth Industrial Revolution — we are promoting the wrong skills and the wrong people.

Knowledge

  • My answer is not simplistic; it is elegant.
  • There is no singular without a set.
  • While dichotomies appear equal, IS has more power than NOT.
  • The real problem with stupidity is that it doesn’t stop at the doorstep of self-assessment.
  • Stop seeking concise knowledge and start seeking consequential knowledge.
  • Science becomes an obstacle to progress when we forget that this shorthand term represents the scientific method of reasoning.
  • We act on what we understand and should expect poor results from poor understanding.
  • The reasons for and behind everything we know come from an explanation.
  • Sometimes we pretend we are listening to the voice of a viable alternative opinion, when in actuality we are just hearing a classroom interruption by an uninformed student.
  • What gets measured gets done — but what gets modeled gets measured.
  • Those who understand the least are the most confident.
  • You’re either telling the whole story or usurping authority.
  • A Change Agent is only as good as their model.
  • OCR works because of the R.
  • Expedience towards knowing can limit the questions towards understanding.
  • After decades of developing knowledge workers, it’s time to start developing knowledge leaders.
  • Understanding is the knowledge of the whole story from at least two perspectives.
  • If you are just an Expert, your job is about to be outsourced or embedded in a microchip.
  • Without a map we are lost, in geography and epistemology.

Decisions

  • Policymaking is mandatory — politics is optional.
  • It is better to decide based on error preference than on preference alone.
  • Data without knowledge is useless. And knowledge without data is a useless education.
  • For matters of the heart, I trust the musician over the scientist.
  • Being reckless is not wreck-less.
  • Life is not a linear equation.
  • I can write, and I can edit, but I can’t edit what I write.
  • If you want to go all out, you have to be all in.
  • In an operating room, I prefer my doctor’s name be followed by M.D. rather than Ph.D.
  • You will not reach your potential until you realize you have more than 5 senses.
  • You can rely on your eyes as long as your goals are not over the horizon.
  • When we don’t think from our sense of balance, we appear like children gathering fish on a pre-tsunami beach.
  • When we don’t think from our sense of balance, we think with the minds of locust.
  • These words are the primary enemy of innovation and sustainability: It works for me today.
  • A lie of omission, ironically, is the biggest lie we can tell.
  • Within dysfunction, authority is granted to those who are the most offended.
  • The implication, not the evidence, is what stops many from accepting the truth.
  • As now fights later, only maturity considers the now we will want later.
  • Stop trying to build trust. Build transparency — the trust will follow.

Life

  • It is easier to believe in something than to research it beforehand.
  • If you want to understand the world, understand organizational learning disabilities.
  • The meaning of life is to determine whether our life has meaning.
  • I explain, therefore I am.
  • Intention is a dimension.
  • Hear at 528 Hz, because we are not just listeners of sound, we are resonators of soundwaves.
  • Find a good addiction before a bad one finds you.
  • Our educational institutions operate from evaluation models, not learning models.
  • Our educational institutions are unfortunately driven by the tyranny of the tester.
  • It is impossible to deny yourself something and not gain something else.
  • It is impossible to have disruption without both problem and opportunity.
  • Some will sacrifice themselves to give to others; they are the stars. Some will sacrifice others to give to themselves; they are the black holes.
  • Teaching/Parenting is a balance between looking out for, and giving in to, the Student/Child.
  • Recognizing that we may want what does not work, that there is such a thing as insidious want, is what separates the adults from the children.
  • The truly ingenious ideas can only come from the truly tortured mind.
  • A horse that has been broken does not know it is broken — such is the nature of blindness — and total control.
  • Though we may stand so close today, you and I travel through space and time on vastly separated planes, which merely intersect, here, and now.
  • Society can be explained, knowing it is full of pampered children that have not yet learned consequence, and unloved children that are still acting out.
  • Our life’s struggle is like an undercover cop, remembering the good of our purpose while surrounded by evil.
  • Falling in love with this world would be like the caterpillar falling in love with the silky cocoon.
  • First we say someone should do something; then a few say they will do it; then fewer still get it done.
  • Many are Knowers; Some are Learners; Few are Truth Seekers.
  • Flow is normal. Mindless routine is abnormal.

Content by Philip Sisson

Exploring Elegant and Practical Explanation Age Concepts: KM as Learning

Community, Training, and Conferences

KMWorld Conference

1. 2023 Keynote: Unlocking Knowledge Through Conversational AI

Maximizing knowledge value with conversational AI by Sydney Blanchard

John Lewis, chief knowledge officer, SearchBlox Software Inc. and Explanation Age LLC, focused his section of the keynote on the digitization of dialogue, examining how AI can bridge the gap between novice queries and expert content.

Lewis argued that search is the method in which enterprises unlock knowledge. There are two mindsets that further surround this concept: innovation and productivity. When GenAI hit the scene, it seemingly struck the metaphorical gold of these two attributes.

However, Lewis suggested that this may not be the reality.

“The hype curve for ChatGPT was off the chart,” said Lewis. “It was the hammer and anything it looked at was a nail.”

“Everything as a nail” fundamentally lacks nuance, generating a wild misunderstanding of how to leverage GenAI to its maximum capacity and efficacy.

Lewis then introduced SearchBlox’s unified AI strategy as a remediation of this GenAI issue, which features an intersection between search, FAQs, and chatbots. This included the following technologies:

  • Document and URL search with PreText and SmartSuggest
  • Generate answers from knowledge silos with private LLM-based chatbots
  • Find an answer with SmartFAQs

SearchBlox’s unified AI strategy enables organizations to create personalized, configurable AI implementations that offer chatbot insights based on an enterprise’s unique content, accompanied by a user-friendly UI.

SearchBlox’s offering takes the disruption out of GenAI, empowering it to spark KM joy as opposed to AI-phobia.

2. 2022 W16: Beyond Storytelling: Using Story Thinking for KM Strategies

Transforming KM strategies with Story Thinking at KMWorld 2022 by Stephanie Simone

Storytelling uses story as a communication strategy and Story Thinking uses story as an operational strategy. Story Thinking goes beyond the foundations of story psychology and focuses on applications for KMers.

At KMWorld 2022, John Lewis, chief knowledge officer, SearchBlox Software Inc. and Explanation Age LLC, discussed story structure as a fundamental sense-making framework, during his workshop, “Beyond Storytelling: Using Story Thinking For KM Strategies.” Specific approaches and exercises were included to support strategies around KM systems, cultures, leadership, knowledge sharing, project documentation, evaluation, and continuous improvement.

KMWorld 2022 is a part of a unique program of five co-located conferences, which also includes Enterprise Search & Discovery, Office 365 Symposium, Taxonomy Boot Camp, and Text Analytics Forum.

“In a nutshell, we know we’re wired for story,” Lewis said. “We want to think about how we create knowledge, capture it, and transfer it.”

Epistemology is a study of what we know and how we know. Knowledge and information management should be applied epistemology, Lewis said.

“Story is a map, everything happens on it,” Lewis said.

Knowing the underlying framework allows us to work more efficiently and effectively. It’s not about what you think, but what you think from.

The classic story pattern is called The Hero’s Journey, he explained. This was popularized by Joseph Campbell, which shaped George Lucas’s Star Wars saga.

“You didn’t just do something, it changed you,” Lewis said. “There’s a cycle that looks something like this.”

A generic story pattern is a story that begins and ends in a settled state, like gravity, that takes more energy to overcome. Marketing uses this concept operationally, he noted.

The underlying story structure for workability beliefs include:

  • Automation: does work / reactive
  • Disruption: won’t work / questioning
  • Investigation: won’t work / questioning
  • Ideation: could work / questioning
  • Expectation: could work / reflective
  • Affirmation: does work / reflective

Working in automation is the beginning and end of transformational change and you’re operating on autopilot. Key disruption characteristics prioritize situations that are out of the ordinary. It is the key to innovation, Lewis explained. Disruptions are not problems.

Investigation allows you to ask questions to understand and reveal. Ideation is brainstorming and diversity of initial ideas. Questions create and clarify designs and plans. Expectations are the development of ideas, capabilities, and people. Affirmation confirms what we thought works.

“When we’re in a story, we’re operationalizing it,” Lewis said.

KM strategies should include KM systems throughout the Story Thinking cycle to maximize organizational peak performance. Utilizing a story structure while sharing knowledge can create a more robust experience, according to Lewis.

A productivity tip Lewis offered was organizing email with Story Thinking. Every conversation, decision, and activity happens somewhere in the Story Thinking cycle.

Learning involves periodic “revolutions” when the current model cannot be maintained, Lewis explained. There are two primary navigation paths for Story Thinking, this includes: The Full Cycle and the Half-Pipe. The Full-Cycle is for meaningful learning and thinking while the Half-Pipe is for rote learning or thinking fast.

“Creativity is an innate ability, and we have to get back to that,” Lewis said.

Good change management includes stakeholders during the entire change cycle. It engages everyone in the organization in the change process to address root problems. Sometimes the strategic improvement needed is so large that it requires multiple cycles of transformational change. Each generation funds the R&D for the next generation, Lewis explained.

According to Lewis, the ILEDEM Story Thinking change method when approaching projects includes:

  • Identifying opportunities
  • Look into gap analyses
  • Envision solution
  • Develop solution
  • Evaluate trueness
  • Maintain status quo

“A problem can become an opportunity,” Lewis said.

Strategic planning is being challenged by the need for companies to operate faster and with greater agility, he explained. Change is happening so fast that leaders need to capture ideas conversationally within teams.

Given the non-linear growth patterns between our desire to influence versus our desire to understand, the “sophomore leader” emerges early as the leader in many organizations due to their leadership confidence. However, this can be dangerous as the sophomore leader doesn’t have enough experience to influence those around them even though they may have a great deal of knowledge, Lewis explained.

“Learning is not one-dimensional,” Lewis said.

The key is to operate from a learning-based model — where learning is not an “add-on” to business, but they way of business — and this is what Story Thinking is about.

3. 2021

4. 2020 A204. Story Thinking for Knowledge Sharing & Organizational Learning

5. 2018 A203: Optimizing Collaborative Intelligence in Your Organization

6. 2016 C305: Cognitive Learning Models: Automating Learning Discovery

Podcasts

Videos

Books

1. Leading with the Future in Mind: Knowledge and Emergent Leadership with Alex and David Bennet

2. The Profundity and Bifurcation of Change: The Intelligent Social Change Journey (5 book series) with Alex and David Bennet, Arthur Shelley, Theresa Bullard, and Donna Panucci

3. The Intelligent Social Change Journey: Foundation for the Possibilities that are YOU! with by Alex and David Bennet, Arthur Shelley, and Theresa Bullard

4. The Explanation Age: Inspiring Visualizations of the New Learning Organization

Kirkus Discoveries

Lewis poses the tantalizing proposition that poor results in education, innovation and policymaking are rooted in a breakdown between the rational mind and the fundamental models that govern institutions.

Kirkus Reviews

Lewis’s guide to the changing landscape of modern society calls for a new method of processing information.

The mental models that drive businesses, schools and government institutions are outdated, Lewis contends. In today’s economy, ideas are currency and creativity is essential to effective decision-making. So why rely on old, factory-inspired thought models from the Industrial Age? Lewis argues that it’s time to move into the “Explanation Age” with a new model more aligned with how the human mind actually learns. Drawing from the brainy field of epistemology, he aims to combine “First Philosophy” with today’s technologies. Doing so, Lewis says, will allow readers to recognize that explanations, not simply data and information, provide the foundation on which innovation stands.

Once we understand our own “Innate Lesson Cycle,” Lewis says, we’ll embrace mental models that produce pioneers and thought leaders rather than simply experts. Corporations will cultivate inventiveness, not just productiveness; Internet search engines will present explanations, not just data. Armed with tools like the “Options Outline,” policymakers will be able to untangle society’s most contentious issues, such as climate change.

Grasping the topics Lewis covers may require more than one reading, but his nimble style and simple analogies can make intimidating subjects more accessible, although readers may be put off by the book’s many diagrams, which sometimes stumble when translating complex ideas into visual form. This can be forgiven because the text never strays far from practical, real-world applications: Lewis applies his concepts to everything from how the Wright brothers built their airplane to the invention of the Post-it Note. His “8 Degrees of Reason,” alongside other models, illuminates not only how people learn but also, he says, how you know what you know. Ultimately, wisdom still reigns, but it rests on lessons and decisions — not just data and knowledge.

An iconoclast’s blueprint for a new era of innovation.

5. Story Thinking: Transforming Organizations for the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Contents

Part I — Change

1. Story-based Change

2. Chancing Mindsets

3. Continuous Improvement

Part II — Learning

4. Continuous Feedback

5. Objective-based Learning

6. Continuous Learning

Part iii — Leadership

7. Leading Learning Organizations

8. Leading with Transparency

9. Collaborative Policymaking

Summary: Applying Story Thinking

Appendix: Model Comparisons

My Review

John Lewis has written an important new book on story thinking and sensemaking, including sections on change, learning, and leadership. The purpose of John’s book is to prepare organizations for a fourth industrial revolution based on a new capacity to change and learn. Story Thinking can be applied by knowledge managers, change agents, learning professionals, and leaders of all kinds.

Knowledge Management
Thought Leaders
Explanation
Leadership
Organizational Learning

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Stan Garfield
Stan Garfield

Written by Stan Garfield

2.3K Followers
52 Following

Knowledge Management Author and Speaker, Founder of SIKM Leaders Community, Community Evangelist, Knowledge Manager https://sites.google.com/site/stangarfield/

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