Authentic Power

Kalvin R. Johnson, the creator of OA, served for 20 years in the United States Air Force before retiring at the rank of Master Sergeant.  Kalvin is an Industrial and Organizational (I/O) scholar and practitioner who cares deeply about the flourishing of people and organizations everywhere.  While raising his now-adult daughter alone, Kalvin experienced a few headknocks of his own.  These one-of-a-kind encounters, coupled with his personal growth and development, led him to the realization that not everything is as it first appears.  

One definition of objectivity is the absence of bias or prejudice in the presentation of facts.  Opinions, cultural trends, and natural selection all coexist in the environment we inhabit.  Aesthetics refers to the study of or the practice of appreciating beauty.  Subjective beauty is the antithesis of objective beauty since it is based on or influenced by the observer's own subjective emotions, preferences, and judgments.  Sounding like an oxymoron, "objectively aesthetic" is actually a useful introduction to common experience.  There is a great deal of prejudice in one's own subjective experience.  In a crazy, biased world, OA strives to present a varied and impartial perspective to impact decision-making and behavior.

Since the dawn of the conscious mind, biases have impeded our ability to think clearly and objectively.  Perhaps even before we are aware of it, a combination of the following factors is forming our surroundings and our pathways:

Race / Ethnic Background

Gender

Religion

Age (all)

Sexual Preference

Educational Background

Political Affiliation

Occupation / Career

Mental Model Myopia is a problem all around the globe.  A person's mental model is an explanation of their way of thinking about how things function in the "real world."  Myopia, often known as nearsightedness, is defined as an inability to envision or think forward.  Myopic life and perspective are directly caused and correlated by the biases that suffuse each person's experiences (see the list above).

The idea of OA is to incorporate multiple points of view into the formation of policies, procedures, and practices for teaching and learning. Kalvin hopes that through the use of reason, law, and experience, OA will help individuals discover their vision and voice and inspire them to take the necessary steps to achieve a state of reverence, intention, objectivity, and togetherness (RIOT).

Reverence    Intentionality    Objectivity    Togetherness