Leadership

Leadership

cooperative leadership

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Last week I hosted a video chat on the changing nature of leadership. Part of the discussion was on the changing needs of society as the dominant organizing forms shift — from Tribes to Institutions to Markets, and now to Networks. We are currently in a post-modern phase transition where the vestiges of the old form (Markets) still dominate as new forms of Networks are being experimented with. The ensuing uncertainty drives the current rise of populism, xenophobia, and demagoguery. People are scared. But the future can be positive.

The new network form is retrieving cooperation — sharing freely with no expectation of direct reciprocation — as the primary way of getting work done. We can only influence networks, not direct them. Collaboration — working together for a common objective — worked well in markets because companies could collaborate in order to compete. Collaboration also works well in relatively stable institutions where the rules don’t change too quickly. But collaboration is too limited to work in networks.

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understanding leadership

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My introduction to leadership came fairly early, as I was in Army Cadets and took my first leadership course at age fourteen. Every Summer through high school I would go to Cadet camp, with other boys who looked, acted, and sounded like me. I finished school and joined the Army thinking I had leadership potential. The Army thought so, as I was accepted into military college to become an officer.

College was a bit like Cadet camp, with drill and military stuff that I was used to. There were no women until my last year, when the first female officer cadets entered RMC. So I had no female peers, and on graduation went to an Infantry unit, which was only men at the time.

The introduction of women to an all-male military school was not without its challenges. Many years later one of the first-year students for whom I was ‘responsible’ — more like I was responsible for making their lives difficult — told me that she appreciated that I had treated the men and women equally in our section. Several of my colleagues had not. I’m not sure why I had this moral compass, but it’s likely from my mother who has lived a life of many challenges and raised us in a disciplined way. She had grown up in what could be called the Prussian military tradition.

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a conversation on leadership in the network era

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I write about leadership frequently, especially how leadership in a network requires different skills and abilities than positional leadership provided by the inherent power structure of an organization or institution. In networks, influence comes through reputation. In this online presentation/discussion, we will discuss how perspectives, and demands, on leadership are changing in a networked society.

In networks, we have to move away from traditional metaphors of the ‘great man’ military theories of leadership and look for more fluid models, such as cycling, because — the best leaders are constant learners.

“Pelotons are able to operate in the way that they do because learning and experience is embedded within them. Young riders are mentored by seasoned professionals. They learn through imitation, trial and error, developing both instinct and intuition, daring to experiment when the occasion presents itself. The sport is all about life lessons acquired on the road, the knowledge gained from numerous failures as relevant as that acquired through the occasional success. Teamwork provides firm foundations. But autonomy within loose frameworks, decision-making and accountability are all encouraged from early on. It is this crucial combination – individual action contextualised in relation to the collective – that the modern corporation, government agency and charity now need to learn.” —Richard Martin

Discussion Topics

  • Make your network smarter
  • A compass to steer by
  • Diversity
  • Learning & Leadership

Live conversation Wednesday, 14 November at 13:00 UTC*
07:00 CST, 08:00 EST, 13:00 GMT, 14:00 CEST, 15:00 EEST

Format:

  • 90 minute online video conference
    • 60 minute presentation on core topics
    • 30 minute discussion
  • Session will be recorded and available for registered participants
  • Online chat during session

Participants also receive a one-year membership in the Perpetual Beta Coffee Club to continue the conversation. Registration Closed.

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helping make the network smarter

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In what is likely the best example of my mantra that ‘work is learning and learning is the work’, Nokia’s Chairman Risto Siilasmaa describes how he learned about machine learning because everyone was talking about it but he still did not understand it enough to describe it. Frustrated, he was acting like many of his fellow executives

“I spent some time complaining. Then I realized that as a long-time CEO and Chairman, I had fallen into the trap of being defined by my role: I had grown accustomed to having things explained to me. Instead of trying to figure out the nuts and bolts of a seemingly complicated technology, I had gotten used to someone else doing the heavy lifting.” —HBR 2018-10-04

The result of what Siilasmaa learned is an excellent example of the integration of learning and work, a necessity in the network era workplace.

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leadership is not taking it all

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I have quoted Charles Green before, as he shows how our systems ‘get set in concrete’. Once they are set, they don’t change. After a while, nobody remember anybody who remembers the old ways. So it’s just the way things are.

“Ideas lead technology. Technology leads organizations. Organizations lead institutions. Then ideology brings up the rear, lagging all the rest—that’s when things really get set in concrete.” —Charles Green

Our current triform way of organizing has been set in concrete for a few hundred years. Tribes are families (family values), institutions are set (loyalty to country & company), and markets are the dominant economic form (offshoring, outsourcing, and automation for profit). But we are entering a possible quadriform era where the network form will not only dominate but will change the older forms, once again: T+I+M+N.

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Nordic leadership in times of extreme change

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Return of the Vikings

I have had the privilege of working with several Nordic organizations over the past few years — Carlsberg, HR Norge, Implement Consulting, Snow Software, Prime Minister’s Office of Finland. Over the past 14 years of writing on this blog I have advocated for more transparent work, temporary & negotiated hierarchies, and willing cooperation between interdependent workers.

The network era is obsolescing many artifacts of the industrial market era — rigid hierarchies, master/servant work relationships — and retrieving aspects of previous eras — tribal affiliations, oral communication. We can learn from the past and the authors of Return of the Vikings: Nordic Leadership in Times of Extreme Change, provide us with a compass to see our way into an unknown future. It is the same compass that guided the Vikings across the North Sea, to Iceland, and then to North America.

Nordic leadership is based on the Nine Noble Virtues — Courage, Truth, Honour, Fidelity, Discipline, Hospitality, Self-reliance, Industriousness, and Perseverance. There is a chapter dedicated to each virtue including interviews with people who have exhibited or witnessed these in modern times. While the compass remains steady, each person finds their own path, and in so doing contributes to the collective. Nordic leadership is servant leadership. It can be summed up as — inclusive, trusting, and collaborative.

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the new networked norm

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Our societies have grown from a collection of tribes, added institutions, and later developed markets. These aligned with revolutions in communications: from oral, to written, to print. The network era began with the advent of electric communications, though it is by no means completely established.

Each type of societal structure has required different types of leadership. Alexander the Great was probably one of the best tribal leaders. He led his armies from the front and created an enormous empire. After his death, some of his generals created long-lasting institutions not based on military tactics. Ptolemy’s library at Alexandria is one example. Later, institutions like the Catholic Church dominated more through soft institutional power, rather than wielding swords. Others did that for them when necessary. As a market society developed, new types of economic and financial power were exercised by the Fuggers and the Hanseatic League in Europe. Later, captains of industry in America, such as Andrew Carnegie, would dominate in their markets, often circumventing existing institutional power.

As we enter the network era we see companies like Apple dominating, often ignoring Wall Street pundits. With network effects, Google can control the online advertising market, making market competition almost irrelevant. Power shifts as a society’s organizing principles change. In almost all organizations today, positional power is alive and well. For some managers, this is all the power they have, and they are at the mercy of the organizational hierarchy. If they lose their position, they lose their power. More effective leaders influence people through their social leadership abilities. This is what most modern leadership training programs focus on developing. In the network era, effective leaders also have to build their reputational power through connected leadership.

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what they don’t teach at university, but should

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Even after four years of study, many students leave their institutions of higher learning only to find themselves inadequately prepared for what is next. University graduates often go on to get a certificate in an applied area in hopes of getting a job. Frequently graduate students who do not go into academia will find themselves adrift.

So what the heck have these institutions been doing with the valuable time of their students? Four years is a good chunk of time to accomplish something. We are told they are mastering a field. A field that often does not exist outside the institutional walls. But there are portable skills that can be learned WHILE at school. These are skills, like critical thinking, that universities purport to teach but usually do not.

No graduate should leave their institution without a good knowledge of the professional field in which they want to continue. There is no excuse today for students not to be connected to professionals outside their school. Keeping students focused only on their academic studies is akin to a prison sentence, expecting that the same world awaits as the one they left several years earlier.

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change the system, not the leader

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Plus ça change, plus c’est pareil

It’s interesting to watch the shenanigans in Washington DC with Silicon Valley’s latest ‘crisis’ over privacy and the manipulation of the democratic process. The ‘great man’ is answering for the actions of his company in front of the world’s cameras. But the great man theory of leadership is outdated, just as the divine right of kings was two centuries ago. Silicon Valley, in spite of all the hype, is based on the same outdated organizational models of leadership and management as the companies they are putting out of business. As Christian Madsbjerg wrote in his book Sensemaking: “In a ‘Silicon Valley’ state of mind, sense making has never been more lacking or more urgently needed.”

We don’t need better leaders. We need organizations and structures that let all people cooperate and collaborate to get work done. Positional leadership is a master-servant, parent-child, teacher-student, employer-employee relationship. It puts too much power in the hands of individuals and blocks human networks from realizing their potential. Even punishing the person in charge will change little. Changing leaders will not change the system from which they emerged.

Depending on one person to always be the leader will only dumb-down the entire network. In the network era, leadership is helping the network make better decisions. This starts by creating more human organizational structures, ones that enable self-governance. Leadership is an emergent property of a network in balance.

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continuous learning to hack uncertainty

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This week I will be speaking at the Landing Festival in Berlin. It is described as Europe’s biggest tech careers event: “two days of intensive learning and networking featuring talks, panels, expert sessions, workshops, a job fair, entertainment activities and a massive boat party to wrap up all the craziness”. My keynote will discuss the need for every professional to develop diverse knowledge networks and engage in communities of practice. The following day I will run a short workshop on personal knowledge mastery and how this discipline can specifically help to engage with social networks and communities. It is the ‘How’, following the ‘Why’ of my keynote. I am assuming this will be a younger audience than I usually present to, so I’m looking forward to possible different perspectives on work and learning.

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