What’s the difference between a campaign of ‘hard questions’ about momentous issues and a carnival of lies? Lipstick.
---David Olive (September 20, 2008). Toronto Star
As some people like to say, “There’s a reason for everything”. Maybe Sarah Palin showed up in our lives because we needed a little more levity in a generally somber political environment. Fear, violence, climate upheaval and too much suffering around the world are taking their toll on our collective middle class psyches. Sarah has certainly been a distraction and a reminder that politicians play chess with our minds because that’s the way the game is played. A few little “truthies” and corn ball metaphors here and there are needed to camouflage all problems. Do you blame them?
On both sides of the border, the campaign adage is to repeat something often enough until it becomes real even if it isn’t. Image and persuasion trump the facts because apparently that’s what we respond to.
Politicians of all stripes and philosophies have learned that to reach us they must appeal to our primal emotional instincts. Largely unconscious, our automatic “inner theatre” was formed long ago when we were kids under the “spell” of our parents, teachers, friends and the cultures in which we grew up. Our reactions are typically either positive or negative and we gravitate or move away accordingly and evaluate the policy offerings within those frameworks. Critical thinking takes a back seat to whether we like a person or not.
To override our automatic “from the past” responses is extremely difficult in the high pressure environments in which we live and lead. Sorting out fact from fiction takes time and energy. So, we resort to falling under “spells” again and hope for the best. Put another way, we search for someone who will best feed our emotions, not necessarily our reason.
A fundamental tenet of great leadership is to be on the alert to “think about your thinking”. Called the “fourth dimension”, it can save the day when chaos and complexity reign and no simple answers suffice. It can also be the tool for breaking ‘spells”.
With time, people tire of the messages of hope, the hoopla, the negative ads and the grand communication schemes. This has been demonstrated over and over again in organizations where a “white knight” from the outside has been brought in with great flourish to fix things up. Many heads roll, many promises are made and then the reality of implementation without deep expertise, without consultation and without the benefit of the facts sets in. The honeymoon quickly fades but the cost to rectify the damage is enormous.
We do wake up naturally but it takes time. The trick is to accelerate the process while we have time to avoid serious damage. It means using time-honoured leadership lessons to ensure we’re not just caught up in our emotions. Besides asking a lot of questions and gathering smart contrarians around you, look for the facts, as demonstrated by the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenburg Public Policy Center though http://www.factcheck.org/.
In Canada, more so than the United States, ideological fatigue has set it, according to Frank Graves, President of Ekos Research Associates. We’re becoming more pragmatic and eclectic and certainly less attached to left-right arguments. We’re looking for “what works”.
That’s the bottom line: look for what works. That’s how nature does it.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Monday, September 01, 2008
While the Cat's Away, the Mice Come Out to Play: Canadian Listeriosis Outbreak is a Hard Lesson in Leadership Governance
Learning teacheth more in one year than experience in 20, and learning teacheth safely, when experience maketh more miserable than wise…it is costly wisdom that is bought by experience.
--- Roger Ascham (1515-1568) in The Street Master
The listeriosis outbreak traced to one Maple Leaf Foods plant in northern Toronto glaringly shines a light on the ethical and moral dilemmas underlying leadership. With 11 people dead so far and many more ill, the impact of the assumptions and beliefs of leaders within the food security system is tragic and economically costly. Only a full inquiry will unearth where the system went wrong. It’s a hard lesson in system governance and one which we will likely find was entirely preventable.
The movie Beautiful Mind gives us some clues as to the dilemmas inherent in any system and the principled solutions which are possible. Princeton University professor John F. Nash Jr. shared a 1994 Nobel Prize with three others for his research on “games theory” or the science of strategy in conflict situations. In 2005, two more researchers were awarded the Nobel for their games theory work. Clearly, the phenomenon has struck a chord in our increasingly complex society.
In layperson’s terms, Nash and other researchers have demonstrated that outcomes depend on not just your own decisions but also on what others do as in driving through an intersection. The particular scene in the movie illustrating Nash’s “ah ha” is a university bar where men and women are meeting and greeting and clearly influenced by each others’ actions. Taken further, Nash and other mathematicians demonstrated that co-operation in most instances trumps butting heads. It explains why some groups or individuals, organizations and countries succeed in promoting co-operation while others suffer from conflict. It has been used to explain economic conflicts such as price and trade wars, the workings of the stock market and why some communities are more successful (economically) than others in managing common resources. However, it won’t work without trust. That’s’ where things get “dicey”.
A clash of cultures (assumptions, beliefs and values) within the system can wreak havoc with making the right decisions. A public safety system such as food security requires many redundant checks and balances. Who does what when remains the repeatable big question as lessons are learned. There are hints in the press that government loosened the reins a little on the shop floor, giving more control to industry to police itself. Maybe that didn’t happen. If it did it would have stirred the “pot” of leadership assumptions and beliefs. What now is going to govern preventing serious food-related bacterial outbreaks in the general population?
A family story that has animated our history for 77 years provides some direction. I never understood while I was growing up why my mother Margaret would often bring up the subject of her sister Adelaide. To me it was history. To her, it was and still is painful, “what if?” history.
In my adult years, I’ve come to understand the senseless tragedy of Adelaide’s death—being at the wrong place at the wrong time when the system could do little to help her. At the same time, I have a strong appreciation of the advances that have been made to protect other young children from the same fate.
My grandmother on my mother’s side liked to travel and she yearned for her homeland. In early 1931, she embarked, with her two little girls Margaret, 5 years old and Adelaide 8, on a voyage across the Atlantic to Liverpool. Little did she know they were heading straight into a diphtheria epidemic! Within days of landing, both young girls became seriously ill and were hospitalized. Only my mother made the trip back. Why she survived and Adelaide did not remains a mystery.
In those days, although a successful vaccine had been developed, it was not widely available. It took the discovery and development of sulfa drugs following WW 11 to open up protection for the general population. Regular vaccinations for infants, children and boosters for adults are routine in developed countries.
What does this say about governance now? Since we know what prevents senseless deaths, the values and beliefs of a leader then and now no longer drive the ethics of decision-making. Instead, it’s the evidence of what works. Inotherwords, when in doubt wherever you are as a leader in the system, default to the evidence.
A just released World Health Organization (WHO) report on the determinants of health reinforces this principle. The blue-ribbon panel of International experts concluded that “social injustice is killing people on a grand scale.”
The evidence, according to the panel, is clear and irrefutable: societies, like the Nordic countries, are healthier because they spend generously on universal social programs, reduce income equalities, and regulate important health determinants such as food, housing and labour markets. In the spirit of “games theory”, the economies of these countries do not suffer. They thrive as expected. Sweden, for example, continues to do a credible job at balancing and re-balancing the needs of the free market (private enterprise) with the quality of life needs of the population, as a whole. These findings hold for rich and poor countries alike.
In light of the current food security scare in Canada, the WHO report is timely. For those leaders who wrestle with competing interests to make ethical decisions, the WHO findings “lead the way”. You might think that these findings have nothing to do with you in your organization. You might not like the WHO’s findings because of the kind of business you are in. Alternatively, the findings might be “bang on” for you. In reality, there are lessons to be learned no matter what your leadership challenges are and in what part of the system you work.
The WHO report speaks of the lack of political leadership and moral courage as key barriers. In every organization, not just government, these factors are relevant and play a role in influencing important outcomes. The food security problem in Canada, at the moment, is a symbol of the co-operative tensions in any complex system and that serious collateral damage can occur if the cat’s away.
--- Roger Ascham (1515-1568) in The Street Master
The listeriosis outbreak traced to one Maple Leaf Foods plant in northern Toronto glaringly shines a light on the ethical and moral dilemmas underlying leadership. With 11 people dead so far and many more ill, the impact of the assumptions and beliefs of leaders within the food security system is tragic and economically costly. Only a full inquiry will unearth where the system went wrong. It’s a hard lesson in system governance and one which we will likely find was entirely preventable.
The movie Beautiful Mind gives us some clues as to the dilemmas inherent in any system and the principled solutions which are possible. Princeton University professor John F. Nash Jr. shared a 1994 Nobel Prize with three others for his research on “games theory” or the science of strategy in conflict situations. In 2005, two more researchers were awarded the Nobel for their games theory work. Clearly, the phenomenon has struck a chord in our increasingly complex society.
In layperson’s terms, Nash and other researchers have demonstrated that outcomes depend on not just your own decisions but also on what others do as in driving through an intersection. The particular scene in the movie illustrating Nash’s “ah ha” is a university bar where men and women are meeting and greeting and clearly influenced by each others’ actions. Taken further, Nash and other mathematicians demonstrated that co-operation in most instances trumps butting heads. It explains why some groups or individuals, organizations and countries succeed in promoting co-operation while others suffer from conflict. It has been used to explain economic conflicts such as price and trade wars, the workings of the stock market and why some communities are more successful (economically) than others in managing common resources. However, it won’t work without trust. That’s’ where things get “dicey”.
A clash of cultures (assumptions, beliefs and values) within the system can wreak havoc with making the right decisions. A public safety system such as food security requires many redundant checks and balances. Who does what when remains the repeatable big question as lessons are learned. There are hints in the press that government loosened the reins a little on the shop floor, giving more control to industry to police itself. Maybe that didn’t happen. If it did it would have stirred the “pot” of leadership assumptions and beliefs. What now is going to govern preventing serious food-related bacterial outbreaks in the general population?
A family story that has animated our history for 77 years provides some direction. I never understood while I was growing up why my mother Margaret would often bring up the subject of her sister Adelaide. To me it was history. To her, it was and still is painful, “what if?” history.
In my adult years, I’ve come to understand the senseless tragedy of Adelaide’s death—being at the wrong place at the wrong time when the system could do little to help her. At the same time, I have a strong appreciation of the advances that have been made to protect other young children from the same fate.
My grandmother on my mother’s side liked to travel and she yearned for her homeland. In early 1931, she embarked, with her two little girls Margaret, 5 years old and Adelaide 8, on a voyage across the Atlantic to Liverpool. Little did she know they were heading straight into a diphtheria epidemic! Within days of landing, both young girls became seriously ill and were hospitalized. Only my mother made the trip back. Why she survived and Adelaide did not remains a mystery.
In those days, although a successful vaccine had been developed, it was not widely available. It took the discovery and development of sulfa drugs following WW 11 to open up protection for the general population. Regular vaccinations for infants, children and boosters for adults are routine in developed countries.
What does this say about governance now? Since we know what prevents senseless deaths, the values and beliefs of a leader then and now no longer drive the ethics of decision-making. Instead, it’s the evidence of what works. Inotherwords, when in doubt wherever you are as a leader in the system, default to the evidence.
A just released World Health Organization (WHO) report on the determinants of health reinforces this principle. The blue-ribbon panel of International experts concluded that “social injustice is killing people on a grand scale.”
The evidence, according to the panel, is clear and irrefutable: societies, like the Nordic countries, are healthier because they spend generously on universal social programs, reduce income equalities, and regulate important health determinants such as food, housing and labour markets. In the spirit of “games theory”, the economies of these countries do not suffer. They thrive as expected. Sweden, for example, continues to do a credible job at balancing and re-balancing the needs of the free market (private enterprise) with the quality of life needs of the population, as a whole. These findings hold for rich and poor countries alike.
In light of the current food security scare in Canada, the WHO report is timely. For those leaders who wrestle with competing interests to make ethical decisions, the WHO findings “lead the way”. You might think that these findings have nothing to do with you in your organization. You might not like the WHO’s findings because of the kind of business you are in. Alternatively, the findings might be “bang on” for you. In reality, there are lessons to be learned no matter what your leadership challenges are and in what part of the system you work.
The WHO report speaks of the lack of political leadership and moral courage as key barriers. In every organization, not just government, these factors are relevant and play a role in influencing important outcomes. The food security problem in Canada, at the moment, is a symbol of the co-operative tensions in any complex system and that serious collateral damage can occur if the cat’s away.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Moving the System Forward: A Gold Medal for the Organizing Leaders of the Beijing Olympics
Life seeks to organize so that more life can flourish. Systems are friendlier to life. They provide support and stability. They also provide more freedom for individual experimentation.
---Margaret Wheatley, A Simpler Way, p.33.
The Chinese have done Canadian Sports a favour. By doing the job so well, they brought to the foreground the serious inadequacies in our system, starting at the political level. In the words of the chief executive officer of the Canadian Olympic Committee, Chris Rudge, “the rest of the world is not standing still”. It is time for the Canadian government to step up “with the big boys”.
The Chinese are to be commended for an outstanding 2008 Olympics. They spared no expense and left no stone unturned. The Chinese demonstrated what happens when leaders pay attention to the whole system. The results speak for themselves---copious medals for the Chinese and a “wow” experience overall for everyone. London and Vancouver have their work cut out for them. A new record has been set for Olympic organizing.
It’s a level of organizing where the leader’s eyes see the whole network, the nodes within it and how to connect and strengthen the nodes. Meticulous attention by the Chinese to the assets of the system (their athletes and the tools and resources needed) enabled them to grow and perform at outstanding levels. The Chinese organizing leaders repeated the approach for the event, visioning, planning, executing, learning and adapting as the story unfolds---the “bird’s eye” view as well as the grassroots on the ground view. This is the ultimate challenge and central purpose of leadership, particularly at the top. In many instances it is not done well. Fragmentation reigns.
Take the system for golf. It may be accepted as an Olympic sport in time for the Olympics in London. But, in Canada we are not well prepared for this possibility. Australia, which won 46 medals in Beijing in comparison to Canada’s 18, has about 25 players at the PGA golf level. Canada has three. The difference is a well-funded organized system in Australia. Compare that to what exists for young Canadian pros. They must find their own funding through private sources and figure out independently how to train themselves. It’s catch as catch can, as the saying goes or every person for himself.
The irony is that in the last decade a variety of stakeholders such as the Royal Canadian Golf Association (RCGA), the Canadian Junior Golf Association (CJGA), the coaching bodies and Sport Canada have joined forces to create a strong pipeline of amateur golfers. Then, everything ends, placing precious talent in a precarious position. The “war for talent” doesn’t exist in golf. No attention, meager results. RCGA acknowledges the issue in its recently published “Long term Player Development Plan”. The how of getting there is not detailed.
Fortunately, our leaders within the Olympic movement recognized a few Olympics ago that something had to be done if we were to hold our own against other equivalent countries, most notably the G8. They have fought hard for significant increases in funding and are still doing so. Slowly, the results are beginning to show. According to Rudge, 35 improvements have been made in the COC’s athlete support programs since Athens. However, in a August 25, 2008 Globe and Mail article by James Christie, Rudge also emphasizes that Canada needs more athletes in its system, more and better sport facilities and increased federal support.
But, comparatively speaking, Australia invested $250M in 434 athletes to Canada’s $111M for 331 athletes. Great Britain will be pumping in $1.16B of funding with 60 per cent from taxpayers. How are we going to keep up to the accelerated pace of other countries without our Prime Minister and his provincial counterparts throwing their weight behind sport? For goodness sake, Stephen Harper didn’t even show up at the Olympics!
Many argue that the problem in Canada is cultural. We just don’t get as excited about sports the way other countries do. But judging from our love affair with hockey and the high degree of grassroots, community participation in all manner of sports, it seems a long shot to point the finger at a cultural problem. Plain and simple it’s about leadership and priorities.
Any system can be improved with leadership “will”. Communities across Canada demonstrated this par excellence in advance of the Beijing Olympics. For every one of our athletes who won a medal, let alone those who achieved personal bests, there is a community behind them of volunteer coaches, facilities of varying quality for training and practicing and small amounts of funding for out of community events. This is where it starts. But, to continue, we need leadership at all levels of government to pick up from the communities to enable our athletes to compete at world events. Converting local championships to provincial, national, world and then to Olympic medals requires a “Chinese-type” focus and commitment.
There’s a limit though to regimentation in any system. Like nature, to improve, a system needs lots of freedom to try many things out and see what works. It’s a bit messy. Various forms of democracy are spreading around the world because humans thrive within them. It’s not far-fetched to assume that we, in other countries, have contributed to China. How that will shape up is yet to be seen.
---Margaret Wheatley, A Simpler Way, p.33.
The Chinese have done Canadian Sports a favour. By doing the job so well, they brought to the foreground the serious inadequacies in our system, starting at the political level. In the words of the chief executive officer of the Canadian Olympic Committee, Chris Rudge, “the rest of the world is not standing still”. It is time for the Canadian government to step up “with the big boys”.
The Chinese are to be commended for an outstanding 2008 Olympics. They spared no expense and left no stone unturned. The Chinese demonstrated what happens when leaders pay attention to the whole system. The results speak for themselves---copious medals for the Chinese and a “wow” experience overall for everyone. London and Vancouver have their work cut out for them. A new record has been set for Olympic organizing.
It’s a level of organizing where the leader’s eyes see the whole network, the nodes within it and how to connect and strengthen the nodes. Meticulous attention by the Chinese to the assets of the system (their athletes and the tools and resources needed) enabled them to grow and perform at outstanding levels. The Chinese organizing leaders repeated the approach for the event, visioning, planning, executing, learning and adapting as the story unfolds---the “bird’s eye” view as well as the grassroots on the ground view. This is the ultimate challenge and central purpose of leadership, particularly at the top. In many instances it is not done well. Fragmentation reigns.
Take the system for golf. It may be accepted as an Olympic sport in time for the Olympics in London. But, in Canada we are not well prepared for this possibility. Australia, which won 46 medals in Beijing in comparison to Canada’s 18, has about 25 players at the PGA golf level. Canada has three. The difference is a well-funded organized system in Australia. Compare that to what exists for young Canadian pros. They must find their own funding through private sources and figure out independently how to train themselves. It’s catch as catch can, as the saying goes or every person for himself.
The irony is that in the last decade a variety of stakeholders such as the Royal Canadian Golf Association (RCGA), the Canadian Junior Golf Association (CJGA), the coaching bodies and Sport Canada have joined forces to create a strong pipeline of amateur golfers. Then, everything ends, placing precious talent in a precarious position. The “war for talent” doesn’t exist in golf. No attention, meager results. RCGA acknowledges the issue in its recently published “Long term Player Development Plan”. The how of getting there is not detailed.
Fortunately, our leaders within the Olympic movement recognized a few Olympics ago that something had to be done if we were to hold our own against other equivalent countries, most notably the G8. They have fought hard for significant increases in funding and are still doing so. Slowly, the results are beginning to show. According to Rudge, 35 improvements have been made in the COC’s athlete support programs since Athens. However, in a August 25, 2008 Globe and Mail article by James Christie, Rudge also emphasizes that Canada needs more athletes in its system, more and better sport facilities and increased federal support.
But, comparatively speaking, Australia invested $250M in 434 athletes to Canada’s $111M for 331 athletes. Great Britain will be pumping in $1.16B of funding with 60 per cent from taxpayers. How are we going to keep up to the accelerated pace of other countries without our Prime Minister and his provincial counterparts throwing their weight behind sport? For goodness sake, Stephen Harper didn’t even show up at the Olympics!
Many argue that the problem in Canada is cultural. We just don’t get as excited about sports the way other countries do. But judging from our love affair with hockey and the high degree of grassroots, community participation in all manner of sports, it seems a long shot to point the finger at a cultural problem. Plain and simple it’s about leadership and priorities.
Any system can be improved with leadership “will”. Communities across Canada demonstrated this par excellence in advance of the Beijing Olympics. For every one of our athletes who won a medal, let alone those who achieved personal bests, there is a community behind them of volunteer coaches, facilities of varying quality for training and practicing and small amounts of funding for out of community events. This is where it starts. But, to continue, we need leadership at all levels of government to pick up from the communities to enable our athletes to compete at world events. Converting local championships to provincial, national, world and then to Olympic medals requires a “Chinese-type” focus and commitment.
There’s a limit though to regimentation in any system. Like nature, to improve, a system needs lots of freedom to try many things out and see what works. It’s a bit messy. Various forms of democracy are spreading around the world because humans thrive within them. It’s not far-fetched to assume that we, in other countries, have contributed to China. How that will shape up is yet to be seen.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Read More Novels, Build Empathy
When there is so much to work on to become a more effective leader, it’s heartening to find something that’s easy. Empathy, a form of social intelligence, is a desirable capability for leaders and managers. How to become more empathetic remains an enigma for many.
One very effective way is to work on “being present” with another. This is commonly wrapped up in the term “active listening”. Those who meditate naturally build their capacity to be present as they “listen” to their breathing and observe their thoughts. But, if you don’t meditate in the formal sense, how else can you add to your empathy acumen? Researchers at the University of Toronto have found out one way to do so.
They contend that reading fiction of any kind will elevate social intelligence. Keith Oakley a professor of Psychology explains that when we read fictional stories we are temporarily allowing ourselves to become another person. Presumably, our minds follow the characters and how they view the world. Since the spectrum of characters in any one novel varies from our own, the various personalities to which we are subjected literally loosen us up. We “walk in their shoes” and as a result we become a little less rigid. At a neurological level, when we see the world through the eyes of another, we are stimulating the parts of our brains that govern empathy.
So, this suggests that when you are particularly frazzled by the actions of others, make sure you have a novel on hand at work not just at home. Find a quiet spot and settle in for a little read. Come back refreshed and with a better balanced perspective!
One very effective way is to work on “being present” with another. This is commonly wrapped up in the term “active listening”. Those who meditate naturally build their capacity to be present as they “listen” to their breathing and observe their thoughts. But, if you don’t meditate in the formal sense, how else can you add to your empathy acumen? Researchers at the University of Toronto have found out one way to do so.
They contend that reading fiction of any kind will elevate social intelligence. Keith Oakley a professor of Psychology explains that when we read fictional stories we are temporarily allowing ourselves to become another person. Presumably, our minds follow the characters and how they view the world. Since the spectrum of characters in any one novel varies from our own, the various personalities to which we are subjected literally loosen us up. We “walk in their shoes” and as a result we become a little less rigid. At a neurological level, when we see the world through the eyes of another, we are stimulating the parts of our brains that govern empathy.
So, this suggests that when you are particularly frazzled by the actions of others, make sure you have a novel on hand at work not just at home. Find a quiet spot and settle in for a little read. Come back refreshed and with a better balanced perspective!
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Want More Spontaneous Collaboration? Dust Off the Chalkboards.
Imagine around every corner in your organization, you didn’t hear the din of quiet but the buzz of live chatter. To your left and right you see small groups of your colleagues immersed in excited conversation around of all things—a blackboard (or, a chalkboard depending on the term used when you were growing up). Ideas are filling the board. People are debating, rubbing out and adding ideas. Passersby stop, ponder and add their “two cents worth” before moving on.
This is standard practice in the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario, a theoretical physics think tank. It was founded in 2001 by Research in Motion’s president Mike Lazardis to nurture breakthroughs in cosmology, quantum gravity or string theory and other mysteries of the universe. The researchers are freed from administrative and teaching duties to sit, walk or bike around and think.
While the majority of us don’t have the luxury of just thinking, we do have the freedom to create more opportunities for spontaneous collaboration. Hallway and water cooler chats are renowned for generating new connections, ideas, innovations and breakthroughs in decision making. Why not add a blackboard to enhance the creative process?
This could be a tough sell. It is embedded in our society not to have such things around. We left chalkboards behind first in grade school and lastly in college and university where remnants existed in old lecture halls. Even flip charts are hard to find in our modern buildings. Instead, we have our heads buried in computers, PPT presentations or our individual notebooks when in meetings. None of these are high touch enough to get our collective creative juices going.
In the crime program “Numbers”, we see the blackboard magic at work. One of the key problem-solvers is shown frequently in front of his blackboard contemplating various algorithms and interconnections to make sense of a crime’s mysteries. Colleagues from the university drop by to aid in his musings. A computer is nearby for complicated calculations and data research. There’s also a lot of sitting around and tossing ideas back and forth. High touch and high tech complement each other.
We are not unfamiliar with such experiences. Retreats and workshops commonly make use of low tech flip charts and other hands on communal thinking processes to stimulate “out of box” thinking. But, flip charts, let alone chalkboards are not commonplace outside of these venues or on site meeting rooms.
For many of us, when we were kids, the teacher stood up at the front and wrote on the blackboard. Maybe it’s now time to dust off this scenario with a modern touch: all of us up at the front at the blackboard here there and everywhere in our places of work. At minimum, the level of informal exchange of information will climb exponentially. Out of that soup of ideas, something exciting will spontaneously gel.
This is standard practice in the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario, a theoretical physics think tank. It was founded in 2001 by Research in Motion’s president Mike Lazardis to nurture breakthroughs in cosmology, quantum gravity or string theory and other mysteries of the universe. The researchers are freed from administrative and teaching duties to sit, walk or bike around and think.
While the majority of us don’t have the luxury of just thinking, we do have the freedom to create more opportunities for spontaneous collaboration. Hallway and water cooler chats are renowned for generating new connections, ideas, innovations and breakthroughs in decision making. Why not add a blackboard to enhance the creative process?
This could be a tough sell. It is embedded in our society not to have such things around. We left chalkboards behind first in grade school and lastly in college and university where remnants existed in old lecture halls. Even flip charts are hard to find in our modern buildings. Instead, we have our heads buried in computers, PPT presentations or our individual notebooks when in meetings. None of these are high touch enough to get our collective creative juices going.
In the crime program “Numbers”, we see the blackboard magic at work. One of the key problem-solvers is shown frequently in front of his blackboard contemplating various algorithms and interconnections to make sense of a crime’s mysteries. Colleagues from the university drop by to aid in his musings. A computer is nearby for complicated calculations and data research. There’s also a lot of sitting around and tossing ideas back and forth. High touch and high tech complement each other.
We are not unfamiliar with such experiences. Retreats and workshops commonly make use of low tech flip charts and other hands on communal thinking processes to stimulate “out of box” thinking. But, flip charts, let alone chalkboards are not commonplace outside of these venues or on site meeting rooms.
For many of us, when we were kids, the teacher stood up at the front and wrote on the blackboard. Maybe it’s now time to dust off this scenario with a modern touch: all of us up at the front at the blackboard here there and everywhere in our places of work. At minimum, the level of informal exchange of information will climb exponentially. Out of that soup of ideas, something exciting will spontaneously gel.
Sunday, July 06, 2008
The Time is Now for a "Groundswell" Mindset Among G-8 Leaders
Let’s hope that the G-8 leaders are listening to a younger generation of advisors and more seasoned pros who are strategic thinkers. Based on media reporting so far, they seem stuck in the past unable to grasp that it’s time to be inclusive, let alone on trend with the pressing global issues.
A “groundswell” mindset means the balance of power is no longer within the G-8. It’s more than G-13 and G-20, as Canada's former Prime Minister Paul Martin lobbied so passionately for. Solutions to our complex world issues will be derived from connecting people with people to discover an array of ways forward.
That means the right kind of engagement forums and processes with the right players at the table. Leaders of all other kinds of organizations are well aware that if they don’t involve the individuals and teams who do the work and who will be most affected by executive decisions, the big issues will remain.
“Groundswell” is defined as “a social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations” in the book of the same name by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff. On the simplest level for political leaders, whose decisions matter so much for our collective well-being, they must broaden their reach and take advantage of blogs, wikis and social networking. Their “IQ” as a team will increase exponentially.
The showstopper is ego. Can each and every one of the G-8 leaders get beyond pride in their own ideas, protection of their power, and fear of the unknown? Creativity beckons. Innovation is at their door step. To use Jim Collins’ terminology from one of his books, the time is now to go from “good to great”.
A “groundswell” mindset means the balance of power is no longer within the G-8. It’s more than G-13 and G-20, as Canada's former Prime Minister Paul Martin lobbied so passionately for. Solutions to our complex world issues will be derived from connecting people with people to discover an array of ways forward.
That means the right kind of engagement forums and processes with the right players at the table. Leaders of all other kinds of organizations are well aware that if they don’t involve the individuals and teams who do the work and who will be most affected by executive decisions, the big issues will remain.
“Groundswell” is defined as “a social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations” in the book of the same name by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff. On the simplest level for political leaders, whose decisions matter so much for our collective well-being, they must broaden their reach and take advantage of blogs, wikis and social networking. Their “IQ” as a team will increase exponentially.
The showstopper is ego. Can each and every one of the G-8 leaders get beyond pride in their own ideas, protection of their power, and fear of the unknown? Creativity beckons. Innovation is at their door step. To use Jim Collins’ terminology from one of his books, the time is now to go from “good to great”.
Saturday, July 05, 2008
The Importance of Being Curious: A Leader's Real Best Friend
Personality specialists have long touted “openness” as one of the healthiest traits for surviving and thriving in our complex, chaotic world. Economists and urban planners note that organizations and city-regions with “openness personalities” have a better chance at prosperity than those which are not. Alan Greenspan, retired Chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve, characterizes the ability or talent as “being curious” versus “incurious”. Great historical leaders speak of “learning coming upon them” in order to understand what to do. Down through the ages, “being curious” has proven to be an important asset.
Alan Greenspan found Bill Clinton the most curious and successful President at managing the economy of the six under which he served during his tenure as the Fed Chair. In his book, The Age of Turbulence, he described Clinton as “fully engaged”, “an information hound” and a person who “asked a lot of smart questions”. He was also a “risk-taker” with good judgment. On the other hand, Greenspan’s most “incurious” President was George W. Bush. In his opinion, he was fixed in his beliefs and consequently was not open to exploring. While Clinton generated significant increases in new jobs, wrestled unemployment and the deficit down and improved the competitiveness of the United States, George W. Bush did the opposite. Incuriosity has its costs in every sense of the word.
Looking back to historical greats such as Churchill and Gandhi, we find a similar theme. As described in Arthur Herman’s Gandhi and Churchill, in the winter of 1896, after satisfying his fascination with becoming a “crack” polo player, Churchill set off on a crash reading program. He also traveled widely, particularly in India, to learn about that country’s challenges through his own eyes. Behind his curiosity was a belief that “large ideas would triumph over small ideas; that modern progress really would dispel prejudice and barbarism; and that human will and purpose such as his own would overcome every challenge.”
As Churchill grew as a leader so too did Gandhi. Like Churchill, he experienced many twists and turns. But always, he was “listening and learning”. In today’s terms, we would call Gandhi a “new age” person, drawn to the latest trends and ideas. Gandhi also believed strongly in grassroots knowledge—traveling around the country to see and experience the lives and struggles of ordinary folks.
While the curiosity of these leaders---Clinton, Churchill and Gandhi---did not always lead them directly to success, on the whole, their respective records stand the test of time. The least we can conclude is that “being curious” is a much better route to leadership and management success than “being incurious”. John Camillus in his May 2008 Harvard Business Review article, Strategy as a wicked problem, implies that today’s “wicked” problems which have innumerable causes, are tough to describe and don’t have a right answer, cannot be solved without curiosity and openness. All leaders and managers take note.
Alan Greenspan found Bill Clinton the most curious and successful President at managing the economy of the six under which he served during his tenure as the Fed Chair. In his book, The Age of Turbulence, he described Clinton as “fully engaged”, “an information hound” and a person who “asked a lot of smart questions”. He was also a “risk-taker” with good judgment. On the other hand, Greenspan’s most “incurious” President was George W. Bush. In his opinion, he was fixed in his beliefs and consequently was not open to exploring. While Clinton generated significant increases in new jobs, wrestled unemployment and the deficit down and improved the competitiveness of the United States, George W. Bush did the opposite. Incuriosity has its costs in every sense of the word.
Looking back to historical greats such as Churchill and Gandhi, we find a similar theme. As described in Arthur Herman’s Gandhi and Churchill, in the winter of 1896, after satisfying his fascination with becoming a “crack” polo player, Churchill set off on a crash reading program. He also traveled widely, particularly in India, to learn about that country’s challenges through his own eyes. Behind his curiosity was a belief that “large ideas would triumph over small ideas; that modern progress really would dispel prejudice and barbarism; and that human will and purpose such as his own would overcome every challenge.”
As Churchill grew as a leader so too did Gandhi. Like Churchill, he experienced many twists and turns. But always, he was “listening and learning”. In today’s terms, we would call Gandhi a “new age” person, drawn to the latest trends and ideas. Gandhi also believed strongly in grassroots knowledge—traveling around the country to see and experience the lives and struggles of ordinary folks.
While the curiosity of these leaders---Clinton, Churchill and Gandhi---did not always lead them directly to success, on the whole, their respective records stand the test of time. The least we can conclude is that “being curious” is a much better route to leadership and management success than “being incurious”. John Camillus in his May 2008 Harvard Business Review article, Strategy as a wicked problem, implies that today’s “wicked” problems which have innumerable causes, are tough to describe and don’t have a right answer, cannot be solved without curiosity and openness. All leaders and managers take note.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
