What does it take to improve leadership?
Do we have to succumb to destruction before we can seize possibilities? Can we create a loose organizational framework better suited to rolling with change?
What would it take to embrace– creative disruption, emerging markets, tectonic shifts triggered by technology and complexity?
What would it take to dream up and empower a self organizing team charged with observing, tasting, testing, scouting and recommending in an ongoing effort to help everyone navigate creative disruption?
If we put fear aside for a bit, what is possible?
I thought it would be fun to imagine a workplace that overlays a model for unpacking emergent properties into the organization in a way that fed the system regularly. Imagine a metaphor of a regular diet of nutrients it needs to stay healthy and strong rather than fixate on diagnosing only disease and treatment options once it is too late to act. (Think about what gets the most energy, attention and resources in your organization…treating problems (disease) or staying healthy?)
I am not suggesting that organizations hire new people to fill these functions. What if these “roles” are embraced by employees who want to take a more active role because they are empowered to think and act beyond the now familiar box we’ve forced them into? Disclaimer: This is NOT THE answer. It is a scenario to play with. So play!
This is all made up and expressly for the purpose of generating fresh perspectives and questions that invite a change in our 19th century management model.
Vision and purpose for the team? Create an ongoing mechanism that serves all stakeholders as it finds a way to discover and fold critical intelligence and emerging trends into the “knowledge” of the system for consideration, action, etc. Employees are invited to self select, self organize and volunteer to serve on this team.
In industries under seige…beligured by chaos and market change out of their control…employees and management are already talking about the impact of what they see and what they intuit as the unraveling forces. This… is a victim perspective. When everyone feels like a victim, it is tough to see what is possible.
What if instead, there was a collaborative investment of energy on “what is possible?”
New tools, methods and processes for embracing emergence are being experimented with and played with. I’ll defer to those doing that work for more detailed descriptions of that new discipline. There are ways and tools that make it easy to spawn these collaborative efforts…beyond the scope of meetings, with ongoing information sharing and ideation.
The biggest impediment to incorporating this new learning where it is needed most?
Hierarchial organizations locked in fear and reactive mode.
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What would it take for you to imagine possibilities?
What would you LOVE to see become possible?
What would it be like if it actually happened?
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