Leadership 101

Last week was spent on the road checking in with clients and helping them manage changes within their organizations. Oftentimes, the causes for such changes are presented to me as breakdowns in communication, unrealized opportunities, performance problems, inadequate adaptation, and gaps in the flow of resources. The clients’ default reactions are hierarchical: someone needs to be contracted or hired, someone else is opting to retire, others need to be reassigned, and others still, let go. However, the reality is bigger and more complex than having a few people go and bringing in fresh blood. Change, in a flurry of what’s working, what’s not, and what could work better, first requires that these disparate conditions be placed within a framework. This is followed by convening people whose interactions have the potential to make a positive difference for their organization within that framework. Their interactions lead to more appropriate and measured actions through goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics.

As explored more fully in an earlier posting, organizations consist of sustained conversations – the basis of all human social behavior. If one wants to change an organization, change the conversations its members are having. On one level this is simple and straightforward. Matching forums with meaningful agendas is at the heart of what strategic framing and organization design are all about. People draw upon their power to convene within a social system to setup a wide range of conversations and sustain those that are deemed the most important. Of course, the point of these conversations when establishing or sustaining an organization is to gain alignment – the energy source for growth, progress, and success of any organization.

There is a clear association between those who have the power to convene for alignment and leadership. In fact, while there are hundreds of definitions for leadership, the one I use is “the exercising of power by an individual within a social system to produce alignment.” Productive, collective effort within a social system requires people to be pulling on the rope in the same direction. And through that alignment, motivation is stimulated.

Alignment occurs in three ways:

Integrity. Just as an organization has integrity, so do people. Purpose: why am I here; principles: what do I stand for; intentions: what am I up to, constitute the foundation of institutional and personal integrity. When I feel that my integrity is held in the integrity expressed by others and, ultimately, their organization, I am motivated to participate in what they are doing to see how our collective efforts can be leveraged.
Vision. Imagining a world where one’s purpose, principles, and intentions play out so that others can see it, too, and want to be part of making it happen is a powerful act of vision. Any vision is based first in personal experience. When it is presented to others such that they can shape it with their own dreams and create a shared view of what is possible, the vision becomes an engaging, motivating force.
Fear – Greed. Visions cannot become reality without drawing upon the talents and skills of those who do not necessarily align with the values of integrity or share the same vision. Their motivation comes from a combination of “what’s in it for me” and “what will happen to me if I don’t participate.” The fear – greed continuum appeals to the baser instincts of people in areas where their absence of detachment affects their decisions. For the vast majority, it is easier to do what one is told, to do one’s job, to follow the rules. Alignment means playing along to enjoy the benefits and avoid the pitfalls. But it is a route that is susceptible to the corruptive forces of the hierarchy as explored in a previous posting.

Depending on the circumstances, leaders draw upon the energies available within each of the three types of alignment to advance the organizations they lead. Some have integrity so unquestionably solid it compels others to follow despite not having a clear picture of what the world would look like if everyone behaved according to these values or a hierarchical structure upon which to calculate the cost, risk, and benefit of participation. The most notable of such leaders represent particular spiritual or philosophical belief systems that became the cornerstones for the most persistent social systems in human history. Certainly the evidence is strong that there is much to be gained from fronting one’s core values as a key element in leadership. But, not everyone is ready to cast their lot with someone solely on values alone. This may garner alignment at the outset, but they need more to stay aligned.

Some leaders are able to describe through words and graphics how the world could look if a particular set of core values were adopted such that many others are immediately engaged by it, resonate with it, take it as their own, and start down the path toward making it reality; the vision of one becomes the vision of many. However, the more likely scenario is that one person’s vision matches the visions of others to one degree or another, but not completely. In this case, the effective leader introduces a process by which multiple visions are brought together into one shared vision that holds critical elements for all who want to pursue it. While a shared vision produces alignment, it commands the strongest buy-in only by those who were there when it was created. The leader must stay vigilant in continually representing the vision to those who are new to the organization and in some instances prompt further adaptation of the vision to hold others who come in later.

With both integrity and vision, the virtual or physical presence of and interaction with the leader is essential to maintain alignment. Collective efforts that have dependency on one leader are at risk to go astray unless a formal system is setup to manage the behavior of people in the organization. Formal systems provide boundaries that determine who is in and who is out of an organization, enable the formation of hierarchies, enact rules, regulations, policies, and procedures, and establish processes that manage the work of organizations. Within a formal system, the vision of the organization is translated into sets of actionable goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics. Alignment is achieved when people work these plans. Some leaders are effective enforcing this type of alignment within the formal systems by encouraging them through the promise of reward should they accomplish what they are responsible to do and threatening them with undesirable consequences should they fail. It is the classic case of “carrot and stick” motivation. In other words, the fear – greed continuum is alive and well.

As mentioned earlier, my work with people in client organizations is about framing their circumstances so that an appropriate set of conversations are convened and the participants can make a positive difference in helping their organization adapt. The evolving design of the organization is based on the results of certain conversations that need to happen: does the organization need to recall its integrity – get back to its roots, so to speak; does it need to renew its vision – see itself in an entirely different way filled with more possibilities; does it need to redirect its formal system – become more consequent and disciplined. These questions require different conversations and depending on whether the organizational alignment is better derived from integrity, vision, or fear – greed determines the leadership skills required to make the conversations happen.

Therein lays the challenge of doing my work well – matching the skills of leaders with the circumstances where they will prompt alignment. And if there are no immediate leaders available with the requisite skills, I coach those who show talent and interest so they strengthen their “toolkits,” gain confidence in their capabilities, and embark upon leading in new ways under unfamiliar situations. And helping those people become more evolved, well-rounded, and flexible leaders is what makes doing this work worthwhile!

Originally posted to New Media Explorer by Steve Bosserman on Wednesday, February 1, 2006

A Wedding Framework

Last week, I had the distinct pleasure of participating in my daughter’s wedding. As typical for fathers of brides, I just showed up and did as I was told so as to contribute as best I could to her having the complete experience she wanted. Obviously, my participation fulfilled an essential role within a “wedding framework” my daughter spent years envisioning. However, it became obvious as the day unfolded that my role was only one of many within a complex blend of activities and sub-routines among people, businesses, and processes over the previous six months that led to the wedding framework “realization” we shared at that time.

This speaks volumes for the necessity of an envisioned framework upon which to define and queue critical activities. It is also a classic example of what happens along a virtualization — realization continuum as a total solution is put into play. As they began their wedding plans, my daughter and her then fiancé chose to get married in a small town along the coast of Maine even though they lived in the Kansas City area. I found out later this is called a “destination wedding,” or as a friend of mine termed it an “announced elopement.” In their case, neither of them lived in Maine, had been to Maine, nor knew anyone in Maine; but that was no deterrent. Enter virtualization!

Successful virtualization relies on three key elements: presence – visibility on websites, blogsites, profiles, and listings wherein a person, business, or organization can be found through routine searches; networking – chatter, buzz, references made by others that corroborate what a person, business, organization claims about themselves; and interactivity – responses in timing and content to emails, voice mails, site comments, etc.

My daughter and son-in-law brought these three elements into play right from the start of their planning. First, they tapped into their personal networks and searched the Internet for information about Maine. Their particular interest was the coast of Maine then small towns on the coast that have white churches in stereotypical settings of rural New England, followed by requisite splashes of fall colors dotting the countryside in early October. A combination of affirmative statements from family, friends, co-workers, and others within their trusted networks who had realized experiences in Maine, what they gleaned from online sources, and what was learned in exchanges of email and phone conversations with people in Maine, the destination was targeted – Camden.

Finding the location was only half the challenge. The second step entailed populating the envisioned overall “wedding framework” with virtualized pieces that nested together to create a whole virtual experience of the total solution. The same networking — web-surfing — loop-closing communication patterns used to find the location were repeated several times over the course of the six-month planning horizon with one critical difference – secondary trusted networks were available.

One of the outcomes of the initial round of site selection was the discovery, “testing,” and subsequent addition of those who passed the test into their trusted networks. These new members were local to Camden. Of course, those Camden locals knew others in their trusted networks who had the necessary qualifications and availability to fill-in the missing blanks on the wedding framework. As a result, church, pastor, bed and breakfast rooms for guests, photographer, baker, florist, marriage license office, etc. were found, their roles clarified, and their commitments sealed – the virtualized total solution was completed slightly ahead of the realized form. As a backup, the local trusted networks had sufficient redundancy that in the event of failure with one of the contracted parties another was quickly available to step in at the moment of realization to assure success.

My daughter and son-in-law had a wedding framework in mind from the start. They went through the steps necessary to find and integrate the people, businesses, and organizations required to first virtualize, then realize their “total wedding solution.” Such an integration role is central in putting together and carrying out any complex project or initiative. Successful “integrators” build new, penetrate existing, and connect interrelated networks. This skill enables them to take a framework of their or another’s making, organize it into a latticework of interconnected cells, and then pull from dense webs of resource networks to “fill” each cell with multiple layers of possible responses. It is a skill that is becoming THE key differentiator among those who are seemingly equals. It is one that my daughter and son-in-law executed flawlessly.

Just as “beauty is in the eyes of the beholder,” my description of a virtualization — realization process that was wonderfully done means nothing unless the one it is about agrees with the result! When describing the experience as her wedding day was winding down, my daughter said, “It was PERFECT!” There is nothing sweeter to the ear for a dad than to hear his daughter say this. So, indeed, it WAS perfect!

Originally posted to New Media Explorer by Steve Bosserman on Friday, October 14, 2005

Introduction to Social Agriculture

In his book, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, Jared Diamond posits that agriculture is the foundation upon which civilization is built. Nonetheless, this association is not without certain complications. Some activist authors such as John Zerzan take an extreme stand that agriculture is the bane of true civilization. On the other hand, historian and author Fernand Braudel brings a less judgmental perspective in his trilogy, Civilization and Capitalism: 15th-18th Century. He focuses his historical inquiry on the everyday experiences of those whose daily lives were lived at the crossroads of a burgeoning agricultural society and the rise of capitalism. Yet again, there are other writers such as Heather Pringle who, in her article, “Neolithic Agriculture: The Slow Birth of Agriculture”, softens the view further by holding that the birth of agriculture occurred in the Neolithic Age prior to the large-scale cities and far-reaching civilizations. Plant and animal domestication during this period did not bring with it the adoption of a social dominance model which appeared later. The range of these three suggests that the association of agriculture and civilization has considerable room for further exploration!

The application of strategic frameworks facilitates the exploration of ideas and intellectual spaces. This is certainly the case in the association between agriculture and civilization. As the convergence of technology, energy, environment for life at the point of human equivalence draws nearer, agricultural practices will change dramatically.

In the diagram above, the combination of technologies that are faster, smaller, more integrated, and more intelligent fuels a bifurcation in production agriculture. Agricultural practices that yield what people use in petroleum, fiber, and industrial applications take advantage of economies of scale and promote globalization and commoditization. Meanwhile, those agricultural practices that result in what people eat such as nutraceuticals, place-based specialties, food with specific qualities (organic, faith-based, ethnic), and livestock, leverage economies of place and tend toward localization and customization.

The dichotomy prompted by the bifurcation of production agriculture feeds a creative tension along the continuum of fossil-fuel energy and renewable energy that if usefully applied, has the potential to bring the association of agriculture and civilization into a more favorable balance than at any time in human history. As condition reports are received through different media about changing conditions and circumstances in production agriculture they can be tied to the “strategic framework” suggested by the diagram and organized into meaningful actions on the continuum in response. And given the advances that are on the horizon this topic of agriculture, civilization, and technology will provide ample fodder for future consideration!

Originally posted to New Media Explorer by –Steve Bosserman on Tuesday, August 30, 2005 and updated on Saturday, September 24, 2005