Continuous Engagement: One of the reasons I find “Development in a Box” concept of Steve DeAngelis so intriguing is the real-time connection and adaption link between the organization and the environment in the “third stage” of DiB. The engagement between institutional memory, rule-sets, self-monitoring and changing conditions does not break or stop. Change becomes part of the institutional culture.
Modularity: While organizations move faster when they are ” flatter” you reach a point of diminishing returns with decentralization where the organization becomes amorphous and unable to sustain a concentrated effort or flow of resources. Embedding nodes of hierarchy in a relatively decentralized network – modularity – allows for greater cohesion and “local’ leadership.
Continuous Learning: Not simply ” training” but genuine learning should take place as the organization invests in its own members. The aggregate increase in new skill-sets and experiences infuse the organization with new ideas while increasing the parameters of possibilities.
Velocity: Borrowing a term from economics, on average, the people in a complex organization should move positionally at a certain rate. New people should be brought in and old ones given sabbaticals ( recall Continuous Learning) for a time to change their intellectual environment completely. Ideally, the organization would acquire a membership where most could demonstrate at least competency at several disparate critical tasks and excellence in an area of specialization.
The 21st century is shaping up to be the century of the network, the market-state and the emergence dynamic – leaders who do not cultivate resiliency in this era build upon sand.
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Curtis Gale Weeks:
May 5th, 2006 at 12:48 pm
Very interesting post, Mark.
I wonder, to the degree that the organization is made modular and structured to give members intellectual vacations, or on a cycle through the organization as new members are introduced, etc., etc., how necessary will the very idea of “leadership” be?
And, what exactly will that leader be doing, from day to day or even just whenever?
I wonder if the very idea of leadership, as we normally conceive it, necessarily leads to at least a little bit of ossification. However, if the leader’s primary role or the heft of his leadership rests in perpetually breaking up ossification as it occurs or preventing it from occurring, that might be the sort of leader you are looking for.
mark:
May 5th, 2006 at 3:23 pm
Hey Curtis,
Fantastic observation. Perhaps the highest, truest goal of leadership is to make itself unnecessary ?
Probably more successful leaders have destroyed or damaged their own legacies by not knowing when to get out of the way, than anything else.
Matt Roth-Cline:
May 5th, 2006 at 6:25 pm
I work with a very smart, very creative IT team. The folks here know how to do lots of stuff. But most of them don’t have a clue about *what* to do. That’s where leadership comes in.
Rather than “unnecessary”, I’d say that the highest goal of leadership is to make itself invisible.
mark:
May 5th, 2006 at 7:46 pm
“Rather than “unnecessary”, I’d say that the highest goal of leadership is to make itself invisible”
Hi Matt,
Admittedly, a better way to express the idea. Gracias.
vonny:
May 6th, 2006 at 3:10 am
An interesting concept used at Google is to give the engineers great freedom to pursue their own ideas. Some percentage of the time they need to work on ongoing company projects, but a substantial amount of time (on order of 50%) is to be used to create and build upon their own ideas. This encourages new innovation and creative thinking by smart, experienced people. It is an example of a more ‘invisible’ leadership that has, up to now, been quite effective. This also gives workers more intellectual ownership and motivation in their work.
mark:
May 6th, 2006 at 4:50 am
Hi Von,
I was not aware of that aspect of Google but intuitively, that would seem to be psychologically very sound.
Creativity requires freedom but also activity and tension. People who are locked into a rigid treadmill without any choices or control are rarely creative ( except perhaps at expressing rebellion). Likewise, endless amounts of time without limits or responsibilities seem to induce lassitude.
phil:
May 7th, 2006 at 3:58 pm
W.L Gore has been doing the same kind of thing Vonny mentions about Google. Fast Company had an article on how Gore organizes for innovation. Here’s a link and a few quotes:
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/89/open_gore.html
…We wanted a company where innovation is resilient and doesn’t depend on the ingenuity of a single individual or even a small cadre of geniuses…
Gore’s knack for innovation doesn’t come from throwing money or bodies at a challenge, or from building a great ivory tower of an R&D lab. It springs from a culture where people feel free to pursue ideas on their own, communicate with one another, and collaborate out of self-motivation rather than a sense of duty. Gore enshrines the idea of “natural leadership.” Leaders aren’t designated from on high. People become leaders by actually leading, and if you want to be a leader there, you have to recruit followers. Since there’s no chain of command, no one has to follow. In a sense, you become a talent magnet: You attract other talented people who want to work with you. You draw them with your passion for what you’re working on and the credibility that you’ve built over time…
…Gore encourages its associates to spend some of their time — typically around 10% — on speculative new ideas…
…The Gore organization isn’t as fanatically flat as some idealized accounts have made it out to be. There is indeed a president and CEO, Chuck Carroll, a quiet man who succeeded Bob four years ago. And the company necessarily has some structure. The four divisions (fabrics, medical, industrial, and electronic products) each have a recognized “leader,” as do certain companywide support functions (human resources, information technology) and specific businesses and cells. But there is no codified set of ranks and positions as there is in the typical corporation. As a Gore “associate,” you’re supposed to morph your role over time to match your skills. You’re not expected to fit into some preconceived box or standardized organizational niche. Your compensation is tied to your “contribution” and decided by a committee, much the way it’s done in law firms. The company looks at your past and present performance as well as your future prospects, which takes away the potential disincentive for investing time and effort in speculative projects. Gore encourages risk taking. When Gore people pull the plug on a failing initiative, they’ll still have a “celebration” with beer or champagne, just as they would if it had been a success.