Leadership in the Emerging New World

If we look at this new world a curious paradox emerges. People today are feeling more and more isolated in the increasingly global, interconnected world. As our access to information and web-enabled networks grows, and our capacity to connect virtually to other people expands, people and organizations are generally increasingly lost as they seek to articulate their identities, build a reputation, and develop new offers. Many people and companies have come to realize that they simply don't have the skills necessary to navigate in a constantly changing world, but don't know what to do about it. Hence, many organizations and individuals are increasingly living in fear and anxiety about the future, and lack confidence not only in their capacity to cope with the reality at hand, but with their leaders' capacity as well. There is little comfort or power to be had in more recitations of earnings reports, cash flow projections, and clearly irrelevant strategic plans.

Yet, in the midst of all of this there are some who are not lost. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, are interesting case studies for all of us of people who have been able to successfully navigate the realities of the world today. None of these men have degrees in management - two of them did not even finish college - yet, they were receptive and responsive to the world around them, knew how to listen to and resonate with situations they found themselves in, and they all invented and reinvented themselves, and their companies accordingly.  We can also look to the designers of President Obama's campaign as good examples of what it means to read the world and quickly mobilize resources and the power of networks to respond to it. As Alan Kay once said: " the best way to predict the future is to invent it." But how were these people able to configure the world that they invented? Were they born with this capacity? Why aren't there more examples of people like Gates, Jobs, Page and Brin? Where is the business world's innovation to match the President's campaign team?  A simple answer is that all of our traditions for educating leaders and managers have been focused on the acquisition of knowledge and the application of concepts, but as knowledge becomes a universal commodity, it is increasingly evident that this is not what we need to cope and thrive in today's world. It is time for a new view of learning.  Instead of being seen as the acquisition of new knowledge and information we hold that learning must be seen as the development of new competence, a new capacity for action.  No amount of studying books, listening to tapes, or reading simplistic tips and techniques will produce new competence.  The only way to develop new competence is through practice and it is time for the development of new practices of leadership and management.  We need new practices that are not trivial, which is what we have all to often settled for of late. We need practices that allow us to cope with an increasingly global, constantly changing world, where communication is instant, and our identities and offers are examined and in play at all times.

Practices are new ways of being and behaving that evolve over time. To configure and master them requires somatic transformation, social mastery and spiritual strength. If people only study and read about what we are talking about, they will not learn to act, because in the end, learning happens in the body. The mind understands and understanding can indeed occur in an instant, but it is the body that learns and as we noted the body only learns through practice and like it or not, practice takes time.  In our view a person is said to "know" only once he or she is able to do something they were not able to do before. As such, immersion in a space and process where action is required is critical for embodied learning to take place. There are no magic pills, instant results, or secret short cuts.

The technological advances of today, combined with our solid body of knowledge, opens up the possibility to move people quickly from theory to practice, allowing us to produce a significant breakthrough in the embodied learning of skills and practices that are critical for the 21st century. Using innovative methods and hands on work we have been able to create processes and practices for embodied learning where people learn to:

• work with others in teams both locally and across distance
• work with other cultures
• innovate, strategize, and design new futures
• manage moods and design and deliver powerful leadership narratives
• create trust and intimacy with others, particularly with people from different organizational and national cultures
• mobilize resources, take action and generate results in a focused coherent manner
• and develop "mastery of network mobilization," a term that captures the idea of being able to mobilize many resources in a network, external to an individual or to the organization he or she belongs.

The dilemma we face is simple to articulate and not so simple to attend to.  As a business community we are deeply wedded to a series of ideas and practices about leadership and management that are largely relics of WWII. We have not done much in terms of rethinking the fundamental premises of management since then.  Instead we have added technology to outdated practices and thus today we can do a number of things that are increasingly irrelevant if not dangerous to the health of an organization but we can do them quickly. We are then mystified when people are not engaged, productivity is largely flat, and people are increasingly cynical and distrustful.  Trivial "fix it" programs or more motivational pabulum are not the answer. 

As we all know, everyone is in favor of change as long as it doesn't mean me and it doesn't mean now.  When times are great the story is," Why should we change anything now?  Everything is going great and we are too busy."  Then when we hit white water like we currently find ourselves in the story is, " We can't do anything now, we have to focus on our core functions, streamline things, and we can't afford anything new now, there is no budget for it."  Real leaders know that what makes the time right for change is nothing more complex that their simple declaration, " We are going to change and we are going to do it now."  Real leaders know that their fundamental role is that of designer of the future.  As such they never let themselves be captive to fixed strategies or budgets as all they do is limit possibilities and drive flexibility out of the business at a time when it is most needed.

There is a new world emerging around us on a daily basis.  If we are going to reinvent ourselves to be as effective in this new world as we were in the old one we must let go of the tired practices of the past, embrace a new view of leadership and management, and build new practices for learning.  Each day we delay we fall further behind and endanger our future. These are risks that we need not take and with some authentic leadership can turn to our advantage. What are you waiting for?