When I did an MBA ten years ago, Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline was a set text. It is probably that book, along with Arie de Geus’ The Living Company, that most inspired my interest in why organisations behave the way they do, and the importance of good leadership. Organisations can be designed and managed in a way that makes them vital and energised, or they can be over-managed and over-designed to death.
So, it was a real pleasure to be invited to speak to members of SOL-UK, the UK chapter of the organisation that Senge himself founded in the late 1990s. I was looking forward to meeting a crowd of people who’d been equally excited by the ideas of Senge, de Geus and other champions of what is loosely termed distributed leadership – and who were equally interested in the significance of these ideas in relation to Web 2.0.
Key behaviours
The seminar took place last Wednesday at One Alfred Place and lived up to its promise. The event was sold out, and the conference room packed. We also had a virtual audience, thanks to the handful of attendees who were tweeting and blogging through the event – special thanks to Stephen Cribbett and David Wilcox for their updates. We even had a tweet from Craig Newmark in San Francisco just seconds after his leadership style was being discussed – and I’d been talking about what a good listener he was!
This being the first time I’d presented ideas from Monkeys with Typewriters, I was feeling my way a bit. I tried to keep the slides as simple as possible, so they were basically an overview of the six key behaviours I’d identified in my 12-18 months of dedicated research. These six behaviours (or attributes) are the ones that seemed most present/ obvious in both people’s approaches to social media and in the organisations which were embracing what we can term a “Web 2.0” ethos, or approach. The six behaviours are: co-creation, passion, learning, openness, listening and generosity.
Co-creation
It was great to be in a room where people seemed to pick up on ideas eagerly and in a critical but constructive way. The audience was diverse in terms of technological knowhow – some people confessed to avoiding social networks like the plague, or simply coming along because they were curious about social media but had never used it at work, others were ICT careerists with backgrounds at companies like IBM and HP.
The chapter entitled “Co-creation” had started out as “Metanoia” (Peter Senge’s term for the heightened state of creativity achieved by a group or team working together in an effective, efficient, intellectually-charged manner). When I mentioned that I eventually ditched that title as it turned out that Senge’s interpretation of metanoia was rather different to the standard definition, which has overly-religious connotations of salvation and repentance, it was good to see few heads nodding sagely.
Social leadership
Not surprisingly, it was the chapter on “Learning” that caused the most contention, with one attendee observing that the organisational adoption of social tools such as wikis, tagging and social bookmarking enabled not so much “learning” as simple communication – surely the term “learning” should be reserved for a deeper kind of understanding, one which involved some kind of significant psychological realisation, acknowledgement and development? Another attendee referred to Otto Scharmer’s work around “presencing” as an illustration of this type of process.
Of course, I firmly believe that social media can help encourage learning on a deep level throughout organisations. However, adoption of these technologies is just one part of the process. It is only when these new digital tools are combined with a distributed approach to leadership, enlightened management and flexible structure that we can really make a breakthrough.
Thanks SOL-UK for inviting me along – I’m enjoying the conversation!
Photo: Caro Wallis
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Jemima Gibbons
Social media consultant and author of Monkeys with Typewriters (featured by BBC Radio 5 and the London Evening Standard). Get your social marketing up and running with my Social Media Launch Pack!
I may have been one of the nodding dogs, Jemima. Your talk was very engaging, and had many useful insights. I was surprised by the range of knowledge about how to use social media and its implications. I don’t think I agreed with all your views and that is can be a basis of a good dialogue, exploring "the difference that makes a difference" as Gregory Bateson used to say. Metanoia resonated for me for two reasons. First, because a book about Systemic Organisational Practice to which I contributed a chapter on Mary Follett was published last month in Helsinki and it was publishd by the Metanoia Institute. There is a Metanoia Institute in the UK too, of course, which I think is different. it focuses very much on therapeutic support. Second because I wonder if I have a slightly different perspective on the meaning of the word. The word does indeed have a strong religious or spiritual flavour, which is why Senge chose it, as he explains on pages 13/14 of The Fifth Discipline. I would say that deep learning inevitably leads to metanoia and that co-creating also leads to metanoia in the sense of the transformation of individual and community minds and that could feel like a religious experience, with or without a deity. I think that is what Senge has in mind. My research suggests that we can look at that through a complexity lens and/or a neurological lens to gain deeper understanding, especially when we combine and add to those views to create a more consilience-based integration of different perspectives. Senge’s book opened many doors for me in my airline business career and since has helped me to consult powerfully to various companies. One of the doors it opened was labelled "Systemic Organisational Practice", down to the gloomy, unvisited basement of personal and organisational life! Down there, where much of it is impenetrably dark and most of the rest can only be seen out of the corner of your eye (where the special night vision rods are), fading away when you try to look at what you thought you glimpsed. And when you do turn on the light to see better (e.g with a culture audit or employee engagement survey) it all disappears, almost (but not quite) faster than you can hear. But with deep practice, some people find their way round down there and can guide others to find hidden sources of energy and infuence that pervade all organisations and all people and strongly determine the success, failure and occasional catastrophe of community. It’s not good to spend too much time down there, but there is a paradox that the more technically sophisticated our means of communication are, we become less aware of the of the deep forces that affect us, so that many actually are stuck in ‘only transmit’ mode and that at a very superficial level, preventing the authentic dialogue that leads to community and sustained, sucessful cocreation. As Reg Revan on Action Learning said, "Oh teacher kind, please help me findWhat the dark is made of.It worries me I cannot seeWhat I am afraid of."I look forward to further conversations. Thanks for writing the book, Jemima. Jonathan Wilson
Hi Jonathan,Thanks for this great commentary.Apologies because I skimmed it a while ago and thought you made such great observations, I should get back to you when I have more time to consider, but of course, we never have "more" time, do we?I love your metaphor of the dingy basement where everything seems to disappear once you turn the lights on – so true (and reminds me of that old Hagar the Horrible cartoon where he’s standing in the dark, lights a match and sees monsters all around him, so quickly puts the match out again)!Your idea of "deep practice" seems to resonate with Otto Scharmer’s practice of "presencing", which I’m sure you’re familiar with…I’ve only just skimmed the surface of that (sorry – superficiality again!) but I know Matthew Fairtlough at Triarchy has attended some workshops and found them very powerful.Thanks again for your thoughtful comment 🙂