Managing by a constant state of emergency
A thought drifts through my head as I consider the Dubai debacle and the high-traffic/low-sales results from the semi-sinisterly named Black Friday retail festival:
Seriously, wasn’t that just a few months ago that everything was green, since the price of oil was driven so high by speculation?
Then September of 2008 arrived and suddenly things were about ethical business. After all, it was that nasty greed that ruined everything – and a lack of transparency! That’s it, now all business needs to be ethical and transparent…and green, too, of course!
Yet today, we’re thinking about just how many world banks were up to their knees in can’t-miss Dubai real estate projects and hoping that the world’s currencies don’t catch fire.
This is why leadership needs to be about long-term structural trends. The media can’t hype up the Boomer retirement, it can’t negotiate with the oil present in Brazil, nor deny that most of the world’s young people live in Latin America, Africa, and Central Asia. When we build our plans around real trends rather than hype, we don’t have to re-write our strategies every few months. Real leaders will find that comforting.
The revolution of algorithmic authority
Clay Shirky recently began exploring a significantly important idea in Intelligence 2.0, that of algorithmic authority, a new form of trust that befits the complex informational environment of the 21st century. For those of us who assemble large amounts of data for decision makers, authority is critical, and it is under major stress due to the Internet. Until recently, you could help leaders make the most informed decisions by assembling the most authoritative sources, interpret the implications of that data, and go forth understanding several potential courses of action. Today, we must also add a new dimension – evaluating the validity of the information as the barriers to entry fall in the world of printing and distribution. Shirky’s theory helps us in this regard:
Algorithmic authority is the decision to regard as authoritative an unmanaged process of extracting value from diverse, untrustworthy sources, without any human standing beside the result saying “Trust this because you trust me.” This model of authority differs from personal or institutional authority, and has, I think, three critical characteristics.
First, it takes in material from multiple sources, which sources themselves are not universally vetted for their trustworthiness, and it combines those sources in a way that doesn’t rely on any human manager to sign off on the results before they are published. This is how Google’s PageRank algorithm works, it’s how Twitscoop’s zeitgeist measurement works, it’s how Wikipedia’s post hoc peer review works. At this point, its just an information tool.
Second, it produces good results, and as a consequence people come to trust it. At this point, it’s become a valuable information tool, but not yet anything more.
The third characteristic is when people become aware not just of their own trust but of the trust of others: “I use Wikipedia all the time, and other members of my group do as well.” Once everyone in the group has this realization, checking Wikipedia is tantamount to answering the kinds of questions Wikipedia purports to answer, for that group. This is the transition to algorithmic authority.
We all have our reasons
We all have our reasons the future turns out a certain way.
Did we not anticipate the adoption of new technologies that would erase our competitive advantage? Yes, well you see, we had our reasons. We were amortizing old technology, and besides everybody knew that those upstart companies weren’t really serious. Yes, we’re in the red, but if you look back, we had our reasons for making those decisions. Now, let’s not get into the blame game.
Sure, we encouraged a speculative bubble in housing that has destabilized everything that uses a dollar sign: households, banks, cities, the whole national economy. But we had our reasons. GDP was increasing and people were getting monster bonuses! You can’t fool around with the genius of the market. And sure, those regulations on banks had been there since the 1930s, but as you can see, there was no way we could know they were still useful. In retrospect, you can see what we were thinking, right?
Are all the young people and businesses in our state leaving? That’s because of structural factors that are beyond our control. We didn’t necessarily encourage economic development or give reasons for the next generation of talent to stay, but that’s not actually in my job title. We can’t be held responsible for the “foot loose and fancy-free” young kids who don’t even have loyalty to us! Why are they leaving? I don’t know, but I’m sure they have their reasons…
Why did companies like Google create new ways of using information while using new, massively profitable business models? Why do some nations invest for their futures while others consign themselves to the also-rans of history?
Why do some leaders think about future trends and act early?
They have their reasons.
Next Generation Leadership: Jingoism Vs. Kool-Aid-ism
At Competitive Futures, we’re thinking long and hard these days about what the next generation of leadership will need to look like. 2009 will feature a variety of new events, services, and dialogues around what we need to do to thrive in the face of all of these crises.
Just found a great way to describe the leadership mindsets of the different generations via Jessica Margolis, a futures-oriented thinker on this subject, and wanted to post her insights in their entirety. Go check out the whole thing.
As we transition to a kind of leadership that is equal to our challenges, we will need to enter into many such deep philosophical discussions.
KOOL-AID-ISM
Baby Boomers had Jingoism, and Generation X has Kool-Aid-ism. For the Boomers, Viet Nam was the question: Would you go? Would you NOT go? If you didn’t go, would you protest? Leave the country? What is a hero? Where are your national duties? You may have relatives who served or even died during World War II; how can you oppose your government’s call to duty?
Generation X has had a similar pivotal issue: Will you go to work in corporation? Will you refuse? If you don’t go, will you start your own business? How should you support yourself; what role should your livelihood play in your life? What about your family? Where are your obligations? How should you effect change?
“Drinking the Corporate Kool-Aid” is an expression often used to mean the degree to which an employee buys into the goals and objectives as stated by the executives in the firm they work.
The degree to which (US-raised) Generation Xers bought into to the framework of unfettered capitalism is as much a litmus test as the degree to which Boomers bought into the framework of unfettered nationalism. It even has the same polarizing issues: If you’re going to do it, do it right! (Be much more aggressive in Viet Nam; make a LOT of money in the corporate world.) If you object to the powerful treating you badly, then you’d better not do the same thing yourself (“Make love not war”; “First, do no evil”).
American Society for Training and Development: “Future Leaders Now!”
This Thursday at 6:00 pm I’ll be speaking at the American Society for Training and Development’s local chapter meeting here in the Washington DC area. This influential group asked me to put together a program on the specifics of training leaders to think about the future, especially given all the new stuff happening at this moment in history. I’m quite looking forward to the discussion!
Are you in the DC area? If you want to come, just click here to sign up for the event. More info below.
Future Leaders Now!
November 13, 2008
6:00 pm – 8:30 pm
Hyatt Bethesda
One Bethesda Metro Center / 7400 Wisconsin Avenue
Bethesda, 20814 / ph: 301.657.1234
Unprecedented social trends on the horizon will make the profession of training and development more important than ever. Our institutions are faced with challenges with no parallel in history: shrinking water tables, global immigration, climate change, skyrocketing healthcare costs. The world needs leaders now, to do that which has never been done.
These leaders won’t just appear – the must be trained and developed. The need for education of new skills and mindsets is staggering. Even the needs are changing every day as the global economic system shifts before our very eyes. Join Eric Garland, a futurist and consultant to leaders around the globe, in a dialogue about how the training industry has the opportunity to shape our common future – and what you can do today!
As a result of participating in this engaging presentation you will:
- Understand the worldwide professional demographic challenge
- See the latest in global economic changes and their influence on the workplace performance industry
- Preview the critical role that the workplace performance industry will play in shaping the future workforce
John F. Kennedy reads the Declaration of Independence
God bless YouTube, this is very cool.
In case you want a taste of the logic behind major change, this is JFK reading the Declaration of Independence, in its entirety.
Words written by fallible human beings, but powerful, and remembered.
Does leadership matter? (We think yes.)
This post comes from the fabulous Caribou Coffee on East-West Highway in Silver Spring, Maryland. It’s a calm, gray day here across from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration building as people mill dreamily about, trying desperately to adjust to the time change as the morning’s caffeine sets in.
Tomorrow we will have a national election. My district’s voting will be right here, at NOAA. My neighbors and I will gather, likely to sit in line for what we will perceive to be an absurd amount of time. Out of pure faith, we assume that these votes will be accurately counted, and that the policy direction of this nation will be changed.
Does any of this matter? Aren’t we the prisoners of demographic and economic shifts? Don’t the entrenched and powerful cancel out any change we might try to engender? Can a leader really get anything done in just a few years?
Yes, it matters deeply. Leadership is still critically important in these complex, confusing times – perhaps 
moreso. I think that people in Western countries have been in stable political and economic systems for so long, that we are sometimes skeptical about the ability to change for good or for bad. That change is made possible – or impossible – by individual leaders, their mindsets, their skills, and the actions they take. The world is a different place because of them.
I am currently reading about Caesar Augustus, a man who said on his deathbed, “I found Rome made of clay; I give it to you made of marble.” His actions, in a few short decades, likely led to the establishment of Europe as a coherent cultural and political entity for two millennia after his death.
OK, so he’s probably credited as the most effective leader ever – how can we match up to historical standards on a daily basis?
By using the same process of long-term vision, tempered by modern management techniques. How do you do that?
We’re working on it. In fact, today, a group of like-minded managerial philosophers are meeting today for a project we call the “Next Generation Leadership Institute.” Over the next year, we’ll be exploring these questions in great detail. The moment is too important to let pass.
More to come.
A bleak future for authority figures
At a conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, working with executives on future trends and their relationship 
to risk management. It’s an exciting time to be discussing global change and potential scenarios, especially in the wake of the financial debacle where real things are changing at a breakneck pace.
One woman put a fine point on our predicament. “The worst part of this is that our leaders are being revealed as the emperors who have no clothes. We require a certain degree of strength and trustworthiness in our authority figures. But a lot of these guys are looking ignorant, fraudulent, or worse.”
I think the answer here is not anarchy. Our economic system is far too complex to ever revert to operating our countries and industries without some degree of hierarchical leadership.
Trust in leadership is already shaken by the terrifying sudden meltdown of the world credit market. Thinking in terms of scenarios, if we have one or two or crises to follow up the financial catastrophe, how much less power will our institutions carry? Why listen to the news? Why pay attention to cabinet ministers? What does the boss know? He might be out of a job tomorrow too.
The fact remains, we will need leadership to guide institutions through the many challenges on the horizon. Reputation will be an important part of maintaining influence.
Why Greenspan’s admission of error matters
We live in a rapidly changing world, yet it often seems that our leaders are more terrified than ever in 
admitting mistakes. Think of the standard Washington political non-denial-denial, the expert blame deflection, the passive-voice “mistakes were made” begrudging semi-admission of responsibility.
Imagine how rarely we hear the words, “I got it wrong. I thought the world was one way, but it turned out to be more complex than that. Now I know better.” It’s as if authority figures are afraid that anybody who admits error will never be trusted again.
Yesterday, I expressed shock that Greenspan did not see the broader picture of the United States financial system, new kinds of risk, and the complex interaction with world markets. For somebody with so many advisors and access to information at any price, I am still a bit surprised.
Still, I don’t want to let the moment pass without simply expressing gratitude to a man big enough to admit his assumptions did not match the moment. More than ever I believe that we are on the verge of a new paradigm in leadership, in management, in economics, and in society. Paradigm has been overused and badly used, but I think it’s finally appropriate. If there is change this significant on the horizon, many people will make mistakes.
For our institutions to survive and thrive we must possess the ability to admit mistakes, take responsibility, seek new perspectives, and move forward. I read people who are surprised that Greenspan was willing to “take abuse” and “take part of the blame” in his testimony to Congress. Yes, it’s that rare. But far more important is the example of a man of the highest position in society willing to admit that his assumptions were invalid.
I remain critical, but I am impressed and grateful.
The financial crisis and what it means for leaders
With everything that has happened in recent days, we here at Competitive Futures are really examining what we do as trend analysts.
Trends are the result of decisions human beings have made. Track them all you want – it’s the leaders that count.
What kind of leader are you? Are you thinking about the future?
Yes, it’s a marketing message for our firm, but more than ever we realize that the answer to those questions impact us all.
About Eric Garland
Eric is one of the world's pre-eminent thoughtleaders in forecasting and strategy. He helps leaders of business and government make critical decisions about their futures.Connect with us
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