Modeling Leadership for #LeanUXNYC

Modeling Leadership

@SemanticWill

1.  Problem statement

2.  Domain awareness

3.  Context of leadership & management

4.  Power, Authority, Influence

5.  Organizations as systems

6.  Modeling conversation

7.  Enframed by language

8.  The Paine Principle

9.  Questions of leadership

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

Let’s start with a little Frederick Taylor and management science

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

His ideas about management were informed by the Prussian Military

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

His ideas of control were also shaped by the penal system of discipline & punish

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

Taylor’s ideas about human nature were informed by Freud…

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

Who did an epic amount of coke.

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

But also the more sober ideas of Kurt Lewin – the founder of social psych....

Who was influenced by Max Weber

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

Three forms of authority distinguished by Max Weber

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

the ability of one agent within a social relationship to carry out her own will despite

resistance

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

the probability that a command within a specific context will be obeyed

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legitimate domination

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Authority is more enduring than non-legitimate forms of domination

•  Authority is related to the belief in legitimacy

•  It may persist even if those obeying have a greater material interest in disobeying

•  Authority is engendered by power

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

Authority is engendered by power

It may persist even if those obeying have a greater material interest in disobeying

Authority is related to the belief in legitimacy

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

Foucault and Power

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

Power is not a substance. It is not something you possess

Power is a relation between people

A set of actions on the actions of others

Every relation is a power relation

Authority is predicated on power

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

Every relation is a power relation

A set of actions on the actions of others

Power is a relation between people

Power is not a substance. It is not something you possess

@SemanticWill | Will Evans @SemanticWill | Will Evans

structuring the field of action of others.

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

Power and Knowledge

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

Every body of knowledge creates a field of power

Power/Knowledge is a flow.

Knowledge is encoded in language

Every field of power creates a body of knowledge

Power and Knowledge are intertwingled

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

Governance (rules)

Ethics (cultural norms)

Power is created through 3 axes of subjectivity

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

Language (knowledge)

Governance (rules)

Ethics (cultural norms)

@SemanticWill | Will Evans @SemanticWill | Will Evans

Language enframes process; Process becomes the Panopticon

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

SO WHAT OF INFLUENCE?

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

Influence is the ability to affect other’s beliefs and behavior without power.

Influence requires a defined context.

That context we’ll call a social system. (which are complex adaptive systems)

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

SOCIAL SYSTEMS ARE SYSTEMS OF CONVERSATION

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

IF ORGANIZATIONS ARE SYSTEMS OF CONVERSATION

We need a model of conversation to understand power dynamics, decision making, and influence

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

@SemanticWill | Will Evans @SemanticWill | Will Evans

Yeah, but…

@SemanticWill | Will Evans @SemanticWill | Will Evans

Kanban creates a shared context..

Using cards as “social objects”

Which allow teams to have conversations

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

ORGANIZATIONS ARE CONVERSATION SYSTEMS

An organization creates itself through conversation with practices encoded in language

A system is defined by boundaries between itself and its environment

Social Systems are created by selecting what is meaningful to reproduce itself (Autopoiesis)

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

An organization increases its efficiency by creating and refining a shared language.

This common language helps the organization arrive at decisions more efficiently.

An organization increases its efficiency by creating and refining a shared language.

This common language helps the organization arrive at decisions more efficiently.

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

Yet while language fosters efficiency, it also limits the organizations ability to evolve. Yet while language fosters efficiency, it also limits the organizations ability to evolve.

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

The language and grammar of efficiency is very different from the language of innovation

– yet both are necessary

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

Constrained by a one vocabulary, the organization becomes unable to adapt to exogenous shocks to the system.

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

Unable to adapt, the organization eventually declines and dies.

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

By continually changing its language, and it's conversations, an organization may continually

regenerate itself.

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

The Paine Principle

Named after Thomas Paine - an outsider to the American colonies, who brought a new language of radical freedom, and gave a voice to

the revolution.

(He was, in essence, translating Voltaire into the context and vernacular of colonial America)

An outsider introducing new language may incite radical change

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

Like any organization, TLC is a set of conversations among people. Like many organizations faced with the market conditions it sees

itself, it needed to change to meet new challenges.

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

TLC couldn’t use its existing language & conversations to change the way it handled adversity.

So it sought new languages… and a new grammar for

structuring conversations.

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

To support an organization's future viability, effective decision makers actively introduce change into the system.

They may do so by generating new language that teams in the organization come to understand or embrace.

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

Before IBM can reap the benefits of teams using design thinking to increase collaborative ideation, they first have to

introduce the grammar & language of design thinking

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

For organizations to regenerate themselves, they must first recognize the limitations of their current language. Then they must seek new language domains, and translate them into

conversations the organization may understand and embrace.

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

QUESTIONS OF LEADERSHIP

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

Leaderships role is…

About the reduction of uncertainty?

About reinforcing shared values?

Creating a framework for conversations?

Introduction of new languages?

Strategic reduction (or introduction) of friction?

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

It’s the role of leaders within an organization to incubate and then introduce new languages

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

A thought…

You cannot use the language of the past to articulate a vision for the future.

Current language can only write a narrative of futures past.

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

The task of discovering the requisite variety of tools and disciplines is iterative.

The source of new languages is questions – questions that spark new conversations

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

As a leader, ask yourself…

What questions should you be asking?

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

As a leader, ask yourself…

What questions should you be asking? What questions are you not supposed to ask?

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

As a leader, ask yourself…

What questions should you be asking? What questions are you not supposed to ask?

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

As a leader, ask yourself…

What questions should you be asking? What questions are you not supposed to ask?

Ask questions that don't come easy.

@SemanticWill | Will Evans

•  What questions should you be asking? •  What questions are you not supposed to

ask? •  > Ask those. •  Ask questions that don’t come easy. •  Ask the questions that are tough,

awkward, taboo.

As a leader, ask yourself…

What questions should you be asking? What questions are you not supposed to ask?

Ask questions that don't come easy.

Ask question that are tough, awkward, taboo.

Thanks!

Will Evans | @SemanticWill

tlclabs.co