'A Captain of Industry' by Graham McKean

I don’t think it’s a matter of anything ‘taking leadership’s place.’ What are we going to do, remove the word from the dictionary? Are we all going to wait around for someone else to make the first move? (Oh wait, that’s what happens now.) What leaders can do is adapt to a business environment that is different than the one that shaped the textbook definitions of leadership. This environment moves faster, with more, and more fleeting, opportunities for a generation of restless, tech-savvy players entering the global workforce. To prosper in this environment, leaders and the companies under their guidance must adapt. This is not a one-time only thing, adaptation is not a new program that that can be taken off a shelf and ‘acquired.’ It’s a way of life.

We call this new model of leadership Flexible Vision. Naturally it is informed by the principles of improvisation, among them:

Take care of yourself first. This is a phrase popularized by Chicago improvisation master, Mick Napier. It doesn’t mean be selfish, as in ‘get your golden parachute packed, and don’t worry about where the plane is going because you’re jumping off before it gets there.’  Not that. It means come prepared. Have a take. Be someone. Stand for something. Rock your style. What your style is doesn’t matter nearly as much as whether or not you rock it.

Begin with listening. How can you contribute to the conversation if you don’t know what the conversation is about?

Follow the follower. This is a Viola Spolin concept. The narrative was going on before you entered the scene, and it will continue after you’re gone. Don’t ‘try to make things happen.’ Connect with what’s already happening.

Let go of status. In the old leadership models, status followed a person from scene to scene. If you were the CEO that was your role, and you played it in every scene you were in. This model forced a lot of managers into a mode of pretending to know more than they actually did, to feign authority in subjects with which they were not familiar, just to preserve their status. These ‘false narratives’ are a big inefficiency in any organization clinging to old leadership models. Improvisers, by contrast, change roles and status freely from scene to scene. Though your title is ‘The CEO,’ your roles can be ‘Student,’  ‘Fearless Explorer,”Arbitrator,’ ‘Cheerleader,’ etc. Adaptive leaders adjust their role and status to fit the scene, not the other way around. And the higher a person’s rank in the company (however that is gauged), the more adaptive that person can be, because the range of roles he or she can play is wider than that of a lower-ranked person, e.g. a new employee.

Give gifts. This is the phrase improvisers use for supporting one’s scene and one’s fellow players. In improvisation, giving gifts is the most productive move there is. Those who do it most consistently? Those are our leaders.

'Made for Each Other' by Graham McKean

]]> http://www.gamechangers.com/index.html/archives/2743/feed 0 http://www.gamechangers.com/index.html/archives/726 http://www.gamechangers.com/index.html/archives/726#comments Thu, 16 Apr 2009 16:18:40 +0000 admin http://www.gamechangers.com/index.html/?p=726 A part of my work with the World Wildlife Fund for its Earth Hour event in Los Angeles on March 28, I helped organize a group of young musicians to perform at the event.  My guitar teacher, Lonnie ‘Meganut’ Marshall, put together a group of kids who played drums on recycled plastic buckets they’d painted to fit the theme ‘Funeral for Fossil Fuel’.

The Life Drum Core, as Lonnie named the group, was a big hit.  They got coverage on all the local TV stations, and on the night of Earth Hour, their four-minute performance was well-received.  They ended up afterward jamming with the mayor, who grabbed his own recycled bucket and began banging out a beat.  (He wasn’t bad.)

A week before the event, the ten kids in the Drum Core got covered by three local TV stations as they rehearsed downtown at L.A. LIVE.  While we were waiting for the TV crews to arrive, one of the dads pointed out USC football coach, Pete Carroll, sitting on a bench near the entrance to the Nokia Theater.  He was with a couple of young assistants, texting on a Blackberry. I walked over to Pete and asked if he’d mind saying hi to the Life Drum Core.  “Sure.  Give me a minute,” he said, and went back to his Blackberry.

In a minute, he came over, talked with the kids, and got his picture taken with them.

And then Pete Carroll said something he did not have to say.  He said, “Have them come out to football practice one day and play on the sidelines.  Call my office and we’ll make it happen.”

We made it happen.  Last Saturday, Lonnie and five of the Drum Core kids attended a USC football scrimmage at the Coliseum and played on the sidelines while the USC football team practiced.  It was a good day for everyone involved.

You’d expect a successful coach like Pete Carroll to be solid on the fundamentals.  He is.  Let’s break it down like a football coach would break down a well-run play:

Understanding the game.  Carroll quickly picked up on the Life Drum Core game.  These are students who don’t have music or arts programs in their schools.  Professional artists and musicians like Lonnie donate their time to give the students art and music instruction. It is project-based learning.   Carroll immediately understood the game and the players involved.  He got the concept that these are students who don’t have a school to schedule performances for them.  Their performances are, in a word, improvised.  This understanding of the game informed everything that happened afterward.

Teamwork.  Improvisation is not designed as a solo act or soliloquy.  It is most effective and teaches us the most when performed in groups.  Carroll, in effect, put the Life Drum Core ‘on the team’ for an afternoon.  While at the Coliseum, they were treated like members of the family.

Additions.   Because the group was formed to perform at Earth Hour, and would normally have disbanded after the event, Coach Carroll’s invitation made it possible for the scene, and the group, to continue playing for a surprising new reason.  Additions to a scene are great if they move the scene forward like this one did.  The Life Drum Core’s performance was, likewise, an addition to practice, a kind of gift from Carroll to his players.  More than one player came up to the kids and Lonnie afterward and thanked them.  “It really got me pumped up,”  offensive lineman Garrett Nolan told them.

Listening.  It was Carroll’s good listening skills that let him absorb what the Life Drum Core is all about, and act quickly and intuitively on that information. He could have gone into ‘pep talk mode’ and given the kids big-ups and left it at that.  Letting the kids and Lonnie do a lot of the talking gave Carroll his opportunity to add to the scene.

Environment.   Carroll had a ‘business objective’ in inviting the Life Drum Core to practice.  Their presence added to the environment he builds during scrimmages to simulate game conditions where sound is concerned.  As the team runs its plays, speakers on the sidelines are cranked up to deafening volume with crowd noise. Drummers pounding drums on the sidelines made the ‘hostile crowd’ simulation more realistic.

Working with Status.  As with just about every scene he’s in, Pete Carroll was high status in this one.  (Meaning he has more resources at his command, more prominence in the world than his fellow players.)  Now, high status players, whether it’s an arrogant athlete or a pompous CEO, can often be condescending.  Much of their focus goes to maintaining their status, and behaving in ways that call their status to other players’ and the audience’s attention.  (If you’re a football fan, think Terrell Owens.  If you’re in business, think every other manager you’ve ever had.)  As Pete Carroll showed, this does not have to be the case.  By listening and giving gifts as Carroll did, a high status player can confer status on other players in the scene.   This is not always productive for improv comedy where the objective is to make fun of arrogant atheletes and pompous CEOs, but in business and in life, it is always a powerful and productive move.  It’s the move Pete Carroll made.  He used his status to elevate the other players in the scene. (Speaking of which, note the book he’s holding in his right hand.  Thank you, Pete!)

Some of the clean-up work is so vast in scope, the banking industry shitstorm that shows so sign of abating , for example, or our crippling dependence on fossil fuels, that nothing short of a federal government strategy can begin to dig us out of it.

Every one of us, however, can find ways to support the clean-up work on a personal and practical level.  Cleaning house presents us with opportunities.   A chance to evaluate inventory, and eliminate waste.  It can be the impetus for a much-needed remodeling.

Here’s a GameChangers checklist for what to Toss and what to Keep as we clean up and remodel an economy that has been Skulled and Boned into the pathetic shape it’s in today:

TOSS:  Status games.  Business meetings and processes that are all about establishing who’s boss, who’s the Decider, about who has the last word or about stroking someone’s ego, should be sent to the dumpster.

KEEP:  Teamwork.  Meetings and processes that focus on ideas and objectives, in which players support one another and seek agreement instead of dominance, are needed across the business spectrum to rebuild this mess.

TOSS:   Cosmetic transactions.  When money is made by slicing up and repackaging debt without anything tangible getting produced in the process, the product is bad meat that would make even Bluto Blutarsky sick to eat it.  Get rid of the notion that manipulating data is a contribution to your community.  It’s not.

KEEP:  Emotional transactions.   Transactions that connect data to meaningful, emotionally resonant activity like education, energy independence, health care, or even getting people to sing or laugh, belong back up on the mantle.

TOSS:  Excess Consumption.  Having something may be a symbol of achievement, but it is no achievement.  Lots of people have things they did not earn.  Lots of people take more than they need.  Lots of people eat too much.   It’s time to take our focus elsewhere.

KEEP:  Production.  What one builds with what one has is a far better measurement of achievement than what one has.  What you build, not what you own, is how you make your mark in this new world.

TOSS:  Specific outcomes.  Locking into a specific outcome for a process will deny you and your team all the possibilities afforded by the endless matrices of the Networked World.  Burn your expectations and assumptions before they burn you.

KEEP:  Predictable results.  Business success demands a reliable, consistent performance in the marketplace, just as it always has.  the difference is that brands built for the new economy will focus on getting results, not outcomes.  Focusing on results instead of outcomes gives you and your brand exponentially more opportunities for success.

TOSS:  Preaching.  This housecleaning exposes the crooked preachers, biased pundits and smiling Ponzi schemers of the world.  Their word is not gospel, and the gospel is not their word.  Word.

KEEP:  Conversation.  Conversations, especially with people who see a situation from a different perspective than our own, result in the kinds of new ideas it will take to fix the new problems we face together.  From juicy conversations, juicy possibilities flow.

TOSS:  Rigidity.   How could we have kept it around so long?   It’s so ugly.  So poorly designed.  So stiff and uncomfortable.  Get rid of it!

KEEP:  Fluidity.  Ahh.  It fits every situation so perfectly.  It’s relaxing.  We’re so free to move.  Can’t live without it!

TOSS:  Scripting.  The script, along with the hoary concept of the scripted brand narrative, ran out of gas with the  ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ and ‘Mission Accomplished’ scenarios scripted by the Bush-Cheney team.  No script can keep pace with the fast flow of events in the Networked economy.

KEEP:  Improvisation.  In the Networked economy successful brand strategies don’t stick to a script, they align with themes.  By inviting players and audience alike to improvise (e.g. act entrepreneurially) on those themes, brands can build a consistently compelling narrative.

TOSS:  Dogma.  Believing that’s there’s only one way to look at a situation or solve a problem, or insisting that everyone on your team see the world the way you do, is deadly to the process and eliminates a lot of the potential for solving the problem.

KEEP:  Faith.  Every scene you’re in has the potential for greatness.  Believe it.  See it.  Live it.