In a business environment that changes at the speed of thought, there are lots of issues with this leadership model. Specifically, it’s too slow. it does not let an organization act quickly enough on opportunities or adapt cost-effectively to changing market conditions.

In networked organizations, by contrast, leadership is organic, it grows out of the structure of the scene and its problem-solving process, and not from a presumed hierarchy.

Visibly good leadership is essential to attract employees and customers to a brand and keep them engaged in its narrative, but that visibility can come from anywhere. Sure, it can and should still come from the ‘top.’ It can also come through the side door, from behind, the center, the edge, from out of left field, up from the ashes, or out from the shadows. It can be bombastic, it can be imperceptible, or any dynamic in between.

In networked organizations, leadership is everyone’s responsibility, and there is no single context for it, or one accepted style of leading. It is the scene that determines what leadership looks like, and what purpose it serves.

Further, being a leader is no bigger or lesser a deal than being a follower (i.e. team player). Just as everyone in a networked organization ix expected to be a leader, everyone is also expected to be a follower. A player’s leadership (or followship) status is a condition of the scene and the game, not necessarily a condition of his or her rank in the organization.

Among the questions addressed, on a scene-by-scene basis, in a gamechanging leadership model:

-Whose subject matter expertise, perspective, or professional experience is most important to the scene?

-How well-articulated and shareable is the vision?

-Is your scene’s narrative (and its possible outcomes) scripted ahead of time, or co-created by your team as a result of its problem-solving process?

-Are your team’s roles complementary and supportive, lacking expertise to solve the problem, or overlapping and in conflict?

-What is the balance, and who does the balancing, between listening and speaking? Between information and intuition? Deconstruction and construction? Postmortem and Premortem? Questions and declarations?

-How does a team stay focused on the problem at hand, while at the same time honoring historical and future organizational narratives?

-Who decides? How?

-What’s the game? When is it time to change the game or edit the scene?

And while there’s no one style or way of behaving that defines effective leadership, two things are true of all gamechanging leaders:

1) They listen first. 2) They do not script outcomes.

They understand that there are many ways to solve a problem, and that most of those ways will not be their own. This leadership model is the only way to act quickly enough on market opportunities and adapt cost-effectively enough to changes in the environment to stay competitive in the networked world.

NEXT: How we define Roles

How many different ways are there to combine six 8-peg Lego bricks?

The answer:

102,981,500  (Update:  Even though this number was supplied by the Toy Industry Association, I’ve since been notified by a tweet from LEGO_Group that the number of different combinations, according to Math Professor Soren Eilers from University of Copenhagen, is 915,103,765 if the bricks are the same color, 658,869,076,800 if they are different colors.  No matter which number is correct, for purposes of composition, the number is practically infinite.)

If that’s how many possibilities there are for half a dozen 8-peg Legos, just imagine how many different ways six people can connect!

The possibilities are practically infinite. Yet so often when six people collaborate, the temptation is to script an outcome, as if, out of a universe of possibilities, we can pick one that is better than all the rest.

It is a mistake to focus on one specific outcome. Focus, instead, on the game, which has potential to generate limitless positive outcomes, and lets you explore more possibilities than anyone can script.

Because GameChangers followed and contributed (seven blog posts) to the narrative of the Chilean Miners…because we were curious about how the 33 miners happened to be wearing Oakley sunglasses when they emerged from the mine after their 69-day ordeal…because we made a connection with Jonathan Franklin, the correspondent for The Guardian, who was the only print journalist with complete access to the rescue site in Copiapo, and was responsible for the Oakley connection…because Penguin Press has just published Franklin’s book, 33 Men, the definitive account of the miners’ ordeal…and because a lot of companies are asking him to share his experiences and insights…

We have co-created a new GameChangers program inspired by Franklin’s observations during the 69 days at Copiapo.  The program will be offered in the U.S. and Europe.  We will present it for the first time on March 2, at a Global Leadership Conference sponsored by Diversey, Inc.  We are rehearsing it this Sunday in New York City, when Jonathan Franklin and I will meet for the first time in person.

We cannot stress this enough:  Narratives are the ultimate organizing principle in the networked economy.

Traditional news reporting and the internet made us aware of ‘Los 33.’  Social media–Facebook, Twitter, this blog, etc.–helped us track and participate in their story.  Skype, email and telephone made personal conversations and collaboration between us and Jonathan Franklin possible.  The Applied Improvisation Network helped us extend the program to Europe.  Geo-locating apps–I can’t even tell you what they were– helped us locate and provide directions to our rehearsal studio in NYC.  I used a virtual concierge to book my travel.  And of course personal relationships made things possible that no technology or platform could.

Through it all, it was the narrative that guided us.  With a narrative as your guide, the choice of platforms becomes an objective process, a series of consistently logical decisions.  How best to participate in a narrative is an entirely different, and more productive, discussion from how best to deploy a platform.  Choose narrative!

Interestingly (and typically) the mainstream media, beginning with 60 Minutes last Sunday, have focused on the more sensational aspects of the ‘Los 33′ narrative—on the fact that in their darkest hours, when they had no idea if they’d ever be found, a few of the miners began to think about cannibalism, or that since their rescue they’ve been suffering from PTSD (this is news because?…).  In Where Are You Stuck? we focus on the positive aspects of the rescue.  On the heroic qualities of the miners and their rescuers.  Teamwork.  Altriusm.  Sacrifice.  Leadership.  Creativity.

In every crisis there is opportunity.  In every crisis, there is destruction.  For something to be created, something must be destroyed.  Doors open and close in unison.  Shiva is the god of creation AND destruction.  Productive change entails creative destruction.

When the times are a-changin’, getting stuck can become a chronic problem, because individuals and organizations get frozen deciding (or avoiding deciding) how to respond to the changes they are experiencing.  The challenge confronting anyone looking to get ‘unstuck’ is all about focus.  Will your focus be on the creative or the destructive aspects of the change?  Will you see the opportunity, or obsess on the loss?  Will you bang on closed doors or walk through open ones?  Will you cling to the status quo until you realize, perhaps too late, that what worked in the past isn’t necessarily what will work in the future?  Interestingly, this is the challenge facing the Miners today.  Working deep underground isn’t an option any more.  That is a closed door.  What got them out of the mineshaft isn’t the same process that will get them out of the ‘mindshafts’ in which they find themselves trapped today. When context changes, everything changes.  Including the nature of heroism.

What made the Miners heroic in the eyes of the world is still within them, but like anyone else, they will have to change their game to suit their new situation.  This time, unlike the 69 days they spent in the mine, they have a choice.  Choosing to move consistently in the direction of creativity, opportunity and the newly-opened door is a challenge each of them will have to confront in his own way.

Check out the Where Are You Stuck? program, and fill out the response form to let us know how we can best help you.

Painting by Bill Schenck www.schencksouthwest.com

“You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour. Now you must go back and tell the people that this IS the Hour.  And there are things to be considered:  Where are you living?  What are you doing?  What are your relationships?  Are you in right relation?

“Where is your water?  Know your garden. It is time to speak your Truth.  Create your community.  Be good to each other. And do not look outside yourself for the leader.

“There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid.  They will try to hold on to the shore.  They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly. Know the river has its destination.  The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open and our heads above the water.

“And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in history we are to take nothing personally, least of all, ourselves.  For the moment we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.

“The time of the lone wolf is over.  Gather yourselves!!  Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary.  All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

“We are the ones we have been  waiting for.”

Then he clasped his hands together, smiled, and said,  “This could be a good time!”

The theme of Farming is a strong one, especially in the context of a post-industrial city like Detroit.  It’s interesting that urban gardeners who farm quarter-acre plots of land in Detroit have come out against Hantz’s plan.  The anti-Hantzers are, according to the article, seizing on their own themes:  Racial Bias (Hantz and most of his team are white; Detroit’s population is 92% black) and Big Business vs. the Little Guy.

Comment:  We don’t have time or energy to spend on being racially or economically divided, it doesn’t matter what color the finger being pointed is or the size of the rock on the ring it’s wearing.  Themes can help us find the agreement that transcends race, religion, income level and personal history–all those things that divide us–thereby liberating new avenues for communication, learning and growth.  John Hantz and the urban gardeners of Detroit can unite around the theme of Farming to be productive and move the ‘Saving Detroit’ scene forward.

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.

THE QUESTION: I have to run a workshop for a top management team that has recently adopted a new highly matrixed structure. As a result, there is a challenging amount of interdependence and ambiguity. While they have an understanding of the structure, very little work has been done on how it will operationalize, what operationalizing it will mean etc.

One of the activities I want the group to undertake is a scenario building exercise where they will build potential scenarios that will arise in the future, and then based on the scenarios, evolve in advance, an appropriate response to the scenario.

I have never run a Scenario Building activity before. Would appreciate if you could share:

a. A process for how to run it
b. Tips/Techniques
c. Do’s/Don’ts
d. Any other advice/input

Thanks in advance!

Gurprriet Siingh

THE ANSWER: The ‘highly matrixed structure’ you describe, Gurprriet, is in fact one small subset of a much more complex environment in which this management team will perform — and that is the Networked World. Because of the fluid, incredibly complex nature of these networks-within-networks, it is both impractical and impossible to run scenarios that can accurately predict any particular outcome. By the time you have created the scenario, run the scenario, analyzed the outcomes, then ratified and codified the outcomes, the environment will have changed, rendering the results irrelevant and passe’.

So what does Gurprriet Siingh do? The esteemed Mr. Siingh teaches his management team how to improvise! Improvisation techniques enable any team of collaborators like your management team to arrive at spontaneous and original solutions to problems. These techniques, developed over the past eighty years, invite full and authentic participation by all the players, honor individual contributions while respecting the group dynamic, and explore themes that are consistent with the organization’s brand.

Do not try to anticipate ’scenarios that will arise in the future’. Instead, focus on shared objectives, and, using improvisation techniques, give your group the confidence in their ability to collaborate successfully no matter what scenario arises. It is not a group’s ability to perform in expected ways that generates wealth…it is a group’s ability to perform in phenomenal and anticipated ways that brings fresh perspectives and fresh value to the brand.

Do ave the group study the first 100 pages of Viola Spolin’s book Improvisation for the Theater. There are also many other worthwhile books about improvisation in business, including my own, GameChangers — Improvisation for Business in the Networked World, but Spolin’s book is where it all begins. The tips and techniques in these books will change the way your team views the very nature of work, and how wealth is created in the new edge economies.

Do begin with the fundamentals of improvisation — games and exercises that break communication down to its most elemental levels. Do encourage the team to communicate on three levels — Cosmetic, Emotional and Meta. Do create an environment for learning rather than trying to teach anything specific. Don’t script. Don’t judge. Don’t try to do it yourself — bring in an improvisation coach or theater director to help you! d. Be playful, but be serious about it. People can have fun and learn a lot at the same time. Good luck!

COACH JOHN WOODEN PASSED AWAY TONIGHT AT THE AGE OF 99. THIS IS AN UPDATE OF A POST WRITTEN TWO YEARS AGO.

Coaching is one of the most honorable professions there is.  A few money- and headline-grabbing exceptions distort the fact that the fast majority of sports coaches are motivated by factors other than money.  No team can reach its potential without good coaching, and no coach brought more teams closer to realizing their potential than John Wooden, the best basketball coach, and one of the best coaches of any game, who ever lived.

Wooden’s teams changed the the sport of basketball, from a polite Hoosiers-style half-court square dance, to a baseline-to-baseline rampage of disruptive defenses and extreme athleticism., and they have the championships to show for it.  As someone who grew up in Indiana like Wooden did, I always related to how The Coach used basketball as an allegory for life.  That’s how it was for a high school kid in Indiana.  Basketball was life.

Coach Wooden’s teams showed how the game, and not just the game of basketball, any game, should be played.  He was an educator who just so happened to use a basketball court as his classroom.  The players who had the good fortune to play for him got gifts that lasted long after their playing days were over.  Here are some of Coach Wooden’s fundamentals:

THE TEAM CONCEPT. The game is played not according to some particular philosophy or dogma, but rather, to get every player in position to utilize their individual strengths, resulting in optimal performance by the team in any given situation.  Sure, Wooden had great players like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (at UCLA, Lew Alcindor) and Bill Walton who could dominate a game, but he also won when the performance of his teams could not have been predicted by the individual talents of its members.  “I don’t play my five best,” the Coach used to say, “I play my best five.”

DEAL IN REALITY. Wooden never asked his players or his teams to ‘give 110 percent’, which struck him as a meaningless idea. 100 percent, he explained, is as much as any person can give, and no one ever even gives that. Understand your limitations and your potential, and work at realizing that potential to the fullest.

DETAILS MATTER. He taught the little things, because a steady progression of the little things gets a person to the tops of mountains.   The first lesson in the first practice of the season was how to put on your socks.  Smooth and unwrinkled, so as not to rub up blisters.

PERFORMANCE IS BUILT ON FUNDAMENTALS.  Wooden ran practices that were intense and focused on consistent execution of the fundamentals of the game. His players came to understand that these fundamentals were the building blocks of achievement. And not just in basketball, in life.

THE GAME IS NOT LIFE   I was stunned when my friend Frank Allocco, who played against several Wooden-coached UCLA teams (and now coaches basketball himself at Concord de LaSalle High School in northern California) told me that Wooden was a vicious needler from the bench during a game. “If you’re in front of their bench, he gets on you,” said Allocco. “He tells you they’re going to humiliate you, that they’ve got your number and that you’re soft.” Off the court, I have never heard that Coach Wooden was anything but a courtly, thoughtful gentleman.

A COACH IS ALWAYS COACHING.  My friend Jeff Thompson asked me to take a picture of him with his hero, Coach Wooden, after a Notre Dame-UCLA game in 1975, what would turn out to be Wooden’s final year of coaching.  I was about to snap the picture when the Coach told me to wait. “Nell,” he said, “come here and be in this picture with us.” He gestured to a small woman in a flower print dress and a hat who stepped shyly out of a protective forest of tall athletes and took her place by Wooden’s side. And then I snapped the picture of Jeff Thompson with Coach and Mrs. Wooden.  Your hero is not only the basketball coach at UCLA, The Coach seemed to be saying to my friend and me, your hero is Nell Wooden’s husband.

When my son, Adam, had an issue on his high school basketball team, I wasn’t quite sure what to tell him.  I wrote to Coach Wooden care of the athletic department at UCLA asking the Coach how to deal with it.   Coach Wooden sent me a two-page handwritten letter in response. The essence of it was that sooner or later opportunity comes everyone’s way, and that my son should focus on preparation so that he would be ready when it did.  After I gave my son Coach Wooden’s advice, he had a very good game, because the opportunities presented themselves, and he was prepared.

The game can prepare you for life, give you your approach to life, and even give you the money to enjoy life. But it is not life. The relationships you have with family and friends and students, the respect of your peers, the fact that three generations of players came back to visit you whenever they were in town, and that when you’re in your 90s, you still take the time to answer a letter from a clueless dad about what to tell his basketball-loving son..that’s life.