For anyone not already in IDEO’s PR reach, Tim Brown’s presentation at TED in July has been posted. Tim does a great job talking about how design become a narrow profession—”a priesthood of folks in black turtlenecks and designer glasses working on small things.” And in talking about how design can become something more.

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Design Thinking

Technorati Tags: Web 2.0

by jurvetson
Stories Can Change The World:
[Via BIF Speak]

“Facts are facts, but stories are who we are, how we learn, and what it all means.” My friend Alan Webber, Co-founder of Fast Company and author of Rules of Thumb, has it exactly right. Storytelling is the most important tool for any innovator.

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Scientists may not always realize it but they are always telling stories, providing narratives to illustrate the point to their research. This is often missed because the form the narrative takes is so structured that it does not appear like any story most of us have read.

But a story it is. It may be “Here is something no one has ever seen before and we don’t know what is going on.” Or “After years of work, we have completely delineated how this disease progresses.” Or “Here is an important piece to the puzzle that has been giving us fits for such a long time.” Or, sometimes, “What everyone else has written before is completely wrong and we show why!”

As a graduate student, I first ran across the expression, when putting a paper together, was “What story do we want to tell?” Few non-scientists really understand that every paper is simply a narrative. The best ones are incredible stories.

The structure of a paper throws many people off. There is an abstract, background, materials and methods, results and conclusions. It does not look like a standard text, it is presented in a stilted fashion and it has a structure that is unfamiliar but it actually does have a beginning, middle and end.

The abstract acts like a blurb on the back of a book, telling us whether the paper is worth reading. The background and methods act like a preface, giving us informative background.

The results are the meat of the story. Most start small, building up the knowledge as they move to data that have greater and greater ramifications. This leads to the climax of the paper, where they can state what it is they have now proven.

The conclusions often function as a denouement, recapitulating the action and providing context. It can also set up the action for the sequel.

Anyone reading Watson and Crick’s classic paper on the structure of DNA can see that it is a story. In fact, it compresses much of the normal scientific narrative in order to provide one of the classic “We figured it all out before everyone else!” stories.

It starts off with what others have proposed, continues with their model, demonstrates just how much better this fits all the data, and then ending with these words, setting up everything for the next series of papers:

It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggest a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.

Full details of the structures, including the conditions assumed in building it, together with a set of co-ordinates for the atoms, will be published elsewhere.

Science papers have an unusual format but they follow some of the standard things we see in any story. There has to a point to the paper. Why would anyone want to read the paper? It ca not just be a collection of random facts. The paper has to lead to some firm conclusions, including possible ramifications for current studies..

It must be focussed. It cannot meander through a lot of side streams. A science paper has to be kept on a very tight leash.

In every paper I have written, I have had to toss out very good experimental data, data that have no problems, because that they really do not fit the narrative that drives us to the conclusion. A well written paper focuses on the point and does not provide side trips into other areas.

The DNA paper did all this in one page. It left the detours for another time.

Most scientists realize at some level that a paper has to tell a story. But they do not realize that a scientific presentation at a conference really must do the same. There needs to be a beginning, middle and end. There has to be a point to it all, providing context to the data and its place in Nature.

Too many scientists forget this. They provide no frame for the discussion, leave needed background out and dump in all the data that was not fit for the focussed needs of a papers. Thus, most scientific presentations are unfocussed and boring. No structure and no real point.

The best presentations, the ones we all remember, use the data to provide a narrative, to help us understand just what story they are trying to tell.

We all tend to learn the needed tools to write a good science paper, incorporating the idea of a proper narrative. But few are provided any real tools to apply to presentations before a group of people. Most never learn the proper tools and simply give boring talk after boring talk.

Learning how to tell better stories, not just write good narratives, is something al researchers should learn how to do. But, whereas there is a real premium put on writing good papers, there is little pressure to speak well before a group.

That is why the best places to be at scientific conferences is usually not at the presentations but at the bars and pubs frequented by the conference goers. We get the real story there because every human being knows how to trade stories with others, even when the group is just a bunch of researchers.

Now if we could just get more researchers to adopt this approach to their public speaking trips, we might affect some real change.

Technorati Tags: Science

by Rusty Darbonne
Explainer Tip: Remember the Curse of Knowledge:
[Via Common Craft - Explanations In Plain English -]

One of the books that I read just before creating our first videos was Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath. More than almost any other, this book helped me see new opportunities to present ideas in a unique way. One idea from the book really stands out – it’s The Curse of Knowledge <insert scary music.>

We’ve all experienced it – in talking to a doctor, an engineer or academic, we get lost. Despite their best efforts, they explain a topic using words and examples that don’t make sense to a beginner. These people are suffering from the Curse.

The idea behind the curse of knowledge is that the more we know about something, the harder it is for us to explain it to someone who knows nothing. We have a hard time being able to imagine what it’s like not to know. For example, think about a lawyer who spent his life reading and writing legal documents, talking to lawyers all day every day, etc. When you ask this lawyer about tort reform, you’re likely to get an explanation that confuses you more. This person knows too much to answer your question in a language you understand.

We’re all guilty of having the curse. We all have something in our life that we know very well – perhaps too well to explain easily. The key is know that the curse exists. To be able to recognize the challenge before you. Here’s how:

Consider every word. Sometimes a word that is completely natural to you can doom an explanation. For example, let’s say you’re a financial planner and you sit down with a young couple and they seem to get everything you’re saying. Then you mention “amortization” as if it were any other word. You use it every day and the people around you do too. It may seem that amortization is perfectly normal. But it’s not – their eyes glaze over and the explanation takes a turn for the worst. You have the curse.

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What Common Craft does is tell great stories. This is the easiest model for communication between diverse communities that may not have a common language.

Communities tend to develop language, slang and even stories that really only promote communication within the group. Jargon is used to separate those in the know with those who are outsiders. It can be used to tell who is in and who is out.

If an organization want to interact, if it wants to collaborate, it has to destroy jargon, it has to create common stories that permit understanding to take hold.

Most of what we deal with every day is really too complex to easily discuss and evaluate without years of experience and lots of jargon. In fact, few people actually think like that. They create heuristics, rules of thumb, that permit them to deal with complexity.

in many cases, these heuristics can be exemplified by stories and metaphor. When people view their speech as stories, they often make the sort of simplifying changes that are needed for effective communication with those outside the group.

Because stories often are used to communicate very complex ideas but in terms that anyone can understand. Watch any Common Craft video.

Technorati Tags: Technology, Web 2.0

I’ve taken a little break reading and thinking. I’ve spent the last few days working on some ideas regarding the traversal of innovations across a community and then working on the data to support these ideas. I’m really excited by some of the information my model fits now.

I’m developing a process that will help an organization whose business depends on innovations. I hope to have a set of tools based on published data that will facilitate the adoption of change. I’ll be writing about these over the coming weeks.

I’ll also get back to blogging. Should be fun.

Technorati Tags: Web 2.0

by seanmcgrath
Winds Of Change:
[Via Chuck's Blog]

I really enjoy meeting customers. However, not every customer interaction is sunshine and lollipops.

Sometimes, the interactions can be tense at the beginning, but result in an extremely productive discussion.

I had one of those today, and — as I thought about it — I realized I’m starting to see this particular situation more often. It’s a harbinger of things to come.

It Started Out Rough

During a typical briefing, I’m usually asked to lead off the big technology strategy discussion. It’s usually 45 minutes of private cloud / VCE material, with plenty of time for discussion and debate.

Most of the time, it goes very well. Today, it didn’t.

About 3 minutes after I got started, I could tell by the body language that something was seriously wrong. After 5 minutes, the customer intervened.

They were polite, but firm. They didn’t want to hear about technology, or strategy, or anything like that.

They wanted to know how they were going to transform their organization.

Thus starts a nice post about change in an organization, how it happens and the process to accomplish it. More and more companies do not want to know what software to use. They want to know how to leverage their social network for change, making it easier to innovate.

They recognize that for things to work, the culture must change. But cultures are hard to change. So having an understanding of how people adopt a new idea and how it permeates an organization is critical for making the change successful.

I’ve mentioned the 5 steps people go through as they adopt an innovation. The speed that individuals move through these 5 steps places them into one of 5 groups.

And all of this works inside a human social network that must be used in order to accomplish change.

We started by sharing that communications — to all your stakeholders — is a do-or-die mission when contemplating significant organizational change. So much so that we’ve seen IT organizations appoint a communications professional (aka the marketing type) to engage and persuade people across a variety of functions.

I’d consider that a “best practice”, with one caveat. There are a lot of marketing people who know how to do nice newsletters and websites, but really don’t have much of a voice. Find a marketing person with a strong voice, and isn’t afraid of using it.

Yes, I know it sounds ludicrous that an IT organization would hire a marketing professional (don’t we have enough of those running around?) but they’d already considered this proposition on their own — we just confirmed their suspicions.

And, it logically follows that if you’re going to accelerate organizational change, you’re going to be doing a lot of communicating, and that can be a specialized skill.

First you have to engage individuals. Awareness and interest are the first two steps for anyone to pass through as they adopt an change in routine. Effective communication – marketing – is critical. Because the people you want to engage first, the innovators and early adopters, will also be the ones looking most to listen, if the message is presented properly. They are often the most aware and the most interested.

Then the next steps, evaluation and trial can be examined.

There seems to be two generic approaches to getting people to use new infrastructure and processes.

One is the classic “let’s move everything to the new world” approach. Big lists, complex plans, daunting obstacles, unknown risks — this stuff is very hard on the brain. You set yourself up for people to resist.

There are some situations where there is no other viable option, but — in many cases — there’s an incremental approach that has more to do with social engineering than project management. And I have personal experience that it works very well indeed.

Consider building the shiny new thing on a small scale — maybe a small, internal private cloud. Or, perhaps, a new self-service operational process. Anything at all that represents a significant departure from traditional approaches — it really doesn’t matter.

Put some cool people on it. Give it a nice internal brand. Use terms like “pilot” or “proof of concept” to keep people from jumping off cliffs. Communicate widely what you’re doing and why. Make it look like fun, rather than work.

When it’s ready, invite people to try it out. Enlist internal champions to provide coaching and feedback. Ask various executives to give the project a mention in their forums.

If these people like what they see, they’ll tell others, who will be curious as well. Communicate frequently, openly and transparently to anyone who’ll listen or read.

The shiny new thing will attract the innovators, who are always attracted by novelty. And the cool ones are simply another way of describing early adopters. Early adopters are critical for moving an innovation through a community because they are often the important leaders that will be listened to.

The majority of people will only adopt something new when advised to by someone they know and trust in the community. It turns out that early adopters fit this position because they have often had ideas that made everyone’s life easier. They have been successful harnringers of change before to the community. So they are listened to.

The sooner early adopters are on board, the faster things will change as they tell others.

There are many progressive IT organizations that embrace change. And there are more than a few who tend to resist any change whatsoever. This was a big concern for this particular customer.

It’s one thing to convince the business to look at IT differently. It’s another thing entirely to convince IT to look at IT differently. This somewhat paradoxical behavior is not unique to IT people: I’ve seen it in HR, legal, manufacturing, engineering, sales, etc., e.g. everyone has to change but me!

There’s a variety of techniques I’ve seen IT leaders use to combat this problem — rooting out the ringleaders, constant and patient communication, incentive and recognition programs — even bringing a small crew of managed services contractors to show how things *could* be done.

Frankly speaking, there’s nothing specific to IT in this discussion — the same techniques work for any organizational leader to bring the function along to a new world view. The simple approach is to acknowledge it’s a problem, and have a plan to deal with it.

There will always be laggards, those who change very slowly. By keeping communications open and transparent, some of these can be moved over. But there should be recognition that 100% satisfaction is unlikely.

So, find the innovators and early adopters. Move them to your side and help them change the system.

Some of the most impressive IT change agents I’ve met are networking experts.

If your mind immediately went to protocol stacks, you missed the point — these people are social animals. They build relationships across the organization in a variety of places, and they build relationships outside their company, hopefully with people who are doing much the same thing as they are doing.

The best change artists are connected to a very highly linked social network. These include the early adopters who not only have connections inside the community but many outside as well. They are looking for changes that will make their life easier. They are the easiest to get to adopt change, as long as the change is meaningful to their life and work.

Recognizing where people fall along the innovation curve, how rapidly they move through the 5 steps, is critical for making change happen. Find the innovators and early adopters. Give them the tools to help market the change, thus making the change happen from the demand of the community rather than as a mandate from above.

Facilitated change can permit a community to adopt innovations faster and become more productive while being less disrupted.

Technorati Tags: Social media, Web 2.0

by seier+seier+seier
Lessons Learned — Why the Failure of Systems Thinking Should Inform the Future of Design Thinking:
[Via Manage by Designing]

“You never learn by doing something right ‘cause you already know how to do it. You only learn from making mistakes and correcting them.”
Russell Ackoff
Design and “design thinking” is gaining recognition as an important integrative concept in management practice and education. But it will fail to have a lasting impact, unless we learn from the mistakes of earlier, related ideas. For instance, “system thinking”, which shares many of the conceptual foundations of “design thinking”, promised to be a powerful guide to management practice, but it has never achieved the success its proponents hoped for. If systems thinking had been successful in gaining a foothold in management education over the last half of the 20th century, there would be no manage by designing movement, or calls for integrative or design thinking.

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This is a very interesting discussion. It seems to me the problem is not with systems thinking but with the attempt to create a defined process for it. Human nature includes trying to grasp innovation by naming it. In many cases, old fashioned hierarchical approaches are being use to try and fold systems thinking into them.

But hierarchy is really orthogonal to systems thinking. Systems approaches are bottom up. The group defines it. Processes are top down. The leader/teacher defines it. I am not surprised that people who go to meetings to be taught by leaders what systems thinking is and the process to implement it do not get it at all.

I recently spent two days at a workshop with around a dozen architects and managers. The facilitator was one of Russ Ackoff’s former colleagues at the Wharton School. It is a reflection of what has become of systems thinking that it took most of the two days for the facilitator to explicate all that he thought we needed to know before we could begin either critiquing or applying the ideas In addition to obvious material on the nature of systems, we learned about chaos theory, living systems theory, Santiago theories, the four foundations of systems methodology (holistic thinking, operational thinking, interactive design, and socio-cultural models), five systems principles (openness, emergent properties, multi-dimensionality, counter-intuitiveness, and purposefulness), the five interactive dimensions of social systems (wealth, beauty, power, value and knowledge) and the related five dimensions of an organization (throughput processes, membership, decision, conflict management, and measurement), the elements of a throughput system (time, cost flexibility, quality, measurement, diagnostic, improvement and redesign), the nature of holistic thinking and iteration, the laws of complexity, loops and feedback, and more.

All of this was presented as foundational knowledge that was necessary before we could get to what it was that brought most of us (or at least me) to this particular workshop — designing for human interaction. In addition to the number of frameworks and ideas, and the density of the interconnections among them, there was a strong normative quality to the material and its presentation. “If one hopes to make any progress at all,” we were told, “you need to both understand and accept these related ideas.”

Systems approaches are not a series of bullet points. They are approaches for using human social networks to solve complex problems. It may not be useful for accountants but it can be critical for researchers.

It is not a set of bullet points. People do not simply change to a new approach because someone else says to or has a bunch of fancy names. I’ve mentioned what is necessary. The post also recognizes this.

These requirements are at odds with how we tend to acquire new knowledge. Rather than accepting a new idea because we must, we like to try it out. A new skill is most likely to interest us if it contributes to both short-term and long-term learning objectives. And the easier it is to try out parts of a theory, the more likely we are to jump in.

Systems thinking works when people learn and adopt an approach, not when they are told the steps involved. And they have to recognize that it has short term benefits.

Use a bottom up approach. Find the early adopters and get them on board. Work the adoption curve and you will have much more success. That should be the lessoned learned.

Technorati Tags: Social media, Web 2.0

by hiddedevries
A Climate (Communication) Crisis?:
[Via Dot Earth]

If experts change how they describe global warming, will people wake up?

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Interesting points but trying to be more emotional and dramatic is not very effective when facts are trying to be exchanged. There has been a lot of research done that exposes the steps individuals and communities progress through as they adopt new idea and change their viewpoints. It might be better to be aware of this than to try framing exercises.

The five steps are awareness, interest, evaluation, trial and adoption. Different people move through these steps at different rate.This results in a differentiation of a population into different groups: innovators, early adopters, early majority,

Scientists are generally on the innovator/early adopter spectrum of things, especially compared to the entire population, which, by definition, is mostly the 68% in the middle.

Innovators and early adopters take their cues from outside influences and their own experiences. They are open to ideas that come from outside the community and move much faster through the five steps than others. They are not as dependent on community influences as the majority are.

So scientists are influenced by people who are outside their direct social network. We are trained to do that in order to examine data, converting it into useful knowledge that gains us understanding of the natural world. We have a lot of training that helps us have the sagacity to determine the usefulness of a new idea. even if the idea comes from someone ‘outside.’

But, for the majority of people in the middle, outside influences are suspect. They usually will only adopt an innovation or change their opinion when a respected member of their own community, of their social network, tells them to. They are generally influenced only by those close connections in their social network.

If the scientist is viewed as the other, as outside the group, many people will not listen to them. They seldom are influenced by anyone outside the group. This is why being liked can be such a big plus when trying to change someone’s mind.

When you are liked, you are more easily admitted to the group and will be listened to. Politicians know this. That is why likability is so important for them. Unlikeable politicians won’t get elected.

But few scientists are influential in the scientific community because they are liked. They are influential because they are good at making data into knowledge. But this is not something the majority will ever use to shape their opinions on the reliability of an outside researcher.

Thus, scientists can and do listen to others but the majority will only change when they and their connections are directly effected. This is probably why knowing someone who is gay has a much greater influence on someone’s opinion that anything GLBT groups can say. Becoming trusted by the group is more important than presenting facts, even if the facts are correct.

Most scientists think that the data should speak for itself. That is because they are really good at the evaluation step. They use their tacit and explicit information to make a decision and move quickly through the last two steps. IIn fact, scientists have to be pretty good at moving through all five steps rapidly or they will not be a very successful researcher.

Most everyone else is stuck at the interest stage. They await the opinions of influential members of their community to move beyond evaluation.

So to engage and educate, scientists must move out into the community. They must be seen as unbiased members who provide information for others to deal with. This can be quite difficult for many scientists. Part of this is because science attracts people with very health egos. You have to be very strong because in science, you fail a lot of the time. To keep on doing something, knowing it is unlikely to succeed, oftenrequires a monster ego.

So it is often hard for a scientist, who has made it through all 5 steps, to accept that someone else will not just listen to them, just trust them. ‘We are a scientist, after all! We know more about it. Why are you unable to understand the simplest things?’

All things that are not going to make the scientist liked in the community.

The majority of people only see someone from outside dealing them to do something.The first thing they often think is “What is he trying to sell? What is his angle?”

People like science because they enjoy understanding the world around them. But scientists do not have many useful organizations to help them engage with the public. They have very little training in how to deal with people that do not react to the world like they do. They often have to do it themselves. Perhaps if there was a more formal process to bring scientists into the community, we could get the majority convinced quicker.

The majority will move eventually and when they do, things can move rapidly. Facilitating this would be a worthwhile endeavor.

Technorati Tags: Social media

The Search For Leadership:
[Via Ackoff Center Weblog]

Dear Colleague, Even the most sophisticated Leadership Development programs in even the most forward-thinking organizations can seem like little more than glorified fish polishing. Systems Thinking (and our own experience) tell us that individual managers and leaders are like fish…

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Systemic leadership can not accomplish much if the water is foul. That is, if the group to be led and the social environment are not conducive to effective leadership, none will occur. The post mentioned these points:

* a leader is only as good as the system he or she operates in

* leadership isn’t just about leaders or people, it’s about the whole organizations (its values, culture, policies, shadow-side, strategies, systems, etc.)

* ‘leader development’ [what Bill Tate calls ‘polishing fish before putting them back into the murky water of the fish tank’] is a fatally flawed solution

* a more distributed leadership culture is vital if organizations are to tap into front-line experience and generate energy for change

Unfortunately, the linked website appears to exist in order to sell the book. There are a few interesting links, including this one that describes systemic leadership. It does contain this interesting paragraph:

Displaying leadership – including moral leadership – isn’t easy in a quagmire. If we want to improve people’s behaviour in an organisation we need to examine the system and look at what people are surrounded with. Leaders often create their own mess, or fail to notice that entropy is doing it for them. And they often have to clean up the mess themselves. But most leaders are part of the system; they do not have the luxury of watching comfortably from the outside.

The organization has to permit effective leadership. Of course, in my experience it is easier to find an ethical organization to work with than to try and change an unethical one. I wonder if William Tate has a solution?

Technorati Tags: General, Knowledge Creation, Sustainability

I happened to read this article from the Center for American Progress about the different groups found in polls about global warming. and was immediatley taken with the numbers. Here is the relevant figure I wish to discuss.

I’ve read a lot about how new ideas and innovations work their way through a population (here are some handy examples). What struck me was the these percentages are actually almost exactly the numbers one would expect to see for any innovation or idea moving its way through a society. Read the whole report . Seldom does a survey’s report find people falling into similar ‘types’ seen that full scale research efforts also identified.

Look at the numbers – 18%, 33%, 19%, 12%, 11% and 7%. I’ve mentioned several times before the different groups that are found as an innovation or as new idea diffuses through a community. There has been a lot of work that indicates that there are 5 groups present as a community adopts a new idea:

• innovators
• early adopters
• early majority
• late majority
• laggards

From the work of Beal, Rogers and Bohlen (and the Wikipedia page), the distribution of each of these types in a population follows a bell curve,

Now look at the numbers from the global warming survey.They fit pretty well into these categories. Just another item to demonstrate how acceptance of a novel idea or innovation breaks down.

This can also give us hints about how far we are along the process of adoption of the innovation

If one looks at the cumulative adoption of an innovation in a community, it follows an S-shaped curve, as seen in the original paper from Ryan and Gross from the 30s:

This same sort of curve is seen again and again. It does not matter whether the innovation is a new hybrid corn or a new drug. It appears that this type of adoption is very dependent on human social networks. Each group informs itself based on what the previous group knows (i.e. the group to the left).

For example, the innovators tend to be highly connected with many sources of information from outside a community, acting to bring that information into a group from outside and determine whether the idea the innovators are playing with has any real use. The early adopters act as a bridge from the innovators and the rest of the community, usually adding their own input and serving as opinion leaders on new innovations.

The 68% in the middle are deferential to the opinions of people that they trust. They usually need explicit approval from leaders in their community before adopting a new innovation.So, the early middle adopt a new innovation when the early adopters do while the late majority waits until the early middle does. The laggards serve as a check on the entire group to make sure the community does not get overly excited by the innovators and their shiny new toys.

There is, then, a pretty defined path to adoption of new innovations and ideas in a community. So, where are we with regard to progressing along this curve for climate change? Well, the curve starts with 0% adoption of the innovation and progresses to 100% (or close to it), so we are obviously some place along the curve.

Examination of the curve above shows that once the early adopters and innovators have made the change (that is, when about 16% are onboard), then the rate of adoption increases tremendously, almost going exponential, as the majority in the middle rapidly begin adopting the change.

Well, we now have more than the 16% on board with global warming, so we should expect rapid change. I think that is exactly what we are seeing.

In fact, the early majority is really moving close to where the early adopters/innovators are, with even some of the laggards getting on board. Ten years ago, there was a lot of doubt that climate change was even happening. Now look at the distribution:

Almost everyone is above ‘Don’t know” and the various ‘global warming is not happening’ choices. We are making progress. And I suspect we are well along the part of the curve signaling rapid change in people’s views.

The debate is really not going to be if global warming is happening but what to do about it, an entirely new sort of debate. And some of the debating points appear to already have been decided. For instance, carbon dioxide as a pollutant:

or increasing fuel efficiency, something Obama just announced:

Both of these show significant support throughout the population. In contrast, there are also some ideas that are still in the very early stages with even the early adopters unsure if they should take up the innovation:

All in all, a great report illustrating the standard process as new ideas percolate through a population. We are well through the stages of acceptance of global warming and making good progress on what to do about it.

Just remember, once the early adopters/innovatoers have taken a position on a new innovation or idea, then change usually happens quite rapidly. So, identifying who those early opinion makers are and educating them can increase the rate of diffusion of the innovation quite a lot.

Technorati Tags: Environment, Social media, Web 2.0

by Schristia (busy with my daughter’s exams)
The Most Compelling Leadership Vision:
[Via HarvardBusiness.org]

A distinguished woman rose to speak in the front of a room of 40 fellow employees during a Total Leadership workshop I was conducting earlier this week at a large pharmaceutical company’s headquarters.

“Joyous laughter — this is the sound I hear throughout the home I have built and now maintain for mentally ill women in Puerto Rico. They are surrounded by people who love and care for them. They are enjoying life.”

Juana, let’s call her, was telling the brief (one-minute) story of her personal leadership vision; a description of the impact you’re having on your world and the legacy you’re creating 15 years from now. When Juana sat down, one of her close colleagues said, “I’ve known you so long yet I never knew about this part of who you are. Wow!” I couldn’t help but ask Juana how I could support her pursuit of her vision. All of us were moved, and felt inclined to contribute.

People will not follow a leader if it is only to the leader’s benefit. We are social animals, using networks of interactions for live our lives. The most invigorating visions are those that lead people to a better place. Not to one that simply makes the leader wealthy.

After hearing a set of examples, I then ask the whole group to describe what was inspiring in what was just said and heard. Invariably, it is the people who speak not about their own achievement but, rather, about how they’re helping someone else who draw the most powerful emotional responses and pronounced support.

Having heard many personal vision statements in the last few days, in different groups (including, through an interpreter, securities industry executives visiting The Wharton School from China), I was struck, once again, by the power of this very this simple, yet critically important idea. Serve others and others will want to serve you. This paradox is often difficult to grasp, especially in your early years. Yet is seems to be a universal truth: People are more likely to pay attention to you — and they are more inclined to help you — when you declare yourself committed to serving others.

It is a paradox of a social animal – simply doing what is best for the individual is not as successful as doing what is best for the group. The chances for survival are much greater when the power of the group is brought into play. That is why we developed this way. Group dynamics determine what gets done.

So, an effective leader is one that can harness the group but the group evolved to really like what benefits the group, not just the leader. Thus, an effective leader is one who works for the group not just for themselves.

This is not to say that leaders can not utilize the group needs in order to create benefits for the leader. It does suggest, however, that the best leaders are those that at least appear to be serving the group. In most cases, the more the leader appears to just be gaining power purely for self-aggrandizement the less likely they are to maintain the interest of their followers.

Technorati Tags: General, Web 2.0