The Hames Report

Krisana's Story

Since last year’s publication of The Five Literacies of Global Leadership I have often been asked for examples of well-known leaders who practice the five literacies.

I confess to treating such requests with disinterest, even disdain. In truth there is probably an element of five literacies leadership in each and every human being. But these interrogative inquiries are most often asked, or so it seems, by people working within organizations. Setting apart genuine curiosity, which I admire, there seem to be two motives underpinning these queries:

•    Egotists (often very senior executives) need to be able to assert they already practice five literacies leadership, thereby eliminating the need for any further investigation or personal development. This lends the ultimate legitimacy on their claim to be leaders. They have already reached the pinnacle of power and influence others still seek. They have climbed the corporate ladder of success and now sit astride the business like feudal barons.

•    Sceptics (especially human resource professionals) have more modest, yet defensive goals. They are keen to prove that five literacies leadership is just another instance in a long lineage of developmental models having application in organizational life. This logic allows them to rank it alongside other theories (like situational leadership or transformational leadership, for example) many of which are highly contentious. By default this bolsters confidence in the model they currently espouse. To do a u-turn might lead to loss of professional credibility – their worst nightmare.

Both types of interrogation fail to appreciate the world of five literacies leaders:

• Five literacies leadership is not just a theory or a model. It is an integral praxis. A philosophy of 'being'.
• Five literacies leadership is not a tool, a method, or a system so it cannot be learned or implemented in the manner of say, 6-Sigma, for example. On the contrary, people ‘awaken’ to five literacies leadership. It requires a different kind of learning.
  
• Five literacies leadership is not mutually exclusive or in competition with other (so-called) leadership models. In the absence of a higher order purpose, these tend to focus on managing people. But five literacies leadership is not about managing – or even performance per se. It is about intentions. Particularly the intention of purposeful collaboration to create better futures, where wealth, health and well-being are shared equitably.

For these reasons five literacies practitioners are more enlightened, more conscious of the good they can and should do in the world, than the rest of us, who still seem hell bent on using the guise and trappings of orthodox leadership to acquire greater influence, wealth or power.

Another problem is that, thus far, there are so few examples of five literacies leaders in corporate life. There are two reasons I’ve been able to identify:

1. In the past we conceived of corporations as vehicles for creating wealth – a legitimate and honorable purpose given that such wealth then flows through to the community as a whole. A CEO’s focus had to be on management and results. We conveniently adopted the label of ‘leadership’ to illustrate this focus, to the extent that it excluded most other factors. Today, however, we demand much more than just profits. Of course we want corporations to be profitable, but not at any cost. We now stipulate adherence to new rules concerning stakeholders, the community and the environment. In other words we expect businesses to be good corporate citizens or, at the very least, do no damage to people or to the environment. This is a relatively new role for the business corporation. It remains a topic of hot debate. Besides, business is still learning what being a good corporate citizen actually means. It will take a while before a critical mass of five literacies leaders emerges in this context.
2. Five literacies leadership is not leadership as traditionally defined within organizations. Just because your CEO is perceived to be 'the leader' does not make him or her a five literacies practitioner. Whereas 'conventional' notions of leadership are founded on some evidence of applied ego (as in charisma, presence, authority or high degrees of self-esteem) five literacies leaders invariably transcend ego. In so doing they liberate a higher order, transpersonal impulse that is, as yet, uncommon. It is also more disruptive of the status quo, of course, which tends to be an issue for many business enterprises in spite of their avowed understanding, and need for, innovation.

Five literacies leadership, I contend, is still a rare phenomenon simply because it is the first sign of an evolutionary step in the emergence of a new, innate, universal morality. What we are seeing, and labeling five literacies leadership for want of a more appropriate term, is a praxis that transcends old orthodoxies while combining a spiritual awakening and cognition of new possibilities with a deeply felt, personal, responsibility that embraces all life. 

Of course there are numbers of people all around the world practicing five literacies leadership. There would have been no book called The Five Literacies without people to work with or examples to draw upon. Some of these are household names. Some are poor while others have more than their share of fame and fortune. But it is mostly ordinary people doing extraordinary things that I most admire. These are the people from whom I draw inspiration. They are genuinely authentic leaders.

One such person is Krisana Krisintu, recognised just last week by Reader’s Digest as their Asian of the Year for 2008. Krisana’s name is not on everyone’s lips. She is not particularly well known even in her home country of Thailand. But her achievements resonate throughout Asia and Africa.

Krisana is a 55-year-old pharmacist, known for her courage and tireless activities in creating affordable generic drugs to help victims of HIV/Aids and malaria in some of the poorest countries in the world. She was selected by the editors of Reader’s Digest as someone who best embodies the contemporary expression of Asia’s values and traditions.

Incidentally that, too, implies a lot about the nature of five literacies leadership which I intend exploring in future postings.

But to continue with Krisana’s story…

In 1979, Krisana was appointed head of the newly created Research and Development Institute at the publicly owned Government Pharmaceutical Organisation in Thailand. Using the resources at her disposal Krisana set to work developing inexpensive drugs for diseases ranging from hypertension to diabetes. These generic medicines could be produced cheaply because they didn’t involve expensive basic research although they used the same key ingredients as those in proprietary products first manufactured by Western multinationals.

When Aids spread quickly through Thailand in 1992, Krisana decided to produce generic versions of the more commonly available antiretrovirals (ARVs) being used in the West to control the disease. She was especially interested in zidovudine, a drug that reduced the chances of pregnant HIV-positive women passing the virus to their children. Zidovudine was originally developed to combat cancer and is highly toxic. Krisana immediately ran into opposition from her peers and colleagues who refused to work with her on the project.

Ignoring their advice she worked alone. Wearing a mask, goggles and gloves she analysed drugs and experimented with a variety of formulations. After six months working round-the-clock she produced her first generic zidovudine capsules at one-fifth the cost of the branded original. This was the developing world’s first generic ARV. The combination pill had to be taken twice a day instead of the usual six-pills-a-day regimen. The drug was also 18 times cheaper. As a result, more than three quarters of the 100,000 people being treated for HIV/Aids in Thailand now take Krisana’s ‘three-in-one’ cocktail.

Since then Krisana has taken her knowledge and expertise to other countries, including the Congo, Tanzania, Mali, Burma, Burundi, Kenya and Aceh, creating more drugs, training hospital staff and organising the refurbishment of moribund factories to manufacture her drugs.

Krisana’s indomitable efforts are helping to create a region free of diseases that were ravaging the population. Her story is a wonderful example of five literacies leadership.

Weak Signals

One of the most uncommon skills in the domain of Networked Intelligence is the ability to separate really important data from the din of global chatter and other inconsequential noise. And it is getting more difficult to do this as the years pass. New knowledge is escalating exponentially. Around 3,000 books are published every day. The amount of new technical information being generated is now doubling every two years. At that rate, by the year 2012 it will be doubling every 80 hours! It is estimated that a week’s worth of the New York Times contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime during the 18th century.

Evidently it has become impossible to use conventional means to access and make sense of such an explosion of information. Yet accurate information is vital in the field of Strategic Navigation. Which is why up-to-the-minute techniques using digital software, collaborative search and analysis, and real time data mapping, for example, have become such indispensable components in the toolkit of today’s foresight practitioners.

Or so you would think. Many uninformed individuals and companies misunderstand the role of information in today’s environment, then utterly misjudge how vital it is that raw information be turned into strategic intelligence to be useful. That is both negligent and potentially damaging; it can so easily deceive decision makers into making choices that are strategically irrelevant and systemically nonviable.

Recently The Hames Group reviewed a number of agencies around the world set up to provide foresighting services to governments and private firms. Our rationale for doing this was to discover and better understand are competitors (and prospective collaborators) as well as the current locus of their work. Astonishingly we found most of these groups incapable of delivering integral, reliable and insightful intelligence.

Whilst examining the capability of one such agency in Australia, for example, established just recently to provide an information database on climate change and other related issues, we noted several defects in their ability to provide intelligence that would be of any use whatsoever strategically. Newspaper clippings from a relatively narrow slice of available media, discrete data extracted from interviews conducted from a conspicuously small and similar population, and biased opinions, formed the basis for around 3,000 environmental scans. That is it! Obviously those in charge mistakenly believe that collecting as much information as possible from as wide a range of sources as possible, gives them credence and some form of technical ‘edge’.

Agencies and individuals like this are deluded. They luxuriate in their stockpiling abilities, while ignoring the means to use such information to synthesize intelligence in ways that can be readily accessed. More often than not they harvest data indiscriminately and end up with an overwhelming mass of information that is almost impossible to decipher and interpret in terms of critical patterns and trends. What a waste.

The art of strategic foresight within the domain of Networked Intelligence is not just in the collection of data and information, which can be done by almost anyone with a computer, but the synthesis of that information into useful (strategic) intelligence. In that regard, much depends upon the capacity and skills of individuals to make well-founded connections between bits of information that are apparently unrelated and to recognize the significance of what at first glance may appear to be weak signals of change – data that is tempting to discard as being irrelevant to a particular issue at this particular time.

I well remember how difficult it was, just a couple of years ago, to convince some environmental NGOs that they should collaborate on sharing intelligence with social NGOs simply because, in reality, their own patch was impossible to disentangle from those of other agencies, even when they were supposedly working in entirely different fields. Again, barely ten years ago, it required an enormous effort to get the large reinsurance firms to accept that changing weather patterns (as in global warming, for example) was a long term strategic factor the industry needed to pay serious attention to. They had traditionally only paid attention to economic data because that, they reasoned, was the business they were in.

Often, it must be said, weak signals are incredibly difficult to tease out of a mass of data. Even more difficult when the focus is on generating the data rather than on finding links or perceiving that data through alternative lenses. Then again weak signals, recognized as such, need careful monitoring over time so that changes in momentum, trajectory or state can be noted and the consequences examined.

It takes a rare person who can see the links between bee colonies, let’s say, and the business of mobile telephony. Links there are for the insightful eye but only if the synthesis of strategic intelligence is undertaken seriously and curious patterns and trends are investigated. This is the bona fide work of the professional foresight practitioner. Let me illustrate with the bee colonies.

Bees are disappearing, you see. Deserting their hives in the billions in what is being called Colony Collapse Disorder. While some experts dispute the likely long term nature of the problem, it is possible we are witnessing an early yet fundamental threat to the food supply chain. Moreover this is occurring at a time when climate change (as in water shortages, changed land use and crop patterns, new pests, unreliable weather patterns, etc.) and other demands on the land (for fuel crops for example) are putting the agricultural system under considerable pressure.

Actually this particular weak signal has been on some radar screens for a while. The Hames Group has been monitoring this pattern for the past three years when anecdotal evidence of crop loss caused by a lack of bees began to emerge among smaller farmers in the US. By 2006, bee loss on the west coast of America was estimated at 58% and on the east coast at nearly 70%. It is believed up to 26 states may be currently affected. A similar picture is emerging in Europe, with reports of bee loss from the UK, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece. And that is on top of a 45% decline in overall numbers over the last 50 years.

Why should this pattern be significant? Well, for a start, bees don't just make honey. They account for about 78% of all insect crop pollination. Crops as diverse as soybeans, broccoli, celery, green beans, cucumbers, citrus fruit, apples, cherries, strawberries and melons are all heavily dependent on bees. In financial terms, bees account for about $14.75 billion of added value in agriculture, in the US alone.

In developed nations, citizens have grown accustomed to a huge variety of fresh foods being available all the year round, at relatively low prices. That could all change. At best, prices would sky rocket; at worst, these foods would simply disappear, and with them the livelihoods of hundreds of rural communities - with all the attendant knock-on economic effects.

The potential cause of Colony Collapse Disorder is hotly debated, with viruses caused by mites, use of pesticides, mono-crop agriculture, urbanization, bee in-breeding, genetic modification of crops, and even mobile phone mast-related radiation, (yes indeed, mobile telephony) all under consideration. Whatever the cause, if we do not heed the signals, changing our ways if need be, then the West may be facing not only a much less varied diet, but changed landscapes and rural poverty on an enormous scale. Supermarkets, food distribution companies, agribusinesses of all sizes could also face significant loss of turnover.

Such is the power of weak signals and the reason Networked Intelligence is so vital in the world of Five Literacies leadership.

What Is It About Words? - Part 6

One of the reasons so-called 'strategic' conversations are not always very strategic, and why they so often fail to make much of an impact on changing current conditions, is because people either take refuge in familiar language, using that to their own advantage, or allow their emotions to completely overrule rationality. 

The latter point is problematic. Scientists used to believe that reason and emotion were qualitatively different psychic spheres. Clearly they could influence each other, but most believed the thinking, knowing, reasoning part of the mind to be in some fundamental way distinct from the mind’s feeling, sensing, emotional aspects. Today’s neuroscientists, however, believe it is simply impossible to separate these in any meaningful way.

Moreover, they now believe that emotion can never truly be divorced from even the most ‘rational’ decision making. Even a judge who renders a verdict supported by a law that she finds personally distasteful is being driven by a moral emotion about the principle of the rule of law. Even a terrorist gearing up for a suicide attack is spurred by an intensely felt motivation inspired by his love of God and God’s favoured people, who also happen to be his own.

Taking refuge in language, on the other hand, though occasionally unconscious, can occur in any number of ways – although these are easily recognised and purged when necessary. Typical tactics include, for example, remaining silent, inundating people with an avalanche of data, using politically correct terminology, attacking individuals rather than their ideas, focusing on past failures, using inappropriate information designed to mislead, and resorting to euphemism. All of these can all be expunged to produce healthier dialogue with conscious effort and determination from participants.

The most sensitive facilitators of transformational narrative are well versed in eliminating such tactics. In a way they are like excellent medical diagnosticians. They have a nose for rapidly understanding a situation or issue and where it might fit into a model of the whole ecosystem of issues under discussion.

How do they do this? What is the skill? Is it just about ensuring positive flow in the conversation by eliminating the kinds of spoiling tactics mentioned above? Not quite, although it’s no mystery.

In today’s interconnected world the rapid turnover of knowledge in every field requires a new appreciation of information, especially the way questions relate to issues. Many people have an antiquated view of information, seeing it as a static thing; something best contained in an encyclopedia or a library. A more apposite metaphor for today is that information is like a river – a raging torrent in which ideas and relationships are constantly shifting, vanishing and re-emerging in astonishingly different structures. Fishing in the river one day brings up different perspectives than the next day because the river has moved on.

Facilitating effective Deep Design is like fishing in this river. At one level it is simply a matter of asking the right questions, of the right people, at the right time, from which a new ‘model’ of the whole system can emerge.

The question is the most powerful factor in generating breakthrough dialogue and opening up unimaginably new possibilities. Remaining silent, or not finding the most pertinent questions to ask, can dampen energy or simply curtail conversations in a peremptory fashion.

Consequently, the final factor that makes Deep Design so distinctive, and why facilitation is such an integral part of the transformational narrative process, is the attention we have given to the art of the question. It requires practice, of course, but almost anyone can become an accomplished practitioner of transformational narrative as long as they can hold diverse viewpoints in their heads and can sort the ‘noise’ from the ‘truth’ in order to ask the question that needs asking.

At its most palpable level, transformational narrative is simply the art of posing questions that will make a difference to how reality is being perceived, ultimately leading to different sets of consequences that will then imply different kinds of action. This is why Deep Design is such a powerful mechanism for social change.

In leveraging open alternative points of view, Deep Design invites participants to shift their locus of beliefs to take into account new information and possibilities. This, in turn, enables groups, organizations and communities to explore their own imperatives and ways of adapting to change in a more viable manner. At the same time, the process of transformational narrative invokes a special creativity that can forge fresh strategies for resolving some of humanity’s starkest challenges. No other methodology appears to be up to such a daunting task.

Examples of critical strategic questions that are relevant in specific situations can be seen and downloaded by clicking on the file called Uncommon Sense at the following link: http://www.hamesgroup.com/index.php/hg/the_five_literacies

What Is It About Words? - Part 5

Because people often challenge our claim that Deep Design is significantly different from similar products in the market place we are often asked what particular perspectives need to be integrated into the process of transformational narrative in order to generate Deep Design of the highest order.

There are numerous categories of perspective we believe to be significant - granularity, dominant belief system, event topology and ‘helicopter’ perspectives, for example, can all shift a conversation’s meaning in quite remarkable ways. Of these, experience has shown the wisdom of at least integrating perspectives of alignment, peripheral vision, pattern, structure and time into the process of Deep Design. 

1. Perspectives of alignment surface from those stakeholders whose views should be taken into account. Naturally this will depend upon circumstances and the issue at hand but will invariably include the perceptions of individuals, entities and communities likely to be impacted, in any form whatsoever, by a decision made by the design group.

This also includes the unique perspective of the facilitator(s) who should be paying particular attention to the issue of how the design group, or the entity represented by the design group, interfaces with the ‘external’ world. This is a unique perspective. It entails the facilitator(s) closely observing and mapping the hierarchy of relationship loops in play as these evolve. This perspective is about connections, interfaces and the emergent dynamics between the various elements of the system. It is noteworthy that the frequent failure of diplomacy in complex situations is mostly a result of the inability of the design group (for various reasons that are impossible to address here) to adequately take such perspectives into account.

2. Perspectives of peripheral vision arise from deliberately seeking opinions that are novel and unique; input that, at first glance, might even appear to be weird, strange or just plain off the mark! This is one of the characteristics of high quality scenario planning and it cannot be taken too lightly. Individuals can be invited to contribute through interviews conducted by members of the organization, as guest speakers in strategic forums, or even, at times, as part of the process of Deep Design. Often, these remarkable people are from other industries, other environments, or are ‘fringe dwellers’ in our own society. The more ‘outside of the box’ they are, the more potential value they have for introducing novelty to the design group’s thinking, thus widening their appreciation of what is going on.

The development of peripheral vision is particularly important in corporations and government departments where it is quite common for members to become so ‘locked in’ to formal plans that they often miss the significance of events that appear to have no relevance to them achieving their goals. Unfortunately, as history will attest, apparently ‘insignificant’ events can turn nasty, creep up behind the largest and wealthiest of organizations when they are least expecting it, and knock them for six. 

3. Perspectives of pattern and structure emerge from dialogue that explores beyond the more tangible surface of discrete issues and events. At this level, the primary content of conversation inevitably focuses on what happened, who did what, why it occurred, what we are doing about it, and the like. In other words the dialogue is content-driven based on whatever the topic happens to be at the time of conversation.

Recurring issues and events, however, will exhibit certain patterns and trends over time. The identification and recognition of these patterns occur at a deeper level of dialogue. At this level the design group is not so much concerned about analysing the details of any one specific event or issue, but rather of seeking to understand and account for entire patterns and trends, of which the surface issues and events are merely indicators. This level of dialogue takes the design group to more expansive levels of comprehension about what is going on and what responses might be possible. This is typically referred to as the ‘big’ picture. Often it is not ‘big’ enough!

If issues and events are recurring sufficiently enough to produce discernible patterns or trends, deeper questions might be asked. ‘What are the underlying causes that continually produce such patterns and trends?’ ‘What dynamics are in play, and what is the structure holding these dynamics constant?’ In other words, ‘What is the underlying system responsible for producing these patterns and trends over time?’ This discerning level of conversational depth can provide a profound understanding of the essential nature of the systemic conditions with which the design group is dealing. It can also reveal the location and identity of leverage points for shifting the entire system into a different state.

Yet still deeper questions can be asked. For example, ‘If that is the underlying system from which all the other things spring forth, what keeps this underlying system in play?’ ‘Why has it come to be the way that it is and why doesn’t it just change?’ This penultimate level of dialogue explores the mental models and worldviews that drive the pre-eminent underlying system. It is here that the design group can seek to understand the critical aspects of the collective human psyche that actually cause the very conditions they must contend with.

The most profound levels of dialogue, however, occur when the design group is able to examine the metalanguage(s) being used by a society that are expressed within the system’s dynamics as these have evolved over time. Here, they can seek to understand ourselves as a ‘community of mind’ and how human beings contribute to the manifested ecology of their own environment.

Obviously the art of strategic dialogue traverses freely through all of these different levels. It does not necessarily seek to occur only at the deepest levels for an understanding of mental models and worldviews cannot be achieved without getting clues from the issues and events they manifest. In this sense transformational narrative is a continual weaving between the various levels of dialogue. It is through this seemingly roundabout conversation or iteration and recursion that greater insight and wisdom can be gained.

4. Finally temporal (or time-based) perspectives are needed to achieve high quality Deep Design. The classic example of the significance of this category is the all-too-familiar distinction between basing decisions and plans on short term or long term views. The difference in the viability of results can be quite dramatic. Organizations or groups with a short-term perspective may well opt for immediate results by borrowing from, or gambling, their future. Those with a longer-term view frequently sacrifice instant results for the promise of even greater gains in the long term.

Of course there are many other temporal perspectives one can take that are also quite significant in their impact on the viability of any strategic decision, policy or plan. One of these is the difference between whether future plans are based on extrapolations from the past and the present, or if hopes are pinned on an ideal future and a backcast to the present is undertaken to identify what will need to happen in order to achieve that ideal. The former may will impart benefits in the form of improvements to the current paradigm. But only the latter can spark truly visionary and transformative change.

In the 6th and final Part of this blog, the importance of asking the right question will be examined.

What Is It About Words? - Part 4

In Deep Design the process of transformational narrative is facilitated within the decision theatre space in ways that allow dialogue to flow within and between the various domains in the Hames-Oka learning heuristic.

There are eight of these domains (traced on a process of sensing, making sense, designing and enacting) implying eight different types of conversation. As explained in The Five Literacies of Global Leadership, the knowledge product at the conclusion of each conversation becomes the critical domain of attention - a shared expression of the threads of critically-interrelated ideas, dynamics and consequences that are strategically relevant to decision making, given the specific issues. Frequently the critical domain of attention from one conversation becomes the input to the next conversation with a different group of people. In this way ideas are shared and explored across various constituencies. A ‘deeper’ design is the output of the entire process.

Within the particular class of dialogue we call transformational narrative, the integration of different perspectives is arguably the most critical and significant element. Indeed it is this aspect of transformational narrative that allows for better, more comprehensive, synthesis of strategic intelligence.

Strategic intelligence is defined as the information, ability and volition required to adapt to contextual shifts and dynamic conditions in ways that ensure ongoing survival and well being. Thus, transformational narrative is a way of increasing our capability to learn to adapt to changes in the environment in ways that are ecological and congruent with the nature and direction of our priorities.

The late Gregory Bateson once said ‘There is no wisdom in only one point of reference’.  He had noticed that, in order to make a distinction, any distinction, at least two points of reference are needed. For instance, one cannot specify what is ‘up’ without specifying what is meant by ‘down’. It is impossible to say something is ‘good’ without having a reference for what is ‘bad’. Nor can one say something ‘is’ what it is without being able to differentiate what it ‘is not’.

It matters not whether you are a world leader, a CEO, a professor or a bureaucrat. The issue is the same for everyone. It is the issue of relevance: whenever you are involved in dealing with complex issues, how can you be sure that you are making wise and intelligent decisions?  Do your reflections and conclusions incorporate different points of view, or are they based on only one, or at best one narrow set, of perspectives? 

Certainly the tendency in a lot of political game playing, geopolitical negotiations at the nation state level, and deal making in business, has been to seek only a limited range of opinions, usually from those considered to be technical experts. 

More often than not, this has resulted in inappropriate ‘band-aids’ being applied because the complexity of the situation – in other words, its systemic nature - has not been fully appreciated.  How frequently, for example, are marketing executives or customers called upon to assist manufacturing with a product design problem; or students requested to input to the university curriculum; or for that matter, a broad range of community thinking sought prior to important changes in government policies?  And yet it is obvious that the timely integration of a broad range of perspectives can help eliminate blind-spots, building a far more comprehensive picture of the issue at hand than that seen by technical experts.

Today, when there are so many variable factors to take into account and complex situations can change almost overnight, making momentous decisions is not something that can or should be undertaken by any individual or group coming from an expert viewpoint or singular ideological position.  The systemic nature of complex issues, their interdependence and dynamic interaction with other such issues, demands an altogether different approach.

In any multi-faceted or complex situation, capturing a variety of perspectives is vital: it helps sort the trivial from the significant, injects novelty and increased understanding, providing a solution that is ultimately more relevant, robust, and sustainable in the long-term. Moreover, this practice also has the benefit of assuring those who have been consulted of the importance of their input.

Appreciation of the need to incorporate different viewpoints is a volitional characteristic of healthy, adaptive human beings and institutions alike, just as the lack of such appreciation characterises maladaptive ones.  It is worth recalling the sensible words of strategist Pierre Wack who warned ‘The majority of errors in strategy are not errors of analysis, they are errors of perspective’.

When IBM nearly collapsed due to enormous losses, it wasn’t because they didn’t do their spreadsheets right, it was because their strategic perspective was so narrow they completely missed the impact of the PC against the mainframe.  In the 1996 landslide elections in Australia, it wasn’t that the Labour party didn’t do it’s campaign planning right, it’s that the party was coming only from its own narrow outlook about what would work and that, at the time, was so very much not the perspective of the majority of Australian people. Essentially the same thing happened in the UK in 1997 when, to the utter dismay and disbelief of many Tory supporters, Tony Blair’s New Labour was swept to power after so many years in the political wilderness.   

These, and numerous other instances of poor decision-making, are examples of errors of perspective: errors based on expert opinion or on too narrow a viewpoint when making strategic decisions and plans, errors of not actively seeking (and integrating) as many viewpoints as possible in order to make wiser, more intelligent choices.

The paradox is that in spite of the contemporary emphasis on individuals - their rights, roles and responsibilities – intelligent decision making requires input from as wide a range of people as possible.

The ability and willingness to recognise that we have only a singular perspective on any situation (a particular set of beliefs and assumptions through which we filter reality) and that this single perspective is insufficient for quality decision making, is vital for successful engagement in transformational narrative.

Ultimately this boils down to humility. The humility to recognise and accept that our single perspective may not always be appropriate or complete enough. The modesty to recognise and appreciate that it is unwise and unhelpful to argue who is ‘right’ and that it is the readiness to learn from others, by discovering how to share and understand their perspectives, that leads to wisdom. Deep Design requires the kind of humility and modesty that leads to mutual respect and appreciation of very diverse points of view. In this way it is both unifying and co-evolutionary.

Which brings me to the whole notion of integration. As you will have realised by now, the art of dialogue within Deep Design is not one of persuasion, but one of coherence. Not one of influence, but one of synthesis. Not one of debate, but one of learning. Because transformational narrative seeks integration by synthesising many perspectives into a comprehensive ‘meta’ perspective, we cannot delete or discard any information as irrelevant. Instead, we must account for it. 

In a pluralist society such as ours, the lack of a pluralistic method for communicating meaning (the kind Deep Design readily facilitates) guarantees poor or ill-informed decision-making; the adoption of rigid conceptual positions that often prove to be irrelevant, socially inappropriate, or based only on partial understanding; and the perpetuation of argument and analysis based upon ‘objective’ evidence as the sole basis for ‘knowing’. Yet, it must be conceded, most of our social systems, legal institutions and scientific constructs (and consequently the conduct of our daily lives) are founded upon such dualistic concepts - still permeated by such thinking ‘hand-me-downs’ from Plato, Aristotle and Socrates. 

Dualistic, or reductionist, thinking has many benefits, of course. For a start it simplifies complex phenomena, allowing us to analyse and ‘see’ some things with far greater clarity than would otherwise be the case. However, especially considering the heterogeneous nature of many of today’s most crucial issues, the dualistic paradigm can easily lead us into believing that literally everything can be reduced to simple, easily understood principles and processes.

Indeed, it may even deceive us into believing that complexity itself is something inherently sinister or suspect, that anything resisting reduction to a few simple elements is of no real value or has no useful purpose. This may account for the disturbing anti-intellectual attitude, prevalent in many contemporary Western societies and evidently sanctioned by their media, where serious, in-depth, debate of complicated issues is spurned in favour of superficial banalities or commercial clichés; where it is commonly held that anything that cannot be said simply should not be said at all. In this respect, dualism’s disadvantages should never be underestimated. 

Using the reductionist approach of analysis and argument requires that a position be adopted. This position is usually fabricated from our most fundamental (and largely unchallenged) assumptions regarding what we believe to be right or wrong. Evidence is then acquired, albeit in a fairly biased and selective manner, to ensure we are able to defend our position should this become necessary. We then spend inordinate amounts of time attempting to influence and persuade others to our point of view, invariably seeking information that will validate our position, or refute any perspectives we would regard as being opposed to our own. 

Every issue is then perceived from one position or another - as if black or white, which is, after all, the whole point of reductionist thinking. If we believe the data we collect does not validate the position we have adopted (that is, it does not make sense within our current frame of reference) we habitually discard it, label it as irrelevant or perversive, or even deny its very existence! Occasionally, as is common in the political arena, we may even use it against our opponents as evidence that their position is inherently evil or seditious. Thus, it becomes extremely difficult, if not impossible, to appreciate the systemic relevance of data to a situation where the reductionist paradigm of dualism is actively constructing how the various parties are thinking and behaving.  Especially as everyone will be actively seeking only certain, limited types of information that will fit their own view of the world.

By contrast, transformational narrative demands that we each expand our current perspective to account for new, often contradictory information, thereby broadening and intensifying how we think (and feel) about a particular situation. From such an enriched perspective, our reflections, decisions and plans increase in their levels of emergent wisdom.

Through the integration of multiple perspectives within a process of transformational narrative, Deep Design seeks, explores and critiques unconventional and innovative ways of thinking about a given situation. It surfaces (and at times constructively challenges) key assumptions we may have unconsciously adopted in our thinking, ultimately fashioning a shared and enriched understanding of the situation that could not have been achieved by one person alone.

In essence, to engage in Deep Design, using transformational narrative, is to engage in collaborative learning. And, as I have already suggested, it is collaborative learning that facilitates intelligent coevolution.

In Part 5 of this blog we will examine how the integration of multiple perspectives strengthens discourse.

What Is It About Words? - Part 3

The real power of Deep Design is inherent within the way it enables individuals and groups to become more conscious of how they perceive and interpret the world, how to be in accord with that process, and how to learn to make better choices with ever expanding levels of wisdom. Deep Design has the potential to create and sustain breakthrough praxis in almost any field of human endeavour, but particularly in the solving of problems, the resolution of dilemmas, and the accommodation of paradox.

Essentially Deep Design combines three methods into a single cohesive methodology, one in which transformational narrative is facilitated within a context-sensitive environment to:

• liberate the collective intelligence embodied within a group of participants

• transform that intelligence into deeper levels of shared wisdom about explicit issues

• harness that wisdom into a new and sustainable praxis.

How is this possible? How can we make this claim? You should now be aware that Deep Design is more than mere dialogue. On the contrary, it is only able to take the concept of strategic conversation to new levels by bringing the conversational setting, the nature of contextual intelligence and the facilitated process itself into the equation.

Some of the most popular conversational methods, such as Open Space Technology and Appreciative Inquiry, for example, while based on sound principles and a lucid model, fail to recognize the importance of (a) one's surroundings, (b) extensive intelligence from the 'outside' and (c) a process that deliberately challenges deeply held convictions, assumptions and worldviews. Other popular methods, like scenario planning or the Landmark Education's 'forum' process, also fall into the trap of ignoring past intelligence in their overly zealous focus on the future.

Deep Design is conscious of (and therefore avoids) these flaws. From a practical perspective, the flow of  a Deep Design narrative can be described as follows: (i) Within a specially fabricated decision theatre, (ii) intelligence from the past, present and future is channeled into (ii) a learning heuristic where (iii) multiple perspectives are integrated via (iv) a process of transformational narrative.

Of these elements two stand out as distinctive: (i) the decision theatre environment and (ii) the integration of differing perspectives to generate more robust intelligence.

Even the most constructive dialogue typically occurs in sterile environments where participants are given little assistance in documenting narrative, visualizing relationships, recalling crucial data - or even creating new knowledge.  When information is available it is commonly expressed in a form (e.g. spreadsheets, lists and graphs) that is difficult to share, reconceptualise or alter, ignores tacit knowledge, and hinders comprehension of systemic dynamics & leverage, evolutionary trajectories and unintended consequences.  Moreover, such information will often be open to wild misinterpretation, depending upon personal perspective, memory, political games, face-saving devices and individual assumptions. 

Because of these constraints, even the best conventional strategic conversations are only really effective at the level of discrete problems and, possibly, intricate dilemmas. But not complex systems. These phenomena, such as those manifest in geopolitical hotspots, for example, are far more difficult to grasp and therefore require more sophisticated means for visualising the information from which intelligence can be synthesized and acted upon.

The design of physical spaces that attempt to overcome these inadequacies can be traced back to the work of Stafford Beer in pre-revolutionary Chile.  Beer was a pioneer in creating environments that enabled deeper conversations (and consequently wiser decisions) through the identification, collection and synthesis of real-time systemic intelligence.  Later, his work became the basis for the decision theatre conversational environments and ‘change brain’ processes incorporated into Deep Design as intelligent enablers of transformational narrative.

Transformational narrative, of the kind that re-sculpts entire paradigms, requires guided conversations that evolve the consciousness of participants. It also demands (physical and virtual) spaces that embody critical atemporal information. These conversations are an art, arising from integrating new intelligence - about ourselves and the issue-in-focus (usually known as the critical domain of attention) yesterday, today and into the future, into a profound yet flowing discourse.

This constantly evolving information is displayed live on four walls as an interconnected knowledge system:

• Wall 1 is a synthesis of PAST STATES.  It comprises anecdotes, diagrams, photographs and learning histories to depict the evolution of the system up to and including the present day

• Wall 2 is a synthesis of possible FUTURE STATES.  It comprises descriptions of the official or desired future, possible alternative worlds within which the organization may need to live, succession matrices, aspirational statements, etc.

• Wall 3 maps the system in its IDEAL STATE.  It comprises a high-level process map of supply webs and value chains as well as intended value points, feedback loops, transformations, etc.  The information on this wall can also be used as inputs to simulations of one kind or another in which various assumptions can be tested

• Wall 4 maps the PRESENT STATE.  It comprises relationship diagrams, causal-loop diagrams, theories-in-use and any additional data that can be used to expose the underlying behavioural “code” of the system as it manifests in real-time.

Thus strategic conversations conducted in a Deep Design decision theatre becomes an adventure in learning - a liberating process of intelligence gathering, collaborative inquiry and systemic mapping where emergent properties of the system are monitored and tracked in real time and where exploring and responding to complex realities is made explicit and shared with others. 

In Part 4 of this blog we will look at the elements of the dialogue itself, including the integration of multiple perspectives.

What Is It About Words? - Part 2

So there we were, Marvin Oka and myself, determined to change the current order of things by designing a new kind of collaborative modus operandi that would enable people to reperceive reality and create better futures together. At the same time we were at pains to avoid the logical inconsistencies, mind traps and flaws inherent in most other methods.

We had already begun to push the envelope of what might be possible by integrating heuristics, the art of forging viable paths into the future using a combination of instinct and intelligence, into Strategic Navigation. The first of the five literacies to be created, Strategic Navigation stands orthodox wisdom concerning planning on its head. This real-time, intelligence-based method of surfing emergent reality aligned well with our underlying belief that human behaviour is essentially fickle and that adapting to uncertainty and novelty is increasingly critical in a world of dynamic complexity and accelerating change.

Deep Design, we figured, as the primary channel for continuous meaning-making embedded within Strategic Navigation, needed to use multilingual devices (such as narrative, dialogue and inquiry) as the means to advance current praxis. Which is why we turned our attention to verbal forms of communication and language - a universally familiar phenomenon, albeit ambiguous and fraught with erroneous assumptions and contradictions.

But where to begin? We set about the challenge by posing three critical questions for which we would need to find practical solutions:

1. If strategic conversation, scenario planning, conflict resolution, appreciative inquiry, political diplomacy (and a myriad other methods as traditionally practiced) are only partially useful in dealing with the most intransigent and problematic issues of our time, what alternatives will work better? Why?
2. If existing methods tend to work best in an environment of stability and incremental change, what methods will provide optimum effectiveness in conditions of dynamic complexity and disruptive, accelerating change? How?
3. If the certainty and precision of meaning created through language is ultimately a delusion, what would need to be the unique features of a method that avoided the more obvious traps?

The first question was axiomatic. We realized the new methodology would need to: (a) be integral and collaborative in nature; (b) enable and encourage people to step into new epistemologies, confronting both old and new risks; (c) synthesize intelligence on an ongoing basis; (d) encompass a variety of methods for making meaning (not only transformational narrative and inquiry), that should include diverse ways of visualizing information, for example; and (e) must focus on the positive appreciation of differing worldviews and belief systems.

The second question related more to the nature of change in today’s world. In terms of influencing people, this question was far trickier to come to grips with. There are still many sceptics out there who challenge the validity of such a premise. Naturally the sceptics also need to be convinced if they are to adopt the methodology. They cannot simply be ignored. We eventually dealt with this situation by proposing a model that enables conversation to flow freely between past, present and possible, but with an emphasis on moving from the present ‘here and now’ to focus much more consciously on the totality of our actions; the ‘expanded now’ of intended and unintended consequences comprising past and future behaviours.

We also introduced the notion of atemporality, arguing that higher levels of performance, such as sustainable breakthroughs in geopolitical crises, for example, usually only occur when a state of non-temporal functioning is realized by a social group within a narrative process. This was the concept we had previously used as the source model for Strategic Navigation and so seemed most appropriate here.

Finally, the third question returned to the need for a viable metalanguage in order to generate higher levels of awareness (about what ‘is’) and deeper consciousness (about what ‘could be’). In this regard we decided to plot four branches of philosophy against each other, arriving at an expansive new field of inquiry that incorporates personal and social praxis, choice, responsibility and wisdom.

As a result of working through these questions, the promise held out by Deep Design became threefold. First, a compelling reason for collaboration is made explicit. Second, the facilitated process of real-time sensing and making sense enables new meanings to be made and new possibilities to be tested on a continuous basis. Third the process of collaboration itself clarifies intent on the part of participants, thus leading to trust and hope which are the means for genuine breakthroughs.   

In Part 3 of this blog I will explain how the various elements of Deep Design come together.

What Is It About Words? - Part 1

Deep Design is one of the five literacies of global leadership. In a way it is the critical literacy as it plays an enabling role in the suite, particularly in creating, guiding and sustaining collaborative inquiry for better futures and in the entire process of Strategic Navigation.

People often ask whether Deep Design significantly differs from other forms of strategic conversation and collective narrative (which is what we claim) and, if it does, in what ways. Perhaps you should be the judge. This initial blog, together with the following five, attempt to describe the distinctive nature of Deep Design and what it is intended to achieve.

Very early on, while immersed in the process of conceiving Deep Design, Marvin Oka and I realized the importance of what we had started to refer to as metalanguage. The issue? How could we take advantage of the way the human brain uses synaesthetic experiences to create meaning from what is actually being seen and heard? Then, how could we use that knowledge to reconceive and revitalise what was commonly referred to as 'strategic conversation' in ways that would lead to genuinely astonishing breakthroughs and innovative praxis?

If meticulously undertaken, we reflected, this methodology might play a frame-breaking role in addressing some of the world’s most complicated problems. We were nothing if not ambitious. Imagine persuading Burma’s General Shan Thwe to form an alliance with Aung San Suu Kyi. Or getting George Bush and Osama Bin Laden to meet in order to resolve their most profound differences. For a start these opposing factions don’t even speak each other’s language. Their worldviews are poles apart. Let’s be blunt; they hate each other. What could possibly motivate them to get together, let alone sit down and talk?

Although this appeared to be such a highly improbable scenario, its theoretical purpose became our guiding ambition. What could make this kind of behaviour a reality? Starting from a whole range of confusing factors we set our minds to the issue of language.

Believe it or not, human language is designed to reach accord. It doesn’t easily lend itself to argument or debate. Those things are refined constructs invented by the Greek gang of three (Plato, Socrates and Aristotle) some 2,500 years ago. Before that it was highly unlikely that language was used in such sophisticated forms. Even so, language often obstructs our intentions, getting in the way of clarity and causing many more problems than it actually solves. How can that be possible?

In human beings, emotions, feelings, motivations, values, ideas and intentions all merge to a unique degree – and are then expressed through the medium of language. Unfortunately language is always approximate. It invariably needs translating, though we often act as if our statements convey precisely and comprehensively everything we had intended.

Even phraseology can have a profound (and often counterintuitive) effect on the way we make decisions. On the surface that may seem obvious. But it is actually quite complicated owing to the fickleness of human nature. Take values. Conventional wisdom assumes each of us has an encoded set of values that we use, rationally if mostly unconsciously, as some kind of moral compass. Not so! Many values are emergent. In other words we just create our preferences in the moment, usually in response to specific questions or the choices being presented to us.

Values can easily twist and turn under the force of a question’s wording or the way in which it is framed. Positioning one alternative as a default (a psychological tendency known as the ‘loss-versus-gain’ effect) can be used to shift people en masse to opt for that choice. It is almost impossible to discern people’s ‘true’ values and preferences - if they even exist!

Such linguistic influences can be exploited for public benefit or harm. Marvin and I realised that cracking this particular puzzle would enable us to design a distinct method of communicating that could by utilized by diverse protagonists, in very different situations, to help solve complex problems, resolve dilemmas and accommodate paradoxes.

Of course language is coloured by many other things, many of them subconscious, including for example, the vocabulary we access, the way we frame propositions, our cultural background and social psychology, body language (in itself derived from emotions and feelings in the moment) as well as any assumptions we may hold about the person to whom we are talking.

But what is it about the language we use that becomes so crucial when called upon to interpret reality, imagine new possibilities, and move beyond current perceptions? We know that certain words carry strong emotional messages. Wielding words is one of the skills of great leaders who, as entrepreneurs of social identity, use language to shape and mold cultural norms which, in turn, motivate and mobilise people.

We also know that the society in which we live influences the way our brain perceives the world. Culture influences the songs we sing, the steps we dance, the words we write. Recently, Magnetic Resonance Imaging [MRI] scans of brain function has also revealed how cultural experiences can rearrange our neural pathways. Furthermore, the culture we grow up in plays a significant role in how we interpret these experiences as proven by anthropologist Dr Clotaire Rapaille.

There is no doubt language helps to convey and maintain a culture’s conventions and similarly affects perception. It can even meddle in relatively simple tasks, such as differentiating between different shades of grey, for example. With an infinite number of ways to perceive the world, every culture’s guidebook helps to focus our brain’s attention on those features most important to us.

Nonverbal language also reveals one’s origins. Just as a Scottish brogue or an Aussie twang betrays one’s background, facial expressions and body language all meld to reveal our cultural pedigree. These ‘nonverbal accents’ also trigger stereotyped perceptions of others’ personalities.

Furthermore, people from different cultures are attuned to different sets of nonverbal cues. People can be highly sensitive to cultural clues of which they are barely aware - just as unaware, in fact, as they are to how their own cultural norms can lead them off course. For example, Americans who think the Japanese inscrutable or impassive often mistake subtlety for a lack of expression. Americans would probably misjudge facial clues that the Japanese might be very successful at interpreting. Such errors of judgement can have unintended consequences, with the spoken word potentially leading to significant cross-cultural misunderstandings.

To complicate matters even further, new research shows that being accustomed to a person’s voice makes it easier to hear what they are saying and, as a consequence, to understand their intentions. Simply being used to watching somebody’s soundless lip movements has much the same effect.

Scientists have long known that visual signals play a key role in speech recognition; how the brain blends the two stimuli is still a mystery. But we do know that our brain constructs the words we ultimately perceive from more than just sounds and lip movements: our expectations and cultural experiences also come into play.

Studies have repeatedly shown that people perceive speech differently depending on their beliefs or assumptions about the speaker’s identity, his or her social or ethnic background, for example. Professor Howard Nusbaum from the University of Chicago goes further, maintaining that a listener’s expectations can be just as powerful as acoustic clues.

If it is our strong belief that the person with whom we are communicating is intrinsically evil, determined to destroy all that we hold dear, we will hear things expressed through their language that are provocative and galling. If, on the other hand, we know and respect the person we are talking to, identical information will be received and interpreted in ways that are sympathetic and appreciative.

Thus the whole system of language and process of communicating, not just the words we use, has a profound effect on how we think as well as the choices we ultimately make. ln developing Deep Design it was clearly critical for us to create a methodology that could surpass conversational orthodoxies and processes that were rigorous enough to deal with these complications of language. Only then would we be sure that entirely new possibilities could emerge.

In Part 2 of this blog I will elaborate on our solutions to these issues: a solution that became Deep Design.

From Charisma to Consensus - Part 2

In Part 1 of this blog, From Charisma to Consensus, I set out to provide a brief overview of the kinds of qualities that set Five Literacies leaders apart, especially in terms of engaging collaboration through collegial dialogue.

In Part 2 I will link Five Literacies leadership to its underlying premise – a premise based not on individual makeup, talent or personality, but on the inherent psychology of the group with which the leader most strongly identifies.

As we know, most leadership models of the past century were based on notions of (a) the charismatic individual or (b) the contextual dynamics in which leaders function, otherwise known as 'contingency' models. I strongly believe that both approaches are flawed.

Whereas ‘charismatic’ models of leadership insist strength of character, coupled with a rare set of personal attributes, determine leadership effectiveness, and ‘contingency’ models suggest the secret of good leadership boils down to finding the perfect match between the individual and the challenge at hand, (responsible for a multitude of best-selling business books as well as the fortunes charged by today’s corporate head hunters) the fundamental assumption on which the theory of Five Literacies leadership is based concerns the phenomenon of ‘social identity’.

The concept of ‘social identity’ allows us to avoid the wearisome flip-flop between those who assert that a great leader can surmount any situation and those who rejoin that it is the circumstances that define the leader.

Coined in the 1970s by Henri Jajfel and John Turner at the University of Bristol in England, the term ‘social identity’ refers to that part of an individual’s awareness of self that is both derived and defined by being a  member of a group – be it family, gang, sect or even nation. In this context, leadership arises from the symbiotic relationship between people within a given social group or community. Essentially, social identity makes group behavior possible - and authentic. It allows us to identify with the group, reach agreement on what matters most to us, and coordinate our actions in striving towards shared goals. In other words, social identity enables coherent collective action.

This is why Five Literacies leaders require a common ‘us’ to represent. It clarifies why dictators, autocrats and bullies cannot be deemed Five Literacies leaders. And it justifies the need to redefine the term (global) leadership as ‘an intentional collaborative process for improving the human condition’.

The emergence of social identity helps to elucidate the transformation we see in the strategies used by rulers associated with the genesis of modern nation states in the 19th century. Before national identities emerged European monarchs could only rule as autocrats, using power to control their citizens. But once people identified with the state, effective monarchs were able to rule as patriots, leading their people by virtue of the shared national identity they embodied. Monarchs like Louis XVI of France who grossly underestimated or misunderstood this shift literally lost their heads!

More recently, social identity has become especially germane owing to the growing numbers of people around the world, enabled by new information and communications technologies such as the Internet, who engage in social networking activities. This, together with related phenomena yet to emerge from even more astonishing technologies, will only increase the need for new approaches to leadership based upon social identity.

When a shared social identity exists, individuals who can best represent that identity will invariably have the most influence over other members in the group: their authenticity, as culturally prototypical of the group, speaks volumes. Which is why they become the most effective leaders. Not only do they exemplify what makes the group distinct from (and even superior to) other comparable groups, they are able to do this from a position of belonging. This is what Five Literacies leaders do almost instinctively.

The wash up of all of this is four elementary lessons. Firstly, in spite of all the products in the human resource catalog suggesting otherwise, legitimate, effective and authentic leadership in today’s global environment does not require a predetermined set of personality traits, talents, skills or behaviors. Nor does it mean applying universal rules of behavior. Likewise, competency frameworks cannot deliver. In fact the most desirable leadership qualities are emergent: they must fit with the culture of the group being led and this will inevitably vary from one group to another and from time to time.

Secondly, anything that distances a leader from the group or sets them apart (including financial compensation) will ultimately compromise effectiveness, undermining their credibility and ability to influence particular outcomes.

Thirdly, authentic leaders do more than merely reflect and conform to current norms. Indeed the smartest leaders will constantly shape their group’s social identity (through the principles underlying their words and deeds) to fit with their vision of how things should or could be, enabling them to position these as expressions of what their constituents already believe to be in their best interests.

Finally it must be remembered that identity must be in harmony with reality. Even some of the most oft-touted leadership skills, such as intelligence, personal charm and assertiveness, for example, can be out-of-kilter in some situations today. The wise leader is not simply attuned to making the group’s social identity ‘real’ but also helps the community experience that identity as real. In order to do that, the only sensible approach is to constantly scan the environment and design or adopt traits that fit with changing circumstances. This is why the Five Literacies (essentially domains of understanding) will be so vital in the future.

From Charisma to Consensus - Part 1

One of the most fascinating things about the ten year quest that eventually resulted in the publication of my book, The Five Literacies of Global Leadership, is how conventional wisdom can be so easily overturned with intellectual rigor, closer scrutiny of the evidence and, perhaps, a dash of healthy scepticism.

We often assume that authentic leadership entails the possession of charisma, in addition to other desirable personality traits, in abundance. One new book after another constantly feeds us information, usually posing as academically rigorous evidence, asserting as much.

The opposite happens to be closer to the truth. But there is so much noise in the market place, especially concerning the leadership of organizations, the truth is often lost.

Let us, for a moment, examine the dominant Western approaches to leadership. Many popular theories harness psychology, possibly quite legitimately, to help distinguish between those who have a propensity to lead and those who do not – commonly referred to as followers. But some of the core asssumptions underpinning these theories are inconsistent. Others fatally flawed.

For example, many Western notions of leadership (initiated by social theorist Max Weber almost 100 years ago in his notion of ‘charismatic leadership’) perpetuate the myth that great leaders use their innate talents and strength of character to dominate followers and tell them what to do, the aim being either to enforce compliance with their wishes or to instill in people the passion (for taking a particular course of action) they would otherwise lack. Others (based on influential social psychologist Fred Fiedler’s work in the 1960s and 1970s) favor contingency models, focusing on discovering and replicating the perfect match between a leader and the context in which the leader is operating.

As a consequence of these flawed hypotheses, people in positions of authority are perceived to be model leaders - rather than managers, which is their actual role. This also explains why middle aged male CEOs, military officers, politicians and heads of state are so often depicted as leaders and why women find it incredibly difficult to be taken seriously: they lack the very qualities that would potentially give them similar credibility; characteristics we assume to be vital aspects of leadership. 

This kind of confusion has led many, otherwise intelligently led, organizations down a futile path where particular qualities, such as determination, perseverance, and assertiveness, for example, are portrayed and modelled as essential leadership behaviors within an overall competency framework. Worse, these theories all imply that leaders with adequate strength of character and willpower can prevail over whatever reality they confront. As the world becomes increasingly complex this is an absurd and even dangerous path to take. And yet we pursue these things so earnestly

So what is the truth? How can we begin to define a leadership psychology that makes sense today – always remembering that the psychological paradigm is an essentially Western invention and may become less and less relevant in a world culturally predisposed to less emphatic philosophies?

The major thrust of our research into The Five Literacies points to a new philosophy of leadership, where the term ‘leadership’ is framed within a global context and defined as the capability and volition to help shape what people want to do – rather than what they are told they must do.

This led us, quite early on, to affirm our belief that the most authentic leaders (in terms of raising the human spirit to new aspirations and endeavors) are not necessarily bound by gender, age, nationality or belief. On the contrary, they can be men, women and children of any nationality and belief system. And, surprise, surprise, when we started looking for examples outside of the traditional spotlight in which ‘leadership’ is thought to occur, we found an abundant supply of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. People we were delighted to identify as Five Literacies leaders.

In one sense, Five Literacies leadership exists independently of performance. Yet the qualities exhibited by Five Literacies leaders are well attuned to the achievement of great things in situations that would defeat most others before the starter’s gun has been fired.

Quite distinct from the more popularly assumed qualities of effective leadership, the most vital qualities of Five Literacies leaders we saw over and over were those of:

1. Constituent Cooperation - the ability to gain integrity and acceptance rapidly by locating themselves within the group rather than ‘above it’ or separate from it

2. Ecological Sensitivity – the knack of fitting in with the group such that the group’s identity could be shaped in ways that made their own agenda and policies appear to be an expression of that identity

3. Ecority - The capacity to get people to take authority for the reality they themselves have created while constantly seeking futures that better balance technology and humanity.

In essence, by appreciating the values and beliefs of the people with whom they are working, and avoiding any tendency to assume absolute authority, Five Literacies leaders are able to facilitate a collegial dialogue about what the group stands for, and thus how it should act, in ways that continuously generate new possibilities and nurture trust.

It is abundantly clear that no fixed set of personality traits or behaviors can ever assure the emergence of Five Literacies leadership, because the most desirable qualities invariably depend upon the nature of the group itself as well as the context within which they find themselves. That simple hypothesis, sets Five Literacies leaders apart.