In this book, which was based on extensive research and interviews, Gobillot declares that existing ways of leadership may become irrelevant in the light of 4 major societal trends. Leaders must shift their emphasis to fostering social engagement by valuing conversations, working on the contribution they make to the community rather than the direction they give to the community, and develop executive maturity to see mass participation as an opportunity to create value rather than a threat to their existence.
4 Trends and Threats
The 4 societal trends are:
- Demographic trend: multiple generations working alongside one another, each with demands and experiences that others cannot understand.
- Expertise trend: expertise is now found as much outside as inside the organisation.
- Attention trend: organisations have to work harder to capture the attention of employees, customers and people generally as people turn to communities for attention and information, i.e. through social and information networks.
- Democratic trend: leaders will no longer have direct control (rather than dotted lines or no line at all) over their resources. Devoid of positional power, leaders must find new ways to engage people. Social, intellectual and informational capital of an organisation no longer sits inside a leader’s span of control.
The demographic and attention trends threaten the control we rely on today for effective organisations, while the expertise and democratic trends mean that structures are no longer experienced as legitimate.
Mass participation communities don’t rely on structures and control for effectiveness. Instead, they rely on roles underwritten by needs of participants. There are 2 types of participants. Engaged participants who build community and involved participants who depend on community but are not shaping it. Future success means building communities that people want to engage with rather than continuing to structure roles and create segments to make them want to transact.
Leadership to Leadershift
The 4 needs of community and 4 tasks of a leader remains the same. They are:
- Engagement: engaging followers.
- Alignment: aligning community to work towards its objectives.
- Accountability: making community members clear of their contribution.
- Commitment: ensuring members commit to the objectives and outcomes.
However, the nature of these 4 needs and tasks have to change from:
- Engagement: Clarity to simplicity
- Alignment: Plans to narratives
- Accountability: Roles to tasks
- Commitment: Money to love
Clarity to Simplicity
Key to effective engagement is simplicity. It’s about realigning participants’ intellectual and emotional outlooks. Simplification means eliminating processes and systems that no longer add value. And coherence, which is to highlight the interdependence of a system.
The role of a leader is to become a crossroad the community always turns to when deciding what it stands for. They articulate their view of where the organisation can go. It requires a firm belief of what the organisation stands for to which it must stay true.
Plans to Narratives
Alignment requires answering 2 questions. How do I ensure members understand their involvement in the social process and help them contribute the best? How do I ensure they stay aligned to the mission?
Plans invariably become obsolete in the face of change. Better to have a community which is able to evolve to the changing environment and respond appropriately.
Narrative environments enable this by allowing free exploration of options while retaining the overall mission.
The leader facilitates the narrative, helping participants and the community define who they are, what they aspire to and how they hope to get there.
Roles to Tasks
Accountability helps us ensure members achieve certain goals. There are 2 types of roles. One type is what the organisation creates for us. Another type is what we create for ourselves to gain fulfilment in our lives.
Leaders can help participants relate the tasks they need fulfilled to their self-image rather than create ever more sophisticated roles for them. Leaders will need to use a process of dialogue to help participants reinforce their self-image through the completion of these necessary tasks.
Money to Love
Commitment is crucial for members to stay true to achieve the goals of the community. Commitment cannot be bought.
Leaders must find commitment by realising that both parties involved in the relationship have to love what they do. The community needs all involves to embrace their task and identify themselves with the narrative.
Leaders must also understand that a social rather than economic incentive can be created by focusing on the community rather than the individual. Leaders should focus on motivation to make the community stronger.
The Elvis Fallacy
Conversations are the lifeblood of social engagement. The only way to sustain engagement is to accept that the leader’s role is to help the community create its own story and history through a process of relating and conversing.