Leading Questions

Notes in search of a presentation

Every person I meet ...

... is in transition

... has questions

... needs hope and integrity

... has ideas that illuminate and obscure

... wants meaning and fulfillment in life

... has relationships that either add or detract from a life of meaning and fulfillment

... has a purpose to their life and work that is sometimes evident and often not

... has a need to align that purpose with all the social and organizational contexts in their life.

I am learning that ...

... life is a dynamic,

... between our ideas, our relationships and the various contexts where we live

... our activities are not always filled with purpose or meaning, but with obligation and duty

... the impact we want to have in life is tied to the activities we do

... people and relationships are the center of activity for fulfilling our purpose

... that humility is necessary to do collaborative work

... it is easy to lose touch with the big picture and opportunities that come from seeing the connections between ideas, people and contexts.

I know ...

... less than I think I do which drives me to know more

... that what I don't know makes a difference

... that there is risk in doing nothing as well as acting too quickly

... that if we act on what we know that we discover what we need to know

... that self-denial is not the same as self-deception

... contentment is transitory

... that life is meant to be lived, and is not a museum relic

... that good work and good relationships feed a life of meaning and fulfillment.

Taleb on Skepticism

Smart people many times outsmart themselves because they are confident about their intellectual ability. I place all politicians in this classification. The result is not an expansive mind open to truth or reality, but rather a closed mine of opinion and suspicion. When our minds become closed, we treat our opinions as personal statements, and we treat those who oppose us as threats or even enemies.

This is what I thought of when I watched this interview with Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan. Here they are discussing David Cameron, UK Conservative Party leader who may well be the next Prime Minister. In this instance there is no difference between the politics of Britain and of the US. The difference is between kinds of liberalism and conservatism.

The key here is skepticism. Taleb is making a differentiation within the traditional economic ideology of both the left and the right. They are talking about conservative economic approaches, but the point applies to liberal/ progressives as well.

Skepticism isn't a tool applied to other people's ideas. It is applied to one's own decisions. It recognizes that every free decision holds risk. The question is how to mitigate the more disastrous consequences related to risk.

At the heart of Taleb's point is the need for politicians to be circumspect and humble about their own ideas. Their confidence and the public's declining confidence in them should be a sign that something is amiss.

I find no evidence of this kind of intellectual integrity by the politicians in Washington. This concerns me as it should every person on the planet. What happened a year ago is possible again. Where's the skepticism by the news media, by academics, by the public? There is evidence of it, but it is written off as disloyalty. In essence, check your brain at the door. Just be a good citizen and think as your are told.

I think it is time for a great deal more skepticism. Remember that on election day Tuesday.

If you have not read Taleb's books Fooled By Randomness and The Black Swan, I suggest you do. He is an excellent tonic to the optimism that passes for reason in Washington.

Sustaining engagement

Dan Pink posted this video under the theme of "motivation through engagement."

There are many clever people who know how to use technology to engage people with ideas. This is not the challenge. It is a totally different thing to sustain that engagement for a real change in behavior.

One of Dan's commenters wrote,

I love the concept, but I’d like to see this same study done on those same stairs a year from now. I suspect that those numbers will drop significantly once the novelty wears off — and it becomes more annoying than interesting.

Still, the concept is powerful and intriguing and I can see a lot of relevance to other industries and problems. (Stephen Palmer)

Engagement requires leadership. By this, I mean, that someone needs to constantly be looking for ways to engage people in the idea. It doesn't have to be much, but it has to happen.

How can engagement with the stairs be sustained?

Right now, the stairs are a curiosity. They need to become a social gathering point for group creativity. So, engagement could mean a video contest of a group of people who write and perform a song on the stairs and post to YouTube as a contest. I suspect that groups from all over Europe would come to this subway station to perform and video their song. 

Whatever the endeavor, leaders have to keep the idea of the initiative before people all the time. If it is a online discussion at a social networking site, the person who is in the leadership role needs to respond to people. Do so and interaction and conversation is sustained.

Engagement with ideas is an social thing that is facilitated by technology, not the other way around. If you want to motivate through engagement, you have to stay involved. It is the way to sustain and grow an idea's spread.

Seth Godin's Wizardry Explained ... by Seth

I'm an avid reader of Seth Godin's books and blog. He is wise and insightful, and worth your time. Here's a video of Seth talking about his approach to the publication of his books. It is very much like peaking behind the curtain to see the Wizard of Oz.
Watch the video. It is a little over a half hour. Well worth your time. I'll comment afterward.

This really isn't about books. It is about the spread of ideas. This means this talk is for all of us who have never published a book. If you have an idea, share it. If you like someone else's idea, share it. If someone's idea has changed your life, tell that story.

Remember the book is the souvenir, not the product. The idea is the product and conversation the vehicle for sharing it. The book is just a marker to remind you of the idea's importance.

Random thoughts while reading Seth Godin

I'm a fan of Seth Godin. His insights are ones I almost universally share.  Here are some of snippets from recent posts and my random thoughts while reading them.

Thinking About the Compromise

If you've built your life around service to others, how much more could you accomplish if you were a little greedier? If you've built an expensive lifestyle around a well-paying job, what would happen to your life if you downsized and sought out more joy or generosity?

The rest of us have compromised. We're not profit-maximizing sociopaths, nor are we saints. We're somewhere in between.

Here's my simple take on this. Money is the most tangible item of value that we have to exchange. I'd do what I do today whether I made money or not. As a result, I'm more service oriented, and less money oriented. I've discovered over the years that the lack of sufficient financial resources is an inhibitor to providing the level of service that I desire to give.

On the other hand, I know people for whom money has a corrupting influence on their lives. They aren't greedy or avaricious. Instead, they are highly risk averse, protective and overly defensive.

The great challenge for ambitious people is to keep perspective that allows us to be free of fear and want. I learned much of this a number of years ago when I tripled my consulting rates. Almost over night the projects changed, and I changed as well. 

Out of Bounds

The real problem is that when marketers believe they are going out of bounds, the work they do tends to be lousy. ...  I am, however, arguing that once you have permission to talk to someone, finding new products or services for them is a smart way to grow.

I read this in the context of the transitions that businesses go through. Often to go from one level to the next means breaking rules and going outside preconceived boundaries. It means going through The Dip that Seth writes about. It means stop doing some things and starting new ones. This is one of the ideas that Matt May writes about in his new book In Pursuit of Elegance.  Seth is right that you need to be in conversation, but it is also true that sometimes you have break the rules, cross boundaries and create new markets for your business. It isn't easy, but it sure beats decline.

Learning from the MBA program

Here’s what I told the group, “Maybe the most important thing you'll learn in this program is that you don't need this program. There's not much I'm going to tell you that's not in my blog posts or books. What this program will do is give you the structure and support to encourage you to do what you already know. But you can do that by yourselves.” I think that’s true for the people who weren’t able to be part of it as well.

Final takeaways:

1.  If you have the resources and wherewithal to run a program like this, you should.
2,  If you're stuck, getting unstuck is not only possible, it's an obligation.
3.  Find some peers and push each other.
4.  Making friends for life is difficult to overrate. Every one of these people is an all-star and I'm glad that I got to know them.

This post reflects back on a five month alternative MBA project that Seth conducted. Read the post to learn more about the specifics.

People need structure to succeed. However, too often the organizational structure gets in the way of the people and their work together.  Ideas, which includes everything that is taking place conceptually, is either enhanced or diminished by structure. Relationships are the same. Seth's project created a supportive environment for the imagination of these men and women to excel. It is important to recognize that whatever your organizational structure, if it does not make it easier for people to excel in their work, then you need to break it so you can fix it so it will.

When smart people are hard to understand

If you're in a meeting with smart people and they start discussing a term or concept you don't understand, what do you do? ...
The first is to ask. "Wait, I was with you until a second ago. What does that mean?" You'll be amazed at how smart and engaging this makes you seem if you say it at the right time.

The second approach is to write it down and not go to bed that night until you know the topic better than the person who brought it up. How else, precisely, are you going to become one of the smart people?

Two lessons here. One, always ask questions. Even if you know what they are talking about, ask the question. Asking a question doesn't mean that you don't know, but rather you are wanting to learn, and in particular learn how this person understands the topic.

The second lesson is not just spend your life as learner, but look forward to where the next big idea is coming from. My practice is to look up ideas that are new to me.

For example, the other Bill Taylor had a post about researcher Saras Sarasvathy who has been looking at how entrepreneurs think. She has coined the term "effectual reasoning." I had never heard of this term prior to reading it in Bill's post. I now have a half dozen academic papers on effectual reasoning and entrepreneurism that I'm going to dig into when I have some quiet time to read and reflect. Once I do, then I'll have another little resevoir of knowledge that I can draw upon to understand what is happening with clients.

My recommendation is that you make it a practice of reading Seth regularly. You'll gain much from the experience.

Resolving Complex Issues Simply

I'm involved in a process of listening and learning about a local organization that is very complex. As I've talked with a wide cross section of people, and this has been going on for over a decade, there is one theme that continues to resonate.

Working within this complex organization are a group of professionals who provide their services on a contractual basis. Over the years, I've been told that the relationship between the organization and these professionals is not healthy. Based on what I've seen, heard and encountered, this a well-functioning organization at the top of its class in its industry. I'm very impressed with the people whom I've met who work there. They are big picture people who see how it impacts the daily work as leaders. That is a rare commodity in today's business world.

I'd like to use this scenario about relationships of professional service providers working within a larger complex organizational system to make a point about how to resolve complex issues simply. Let's use my Circle of Impact diagram as a guide to understanding the real nature of the problem and its solution.

The problem as it continually gets portrayed to me is a Relationship problem. However, if you really listen to what they are saying, two other perceptions emerge.

The organization and the professional group do not share the same perception of what their mission is. A Mission is an Idea that becomes the rationale for how we organize our businesses. If we have competing conceptions of what our mission is then we are going to have conflict about how we Structure our organization.

The Relationship problem, therefore, is also a Idea and an Organizational Structure problem.

Within our scenario, the group of professional service providers work within the structure of the larger organization. The issue is not simply, what should our financial and operational agreement be. Those issues are more easily resolved. The deeper issues are ones of values and mission.

Based on what I've learned, the differences in their individual conception of mission become less distinct when viewed from the perception of what their shared Impact should be. Ultimately, they both want high quality service provided to their clients.  If this conception is too general a Vision, or not clear in terms of how they organize their work and relationships to achieve it, then the problems will persist.

How do you resolve such a complicated scenario?

It starts with the relationship. Establish respect and trust, and work from there. If there is no respect, then mistrust grows. If there is no trust, then division also grows. And the shared values that matter erode. While every issue has a relational, conceptual and organizational component to it, resolution begins with resolving the relationship question.

There is one additional ingredient to add. It is important that leaders structure their organizations so that issues get resolved where the solution will be implemented. If you don't then the issue rises up through the structure to become a crisis that requires intervention, not simply resolution. We can achieve this through training supervisors and managers to equip the people they lead to resolve issues before they grow. The Circle of Impact can help make this easier. I just takes some training to know how.

Creativity for creating impact

The changes that confront us require us to think in new ways. We need to think creatively about the development of our businesses, as if we are starting over.

Even if our business is a staple of every other business, we need to begin thinking differently. Regardless of what we do, the demand for us to be creative in approaching every aspect of our organizations is growing with greater urgency.  Let's look at your business for a few minutes.

How to be creative in a time of great change.
First, download my Impact Leadership guides to help you follow along. The image here is a simplified version of my Circle of Impact. The focus is on creating impact, which means making a difference or creating change. In order to understand the true results of your company, you must ask what is the impact of all three of these areas.

What is the Impact of our Ideas?

What is the Impact of our Relationships?

What is the Impact of our Organizational Structure?

These are the Three Dimensions of Leadership. They are the three areas where leaders must take initiative in order to be effective in creating impact.

The majority of the people I know think their business primarily functions within the Organizational Structure dimension. This is where all their energy is focused.

However, what I've found is that organizations are not just the activities of business, but also Ideas and Relationships. It is important to be creative in each of these areas.

Ask simple questions to reveal the complex dynamics at work here.  Let's start with one of the dimensions.

Being creative within the Organizational Structure dimension? 
Ask the following questions. Let's do this in real time, right now. Answer the questions. Write down your thoughts as we go through this little exercise.

What is our mission for creating impact?

Can you do so in one sentence? If not, the Idea of what your mission is needs clarification. If you can't state simply what your mission's impact is - what difference you make - how can you organize your business to achieve it?

Ask, then,

What is our mission as a business?

In what way does this mission make a difference?

How is our business structured to fulfill this mission? Are they compatible?

Write something down so you capture what you are thinking right now. There are no perfect answers, only the perception of your business as it exists right now.

Measuring Impact
We make assumptions about what a business is based on past experience. We assume that a business is a set of activities that we repeat to produce results. And the easiest way to determine results is with numbers. It is much harder to measure our business' results by determining the impact of our business. Even with these simple guides that I've given you, it is hard. Being creative is hard work.

Here's how to distinguish between measuring results by numbers and by impact.

You go on vacation. When you return, you don't talk numbers, you talk about the experiences you had. You show your pictures of beautiful scenery and happy times with family and friends. You don't show your receipts from the hotel or gas card. You know how much your vacation cost. The numbers matter, but they don't tell what is most important. Your experiences are the measure of whether your vacation's purpose (mission) has achieved its impact.  A great vacation impacts you and the relationships you have with the people who went with you. That difference matters and is why you will go on vacation again.

The experiences you had on vacation were personal taking place in Relationships. The measure of impact is partially determined by the values that you share.

For example, if you all are rock climbers, then you share the values of physical challenge, and if your vacation doesn't include rock climbing, your experience is probably less than what it could have been. Values matter in determining the difference being achieved.

What are the values that matter to you and to the people connected to your business?

How do those values impact how you have organized your business?

Write this down.

For example, if you want to put people first in your business, which many businesses say is a core value, then how do you organize to insure that this value is living in your business?

Let's take this to a deeper level of consideration.

The Organizational Structure dimension consists of four categories of activity.
Governance consists policy making, strategic development for the future and oversight of the chief executive. Products/Services/Programs includes what you are providing to clients and customers. Operations/Administration is the support function of the busienss. Resources are financial, human and organizational. 

What are the policies, procedures, practices and behaviors that demonstrate how each of these areas are putting people first?

What does it mean for the Board of your company to put people first? Would your employees agree? How about your customers?

How about the support function of product fulfillment? Do your customers think you put people first when they must return an item or get a corrected bill?

The experience that people have with the Organizational Structure of businesses is how they measure the impact of the company's values. If there is a discrepancy between the stated values, and their experience, then the company has a problem creating the difference that matters.  

Creating Impact isn't simply saying we value people, it is operationalizing those values into the structure of your business.

Being creative is hard work, but it is the work that elevates your business to a new level. The impact of this hard work is greater impact, better results, and change that matters for the long term. And if you are not presently involved in a developmental process that is creating these changes, then you are behind the curve, and harder times await.

There is more here that I haven't touched on. We really haven't looked at the Ideas dimension or the place  of visioning in creating impact. We haven't looked at the Relationship dimension with any depth either. There is still much to explore.

What is the benefit of this kind of approach to business development?

1. The tangible impact of your business grows. If you are willing to work hard at it, you could change your industry by following through on the questions raised by this approach.

2. You create an environment of continuity in the midst of change. The continuity is found in your values, not in your structure. As a result, you are able to build strength for the future.

3. You gain a new level of situational awareness, so that you understand what is happening before others do.

4. You find hope, joy and satisfaction in going to work every day. Your life is changed for the better, not just your employees or customers.

5. You create a legacy of impact that you can pass along to future generations.

I feel a tremendous urgency about the time we are living in. The need for change in the midst of radical, disruptive change is needed to create the conditions for growing sustainable businesses in the future. If you are thinking that business is going to be the same when this recession is over, I'm sorry, it won't be, already isn't, and will only be more so.

If you want to take the next step, let me know. I'll work with you to begin the process of change that makes sense and creates the difference you identify. This is what I do every day, and I welcome the opportunity to work with you who read my blog.  Thank you.

Quick Takes: 10 Ideas for Changing the World

Time magazine recently published their annual list of ideas that are world changers. It is an interesting list.

Here's the list as posted at Marketing Chart.

1. Jobs are the New Assets: Though the last decade saw many real-estate investments and stock-portfolio values skyrocket, today’s recession and many assets’ subsequent loss in value is causing Americans to re-evaluate how they define themselves, putting much more emphasis on the fact that they have a job – their human capital – and less importance on their dwindling assets. This, experts say, is leading to a society that may more carefully live within its means and may ultimately focus on finding increased job satisfaction.

2. Recycling the Suburbs: The housing bust is causing the American suburbs as we know them to die, Time said.  This, combined with changing demographics – including a lower number of overall households with children and a rising preference for urban amenities – is steadily wiping out the recent “American Dream” of a suburban house with a big lawn. Though environmentalists are applauding the demise of car-addicted sprawl, experts acknowledge that the country will face a huge challenge in “remaking” the far-flung, abandoned infrastructure to create things people will want to use again.

3. The New Calvinism: Recent religious trends in the US are showing a resurgence in what Time calls “new Calvinism,” complete with “an utterly sovereign and micromanaging deity, sinful and puny humanity and…predestination.” The shift, which may in part be driven by people’s need for blanket assurance and the security that an all-knowing god and a predestined life can bring in troubling times, is steadily gaining steam.

4. Reinstating the Interstate: President Obama’s plans to revitalize the crumbling and decrepit US interstate system can potentially reinvigorate not only the roadways themselves, but also create new and creative energy and transportation systems along them that will help Americans use power more efficiently, enable public transportation and be better for the environment. Though the government’s ownership of the interstates and the land surrounding them can potentially clear the way for innovative projects, states, regions and other governing bodies and organizations involved in the revamp must work together in unprecedented ways to make it happen.

5. Amortality: A term recently coined by Time writer Catherine Mayer, “Amortals,” embodied by such celebrities as music producer Simon Cowell and singer Madonna, are those who live in the same way, look the same, and do the same things from their teen years until they die. These extinction-dreading amortals, as Mayer calls them, could very well relegate age-appropriate behavior to history books and could have social, medical and commercial ramifications.

6. Africa as Business Destination: Though news media accounts that portray Africa as a “hopeless place of war and famine…populated by tyrants and children with flies in their eyes,” generate the popular belief that Africa needs charity dollars, many multinational corporations, including Ecobank and other Chinese firms, are finding that business investments in parts of Africa offer some of the world’s highest returns. This shift toward “trade, not aid,” is changing the way the world relates to Africa, and transforming the African psyche to one that actively contributes to the world economy rather than taking handouts from it.

7. The Rent-a-Country: The end of food isolationism caused by last year’s high oil prices is giving way to a growing number of food-growing deals between nations, where countries with plentiful, arable land supply food to other nations with the money to pay for it. Though this idea is not new, there is a rising consciousness that many of the food-growing nations cannot even feed their own people and investors face growing risks of popular and governmental backlash. Still, the model has potential if economic and regulatory conditions can mutually benefit all parties involved.

8. Biobanks: Officials at the US’s National Cancer Institute are spearheading an effort to set up the country’s first national biobank, which would store tissue samples, tumor cells, DNA and other biological material from the American public. Though deposits into such a biobank could ultimately bring about advancements in medical science and improve the overall population’s health, the challenge will be gaining the public’s acceptance and trust and maintaining the privacy of “depositors” by restricting access to researchers and those who have permission to access the information.

9. Survival Stores: Retailers throughout America are cutting prices and offering deep discounts to entice shoppers to buy, but the shop of the future might not look anything like what we have today. Instead, Time says today’s stores may give way to places that offer consumers the opportunity to buy low-cost, long-lasting durable goods and also provide experiences to help them cope during difficult times. For instance, a so-called survival store might offer a bicycle to replace the car a consumer can’t afford, and also offer yoga or financial planning to help address stress and money problems.

10. Ecological Intelligence:The global economy and the complicated supply chains involved in producing many of today’s products have grown faster than most consumers’ ability to understand the environmental and ethical consequences of this production. Over the past several decades, industrial ecologists have been using a method called LifeCycle Assessment (LCA) to break down these production processes and supply chains and help major companies improve their ecological consciousness. Recent web startups, such as Good Guide are helping consumers do this too, because ultimately, ecological intelligence involves understanding that what we do in the world is interconnected with everyone else,Time said.

I'm not overwhelmed by this list of ideas. I find them rather pedestrian, not world changing. Even #3 is not a new idea. This religious perspective, as described above, has been around a very long time. Just because someone has given it a new label doesn't mean that it is some new religious expression.

There really is nothing here about how people are to live together. Nothing about changes in the economy or government. Nothing about social enterprises or social media.

There are huge societal shifts taking place. And each one of the ideas above are happening within a larger context of change. This isn't to say that these ideas don't matter. Rather they are not necessarily the most important ideas that are changing the world.

Encouraging Fledgling Movements

Yesterday, i did what I rarely do, get mad and publicly express my disappointment in the performance of a board. It was with the board of a non-profit that I am on whose members had failed to follow through on their end of a request to me. My rant achieved the impact that I wanted, which was a greater seriousness about the actions that board members need to take. Our problem as an organization is that our organizational structure is ill-suited to the actual mission that we have.This means that the people who serve from across the state of North Carolina are not given the opportunity to perform together in a way that is best suited to both the mission and values that we share.

This four year old organization is like so many that i see. I don't know enough about Annie Wadhams' Something Good effort yet, but I suspect that a similar challenge is at work for her as well. (I wrote about her here and here.)

New organizations typically begin with the passion of something saying, "This has got to be done!" Embedded in that passion is an idea that becomes the mission for a movement. Leaders of new organizations have the challenging task of not only creating an organizational structure to fit their mission, but also finding people to form the relationships to support it.

If you are involved in an organization or business at the governance level, you need to encourage development in all three dimensions of your organization. For Annie, I suspect, she needs encouragement and support for the structural dimension of her organization. She's got a great idea, and I know that people will flock to her site as they discover her counter-cultural message of goodness.

For the board that I am on, we need to work on all three dimensions. It is part of our growth as an organization. The original mission has been met and organized well, but that is not where the need is. So, we must sharpen our focus for what our future mission is as an organization. We need to expand our reach to people and groups who share this mission and provide them a way to organize themselves to carry their own version of this mission forward. (Read Seth Godin's Tribes to better understand what I mean.) And most importantly, we have to replace our organizational structure with one that is suited to the future needs of the people and groups we serve.

Part of the role of leadership is encouragement of fledgling movements. We need to do so in all three areas.

• Encourage greater clarity of our mission.
  

• Encourage greater personal initiative by the members of the movement.They must own the movement as their own, while at the same recognize the essential need for collaboration. The values that people share gives the movement the cohesion to survive.
  

• And, most importantly, we need to encourage the develop of new organizational structures that provide the support for people to lead together.

Movements are created by people who want to do something that is "personally meaningful and socially fulfilling." I mark that phrase in quotes on purpose. It is a measure of impact.

Ask yourself about the organizations where you give you time.

• Are our ideas and our mission personally meaningful and socially fulfilling? 
  
• Are our relationships in this organization personally meaningful and socially fulfilling?
  
• Does our structure support the actions of people as personally meaningful and socially fulfilling?

Encourage this, and your movement, your organization, will grow in its impact. Then you can begin to build toward the next level of impact, whatever that may be. And when you make the decision to go there, you'll be prepared to make the changes that these transitions require.

A Conversation about Constant Change - 2

Posted by Steven Devijver, author of The Strategy of Constant Change, available for free at Endesha.

Thanks for your absolutely delightful questions Ed, and thanks for having started the conversation.

Q. How does your view of change compare to the general view that change is bad and is something to be avoided.

I have many ways to respond to the view point that change is bad and should be avoided. I especially think of Clay Shirky’s words: “It’s not a revolution if there are not losers.” Another way to look at this quote is to say: if some people get upset it must be a revolution. It depends on your understanding of loosing: in terms of resources/wealth, or can a parent’s loss of control over her child also be considered a loss?

One thing I like to repeat is: people that love the status quo hate heretics. It reflects on the idea that stability creates power, and change coming from many people all at once subverts power. It also reflects on people clinging on to stability, believing that after they’ve left school and got their diploma’s they’re somehow exempt not just from learning and being tested, but also exempt from having to climb up the ladder to maintain their social standing.

And the last thing I add is that I actually believe the opposite: stability is bad. Stability is static, I call it acting like a mountain. People move on all the time - it’s just an unavoidable fact of being human. Our current time has created a heightened awareness of our human nature and one consequence is that people can’t be easily pinned down anymore. They dare to take a peek behind the curtains. What is being revealed I think - especially during our current crisis - is how inferior gatekeepers are in our society. Journalists fail to report on the issues that matter, the financial institutions have failed everyone, educational institutions are changing dramatically, and don’t even get me started on our governments. Basically, everything that was still stable only 10 years ago is now in turbulent flux, creating a future that is highly uncertain.

I look at gatekeepers (I also tend to refer to them as walled gardens) as institutions that do two things:

1. They establish and maintain classes of professionals that are distinct - in a superior way - to the rest of society (doctors, professors, journalists, engineers, …).
2. They control the flow of money and other scarce resources and decide who gets in on the action and who doesn’t.

Typically this results in a group of embedded, accredited professionals joining in institutions that give them access to a steady flow of money while excluding everybody else. The people with accreditation are motivated to do two things:

1. Protect their institutions and the accreditation they hold against outside attacks of all kinds.
2. Convince society at large - or at least government - that these institutions and the accredited individuals they organize are vital for preventing society's collapse.

This creates strange, opaque cliques that shy outside inspection and institutions that are completely entangled in society's core structures. By protecting the accredited professions institutions and government create a socially unequal class society.

In the end I say stability is bad for two reasons: out of love and awe for human nature, and against unwarranted classes in our society. When I hear somebody say change is bad I will carefully listen, but I will assume that person is either afraid of losing her power or social standing, or afraid of seeing the gatekeepers she depends on disappear.

Q. You write about three human universals. How did you come to gain this insightful perspective? How is this view central to your thesis about change?

First of all, the three human universals I write about are:

1. We all want to be treated as human beings, all of the time.
2. We’re all different but we all try to do good.
3. We all make mistakes, and when these mistakes are corrected gracefully magic happens.

I've combined ideas coming from several sources to form these human universals. The first defining source of inspiration is The Golden Rule: "Do to no one what you dislike yourself." There are many versions of this, but I’m most fascinated by Immanuel Kant and his categorical imperative.

Another important source is closely related to Kant: political philosophy, and how it defines morality. I got fascinated by the history of political philosophy a couple of years ago when I discovered Thomas Hobbes. I find is striking that he published his master piece Leviathan in 1651, three years after the Peace of Westphalia of 1648. This peace treaty created an important moral paradox because it defined what is called Westphalian sovereignty: each state has the right to govern over its own people and territory, and each state has the right to rule independently of foreign control.

Before 1648 Europe had no real states, and everybody got conquered and controlled by invading forces at one time or another. But at the same time, everybody knew what they all had in common: they were all God’s children. Morality was a concern of the church. Since 1648 states were in control not just over its own territory, but also over its own people and this created two moral difficulties: if the state controls the faith of its people, how can it do that in a moral way? And why would God hand over the question of morality from the church to the state?

Basically morality had to be completely reinvented and Thomas Hobbes did exactly this in Leviathan although his views of human nature are very dark and pessimistic. After him many other political philosophers weighed in on the question of what we have in common - including Immanuel Kant - believing that if we have nothing in common we can‘t possibly govern a state together. It’s so fascinating to me that all of the sudden people were confronted with that kind of problem in the 17th century, it blows my mind.

The last important source of inspiration is Terrence McKenna. I have to tell you, he’s a pretty weird guy. He’s a philosopher who based his philosophical investigations on hallucinations from using LSD. Now, I have to tell you I don’t do drugs and I completely condemn any drug usage. However, what’s important for me about Terrence McKenna is not his substance abuse, but his views on humanity. I can’t go into much detail on his thinking here because it’s very complicated and so much out there that it’s just too weird. His main thesis however is simple: that our minds are much more powerful than we believe, that our minds are all interconnected, and that this interconnectedness defines humanity. It is therefore our role he says to learn as much about life and humanity as we can by crossing our boundaries and to make it possible for others do discover what we learn. I think that’s extremely powerful thinking, and I think he succeeds in defining his own morality.

This is not exactly a brief answer, but it’s the briefest I can be I guess while still describing a very important aspect of who I am: my desire to understand humanity, morality and leadership. These three human universals relate to change because they re-affirm the turbulence inherent to being a human (what I call constant change). We’re all different so we’re bound to discover new things all of the time. We all make mistakes in all kinds of brilliantly novel ways, and in dealing with them we discover new things about living together in peace. And we all want to be treated as human beings, all of the time, which prevents humanity from falling into chaos.

I draw at least two ultimate conclusions out of the three human universals:

1. Change exists in our mind. I would love to elaborate on that but not in this answer ;-)
2. We’ve come this far over 2,5 billion years, constantly changing and adapting in the process. We’ve made enormous leaps over 10,000 years since we’ve first created civilization. Why would anybody choose to believe we’re going to all of the sudden stop changing?

Q3. The name of your weblog is Endesha. What does this mean? Why this name?

Endesha is Swahili and means to lead. So endesha.com basically means lead.com. I want to bring leaders together under a common understanding of humanity and morality which are the three human universals. By accepting the three human universals as core to being human we’re accepting that we have very strong bonds holding us together, and that we have a lot in common.

I think the ultimate learning any person can do is to learn about herself and her relationship with humanity and morality. The ultimate form of leadership is then to give people a chance to explore and discover humanity and morality. My book is imperfect in so many ways, and that’s actually a great thing. It covers a very tiny portion of what is to be said about humanity, morality and leadership, and I hope endesha.com and the network that we're creating around it can become that place where people interested in leadership and learning can come together.

Here are my questions for you Ed.

Q1: You’re this amazing guy with a really special view on leadership and human relationships. What’s your view then - with all this background - on the three human universals? I ask this because you’ve only just recently written on your blog about The Golden Rule. I would like to understand why you think these tree human universals are novel.

Q2: You mention the human point-of-view on organizational change. How important are human beings and relationships in organizations according to you, and what else should we pay attention to to help organizations thrive?

Q3: What’s your view of change is bad, and should be avoided?