Page 6 – John Hagel

04
Jul 20
10

Independence Day Poems

I’ve never written a haiku before, but July 4th – Independence Day in the US – inspired me to write my first one:

Seek inspiration

See the caterpillar crawl

Watch butterflies fly

But, of course I couldn’t stop there. That haiku inspired me to write a longer poem:

The road ahead

Offers so much potential

But we must choose that road

And not allow others

To define it for us.

We must declare our independence,

Removing the constraints

And roadblocks

Imposed by others.

But here’s the paradox.

We’ll increase our potential

If we invite others on our journey

Rather than seeking to go it alone.

With the right partners

We might even be able

To evolve from caterpillars

To Butterflies.

Independence and interdependence

Are intimately linked,

But it starts with declaring independence.

What better day than today?

I’m looking forward

To the journey ahead!

30
Jun 20
3

Two key themes in my work have been trust and learning. Trust and learning are intimately connected. The challenge we face is that the erosion of trust is undermining our ability to learn and, in a world of accelerating change, the ability to learn will be the key to success.

The need for learning

We’re in the early stages of a Big Shift that’s transforming our global economy and society. The Big Shift creates mounting performance pressure and exponentially expanding opportunity. The only way to move from pressure to opportunity is to find ways to learn faster.

But, let me be clear, when I talk about learning, I’m not talking about training programs that are focused on sharing existing knowledge. I’m talking about learning in the form of creating new knowledge through action and reflection on impact. This form of learning is key to accelerating performance improvement.

But this form of learning also requires taking risks and improvising as one addresses unseen problems or opportunities to create more value. It’s scary – we’re treading on ground where no one has been before.

We can certainly engage in this form of learning on our own as individuals. But, no matter how smart we are, we’re going to learn a lot faster if we come together in small groups that are committed to achieving higher and higher levels of impact – I call these “impact groups.” These impact groups can then accelerate their learning by connecting into broader impact networks that bring together a growing number of impact groups.

The need for trust

But, here’s the rub. Coming together in a quest to create new knowledge requires trust. This form of learning requires much deeper trust than more conventional learning in the form of training programs. If we’re taking a training program, it helps to trust the teachers – do they really have the expertise required to transmit the knowledge? But we don’t really need to trust the others in the training program. And training programs are usually short with a defined end.

To create new knowledge together requires acknowledging to ourselves and to others that there are many things we don’t know and it requires us to be willing to ask for help and to take risk together as we pursue action in unknown territory. That requires deep trust sustained over a long period of time – the learning journey is endless.

The erosion of trust

But, here’s the challenge. Trust is eroding in our institutions and society globally. We’re much less willing to trust each other.

Everyone seems to acknowledge this fact of life, but few appear to want to explore why this is happening and, more importantly, what to do about it. I’ve been exploring this for many years, with my most recent contribution in my last blog post, The Pyramid of Trust.

To really understand the erosion of trust, we need to address it at two levels: the institutional level and the individual level.

At the institutional level, trust is eroding because we increasingly see that there is a growing disconnect between the way that our world is evolving and the way that all our institutions have been designed and operate. The scalable efficiency institutional model that was so successful for more than a century is becoming increasingly dysfunctional. Scalable efficiency is also very inward focused, and we are increasingly realizing that these institutions are not really focused on the interests of those of us who are outside the institution. The institutions that we thought we could rely on are failing us.

At the individual level, trust is also eroding. We’re increasingly feeling isolated and having a harder time building trust with others around us. This is a natural human reaction to mounting performance pressure, a fundamental force in the Big Shift. While this is completely understandable, it’s also increasingly dysfunctional.

At its roots, this erosion of trust among individuals is driven by fear. When we feel fear, we’re much less willing to trust others – it’s too risky. There’s a vicious cycle at work here. The more we feel fear, the less willing we are to trust others, and the less willing we are to trust others, the more fear we are likely to feel . . .

And there’s another level of vicious cycle at play as well. The less we trust each other, the more challenging it will become for each of us to learn faster. The less rapidly we learn, the more pressure we will feel and the more fear we will feel and the less trust we will have in each other . . .

Small moves to re-build trust among individuals

Escaping this vicious cycle will not be easy, but it can be done. It requires embracing an approach that I have been advocating for years: small moves, smartly made, can set big things in motion. Let’s start at the level of the individual.

Re-building trust can’t be done overnight, but it can be done quickly with small moves. Start by reflecting on what really excites you – is there a really big opportunity out in the future that has the potential to motivate you to learn faster?

Then work on finding 2 or 3 others who appear to share your excitement about that opportunity. Bring them together and focus the conversation on what you can do together to achieve more impact in addressing that opportunity. In evaluating initiatives you could take, focus on which initiatives have the most potential for meaningful impact, but also which of those initiatives could deliver tangible impact quickly (yes, it’s a two by two matrix). Seek agreement on the most relevant metrics for impact and then embark on efforts together in a quest to achieve that impact and learn through action.

Give each other encouragement and support as you run into the inevitable unexpected obstacles or roadblocks along the way. Make it clear that you’re in this together and that you’re going to stay together to find ways to overcome the challenges. That will help to deepen trust and to overcome fear – we’re in this together and we can count on each other to be there.

As you begin to achieve tangible impact together, trust in your collaborators will grow. The trust will become even deeper as you begin to reflect on the impact achieved and challenge each other explore ways to achieve even greater impact. It will become clear that you’re committed to a long-term quest shaped by an inspiring opportunity, and not just participating in a short-term sprint.

Stage your way into more and more challenging learning initiatives as your trust deepens. Begin to reach out to others whom your group feels share your commitment to learning and accelerating impact relative to the long-term opportunity that has brought you together. Invite them to join your group.

Chances are these people will be inspired by the trust they see within the core group already there. But the key is to challenge these new members to demonstrate quickly their commitment to impact and learning with others.

As the group reaches its limit of 15 participants, spin out other impact groups and find ways to connect the groups so that they can learn from each other.

Small moves to re-build trust in institutions

The small moves approach also works at the level of institutions, even very large institutions. In fact, the larger the institution, the more important the small moves become as a way to overcome the resistance to change that will inevitably be encountered within the institution (driven by people who are afraid).

As I’ve written about elsewhere, start with data that you already have about your customers and find ways to deliver meaningful value back to customers based on that data. As customers start to see the tangible value you are delivering back to them, they will begin to trust the institution more and be more willing to share more data about themselves. A virtuous cycle can be unleashed by pursuing a “staircase of trust” with small moves at the outset, but a commitment to rapidly increase value delivered over time.

While I’ve framed this in terms of re-building trust with customers, this same approach can be used with all stakeholders of an institution, whether they are commercial enterprises or other types of institutions.

But what does customer trust or stakeholder trust have to do with learning? Ultimately, the success of any institution hinges upon delivering more and more value to these customers and stakeholders. The most powerful way to do that is to engage with customers and other stakeholders to build a deeper understanding of their unmet needs and the approaches that are most effective in addressing those needs. To gain deeper insight into those unmet needs and the most effective approaches, we need to have access to more information about these stakeholders and ultimately engage with them in co-creating the value that can have the greatest impact – and that requires deeper trust.

Bottom line

We live in a world that will require accelerating learning in the form of creating new knowledge, not just sharing existing knowledge. That kind of learning is intimately linked to trust. That’s a challenge because we live in a world where trust is rapidly eroding. The best way to address this challenge is through small moves, smartly made, that can set big things in motion. As individuals and as institutions, we need to craft the small moves that will help us to build trust and learn faster together. If we get this right, we’ll unleash exponential learning and accelerating performance improvement. Let’s get started.

17
Jun 20
3

Exploring the Pyramid of Trust

Category:Collaboration,Community,Connections,Creation Spaces,Emotions,Passion,Trust

Trust is eroding in all our institutions around the world. Most people are aware of the many surveys documenting this, but few have really explored why this trust is eroding, much less what we need to do to restore trust. We can easily get caught up in the headlines of the moment that offer graphic evidence of lack of trust, but we need to move beyond the headlines and probe deeper into what is going on across all institutions and all societies.

I’m going to suggest that we need to recognize that the foundations of trust are shifting and that we need to focus on building a new pyramid of trust. That pyramid of trust can help us to come together in ways that will enable all of us to flourish.

I’ve been writing about trust for quite a while. Almost 10 years ago, I came back to the topic in my blog “Resolving the Trust Paradox” and more recently I wrote a blog post on “Re-Building Trust in Our Institutions.” I won’t re-visit all of that here.

Setting some context

Let me start here with several observations from my earlier work that provide context for the trust framework that I’m going to share here.

Institutional disconnect. First, in the Big Shift that has been transforming our global economy for decades, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that there’s a growing disconnect between the way our institutions are run and the way our world is evolving. That’s a key driver of the erosion of trust – we intuitively see that growing disconnect and recognize that our institutions are less and less fit for the world they operate in.

Feeling fear. Second, as we see that growing disconnect, we understandably feel more fear. The institutions that we thought we could rely on are falling short in terms of addressing our needs. That feeds the fear, especially in a world of mounting performance pressure. And the more fear we feel, the less willing we become to trust others, which makes us even more fearful, setting into motion of vicious cycle of growing fear and loss of trust.

From skill to will. Third, the foundations of trust are shifting. In earlier days, trust was established by looking at the past. Trust was about demonstrated skill. Do the people have the right credentials and have they been able to reliably deliver as promised? In a more stable world, that was enough to build and maintain trust. The past was a reasonable indicator of future results.

No more. In a more rapidly changing and uncertain world, performance in the past is no longer a reliable indicator of performance in the future. Skills are becoming obsolete at an accelerating rate and, with new and unexpected situations emerging on a regular basis, new and very different outcomes may be required in the future.

In a rapidly changing and uncertain world, the basis of trust shifts from skill to will. Rather than looking to the past, we’re increasingly looking ahead to determine whether we can trust people and institutions. Do they have the will required to confront unexpected situations and find ways to deliver impact that matters to us, regardless of the unforeseen obstacles and barriers standing in their way? They may not have the necessary skills, expertise and resources today to address these obstacles and barriers, but we can be assured that they will do whatever is required to deliver the impact that matters to us.

That’s a high bar for trust. To meet that bar, we’ll need to focus on building a pyramid of trust. Let me explain.

To build deep trust with others, we’re going to have cultivate multiple layers of trust, with each layer building on the layer(s) underneath it.

The layers of the pyramid

Humility. At the base of the trust pyramid is humility. It’s the acknowledgement by the person or institution that they will never have all the skills and resources required to address an expanding array of unanticipated challenges and obstacles. This humility means that the person or institution will more quickly recognize when they are encountering something beyond their current capacity and be more willing to ask for help from others in addressing challenges and obstacles. If we encounter people who present themselves as having the capacity to address any and all challenges, we know one of two things: either they’re clueless about the range of challenges they will face or they’re lying. In either case, we would do well not to trust them.

Values and integrity. The next level of the pyramid focuses on intentions and values. Looking ahead, does the person or institution have a core set of values that will provide appropriate guard-rails for its actions, ensuring that it will act with integrity and a commitment to avoiding harm to others, regardless of the unexpected situations that emerge? This isn’t about speeches and mission statements; it’s about actions. Are their actions consistent with their values?

Commitment to impact. That leads to the next level of the pyramid – is the person or institution committed to delivering impact that matters to me? That commitment has multiple dimensions. Since my needs and aspirations are unique to me – is there a commitment to understanding what my individual needs and aspirations really are? Equally important, since we live in a rapidly changing world, is there a commitment to anticipating how my individual needs and aspirations are likely to evolve? Finally, does this all translate into a commitment to deliver impact that matters to me? Is there a commitment to action and results, and not just understanding who I am and what I need and want? Integrity matters, but ultimately it is impact that matters. (In this context, see an article I recently wrote for Harvard Business Review on the untapped opportunity to deliver more value back to customers based on the data that businesses receive from their customers,)

Excitement about impact. Commitment is important, but it’s not sufficient. We all know people who were committed to achieving something, but then failed to deliver. They ran into unforeseen obstacles and became frustrated and overwhelmed, and finally gave up. To really trust someone or some group in terms of their ability to deliver impact that matters to us, it’s important to reach the next level of the trust pyramid – we need to see genuine excitement about addressing unexpected challenges in delivering the impact that matters to us. That excitement will help to ensure that, whatever the obstacles, the person or institution will find a way to overcome them and not give up.

This level of the pyramid takes us beyond mindset and into heartset. The best intentions and the most genuine commitment are helpful, but ultimately it’s emotions that will determine outcomes in a world where we confront unexpected challenges and obstacles. If we give into fear, we are far more likely to fall short of delivering the impact that matters to others. On the other hand, if we’re genuinely excited by unexpected challenges and obstacles, we’ll end up doing whatever is necessary to deliver the impact that matters. We should never overlook the emotions that are driving the actions of others.

Those who have followed me in the past will realize that I’m now talking about a very specific form of passion – the passion of the explorer. We can trust those who have this passion because they have a questing disposition – they’re constantly seeking out new challenges and opportunities and driven to deliver more and more impact that matters in the domain they have chosen.

The other dimension of the trust pyramid

So far, I’ve been exploring the layers of the pyramid. But let me be clear. This isn’t a trust triangle, it’s a trust pyramid. Triangles are two-dimensional, but pyramids add a critical third dimension. What’s on that dimension? People.

Here’s the thing. Trust is about people – and the more people the better. Sure, we can have trust between two individuals. Think about the relationship you might have with your significant other.

But, as deep as the trust might become between two individuals, it’s likely to grow even deeper when the trust extends across more individuals. Think about it.

No matter how well-intentioned, committed and excited an individual might be, that person is likely to achieve much greater impact when she/he is collaborating in deep, trust-based relationships with a broader group of people who share those same intentions, commitment and excitement. Looking ahead, I’m much more likely to trust a group of individuals who have deep, trust-based relationships with each other than I would trust any one individual.

But the key is that these individuals need to have built deep, trust-based relationships with each other. They’re not just coming together because their employer told them to or because they have a contractual relationship with each other. As I’ve written elsewhere, there are limits to the size that these impact groups can attain – typically, these deep, trust-based relationships begin to become less deep if the group expands beyond about 15 people.

These small impact groups can increase their potential for impact by coming together into broader networks (a specific form of network that I call “creation spaces”) so that they can more readily access the skills, expertise and resources of more people. The existence of these broader networks can also help to strengthen the trust that I might have in any particular impact group.

Implications for institutions

So, how does this connect back to our trust in institutions, rather than individuals or small impact groups? Increasingly, trust in a rapidly changing world hinges on trust at the level of individuals. The challenge for institutions is to find ways to connect people in deep, trust-based relationships, both within their institutions and with a broader set of stakeholders, including customers. If the individuals trust each other, they will begin to trust the institutions that helped to bring them together and build deep, trust-based relationships with each other.

This is in sharp contrast to a general trend by our institutions, driven by scalable efficiency, to automate transactions and eliminate people from the equation wherever possible. While it’s certainly OK to automate specific transactions, the opportunity is to find ways to build long-term relationships that will connect people and help to build deeper trust. Part of the erosion of trust in institutions is that we are having less and less personal contact with the institutions that matter to us.

An inverted pyramid?

I like the pyramid image, but I’m concerned that it visually gives more space to the lower levels of the pyramid, while reducing the space for the higher levels of the pyramid. In one sense, this works – the lower levels are foundational and, without them, there’s no opportunity to cultivate the higher levels of the pyramid.

On the other hand, as I reflect on the pyramid of trust, I’ve become convinced that the higher levels of the pyramid are ultimately much more powerful in building deep trust that can motivate people to build enduring relationships. I’ll resist the temptation to invert the pyramid since that might give the impression of instability.

Just recognize that, at least for me, the higher levels of the pyramid are ultimately where the winners and the losers will be determined in terms of who is able to re-build trust.

Bottom line

Rebuilding trust in our institutions is an imperative. To succeed in this challenge, we need to address trust holistically. We need to recognize that the foundations of trust are shifting and that many layers of trust will need to be cultivated. We also need to address the opportunity to strengthen trust by connecting people into impact groups, so that they can become even more excited about the opportunity to deliver impact that matters to others. It’s ultimately all about people, finding ways to move beyond short-term transactions and instead build deeper and enduring relationships that can help all to achieve more of their potential.

08
Jun 20
0

Learning Communities – The Journey Ahead

Category:Collaboration,Community,Connections,Creation Spaces,Learning,Narratives,Opportunity,Passion

Now, more than ever, we need to learn faster. In a rapidly changing world, learning becomes a key driver of survival, not to mention success. But it’s a very different form of learning from the one we experienced in school or in our training programs – that learning is about sharing existing knowledge. That can be helpful but, in a rapidly changing world, keep in mind that existing knowledge becomes obsolete at an accelerating rate.

In this kind of world, the most valuable form of learning is creating new knowledge through action and by working together. How do we do that? We need to find ways to come together and participate in communities – but they’re a very different form of community than the ones that most of us know today.

Communities of interest

Many of us participate in communities of interest. They take many different forms. They could be a book club that meets monthly to discuss an interesting book. They could be an online social media group that comes together around a shared interest like gardening or blockchain. They could be a group that comes together in conferences framed around particular areas of interest – anything from certain genres of music to personal growth or business domains like marketing or digital technology.

These communities can vary significantly in size, ranging from 5-10 people in a book club to thousands of people at a large conference or in a social media group.

Participants in these groups share an interest and enjoy connecting with others to discuss this interest. Sure, there’s some learning that occurs in these groups but it’s fairly random and mainly about sharing existing knowledge.

Most of these communities are not driven to learn faster together. They’re just an opportunity to enjoy time together around shared interests. I wrote about the virtual version of these communities of interest more than 20 years ago in my book, Net Gain.

What’s missing in most of these communities of interest is an experienced and motivated moderator who can help the group to learn faster together. Moderators can be powerful catalysts for conversation and can help to focus the conversation on powerful questions that can inspire participants to come up with new ideas and insights as they embark on a shared quest to venture into areas they have not explored yet.

These groups also generally don’t create opportunities to step back and reflect. Do the participants carve out time on a regular basis to step back and reflect on what they’ve learned and on what new questions are emerging from their conversations? That’s very rare, but can be hugely valuable in focusing new learning.

Communities of impact

These are very different forms of communities. Participants in these communities are driven by a desire to act together in ways that can achieve increasing impact in a particular domain. It’s not just about action for the sake of action, it’s about achieving specific forms of impact. They are relentless in measuring that impact and seeking ways to increase their impact over time. That’s what motivates them to learn – they are seeking to discover new approaches that will help them to achieve more impact with less effort and fewer resources.

The core unit in these communities of impact is a small group of people – typically 5-15 people. In some of my other writing, I have referred to these units as “cells” or “teams.” These impact groups remain small because their success hinges on forming deep, trust-based relationships with each other. The participants in these impact groups get to know each other extremely well, both in terms of their strengths and their weaknesses, as well as their motivations. As I’ll discuss in another blog post, deep trust is a key to accelerating learning when it involves creating new knowledge. If the impact group gets much beyond 15 people, those deep, trust-based relationships become more challenging to build and maintain among all the participants.

These impact groups meet on a frequent basis – usually at least weekly and potentially even daily. As they form deep, trust-based relationships with each other, they become more willing to express their vulnerabilities and ask for help from others in their group. Participants in these impact groups connect on an emotional level and not just an intellectual level. They challenge each other if they sense that participants are becoming too passive or losing the excitement that motivates them to move beyond their comfort zone and they support each other when they sense that participants are becoming frustrated or overwhelmed by the roadblocks or obstacles they are encountering.

Participants in these impact groups are often driven by a very specific form of passion. I call it the “passion of the explorer” and I’ve written widely about it, including here and here. These impact groups can be found in areas that display sustained extreme performance improvement, including extreme sports and online war games.

Communities of impact scale by finding ways to connect the small impact groups into broader networks, that I have called “creation spaces.” In these creation spaces, impact groups can interact with the broader community and learn from the initiatives and experiences of the other impact groups in the community. These impact groups can pose questions to the broader network to see if anyone has any ideas or suggestions on how to come up with high impact answers. They can observe the approaches and impact achieved by other groups and develop new insights on how to achieve even more impact. There’s an interesting balance that emerges within these communities of impact – at one level, the impact groups are competing with each other to see who can achieve even greater impact but, at another level, they are collaborating with each other because they are driven by a shared commitment to increase impact.

Unfortunately, these communities of impact are very rare in our business and personal life. If we’re really committed to creating new knowledge through action together, we need to find ways to cultivate more of these communities of impact. This usually begins by finding an area that we are passionate about and then seeking to connect with others that share this passion and a desire to achieve increasing impact in that domain.

Often participating in these communities of impact can deepen our passion. It can be very invigorating to connect with others who share our passion and to act together in ways that deliver increasing impact. That can help us to overcome our fear and deepen our excitement about the opportunity to make a real difference in areas that are meaningful to us.

These communities of impact can emerge from local initiatives, but they can also be catalyzed by organizers who see the potential for scaling learning. One powerful organizing tool to help cultivate communities of impact is something that I call opportunity-based narratives, that I have written about here and here. These narratives are very different from stories. They frame an inspiring opportunity out in the future, but they make it clear that addressing this opportunity requires many people to come together and take action. They are a call to action and a call to learn since they make it clear that the opportunity itself, and the approaches to addressing the opportunity, are not yet fully defined.

These opportunity-based narratives can help to focus the initiatives and learning of the participants in the communities of impact. They leave a lot of room for local improvisation, but they help to cultivate a shared commitment to the kind of impact that will make a real difference in helping this opportunity to materialize.

Physical communities

So, what does this have to do with the physical communities that we all live in? Most of these communities have a long history and they have basically become communities of convenience. We live there because we were raised there or because we were drawn by an opportunity for work or because of an attraction to a particular climate, setting or lifestyle. We likely have friends there but, unless it’s a very small town or neighborhood, we certainly don’t know everyone there.

Unfortunately, for an increasing number of physical communities, we’ve lost a deep sense of connection with the community and commitment to the success of the overall community. We have become increasingly passive and/or polarized.

Here’s an idea. What if we framed an opportunity-based narrative for our physical community – what amazing things could we accomplish if we all came together and committed to increasing our impact in addressing a shared opportunity? We could transform physical communities into communities of impact, starting with small impact groups, but rapidly scaling into networks that draw together more and more members of the community.

It can be done. Forty years ago, I was drawn to a physical community – Silicon Valley. There were many factors that attracted me, but one of the most powerful ones was the sense that this was a community driven by an opportunity-based narrative. More and more people were coming to Silicon Valley from all over the world because they were drawn by the opportunity to change the world by harnessing the growing potential of digital technology. It provided a sense of connection and shared commitment to increasing impact that I’ve found deeply inspiring for a number of decades.

Bottom line

We live in a world that is rapidly changing, bringing both exponentially expanding opportunity and mounting performance pressures. Harnessing the opportunity and overcoming the pressure will require all of us to learn faster, together. We can do that through communities of impact. If we can find ways to evolve our existing communities of interest and physical communities into communities of impact, we will find ways to come together to achieve far more of our potential. Let’s get started.

28
May 20
0

Re-Imagining the Potential of Achieving Your Potential

Category:Connections,Context,Institutional Innovation,Learning,Passion,Potential

Many of us were living in fear, even before the current pandemic hit. But it’s interesting to me that, even in times of great fear, we have a hunger for hope. That’s been brought home to me by the number of people I’ve encountered (virtually) over the past several months who have observed that this crisis is prompting them to reflect on what really matters to them. And. most interestingly, they are actively seeking to accomplish more of what really matters to them, not just hold on to what they have today.

Let’s explore where this drive to achieve more of our potential might lead us.

What potential?

As humans, we all have infinite potential – we can cultivate a vast array of potential talents and accomplish amazing things. But, as motivated and talented as we might be, we’ll never be able to cultivate all those talents. We have to focus. Which of the infinite dimensions of potential will we choose to cultivate?

Passion can help us to focus. I’ve written extensively about passion, including here and here. To be clear, I’m focused on a very specific form of passion, something that I call the “passion of the explorer.” I encountered this form of passion in my research into arenas where there is sustained extreme performance improvement – I found that participants in these arenas had this specific form of passion.

People with this form of passion have three attributes: a long-term commitment to making an increasing impact in a chosen domain, a questing disposition and a connecting disposition. People with this form of passion have chosen a domain that deeply excites them – it could be anything from manufacturing or healthcare to knitting or big wave surfing.

This commitment to a domain, and to making an increasing impact in that domain, focuses us on the potential talents and abilities that we must develop in order to make an increasing impact in that domain. In my view, it is the most powerful motivation to learn and achieve more of our potential. If we find and cultivate this passion of the explorer, we will be driven to achieve the potential required to make a continually increasing impact in the domain. We will never let up – people who have this passion often talk about being in a marathon rather than a sprint because they recognize this is a long-term effort.

It’s the subject of another post, but I believe we all have this passion within us, waiting to be discovered. Some of us see it at a very early age but, for many, we still have not found it. In part, that’s because many of us have been told to forget about passion and simply acquire the skills necessary to earn a good living. In part, it’s because most of the institutions we work for are deeply suspicious of passion – people with this form of passion are not good at following orders and they are prone to take big risks in pursuit of the impact that matters to them. We’ve simply given up looking for the passion because our institutions and society discourage it.

That’s a tragedy, because that passion is there, waiting to be discovered and unleashed. And finding that passion will help us to achieve far more of our potential than any extrinsic motivations or simply grit or determination could make possible. By finding and focusing on our passion, we’ll achieve far more of our potential than randomly trying to cultivate as many of our talents as possible.

Achieving potential through impact on others

One interesting thing about passion is that it focuses us on increasing impact. That takes most of us outside of ourselves, because the impact is in the world around us, not inside us. That’s important because, many people, when they talk about achieving more of their potential, seem to be talking about going inward and just focusing on themselves as individuals. I’ve come to believe that the best way to achieve more of our potential as individuals is to connect more effectively with others in the world around us. And passion helps us to do this.

This happens in at least two ways. First, the way we measure increasing impact in a domain usually focuses on impact on others. Let’s say we’re passionate about designing tools and equipment that can help construction workers build better buildings. That requires a deep understanding of the context confronted by construction workers and the challenges they face as they go about their work. To develop that understanding, we would need to connect deeply with a broad range of construction workers. And, it would not be a one-time connection – we would need to stay connected so that we could explore how to have increasing impact on their work over time.

This doesn’t just apply to passion about designing products or interacting directly with customers in a marketing or sales context. Think about those who are passionate about fulfillment center operations (yes, there are those who are deeply passionate about this). Those people are driven to connect with both suppliers and logistics operators to understand how they can make more of a difference in their operations.

Now, I can hear the skeptics come up with examples of passion that are very much solo activities that don’t seem to involve impact on others. Think about people who are passionate about gardening – and it’s about cultivating their own garden, not the gardens of others. Or people who are passionate about woodworking and who don’t sell or share their extraordinary wood art with others.

There are certainly some extreme examples of people who are totally inwardly focused, but I would be cautious about whether those people are really passionate or driven by an obsession. There is a difference, something that I have explored here. One key difference is that passion helps build relationships and obsession inhibits them.

In this context, passionate people who are pursuing solo activities are still seeking to make an increasing impact, but the impact they are seeking is to inspire others and enrich the lives of others. Truly passionate gardeners show their gardens to others, not because they are showing off, but because they are driven to see what really has impact on others and to learn more about how to have even greater impact over time.

So, one way that the passion of the explorer helps to connect us with others is by inspiring us to achieve increasing impact on others. This passion motivates us to connect with others to understand the impact we are having and the potential for even more impact by addressing unmet needs or aspirations.

Achieving potential through collaborating with others

But the passion of the explorer motivates us to connect on another dimension as well. As I mentioned earlier, one of the attributes of the passion of the explorer is a connecting disposition. When confronted with new challenges and opportunities, people with this passion are driven to connect with others who might be able to help them come up with even better approaches to addressing those challenges and opportunities. They realize that, no matter how smart and talented they are, they will learn a lot faster and achieve more impact if they connect with others who share their passion or simply have expertise and insight that might help them come up with new ideas. People with the passion of the explorer are connected into much broader and more diverse networks than people who have not yet found their passion of the explorer.

So, passion motivates us to achieve more of our potential and drives us to connect with others on two levels. Rather than narrowing our horizons and isolating us, the drive to achieve more of our potential provides a powerful fuel to broaden and deepen our connection with others.

The power of diverse networks

That fuel becomes even more powerful when we begin to realize the network effects that it can unleash. As we’ve all come to realize, the value of participating in networks increases exponentially as the number of participants grows. In this context, we’ll begin to see that we can accelerate our ability to achieve more of our potential as we connect with more people, especially if they are motivated by a similar passion to achieve increasing impact in a given domain.

We can achieve even more of our potential if these expanding networks have greater diversity in terms of the backgrounds, skills and perspectives of the participants. If we’re just connecting with people who are similar to us, we’ll never learn as fast as when we connect with a more diverse set of people.

Of course, diversity can lead to fragmentation and loss of focus, but what makes this diversity so powerful is when everyone shares a commitment to achieving increasing impact in a specific domain and agrees on ways to measure that impact. Then we unleash the productive friction that can be a powerful driver of learning.

The need for institutional change

As we begin to realize the power of connection in helping us to achieve far more of our potential, we’ll begin to see how our institutional environment today limits our ability to connect, rather than expanding our ability to connect. As I’ve written about in the Big Shift perspective, our institutions today are driven by scalable efficiency models that focus on protecting existing stocks of knowledge, rather than helping us to participate in a broader range of flows of knowledge.

That’s why people with the passion of the explorer are often deeply frustrated within our existing institutions. They are often pounding the table, upset about the barriers that are preventing them from connecting in ways that will help them to increase their impact. That’s also why people with the passion of the explorer are often deeply suspect within our existing institutions – they’re the discontents and the troublemakers.

The growing realization that achieving more of our potential requires broader and richer ways of connecting with others will lead those with passion to see that our existing institutions are limiting our ability to achieve more of that potential. We need to shift from institutions that are driven by scalable efficiency models to institutions that are driven by scalable learning models, as I’ve written about here. This is a key reason why those who have been drawn into the human potential movement will eventually join forces with those who are drawn into social change movements. While largely separate today, these movements will need to come together to achieve their full potential, as I’ve written about here.

Bottom line

Achieving more of our potential is not an inward looking and isolating aspiration. If we truly understand that our potential is to make more of a meaningful difference in the domains that matter to us, we will begin to see that achieving more of our potential will require us to connect much more deeply and broadly with others. If we get this right, we will unleash powerful network effects that will enable us to learn at a much faster rate than we would have ever imagined possible and that will finally enable us to achieve exponential potential.

21
May 20
1

Connecting for Impact

Category:Connections,Emotions,Movements,Narratives,Opportunity,Potential

For decades now, we’ve seen two types of movements unfolding around the world. They’re having impact, but they’re limited by their separation. Scalable and sustainable impact will hinge on finding ways to more effectively connect these parallel efforts.

Human potential

The human potential movement is one of these movements. In its current incarnation, it began to take shape in the 1960’s and 1970’s and has been steadily evolving since then. While many view this as a movement, the truth is that it’s actually a collection of strands that are addressing different dimensions of human potential – everything from stress reduction and bad habit elimination to spiritual growth and enhancing physical wellness.

What connects all these strands is a focus on the opportunity to help each of us achieve more of our potential as human beings. Participants in this movement are driven by the view that we as human beings have only tapped into a small portion of the potential that is available to all of us. There’s so much more potential to be accessed and drawn out.

Change movements

But there’s another set of movements that have been unfolding in parallel. These movements are focused on driving broader change in our economy and society. Once again there are many strands in this set of movements. Many of them are focused on addressing “wicked problems” like climate change, discrimination, disease, and unemployment. Others are focused on driving institutional change – think of movements to drive change in our schools or to cultivate more social responsibility in our commercial institutions. And many have broader social or political agendas, like challenging autocratic regimes or reducing barriers to movement across national boundaries.

Regardless of their specific focus, these movements are driven by the belief that we need to evolve beyond the institutions, economies and societies that today are often viewed as barriers to human development.

Barriers to impact

These two sets of movements have been moving in parallel over decades. But, here’s the thing. There’s very little interaction across these two sets of movements. One set of movements appears to believe that it’s all about us as individuals (or small self-help groups) and that it’s completely up to us to achieve more of our potential. The other set of movements seems to believe that it’s all about the institutions, economy and society that surround us and, if only we could change those, we would eliminate the forces that are creating massive problems for humanity.

I have a very different perspective. I believe that, until we find a way to more effectively connect these two sets of movements, we will only achieve a small fragment of the unlimited potential that is truly available to us.

Let’s dive into this. Look at the human potential movement. It’s absolutely the case that we need to recognize that we have far more potential than we have so far achieved, and it is up to us to take action to improve ourselves. But we can only do so much. If we’re surrounded by institutions, economies and societies that are seeking to limit our potential, we’ll soon run into roadblocks and obstacles that, at best, will limit our ability to advance and, at worst, will undermine our efforts and eventually lead us to give up in frustration.

On the other side, let’s look at the broader change movements. If we seek to transform our institutions, economy and society to remove obstacles to human development, we’ll see limited impact from these efforts unless all of us as individuals are motivated to achieve more of our potential. If we as individuals fail to see the potential that is ours to achieve, we’ll continue to live our lives as before and fail to enjoy the potential benefits of our new surroundings. Even worse, we may join calls to return to our earlier institutions, economy and society because we find this new environment so alien and uncomfortable.

Connecting human potential and change movements

Now, imagine what we could accomplish if we connected these movements. On the one side, we would be cultivating a hunger within individuals to achieve more of their potential and launching them on a quest to grow and develop so that they can have much more of an impact that matters to them. On the other side, we would be transforming our institutions, economy and society with the specific intent to create environments that will encourage the efforts of everyone to achieve more of their potential and, most importantly, provide them with opportunities to accelerate their growth and amplify their potential.

We would be launching a virtuous cycle. The more people see obstacles and roadblocks to their development being removed, the more motivated they will be to raise their aspirations and pursue their quest with even more energy. And the more we see how our institutions, economy and society are drawing out more of the potential that resides within all of us, the more motivated we will be to continue on the transformation journey and evolve our environments in ways that draw out even more of that potential. Rather than limiting our impact and undermining our ability to sustain it, we would be creating the conditions to unleash exponential potential, forever.

Focusing on the opportunity that can bring us together

But there’s more. One of the challenges facing the broader change movements is they have tended to adopt an approach that plays to fear and anger. The reason we need to change is because, if we don’t, we’re all going to die or, worse, fall into some dystopia that will never end.

As I’ve written before, I’ve been studying (and participating in) movements for most of my life and the most successful movements throughout history have been driven by something I call opportunity-based narratives. As many of you know, I make a key distinction between stories and narratives, even though most of us view these two words as meaning the same thing.

For me, the distinction (briefly) is that stories are self-contained – they have a beginning, a middle and an end – and they’re not about the audience, they’re about other people. In contrast, narratives for me are open-ended. There is no end, yet. There’s a major threat or opportunity out in the future and it’s not yet clear how this will be resolved. The resolution of the narrative hinges on you – it is a call to action to the audience, telling them that their choices and actions are going to play a key role in resolving the narrative. (For those who want to read more about this, check out here and here.)

Narratives differ in terms of whether they focus on a threat or opportunity out in the future. I believe the most successful movements have relied on opportunity-based narratives because opportunities can inspire and motivate people to come together, overcome their fear, take risks and make bold moves. If we focus on threats, this tends to intensify fear, erode trust, polarize, and increase risk-aversion.

The broader change movements will have much more impact if they shift from threat-based narratives to opportunity-based narratives. By focusing on opportunities, these movements can help to overcome the polarization that increasingly challenges our societies and motivate people to come together in a quest to achieve an inspiring opportunity. They will help to connect us in ways that scale rapidly and harness the network effects that are required to drive fundamental change.

Framing broader opportunities

But there’s even more. As I mentioned before, both the human potential movements and the social change movements are not single movements, but instead a diverse set of movements that are at risk of becoming siloed. Take the example of the human potential movements. While they broadly fit under the umbrella of “human potential”, their focus tends to be on more narrowly defined opportunities like physical wellness or cultivating creativity.

While it’s certainly OK to target these specific opportunities, the ability to connect and scale more broadly hinges on framing an inspiring opportunity that embraces all these more specific opportunities. It would show how our efforts are part of something much bigger and that we are ultimately all in a quest for the same thing.

The umbrella name “human potential” needs more attention and effort to frame the broader opportunity to help all of us achieve more of our potential. We need to understand that human potential is a many-faceted opportunity and that we will be limiting our potential by focusing only on one dimension of our potential. It would also help to underscore that human potential is ultimately unlimited, especially if we take a more holistic view of that potential and come together to help each other achieve that potential.

Social change movements tend to be even more siloed, driven by their focus on very specific threats like pollution, poverty and sickness. There’s an opportunity here as well to expand our horizons as we shift from threat-based narratives to opportunity-based narratives. Once again, it’s fine to frame a specific opportunity like finding ways to more effectively integrate marginalized portions of our population into our economy and society. But how does this specific opportunity connect with a range of other opportunities driving the need for social change?

We need to invest more time and effort in framing an over-arching opportunity that can show how a growing range of social change movements are in fact connected and that they are all ultimately driven by a quest for a much broader opportunity. What if the bigger opportunity is to evolve a society, economy and institutions that helps all of us to come together in ways that will achieve more of our potential?

The biggest opportunity of all

And the biggest opportunity of all is one that can help to foster greater connection across personal growth movements and social change movements. What if the bigger opportunity that inspires all of us is to foster the motivation and conditions that will help all of us come together to achieve more and more of our infinitely expanding potential? In part, this is driven by a recognition that our potential as individuals will be dramatically expanded when we find ways to connect and collaborate in our quest to achieve greater impact. And, in part, this is driven by a recognition that achieving more and more of our potential hinges on both intrinsic motivation and environments that provide us with the support we need to have even greater impact.

Bottom line

The good news is that we have growing movement to unleash more of the potential that resides within us. We need to find ways to connect all this activity so that it can achieve even more impact. That begins by framing a broader, inspiring opportunity that shows how many of the initiatives already under way are in fact helping us to address a much bigger opportunity. By focusing on that broader and inspiring opportunity, we also will be able to attract a growing number of participants who see that they too can make a difference on something that matters to all of us.

06
May 20
3

Leaders Learn

Category:Collaboration,Leadership,Learning

If you’re not learning,

You’re not a leader.

If you’re learning alone,

You’re not a leader.

Leaders mobilize many

To learn together.

They inspire others with awesome opportunities,

Inviting people to come together

And venture out to the edge,

Beyond their comfort zone.

Leaders pose powerful questions

And ask for help from others

To find the answers.

These questions focus,

Inspire

And challenge,

While building trust.

They urge us all to explore

Uncharted land

And expand our horizons

While driven by a shared quest.

Leaders inspire others

To lead others

In their quest for answers

That matter

Which, of course,

Will only lead to more questions

To be pursued

In a never-ending quest

For expanding opportunity

For everyone.

Don’t measure leaders

By the number of followers.

Instead measure leaders

By the number of leaders

They unleash.

Dare I say?

Leaders inspire us

To pursue our exponential potential.

30
Apr 20
1

Strategies for the Launch Decade

Category:Crisis,Launch Decade,Opportunity,Strategy

Several months ago, I wrote a blog post celebrating the beginning of a new decade – I called it the Launch Decade. This was just as the current COVID-19 pandemic was beginning to surface in Wuhan, China. As an optimist, I view global crises like this one as a launchpad to drive significant positive change.

But that certainly won’t happen on its own. We need to adopt approaches that will help us to navigate through these trying times and target the significant opportunities that lie ahead. For a long time, I’ve been a proponent of three approaches that become even more compelling in times of great change – zoom out/zoom in strategies, shaping strategies and leveraged growth.

Zoom out/zoom in strategies

This is an approach to strategy that has been pursued by some of the most successful tech companies in Silicon Valley, as I have written about here. This strategy focuses on two time horizons.

The Zoom Out time horizon is 10-20 years and the two questions on this horizon are: What will relevant markets or industries look like 10-20 years from now? What are the implications for the kind of business or company we will need to become in order to thrive in this market or industry?

The Zoom In time horizon is very different – it’s 6-12 months. On this time horizon the key questions are: What are the 2-3 initiatives (no more) that we could pursue in the next 6-12 months that would have the greatest ability to accelerate our movement towards the longer-term opportunity we have identified? Do we have a critical mass of resources committed in the next 6-12 months to these 2-3 initiatives? How would we measure success – what are the metrics that matter?

This approach to strategy becomes even more compelling in times of great pressure like today, where there is a strong urge to shrink our time horizons and just sense and respond as quickly as we can to whatever is going on. While understandable, a reactive approach risks spreading ourselves too thin as we try to sense and respond to everything.

The zoom out/zoom in approach to strategy helps us to focus on a very big, long-term opportunity so that we can prioritize our near-term actions for the greatest long-term impact and avoid the risk that we incrementalize our way into oblivion. At the same time, this approach to strategy also emphasizes the need for aggressive short-term action and the opportunity to learn from that action. At a time when all our institutions are going to be coping with the challenge of limited resources, this approach can help to focus those scarce resources to move quickly and target significant emerging opportunities.

Shaping strategies

Crises like the one we are in can be catalysts for significant restructuring of markets and industries. Those who move forward assuming their market or industry will continue in its current form are likely to be in for a big surprise.

In this environment, there’s a significant opportunity to pursue shaping strategies, which I’ve written about in more depth here. Rather than passively trying to anticipate what the future might look like, shaping strategies seek to restructure markets and industries in ways that put the shaper in a privileged position.

Without going into too much detail here, shaping strategies consist of three components. First, they begin with a long-term shaping vision of what the industry or market could look like 10-20 years from now (note the intersection with zoom out/zoom in strategies) and they frame this vision in a way that highlights significant opportunities for a large number of other participants, and not just for the shaper. The goal here is to motivate many third parties to come together and invest to support the shaping strategy.

Second, shaping strategies deploy a shaping platform with the explicit goal of improving the economics of participation for these third parties. These platforms are designed to reduce the investment required to participate and to accelerate the ability to earn returns on investments made.

Third, shaping strategies involve a set of initiatives designed to overcome the potential skepticism of third parties by demonstrating the commitment of the shaper to the strategy and the ability of the shaper to successfully pursue the strategy. This could involve making a bold move on its own or potentially announcing partnerships with large players that would give the shaper access to key resources.

Shaping strategies are especially powerful in times of crises. Crises tend to challenge our current approaches to markets or industries and make participants more open to new approaches than they might be when the market or industry is doing well. By emphasizing the need to mobilize investment from a large number of third parties, shaping strategies also help the shaper to significantly increase impact, even when faced with the challenge of limited resources in the short-term.

Not all companies will choose to be shapers, but the choice is to shape or be shaped. If we choose not to be shapers, then we need to recognize that, in times of rapid change, other companies will emerge as shapers of our relevant markets or industries. We need to anticipate who those companies might be and find ways to participate effectively in the markets or industries they will restructure.

Leveraged growth

When companies address the need for growth, they tend to focus on two options – make or buy. We can grow either through internal investment and organic growth or by going out and making a major acquisition. In either case, growth requires significant resources – something that can be especially challenging as we come out of an economic downturn.

But the good news is that there’s a third option that is rarely considered, much less actively pursued. It’s what I call leveraged growth, an approach that I’ve written about here. This approach involves connecting with and mobilizing a growing number of third parties who can deliver value to your customers and capturing some of that value for ourselves. This approach to growth has been pioneered by companies in Asia and there’s a lot that Western companies can learn from their experience.

Think about the implications of this approach as we emerge from the current crisis. Companies that can show significant growth without a major commitment of resources are likely to be richly rewarded.

Beyond companies

So far, I’ve been framing these approaches in the context of companies. I hasten to suggest that these approaches are not just relevant for companies. They apply to all our institutions that are wrestling with the challenges of the current crisis – governments, schools, community organizations, NGO’s, etc.

But, there’s more. They also apply to us as individuals. Now, more than ever, we need to zoom out and zoom in to bring more focus into our lives so that we can achieve more impact that’s really meaningful to us. We need to find more creative ways to shape our context so that we can achieve even more impact. And our personal success will hinge on our ability to mobilize others who can provide value to those who matter to us, so that we’re not trying to do it all ourselves.

Bottom line

Crises can be launchpads for significant positive change. But that change will not happen on its own. It’s up to us to overcome our fear and to take action. And we’ll have a lot more impact if we come together with others, inspired by shared opportunities. If we do this right, we have an opportunity to unleash the exponential potential that resides within all of us and that is hungering to be drawn out.

28
Apr 20
1

Exponential Potential

Category:Collaboration,Learning,Opportunity,Potential

We’ve all been encouraged

“Achieve your full potential”

While offered with the best of intentions,

That limits our potential.

If we achieve our full potential

Is that all there is?

There’s so much more.

What if our potential

Is exponential?

What if we find that achieving

More of our potential

Unlocks even more of our potential?

What if we find that,

By connecting with others,

We create even more potential,

For all of us

Individually and collectively?

If we unleash this potential

It will soon go exponential

Without any end in sight.

But it will only remain potential

Unless we commit to act

Together

To explore

The frontiers around us.

The sky is not the limit

And maybe the universe isn’t either.

The more we embrace our exponential potential,

The more motivated we will be

To act together

To pursue it

Regardless of the risk.

We all have a hunger

Deep inside us

To achieve more.

We need to feed

That hunger

And watch in awe

As we grow

Beyond any limits

We might have imagined.

21
Apr 20
6

Small Smart Moves

Category:Collaboration,Opportunity,Small moves

Our world is overwhelming.

Competition intensifies

Complexity escalates

Change accelerates

Viruses spread

Pressure grows.

Such a world

Pulls us to passivity

As we feel the fear.

Small moves appear futile

And big moves are overwhelming.

But, what if the small moves

Were smartly made?

What if we pulled

Out of the pressures of the moment

And looked ahead

To see really big emerging opportunities?

What if we looked around

And found others

Who could be motivated

To join us?

What if we found some small moves

That could yield rapid impact

And help us to learn faster?

Those small moves,

Smartly made,

Could set very big things in motion,

Helping us

To address exponentially expanding opportunity.

It’s time to move.

Jul 20

10

Independence Day Poems

Jun 20

3

Trust and Learning

Jun 20

3

Exploring the Pyramid of Trust

Jun 20

0

Learning Communities – The Journey Ahead

May 20

0

Re-Imagining the Potential of Achieving Your Potential

May 20

1

Connecting for Impact

May 20

3

Leaders Learn

Apr 20

1

Strategies for the Launch Decade

Apr 20

1

Exponential Potential

Apr 20

6

Small Smart Moves

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