Leading in a White Water World

Premise John Seely Brown and Ann-Pendleton Jullian call the world we currently live in a white water world, constantly changing, evolving and emerging. In this two part series they share their insights from their book – Design Unbound. They talk about how do you design your systems for emergence rather than stability (large corporate) or growth (startup). I would highly recommend watching these two talks (each about an hour long) to understand what it would take to lead in such a white water world and how to design your systems for emergence. Part 1 In this part, they discuss the […]

Emergent Leadership

Leaders must adopt emergent leadership in a rapidly changing world with new workforce expectations, technological advancements, and increasing competition. Becoming intentional, aware, and capable of sense-making is key, alongside viewing actions as experiments and monitoring for unintended consequences, thus necessitating continuous dynamic adaptation and a cultural shift away from rigid planning towards empowerment and engagement.

Tendencies and Transitions

We live and work in some sort of a system. Our very body is a system. So, developing the ability to understand and work better with systems can be a super power – both as an individual and (even more so) as a leader. One of the most foundational aspects about systems that we need to understand is that all systems are living, breathing and constantly evolving. However, each one of them has a tendency to be in a specific state or can transition from one state to another. For example water can transition between solid, liquid and gas but […]

Insanely Interesting People who Influenced Me #16 Dave Snowden

For the rest of the year, I would like to take a moment and thank the people who have had a significant impact on me as an individual. The way they have lived their lives and their body of work has had an outsized impact on how I think about life in general and and work, in particular. Some of these are contemporary thinkers and some of them are just a memory. Some of them are famous in their own rights and some of them are yet to be found by others. Some of them are young and some of […]

How Not to Slowdown Progress

Leo Szilard, in his book – The voice of the dolphins, and other stories has a short story titled The Mark Gable Foundation. In this short story, there is a conversation between two characters, one of who thinks that the pace of scientific change is too fast and is seeking ideas on how to slow it down. Here is their exchange: “I’m thinking of setting up a trust fund. I want to do something that will really contribute to the happiness of mankind; but it’s very difficult to know what to do with money. When Mr. Rosenblatt told me that […]