Leadership: Can we really change the world?

Spending a summer's weekend in beautiful Embercombe, near Exeter in the south-west of England was a chance to reflect on the kind of leadership that is needed to truly change how our world works, together with my On Purpose cohort. Of course, hundreds of books have been written on the subject of leadership, but this is just a summary of some of the ideas I think might be part of making our planet a more equitable, peaceful and environmentally balanced place. While purpose-driven organisations will be part of the solution to environmental, social and political problems that dominate today, those leading the change must embody the philosophies behind these movements and ultimately act differently to the leaders of organisations that have underpinned our society in the past. 

Being ourselves

I don't think its controversial to say that people are more productive and altogether happier when they're able to be themselves. If we create organisations which actively seek to do good (as opposed to merely attempting to embody Google's famous "don't be evil" motto) we have to ensure that the people driving them forward are acting with radical integrity and deeply believe in the work they do.

In the book 'Reinventing Organisations',  Frederic Laloux describes how future organisations could dispose of hierarchy in favour of self-management. In his reimagining of the organisation, there are no job titles, no opportunity to measure self worth from your position in a structure - everyone is equally powerful and no one is powerless. In order to be in such a place, people need to derive their worth from something deeper and find their purpose in working for a cause that truly matters to them. Talking of business as usual, Laloux comments:

"Organizations are for the most part, in the true sense of the word, soulless places… places inhospitable to our deeper selfhood and to the secret longings of our soul. Organizations fear that if people were to bring all of themselves to work things would quickly dissolve into a mess. Armies have long known that people made to feel interchangeable are much easier to control."

Leading organisations that allow people to self organise, be passionate and completely themselves will require us to be more resilient and flexible. It will require us to make radical changes to not just how we view organisations, but how we view human nature. 

Diversity, creativity and the edge effect

If we want to lead change in the systems we live amongst, we have to get creative. 
Having spent some time studying at a university that has championed diversity for nearly two hundred years, perhaps I'm biased- but I truly believe in the power of bringing together people from disparate backgrounds. Bringing the voices of people from a range of ethnic or geographical backgrounds forces teams to be more creative in their ideas and more resilient in their approach. For organisations whose mission is to tackle some of the most complex issues humans have encountered, both of these attributes are vital.

The UNLEASH innovation lab is an annual event which takes this idea seriously. It brings together a thousand people from almost every nation on earth to search for solutions to the worlds biggest problems (as brought together in the Sustainable Development Goals). A vital part of the method being employed there is to bring together people from a baffling array of backgrounds and professions and then push them to learn from one another, challenge preconceptions and break down barriers. 

Economist Richard Freeman in his study 'Collaborating with People Like Me' explored how diversity affected the publication of scientific literature - finding that greater ethnic diversity in authors led to papers being both more impactful and more influential in their field. When authors collaborated across borders and cultural boundaries, he found that they would be more likely to be published in more influential publications and be cited by a wider audience. Perhaps having to answer unexpected questions, openly debating accepted concepts and challenging ourselves to test or communicate ideas in an unusual way is how we can stimulate our creativity. 

World famous cellist Yo Yo Ma compares this boost in creativity to the "edge effect" in ecology- the idea that the points where two ecosystems meet (such as between the savannah and the forest) are the most biodiverse and 'creative' places. His project, the Silkroad brings together musicians from across the world to create groundbreaking new music and reach across divisions. What would happen if we spent more time bringing disparate people together to challenge each other and co-create and blur dividing lines instead of arguing about how to keep more for ourselves?

Where we came from

What changes if all the organisations we build are permanently rooted in the big picture of a finite planet with limited resources? What if every decision we made in our companies thought first about the impact on the environment we depend on before its profit margins and creating shareholder value? 

Yvon Choinard in a book about his company, Patagonia, 'Let my people go surfing' writes: 

"We begin with the premise that all life on Earth is facing a critical time, during which survivability will be the issue that increasingly dominates the public concern. Where survivability is not the issue, the quality of human experience of life may be, as well as the decline in health of the natural world as reflected in the loss in biodiversity, cultural diversity and the planet's life support systems."

Perhaps one day, all factories will reimagine their supply chains and energy use with the same premise in mind. Perhaps in the future every law firm will measure its success in terms of environmental impact as well as billable hours. What if every NGO took a step back to understand where its resources came from and how they impact the world? In a disaster zone, international aid agencies might vow to source humanitarian supplies locally, meaning environmental costs of shipping would drop, local economies might recover faster and those affected would be empowered to tackle problems with a more sustainable, long-term view.

I think that decisions taken in all types of organisation will change when governed by a level of perspective that takes in the impact we make on the planet. With a millennial workforce becoming increasingly disillusioned with the blinkered actions of the businesses they work for and ultimately searching for new meaning in their working life, these changes will happen sooner or later, but it is down to purpose-driven, values-led organisations to demonstrate and accelerate this new way of doing things.