The leader’s new york by Peter M. Senge
_(Originally published on_ _OUBS Blog_ _)_
_The leader’s new york: building learning organizations, by Peter M. Senge is part of Book 8 and about the organization of the future, “a consummately adaptive enterprise” as of Fortune magazine. The impulse to learn is an impulse to expand our capability.
Leaders are often believed to be heroes but in learning organizations they are not the charismatic decision maker but rather designers, teachers and stewards. Their role is to build a shared vision, bring out and challenge mental models and to bring about more systemic patterns of thinking. Leaders are responsible for learning.
You start with creative tension, meaning the natural tension due to the gap between a vision and the ‘current reality’. Here an accurate picture of the current reality as well as a compelling picture of the desired future is important. The energy for change needs to come from the vision though, as it makes motivation intrinsic. In change coming from current reality youare likely to be problem solving which is more extrinsic and short lived.
__New Roles_ _
You will need a few new roles, or new role definitions:
-> The leader as designer
On an ocean liner, the leadership role can be said to be the designer. What this means is that without good design, being an organizational leader is fruitless. To design an organization you need to first design what Senge calles the governing ideas (purpose, vision, core values). You then move on to policies, strategies and structures to guide busiiness decisions. Behind those though, you need effective learning processes to ensure that everything is continuously improved.
-> The leader as teacher
Here it is important to help to gain a better grasp of current reality which needs real attention to people’s mental models as we all only carry assumptions in our heads, not realities as such. Leaders can influence people in three ways:
\- Systemic structure (generative): addresses causes of behaviour where patterns of behaviour can be changed
\- Patterns of behaviour (responsive): Assess long term trends and their implications
\- Events (reactive): who did what to whom
They largely teach by example.
-> The leader as steward
This is more a matter of attitude. You serve first and that makes you lead. People will be inclined to learn when they do something they consider worthy of their fullest commitment. (Stewardship: the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care)
__New Skill_ _
These new leadership roles require new skills.
1\. You need to build a shared vision, which means you need to:
\- encourage personal vision as people’s capacity for caring is personal
\- communicate and ask for support (‘Is this vision worthy of your commitment?’)
\- see visioning as an ongoing process, not as a fixed wording on a web page, but rather as a the continuous question of what you want to achieve
\- blend extrinsic (beat competitor a) and intrinsic (build the best product) vision
\- distinguish positive (aspiration) and negative (fear) visions
2\. You need to bring to surface and test mental models by:
\- seeing leaps of abstration, meaning confusion of generalization with observable data
\- balancing inquiry and advocacy
\- distinguishing espoused theory from theory in use (e.g. you proclaim people trustworthy but lend no money to friends)
\- recognising and defusing defensive routines, which often needs a high degree of self disclosure of your own defensiveness
3\. Finally you need systems thinking, focussing less on the day-to-day events but on the underlying trends and forces of change. You need to:
\- see interrelations , not things, and processes, not snapshots
\- move beyond blame
\- distinguish detail complexity and dynamic complexity
\- focus on areas of high leverage
\- avoid symtomatic solutions
_ _New Tools_ _
To do all this you need new tools. One option might be to be aware of system archetypes that exist and happen again and again.
\- you might need to balance a process that has delays and might overshoot
\- growth is limited
\- shifting the burden and using short-term solutions
\- eroding goals (when all else fails, lower your standards)
\- escalation
\- __tragedy of the commons_ _
\- growth is stopped with underinvestment
Another thing to do might be to look at strategic dilemmas in a different way. An example here would be to stop looking at low costs — high quality as a choice of either or. To do this, Chargles Hampden-Turner suggested several steps:
\- Identify the opposing values
\- Map them at opposing axes
\- Get rid of nouns to describe them (local control becomes growing local initiatives)
\- frame and contextualise by making each side the frame or context of the other
\- sequence all the steps without thinking about time
\- take into account that there might be high and low cycles
\- synergise
Senge ends this one with a quote:
The wicked leader is he who the people despise.
The good leader is he who the people revere.
The great leader is he who the people say,
‘We did it outselves.’_