March 16th, 2009
This is the second of three posts exploring the significance of social media…is this loud mess of things a new set of transactional tools or transformational in nature? The first post touched on the importance of asking serious questions, and a posed a couple of really important questions for consideration.
In addition to making sure that we are clear about who we are and what we are here for, we also need consider the nature of the times in which we live. With our first questions, we have plotted both our current location on the map, and our destination…now we must consider the terrain between these two points in order to build the best route, the best plan for moving forward. This second contextual piece is also of great importance as we consider the potential value of the tools that we have at our disposal.
We all interpret the world differently, and your view of things may be very different from mine. But as this is my analysis, I will share a bit of my interpretation.
We have, it seems to me, a bit of a mess on our hands.
We are currently engaged in a couple of wars, and regardless of how you feel about their merit, they are complicated and in many ways very costly. Our economy is in bad shape with the mortgage crisis, rising unemployment, and many large financial institutions in survival mode. We continue to come across stories of corruption, self-interest and manipulation. This self-interest and manipulation shows up in business, government, education, arts, entertainment, sports, media, religion and really all facets of our society. It would seem that our education system is having a hard time evolving and adapting and is not well situated to face the challenges of the future. We have growing concern regarding health care and access to health care, with more people uninsured and we have more and more evidence that the gap is growing between the haves and the have-nots. Regardless of your thoughts on global climate change and the roll that we are playing, we have been horrible stewards of the environment and we consume and waste in unsustainable manner. Still today in 2009, there are profound racial, ethnic and gender disparities in workforce leadership, elected office, healthcare outcomes, the criminal justice system.
So on and so forth. I could go on and on, but I think that you get the point. And if not, let me clarify… I am not a doom and gloom guy…I think that our future is bright, and I think that we live in amazing times filled with amazing opportunity and potential. What I am saying is that the way we are doing things is not working…we are not getting the outcomes we want…regardless of the level of resources we commit.
And.
I think…I would at least suggest to you that we have become confused about the nature of these problems.
I think that all of these things I mentioned (and others) are simply symptoms of one larger and ultimately more serious problem and that is that we have a crisis of leadership.
We likely all have slightly different definitions of leadership, and without going into all of that and comparing definitions and frameworks of leadership, let me simply say this:
I would suggest that it does not necessarily take real leadership to respond to a crisis. There are certainly different levels of competency when it comes to responding to crisis, but responding in some way is basically mandatory if you are in a position of formal leadership…if you are in an executive role because of an election or because of working your way to the top of the organizational chart. Responding does not necessarily require great vision or courage or conviction. But it does take those things to act in a proactive manner to avoid crisis.
If we just take a look at our economic crisis…the things that have come to a head in the past 18 months…these things did not appear all of a sudden, out of nowhere. We are actually now suffering from a crisis many years in development…there were people in public and private sectors ringing the warning bell, but nothing was done. There were no discussions of any significance convened about these issues…until it was too late. Serious conversations did not take place in the government, not in the private sector, not in the media.
That is not leadership in my opinion…I would say that we are actually talking about the opposite of leadership.
So, while we talk about and think about and fret about our economic crisis, which is very real…I believe that we are actually suffering from a crisis of leadership. Economic solutions are simply band-aids that will not actually cure anything, because the root of the problem is not economic in nature. And I believe that this is true of challenges that we face in our companies, our communities, classrooms, clinics and congregations. In taking a look around I think we are seeing increasing evidence of this.
And let me clarify here…
Because clarity is our friend…
I am not talking about people…
I am not saying that this is a matter of simply having the wrong people as “leaders”…I am talking about our WAY of leadership…our understanding of leadership, our expectations of leadership, our relationship with leadership…I think that we have settled on understandings and ideas of leadership…and citizenship…that simply do not fit the times we live in. That are no longer relevant.
Again, this is not about the wrong leaders, but the wrong way of leadership. The people in formal positions of leadership today are not the problem…they are simply products of a system…a system that is antiquated and flawed and increasingly irrelevant today.
And there is a second point here in these comments regarding leadership…this system and this way of leadership belongs…to…us.
It belongs to us.
You and I.
All of this stuff belongs to us.
For example, the media.
Its ours.
The media that I love to blame for as many things as I can…it is ours. The media that we continually convict as “light-weight”, “too liberal”, “too conservative”…it is ours.
It…belongs…to…us
So do these communities, jails, hospitals, schools, businesses and this government.
It is the how, when and why we vote, the how when and why we purchase and pay attention and participate and take ownership that gives life to and supports the institutions, practices and leadership that we have today.
What I am saying here is that we are the problem. That is what I am saying. As we take a look at the state of things…at this financial situation, healthcare, education, poverty…those things are all things that we have allowed to happen and develop. We are the problem.
We are the problem.
Government, media, big business are not really an evil “they”, even thought that makes for a convenient and comforting narrative. There is no “they.”
But.
Before we all get profoundly depressed, let me attempt to make a more uplifting point…
We are the solution.
We are. You and I. You and I can solve the issues of access to healthcare, of wasteful gov’t spending, we can transform how we do education, we can respond to rising unemployment, and brain drain from our rural communities, you and I can take better care of our environment, we can take an active role in determining where our food comes from and how it is handled and grown….we can solve these things. We can see to that our communities and businesses function in a more sustainable way. We can bring cowardly politics and cowardly business to an end. We can make sure that our streets and our schools and our communities are safe for regardless of their race, ethnicity, age, gender or orientation.
I would in fact argue that we are the only ones that can. The problems we face do not belong to those we currently refer to as “leaders” and neither do the solutions. They belong to us.
Buckminster Fuller was an author, and an architect and a number of other things…he said some really interesting things…and one of my favorite things that he said was this: “We are called to be the architects of our future, not its victims.”
I am not the sharpest tool in the shed or the brightest bulb in the box, but in my mind that means simply this: if we want tomorrow to be in someway different from today, then we must act accordingly. We must either take action, or not be surprised when the tomorrow that we want does not arrive.
This calls for a shift in our thinking. It requires us to interrupt and let go of much of our thinking about leadership, and about citizenship, because I think that the two are tied to each other. Because our new way forward, our new way of leadership, our way of solving the riddles before us, I believe…is actually an active, a radically active and collaborative citizenship.
A citizenship acknowledging:
o that the behavior I have the most leverage over is my own
o that I am the cause of my environment, not the effect of it.
o that I can participate in creating something I do not own
o that shared inquiry is more valuable than individual advocacy
o that we can be the architects of our future
o that we ultimately decide what our government, our institutions, communities and schools become
This is the solution I believe.
There are a couple of things stand in the way of this:
1-Our current over reliance on experts and those with titles of leadership. I would suggest to you that expertise and formal titles are some of the most over-rated things in our society. I am not saying that they are completely without merit, I am simply saying that we assign far too much significance to the opinions and ideas of experts and executives…we have sacrificed far too much of our power to a few individuals, simply because of a title that they hold or a degree of education they have achieved. We give far too much attention to the ideas and priorities to the chief executive of the health care system and far too little to the ideas and priorities and questions of the nurse and the patient and the patients’ family. We put far too much focus on the attitudes, beliefs and values of the school superintendent and not nearly enough on those of the teacher, the student, the students families…we have sacrificed too much of our power to those furthest away from what really matters.
In his book The Wisdom of Crowds, James Surowiecki does a great job of challenging some of our beliefs about expertise. He integrates research showing that 95% of all professional bond fund managers underperform the market in the most recent five year period, and he introduces us to J. Scott Armstrong, a Wharton professor who has conducted a bunch of research on expert forecasts and analyses in a variety of fields. Armstrongs conclusion? He says this: “I could find no evidence that showed an important advantage for expertise. Outside a couple of exceptions, expertise and accuracy of forecasting are unrelated.”
And to over come this over-reliance on experts and leaders by title, we must re-invest in and recommit to our relationships with one another. We must talk more with each other. We must listen more to each other. We must speak the truth together and lean on each other and support each other and challenge each other. We must invest in the currency that exists between us…we must stop ignoring and discounting the great wisdom that exists between us.
2-Cynicism. In his book The Answer to How is Yes, Peter Block speaks to the power and danger of cynicism as a defense against idealism…and against creativity…and against positive change. Cynicism can be very powerful because it can point to history…it can point to experience, right…we all have our wounds. We have all been let down, disappointed. Cynicism allows us to play it safe…to defend against disappointment. Cynicism defends against disappointment and against idealism.
And we must have healthy idealism. We must re-ignite our collective imagination. Leave the cynics behind, they can catch up later, we are in a time that demands idealism.
So we must believe more in our selves and the merit of our ideas, we must believe more in our ideas and we must get in the habit of taking action. Action shatters cynicism. To make it easier and simpler for us to get in the habit of acting, when something is not as it should be there are two words I am going to recommend that you remove from your vocabulary.
I love words, so I do not do this lightly…but a couple of words need to go. Two words we need to retire, and the first one is the word “they” …in a new and racially active citizenship, there is no “they”, only we and I. When we point and blame, and say “they need to”….we are also saying “I am not a part of the problem.” And that stands in the way of positive action.
The second word we need to remove is “but.” No buts allowed. No but zone. “But” is cynical, doubtful and we have no time for “buts” today. Retire them both.
So.
I believe that we are suffering from a crisis of leadership and that the root cause of this problem is actually us.
I believe that we are also in fact the solution…the new way of leadership is us…engaged in an active…participatory…collaborative citizenship, architecting our future.
WE are the problem, WE are the solution, and we have at our disposal the ideal set of tools for doing this work. Social Media.
In the third post on this topic I will examine why this is the ideal set of tools for us in making this change real.
be good to each other