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Embracing Your Craziness

I’ve been trying to keep an eye on the results of this years Peter Drucker Forum and based upon what I’ve seen so far, it appears that things haven’t change much from last year. While it does seem like more and more people are seeing the changes needed to transform the way work works, it…

I’ve been trying to keep an eye on the results of this years Peter Drucker Forum and based upon what I’ve seen so far, it appears that things haven’t change much from last year. While it does seem like more and more people are seeing the changes needed to transform the way work works, it seems as though many do not want to accept these changes and then act upon them. Now if it sounds like I’m being judgemental of these people, I’m not. If anything, I want to show how this is completely normal behaviour.

What I’m talking about here is how people deal with paradigms, as described by Joel Arthur Barker within his book Paradigms: The Business of Discovering the Future. Paradigms effectively act as physiological filters that can prevent us from seeing things, even if they are plain as day under our very noses.

You are quite literally unable to perceive data right before your very eyes.

But it is not just visual. You listen but do not hear. You touch but do not feel. You sniff but don’t smell. All the senses are mediated by the Paradigm Effect.

But as I noted above, I think people are finally beginning to see things. What’s holding them back though is that they still don’t believe what they are seeing. It just still seems too crazy. And that is where the greater problem lies for many. We are fearful and afraid of being seen as crazy by our peers. Any yet to move forward, we need to learn how to embrace this craziness and make the leap.

Making The Impossible Possible

Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

Alice in Wonderland

You see I’m realizing that the more we ignore what we are seeing, the more crazy and agitated we become. Therefore,  paradoxically it is only by accepting and believing the craziness that we can prevent ourselves from going crazy. If this seems ludicrous then you just have to remember where we are going.

The world is changing rapidly and we must change rapidly with it. We need to let go of the Old World that is dying and step forward into the New World that is emerging. Only by letting go can we grasp and take hold of the new. Therefore, to step into this New World, you pretty much need to be crazy because everything within it has been shifted and works differently than the Old World. In effect, the whole system has changed.

It’s Hard To Let Go

To give one example of this, I keep laughing every time I see a discussion around the problem of managers. They are a social artifact of management that is no longer needed because management, while still existing, transforms and shifts to the entire organizational body with everyone self-managing themselves and the organization as a whole.

Some of the recaps of the Drucker Forum have pretty much stated this outright as well (i.e. everyone is a manager) but in the same breadth of saying that managers are no longer needed, they continue describing how managers should work within these new organization. This only shows how strong a hold the old ways of work are so ingrained in our minds that it is almost next to impossible to let them go, even when we want to do so.

Leading By Example

Finally, the most humorous thing I noted of all about these recaps is this foreboding sense of “What now? Who’s leading the charge?” In effect, for those who do seem gung ho about stepping into this future, it seems as they don’t want to be the ones taking that messy first step and landing flat on their face. But that’s the only way to move forward because every first step is always a difficult one and that’s how we learn through failure.

Therefore, the people leading the charge will need to be everyone everywhere to make it a collective momentum and tipping point. This in turn is the future of leadership and how it shifts to the entire collective or organization as well.

To close things off, I’d like to enclose a quote below that I wrote back in 2013 after last years Peter Drucker forum. While people are finally starting to grasp my first two points about everyone being a manager and leader, it appears that it still might take another year before they understand how everyone is a customer.

Transforming work. Everyone is a manager. Everyone is a leader. Everyone is a customer.

Nollind Whachell

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