2. 1. Problem statement
2. Domain awareness
3. Context of leadership & management
4. Power, Authority, Influence
5. Organizations as systems
6. Modeling conversation
7. Enframed by language
8. The Paine Principle
9. Questions of leadership
16. Authority is more enduring than non-
legitimate forms of domination
Authority is related to the belief in legitimacy
• Authority is related to the belief in legitimacy
It may persist even if those obeying have a
• It may persist even if those obeying have a
greater material interest in disobeying
greater material interest in disobeying
• Authority is engendered by powerby power
Authority is engendered
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18. Authority is predicated on power
Power is not a substance.
It is not something you possess
Power is a relation between people
Power is not a substance. It is not something you possess
A set of actions on the actions of others
Power is a relation between people
A set of actions on the actions of others relation is a power relation
Every
Every relation is a power relation
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20. Power and Knowledge
Power and Knowledge are intertwingled
Every field of power creates a body of knowledge
Every body of knowledge creates a field of power
Power/Knowledge is a flow.
Knowledge is encoded in language
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21. Power is created through 3 axes of
subjectivity
Language (knowledge)
Governance (rules)
Governance (rules)
Ethics (cultural norms)
Ethics (cultural norms)
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23. SO WHAT OF INFLUENCE?
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24. Influence is the ability to affect other’s beliefs and
behavior without power.
Influence requires a defined context.
That context we’ll call a social system.
(which are complex adaptive systems)
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28. We need a model of conversation to understand power
IF ORGANIZATIONS ARE SYSTEMS
dynamics, decision making, and influence
OF CONVERSATION
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38. Kanban creates a shared context..
Using cards as “social objects”
Which allow teams to have conversations
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39. ORGANIZATIONS ARE CONVERSATION SYSTEMS
A system is defined by boundaries between itself and
its environment
Social Systems are created by selecting what is
meaningful to reproduce itself (Autopoiesis)
An organization creates itself through conversation
with practices encoded in language
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40. An organization increases its efficiency by creating
An and refining aincreaseslanguage. by
organization shared its efficiency
creating and refining a shared language.
This common language helps the organization arrive
This common language helps the organization
at decisions more efficiently.
arrive at decisions more efficiently.
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41. Yet while language fosters efficiency, it also
limits thelanguage fostersability to evolve.
Yet while organizations efficiency, it also
limits the organizations ability to evolve.
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42. The language and grammar of efficiency is
very different from the language of innovation
– yet both are necessary
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43. Constrained by a one vocabulary, the organization becomes
unable to adapt to exogenous shocks to the system.
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44. Unable to adapt, the organization
eventually declines and dies.
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45. By continually changing its language, and it's
conversations, an organization may continually
regenerate itself.
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46. The Paine Principle
An outsider introducing new language
may incite radical change
Named after Thomas Paine - an outsider to the American colonies,
who brought a new language of radical freedom, and gave a voice to
the revolution.
(He was, in essence, translating Voltaire into the context and
vernacular of colonial America)
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47. Like any organization, TLC is a set of conversations among people.
Like many organizations faced with the market conditions it sees
itself, it needed to change to meet new challenges.
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48. TLC couldn’t use its existing language & conversations to
change the way it handled adversity.
So it sought new languages… and a new grammar for
structuring conversations.
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49. To support an organization's future viability, effective
decision makers actively introduce change into the system.
They may do so by generating new language that teams in
the organization come to understand or embrace.
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50. Before IBM can reap the benefits of teams using design
thinking to increase collaborative ideation, they first have to
introduce the grammar & language of design thinking
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51. For organizations to regenerate themselves, they must first
recognize the limitations of their current language. Then they
must seek new language domains, and translate them into
conversations the organization may understand and embrace.
@SemanticWill | Will Evans
53. Leaderships role is…
About the reduction of uncertainty?
About reinforcing shared values?
Creating a framework for conversations?
Introduction of new languages?
Strategic reduction (or introduction) of friction?
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54. It’s the role of leaders within an organization to
incubate and then introduce new languages
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55. A thought…
You cannot use the language of the past to
articulate a vision for the future.
Current language can only write a narrative
of futures past.
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56. The task of discovering the requisite variety of tools
and disciplines is iterative.
The source of new languages is questions – questions
that spark new conversations
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57. As a leader, ask yourself…
What questions should you be asking?
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58. As a leader, ask yourself…
What questions should you be asking?
What questions are you not supposed to ask?
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59. As a leader, ask yourself…
What questions should you be asking?
What questions are you not supposed to ask?
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60. As a leader, ask yourself…
What questions should you be asking?
What questions are you not supposed to ask?
Ask questions that don't come easy.
@SemanticWill | Will Evans
61. As a leader, ask yourself…
• What questions should you be asking?
What questions should you be asking?
• What questions are you not supposed to
What questions are you not supposed to ask?
ask?
• > Ask those.
• Ask questions thatthat don't come easy.
Ask questions don’t come easy.
• Ask thequestion that are tough, awkward, taboo.
Ask questions that are tough,
awkward, taboo.
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