District Conference

Sept. 9, 2005

LEADERSHIP It’s not just for

“leaders” anymore

Dr. Tom Keenan, I.S.P., CISSP

Professor, Faculty of Environmental Design & Dept. of

Computer Science

University of Calgary

District Conference

Sept. 9, 2005

WHY Leadership?• "We do not believe in ourselves

until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable,

worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch.

• Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the

human spirit.• e.e. cummings (1894-1962)

District Conference

Sept. 9, 2005

Story: Cullen Jennings• Raised on a fishing boat in Duncan,

B.C.• Had a wicked sense of humor• Attended Shad Valley in 1986• Went on to earn honours degrees in

Math (B.Sc., M.Sc.) at U of Calgary• Started PhD program at UBC• Dropped out of the program• Sent us a press release in 2000

District Conference

Sept. 9, 2005

District Conference

Sept. 9, 2005

I’m not trying to take credit, but…• Cullen says what happened to

him at Shad Calgary in 1986 had a lot to do with this

• He came back in 2004 and “gave back” to the Shad community

District Conference

Sept. 9, 2005

Cullen at Shad

District Conference

Sept. 9, 2005

From The Leader’s Brain by Bastiaan Heembergen• Doing it without thinking about it

(Blink)• Neuroplasticity• Improvisation• In business , creativity and art are most

frequently confined to the advertising and marketing departments

• Leadership through Art• Exercise: Play a piece of music and

write down the thoughts that it brings into your mind.

District Conference

Sept. 9, 2005

An exercise

• Write down five questions that come to mind, things that you would love to know the answers to.

• Write down any common themes that come to mind.

District Conference

Sept. 9, 2005

Characteristics of a Good Leader

• Leaders need to develop intellectual humility and suspend judgment

• On the surface, it sounds like a tension, because leaders are expected to “take charge”

• Journal of Cognitive Science article: people overestimate their understanding of a problem

District Conference

Sept. 9, 2005

Characteristics of a Good Leader• Leaders need to increase their

capacity to voluntarialy attend in an age of continuous partial attention

• Leaders need to diminish their inattentional blindness and over-reliance on analytical/logical tools and look at voluntary attention and unclutter their mind.

District Conference

Sept. 9, 2005

Our lives have changed!• Balance between business time and

leisure time is blurred, • Many leaders are 24/7 personalities• Too little attention is left over to

“participate in the world on its own terms,” to be surprised, to learn new things, to empathize.

• Giving full attention to a problem is not the best recipe for providing fresh perspectives and thoughts.

• Need to create safe external and internal environments that release voluntary attention.

District Conference

Sept. 9, 2005

Mindfulness for Leaders• Are we mindless? Sometimes• Mindfulness is “a state of

alertness and lively awareness that is manifested in active information processing, characterized by the creation and refinement of categories, and distinctions and the awareness of multiple perspectives.” –Ellen Langer

District Conference

Sept. 9, 2005

Story: IDEOThe best ideas are in the cracks• “Most influential design firm in the

world”• “one of the largest and arguably

most innovative product design firms in the world, with more than 300 employees and annual revenues of over $50 million“

• "I think the really interesting things are happening between what we used to know as the conventional disciplines," – David M. Kelley, IDEO founder

District Conference

Sept. 9, 2005

Moving from either/or to both/and thinking”• Almost everyone has

something good to say, for example good intentions

• Beware of setting up either/or choices

• Try to come from abundance, not scarcity

District Conference

Sept. 9, 2005

One summary of the “IDEO method”• Gather insightful, motivated human

beings, regardless of disciplinary background;

• Put them under intense deadline pressure, yet pamper them in ways that reinforce a sense of community;

• Challenge them to do great, creative work;

• Stand back as they blow you away with sideways solutions the likes of which the world has never seen.

District Conference

Sept. 9, 2005

From a review of the Art of Innovation• A great deal of the book outlines

the emphasis that IDEO puts on the treatment of their employees

• Quick and frequent prototyping as a key to success.

• All projects start by assigning a "hot" team and letting them brainstorm and prototype their way into some great ideas. No details are given on how the teams are formed or managed

District Conference

Sept. 9, 2005

A leader is a human in a sea of VM, IVR, BOTS• Futurist Raymond Kurzweil

predicts computer power will surpass human brain around 2025

• “The Point of Singularity”• “Living” proof why we’re not there

yet…

District Conference

Sept. 9, 2005

District Conference

Sept. 9, 2005

District Conference

Sept. 9, 2005

District Conference

Sept. 9, 2005

District Conference

Sept. 9, 2005

District Conference

Sept. 9, 2005

District Conference

Sept. 9, 2005

A leader says it’s “half full”

District Conference

Sept. 9, 2005

District Conference

Sept. 9, 2005

And remember…