collaborative leadership:

harnessing the value of diversity

ebbf keynote Nousha Etemad

collaborative leadership: harnessing the value of diversityUnity and collaboration - To create meaningful and purposeful organizations ready for the 21st centuryOct 1 – Oct 4, 2015 Barcelona, Spain

(by Nousha Etemad)

2015: the world has changed

The world’s most popular media owner creates NO content

1The most valuable retailer has NO inventory

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The world's largest “taxi” company owns NO vehicles

3The world’s largest accommodation provider owns NO real estate

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The age of disruption

Advances in technology have disrupted our economy- yet more than four out of five organizations aren’t ready for it

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old disappeared

new leaders

Traditional Models

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How do we prepare?

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1. A culture that promotes, encourages and provides incentives for innovative behaviours and practices

2. Organizational agility to embrace new ways of working and making decisions

3. Enable change through the crowd

Because if you don’t, no one will…

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• Model applies equally to those in formal management positions and to individual contributors

• In one-on-one and small-group interactions we are all capable of leading to the degree that we’re willing to learn, and to bring people together and allow each individual’s strengths to contribute to a common goal

Principle based

“The permanence and stability achieved by any association, group or nation is a result of -- and dependent upon -- the soundness and worth of the principles upon which it bases the running of its affairs and the direction of its activities.”

- Shoghi Effendi, 18 December 1925

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Principle of unity

“One cannot create a unified world with partial, fragmentary, arrested selves which by their very nature must either produce aggressive conflict or regressive isolation…To be on friendly terms with every part of mankind, one must be on equally friendly terms with every part of oneself; and to do justice to the formative elements in world culture…one must nourish the formative elements in the human self.”- Lewis Mumford

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Harnessing the value of diversity

“Learn from the eyes the way to develop unity and oneness. The two eyes appear different but their vision is one.” - Indian Sufism

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“When you have a diverse team working on a project or managing some particular task, the consultation process will benefit from a richer variety of views and perspectives. Some individuals will be systematic and analytic, will look at a problem with a mathematician’s mind. Others will be more intuitive and their minds will look at problems in the context of relationships and prior experiences. Others may bring a time perspective which may be highly valuable but can be gained only through many years of work and considerable “trial and error”. Diversity is enriching because it expands the range of human capabilities that are brought to bear on the analysis of a particular problem, the search for a particular solution.”

- “Why diversity in the workplace matters” by Dr. Augusto Lopez-Claros - BreakThru Magazine, March/April 2008, no. 2, pp. 14-22 -

Consultation

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Industrialized Crowdsourcing

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“No matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else.” - Billy Joy

Inspire with Vision

Be Directive

Create Networks

Build Hierarchy

Command & Control

Support & Empower

Lead change

Trust

Fear Failure

Follow a Strict Plan

A new leadership mindset

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✓

✗

Learn & Grownew

old

Inspire with vision

▪ Describe “the frame”, allow the team to plan the details

▪ Strong and visible leadership is required to define a set of shared goals for teams to enable successful self organization and collaboration

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Lead change

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▪ Search for opportunities by seeking innovative ways to change, grow and improve

▪ Be open to changing direction

▪ Operate as organizational networks than regular hierarchical structures

Create networks

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Support & Empower

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“I try never to forget that the conductor is silent and the music is made by the players. The conductor’s job is to awaken possibility in others. My only power is that which comes from making others powerful.” -Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra

Trust

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Learn & Grow

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Inspire with Vision

Be Directive

Create Networks

Build Hierarchy

Command & Control

Support & Empower

Lead change

Trust

Fear Failure

Follow a Strict Plan

The time is now

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✓

✗

Learn & Grow