Lead from the bottom
You've probably noticed that there have been a lot of abject failures at the top, where the big bosses operate, where the impacts of stupid, hubristic and greedy decisions cascade down to affect all of us. From the U.S. presidency to the leadership of our banking and investment systems to our short-sighted managers of healthcare, we have a growing pile of examples of spectacular ineptitude.
Groups make tools. Tools make groups.
At the same time, the tools for collaboration through technology have become more ubuitous and self-generating, allowing grassroots groups - in the public Web and increasingly imported into the business and enterprise online environments - to become more robust. If people find value in associating with others, they will adopt media that maintain and enhance that value. In turn, those relationships become the networks for introducing and adopting the next generation or offshoot of technical tools.
Support internal subversion
The smart organizations are realizing that these relationships - among staff members and employees as well as relationships that reach beyond the organization - are fertile ground for creative thinking and cross-pollinating knowledge. These organizations are building resilience by supporting and sponsoring the use of so-called Web 2.0 tools.
Resiience is the capacity to adapt, and there's more and more coming down the pike for organizations to adapt to, including the bursty evolution of social technologies. Conditions in many key aspects of the real world are becoming more complex: climate change, healthcare, the economy, education, extreme weather, the urgency to innovate and make sudden changes in direction.
A good government is a good follower
Our levels of government are dealing with all of those issues and more. Politics have also become more complex (and corruptible) at every level, with countless costly obligations and slow-as-molasses processes.
During the past year, I explored the feasibility of providing a Web facility for local governments and their citizens to use for climate change resilience and adaptation planning. I concluded that the local government will not - as I'd idealistically hoped - serve as the leadership nexus for early planning for local climate change impacts. Local governments have their plates full of obligations, even if new issues should take priority.
If it's locally important, take the reins
I've concluded that if early action is going to happen in the vast majority of local communities, it's going to be lead by the grassroots and local businesses. These are populations that - unlike local governments - can adopt and implement whatever tools prove most appropriate and helpful to their needs and intentions. These tools are free - or almost free - and offer low barriers to experimentation. Groups can form and find online workspaces at the moment of inspiration. They can move fast, change and evolve smoothly, begin organizing and taking action in a fraction of the time it would take for government to go through it's outdated processes.
Gored oxen
Bottom-up is often interpreted as anti-Top. That's the Top's fault. Of course, this can simply be a personality thing - some people strive to become executives because they think they've got all the good ideas. These are also the kinds of leaders who lead organizations over the cliff. There's resistance to democratizing the adoption of social and knowledge tools within organizations, but not all of it has been due to security or productivity concerns.
Generation Bottom-Up
Relatively few managers are experienced in dealing with hierarchy flattened by technology where high-level collaboration overrides strict and rigid managerial structures. Some managers have risen to their roles by fostering collaboration. It appears to me that generations raised using the collaborative tools of the Web will provide new generations of more collaborative management, replacing more hierarchical predecessors.
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