Archive for category: International Leadership Association

This blog is provided by Erica Fowler. It is a companion to Henry Mintzberg’s interview on Innovating Leadership, Co-creating Our Future, Rebalancing Society: Radical Renewal, Beyond, Left, Center, Right.

The International Leadership Association (ILA) held its global conference in Ottawa, Canada, in 2019 with the theme ‘Leadership, Courage Required’. Maureen Metcalf, an ILA fellow, hosted a series of live-recorded interviews with global leadership experts to explore their research, best practices, and expert view of today’s complex issues. In this interview, Henry Mintzberg discusses his recently published book ‘Rebalancing Society: Radical Renewal Beyond Left, Right, Center’ and the key to uniting and mobilizing our fragmented leaders.

There is no denying that today’s political and social climate is polarized. It is often described as a pendulum that swings back and forth, gravitating to each extreme, a large swath of people or issues frozen in the middle. Presently, the pendulum seems as if it is at greater risk of breaking in half than swinging to one side or the other. In discussing this polarization, Mintzberg illustrates the unrest with figures from the most recent ranking of democracies by The Economist. Less than 6% of the world population lives in a full democracy. The United States ranked #25 as a flawed democracy, and the global score was the worst since the rankings began in 2006. Despite the downward trend in recent years, all is not lost.

In his book, Mintzberg discusses the need to ‘rebalance society’ on its three pillars. Two we well know, the public (government) and private (privately held businesses and corporations), but the third isn’t as obvious to some. He calls this missing piece the ‘plural sector,’ and it’s comprised of the community, member-owned co-operatives, foundations, and most importantly, you and me. The plural sector mobilizes grassroots efforts and large-scale social change.

Similarly, in the well-known book Good to Great, Jim Collins discusses the concept of the flywheel. Under the right conditions, an exemplary leader, a shared passion, and a common goal, companies that steadily exert the pressure of their collective efforts can manifest change that builds quietly over time and finally reaches a tipping point, gaining momentum and breaking through barriers. In Jim’s book, years of perseverance under these circumstances often led to stock market returns that were many times higher than that of the average market or competitive companies.

Like good-to-great companies, grassroots efforts require the plural sector to unite behind a common cause and, as Mintzberg says, ‘put teeth into’ that cause. It demands action with not only their unification, their protests, and their words – but with their own sustained and focused action. The plural sector is the force or the pressure needed to turn the flywheel and elicit action from the public and private sectors.

In his forthcoming research, Mintzberg is exploring how to mobilize the plural sector to rebalance society and offers some hints in this interview.

1. 1. Responsibility: Mintzberg insists that we must recognize that change starts with us. Technological advances, like the smartphone, have made it easier than ever for us to escape into our palms and ignore not only the needs of the surrounding community but ourselves. Pay the extra dollar. We are complicit in perpetuating polarization when we rejoice in the affordable consumption of goods that are manufactured by those that do not make a living wage.
   2. Relevance: Integrating into the plural sector allows issues facing the community to become relevant before they become personal. Mintzberg discusses relevance in the context of climate change. Melting ice caps and the plight of the polar bears is not proximal enough to most people’s daily lives to impact them in a meaningful way. But when the river next to their home rises enough to flood the basement, the changing climate is not as easily dismissed.
   3. Focus: Globalization and social media have ushered in freedom of choice and expression in ways unprecedented in human history. Our efforts are fragmented, and the pressure needed to enact change does not have the limitations needed for it to build up and breakthrough. Taking responsibility for issues that are relevant to your community allows critical mass to form behind an issue to build sufficient pressure.
   4. Perseverance: Change on a large scale or on the deep-rooted issues that drive polarization may require years or even decades of pressure. Instant gratification is a reality in so many facets of our life that we expect it in every interaction or endeavor. We become impassioned by new causes frequently and lose the focus and momentum that could if sustained, breakthrough as real, meaningful change.
   5. Accountability: Hold accountable those who push to imbalance society for personal gain. Mintzberg recognized that Occupy Wallstreet was fine as a protest, but no meaningful change came from it because the behaviors behind closed doors remained unchanged. It’s a start, but it’s not enough to peacefully protest with our feet and our voices. We must also protest with our votes and our actions.

To unite the plural sector and manifest change through the public and private sectors we must immerse ourselves in our communities, recognize that we are required to become the change we want to see in the world, and peacefully fight for what we believe in with our votes, our voices, and our actions.

About the Author

Erica N. Fowler, Ph.D., is a strategy and analytics professional with a profound interest in developing data-driven solutions to improve health and business outcomes. She studied Public Health specializing in social epidemiology at The Ohio State University and holds ten years’ experience melding industry experience with academic discipline. Her experience includes analytics product development, measurement strategy, database operations, business intelligence analytics, and statistical modeling.

Dr. Fowler’s passion is a professional development consulting as a certified Birkman Method consultant. She uses the Birkman Method, enhanced by her analytic skillset, to develop individual and group programs that foster emotional intelligence to improve communication skills and productive teamwork.

Her day job is Product Manager for the Applied Data Science and Omnichannel Experience teams at Syneos Health, the first end-to-end integrated pharmaceutical solutions organization. She serves as a contributing faculty member to the Health Education & Promotion program at Walden University, where she oversees the dissertation process for doctoral students. In her spare time, Dr. Fowler enjoys traveling the world, yoga, reading, and spending time with her family.

 

Dr. Henry Mintzberg provides this blog. It is taken from the website and used with permission. This blog is a companion to his interview on Innovating Leadership, Co-creating Our Future, Rebalancing Society: Radical Renewal, Beyond, Left, Center, Right.

How to restore balance in this lopsided world?

Encouraging is that so many concerned people are engaged in so many constructive activities—whether to restore social justice, reverse the change in climate and the decline in democracy, or build the social economy—and that so many more people are ready to go.

Missing, however, has been a guiding vision, a statement of purpose as a way forward—toward a consolidated movement for global reformation.

This is why a group of us developed this Declaration of Our Interdependence. Please read it, and if you agree with it, sign it, and share it widely.

Let this be a happy new year—for 2020 vision.

The Story of This Declaration

This story can be traced back to 1991, when Henry Mintzberg, a professor of management at McGill University in Montreal, visited Prague just as the communist regimes were collapsing in Eastern Europe. Western pundits at the time were proclaiming the triumph of capitalism, but from here it looked like balance had triumphed, over imbalance. The communist regimes were severely out of balance, with too much power concentrated in their public sector governments, whereas the successful democracies of the West had maintained a relative balance of power across their public sector governments, private sector businesses, and—crucially—plural sector communities. This misunderstanding would drive the Western democracies themselves out of balance, in favor of private sector markets. These thoughts were outlined in a 1992 article, and eventually published in a 2015 book entitled Rebalancing Society.

Irene is a Canadian manager who has worked in the private and plural sectors. After reading an early draft of this book, she said “I’d like to do something. I just don’t know where to start.”  This became The Irene Question in the book, and has occupied much of Henry’s attention ever since. What can each of us do, and what can all of us do—in our communities, associations, businesses, and governments? The answers, it turns out, are numerous—witness all the activities of concerned people the world over, from marching in protests to growing their social economies. Lacking, however, has been a vision to consolidate these efforts into a widespread movement for global reformation.

Toward this end, in February of 2019, nine people gathered at a retreat near Montreal, out of which came a map to visualize balance across the sectors, a table to order various ideas for action, and the decision to create a declaration of interdependence. On the drive back to Montreal from the retreat, Henry and Jeremiah Lee, a consultant in Boston, went through the clauses of the American Declaration of Independence, one by one, and began to draft clauses for today’s interdependence, using the wording of the original declaration where helpful. Many drafts later, the nine of us who participated in the creation of this document (listed first in the signatories) agreed that this declaration was ready to be posted—for 2020 vision.

 

The Declaration of our Interdependence

For two centuries, the American Declaration of Independence served as the model to grow democracy. Now our world has reached the limits of growth driven by the pursuit of individual rights at the expense of shared responsibilities. Faced with the threats of warming, weapons, waste, and the lopsided distribution of wealth, we must declare our interdependence.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created dependent—on each other, our earth, and its climate—endowed with the inalienable responsibility to maintain justice, liberty, and affiliation for all. Thus our societies must sustain balance across public sector governments that are respected, private sector businesses that are responsible, and plural sector communities that are robust. Some societies retain this balance; others have lost it; many never had it. We propose the following resolutions to guide the rebalancing of society:

Balance begins when each of us decides how we shall become part of the solution. By doing nothing, we remain part of the problem.

We advance to action in our communities, networked to consolidate a global movement for peaceful reformation.

We commit to the ideals of social conscience, fair trade, and good government, to replace the dogma of imbalance—that greed is good, markets are sufficient, and governments are suspect. We explore our human resourcefulness by resisting our exploitation as human resources.

We build worthy institutions in all three sectors of society—departments in government, enterprises in business, associations in communities—from the ground up, with widespread engagement that carries individual leadership into collective communityship.

At the tables of public policy, we strive to replace the compromises of self-interest with the coalescing of common interest.

We challenge the rampant corruption that is legal as vigorously as we expect our governments to prosecute the overt corruption that is criminal.

Sustainable global balance requires substantial global government. We call on all democratic nations to rally for lasting peace, by containing any power that aims to dominate while holding economic globalization in its place, namely the marketplace.

These resolutions require concerted action, not by centrally orchestrated planning so much as through a groundswell of initiatives by concerned citizens the world over, to restrain our worst tendencies while encouraging our best. For the future of our planet and our progeny, this is the time to get our collective act together.

As one people indivisible under one big sky,
we pledge to defend balance in this priceless world.

 

You can sign the declaration here.

About the Author

Henry Mintzberg is a writer and educator, mostly about managing originations, developing managers, and rebalancing societies, which is his current focus. Henry sits in the Cleghorn Chair of Management Studies at the Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University in Montreal.

He has authored 20 books, including Simply Managing and Bedtime Stories for Managers, which have earned him 20 honorary degrees. Henry co-founded the International Masters Program for Managers as well as a venture CoachingOurselves.com, novel initiatives for managers to learn together from their own experience, the last in their own workplace.

Henry may spend his professional life dealing with organizations, but he spends his private life escaping from them—mostly in a canoe, up mountains, and on a bicycle. You can find out more about his adventures on mintzberg.org, which includes his blog.