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Leadership Development and the End of Witchcraft

Leadership
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"We live in a real world of science and technology, but in our organisations we live in an imaginary world of witchcraft."

John Raddall

IT'S TIME TO INJECT INTELLIGENT THINKING AND ACTION...

Let's examine some facts.  

  • Approximately 400 Billion dollars are spent annually on leadership development.  Research shows that this is largely a waste of time and money with little or no impact on organisational performance.  (HBR)
  • Organisations are dropping like flies.  The average organisation has a half-life now of less than ten years.  All the king's horses and all the king's men are not putting organisations back together again.  (Scale, Geoffrey West)
  • Entrepreneurs taught in scientific thinking and methods are forty times more profitable than those taught in our pre-Darwinian methods.  (Think Again.  Adam Grant)
  • Organisations are questioning traditional and expensive MBA programmes as their impact on a person's ability to lead more effectively seems negligible at best, and dangerous at worst.
  • 85% of employees say that their boss is their biggest problem.  (The No Asshole Rule.  Professor Robert Sutton.)  Clearly we have no clue how to select and develop decent and competent leaders.
  • Over 90% of C-Suite and Board members are scientifically and environmentally illiterate.  (Financial Times.)

WITCHCRAFT VS SCIENCE

Witchcraft is the sorcerer's art of taking something patently untrue, re-packaging it and selling it as the 'truth'. Social media is the artery of choice.

Science on the other hand is the continuous pursuit of the truth, based on method, evidence, testing and re-testing. 

EXAMPLES OF ORGANISATIONAL WITCHCRAFT 

  • Every statement, book, article, lecture which starts with "A leader must be...." or "Leadership is...." If there is no evidence and no way of implementing and testing any of this endless list of ludicrous claims, then it's witchcraft.
  • Traditional HR departments, the covens of organisational witchcraft.
  • Transformation projects. Over 90% fail. Witchcraft.
  • The avalanche of new age books, thick on gooey and nice sounding witchcrafty ideas, and desperately thin on actual science. From 'now' and 'quantum consciousness' to 'secrets' and 'monks and their Ferraris' there is an infinite supply of craziness.

THE SCIENTIFIC ALTERNATIVE 

Adam Grant has shown in the real world that leaders trained in the scientific method of thinking are forty times more profitable than traditional methods.

Further some of the most successful leaders in modern times have all focussed the development of their organisations on scientific thinking and action.  These include Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg.

Let's have a look at the driver of their scientific success.  The remarkable evolutionary algorithm, the driver of  life, the universe and everything.  First a word on energy.

THE FOUR FORCES OF ENERGY 

There are four basic energy forces that drive the universe.  These are gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces.  All four forces are constantly in tension with each other, creating a living and dynamic universe, ever since the big bang.  And of course these forces also drive you, your team and your organisation.

Evolutionary survival therefore depends on our ability to manage this energy.  If we do it well we survive and grow.  If we do it badly, we go out of business.  The evolutionary algorithm offers us an opportunity.

THE MAGIC OF THE EVOLUTIONARY ALGORITHM - THE MIND OF THE UNIVERSE 

We know that our universe has been in existence for 13,8 billion years and our planet for 4,6 billion years, and our modern world of science and technology a few hundred years.  

The thing that has kept the whole show running including the emergence of conscious life is the evolutionary algorithm.  And all this without any apparent interference from passing deities.

If there is an engine or 'mind of the universe' that drives the four fundamental forces, it is this remarkable algorithm.  It is so smart that we can only be amazed by it.  Actually understanding it will probably remain a step too far for mere humans.

This is how the evolutionary algorithm works.

Wherever there is repetition, variation and selection you MUST GET EVOLUTION.  NOT MAYBE.  NOT COULD BE.  NOT SOMETIMES, BUT MUST.

And here lies the secret for bringing science to organisations.  It's all about changing behaviour.

THE ART AND SCIENCE OF CHANGING BEHAVIOUR 

The underlying weakness in our pre-Darwinian approach to leadership and organisational development is that it seldom generates real and sustainable changes in behaviour.  Evidence the high failure rate of so-called organisation transformations - at least 90% - and the abject failure of leadership development, and it is clear that our witchcraft approach has successfully and doggedly fought off the potential power and success of the evolutionary algorithm.  Not our brightest moment.

However the proper application of the evolutionary algorithm offers a whole new and revolutionary approach to the potential use of science in organisations.

Performance is driven by behaviour.  Change behaviour and you automatically change performance.  And the only way to change behaviour sustainably is through the application of the evolutionary algorithm.

THE GENIUS OF FREEMAN DYSON 

Freeman Dyson was one one of the greatest scientific minds of our time.  He showed that biological evolution of Homo Sapiens has ended.  There are no more isolated communities where evolutionary 'drift' can take place.  Basically we are now all together in the same global soup. 

However cultural evolution, which has brought us to where we are, will continue on its path.  As long as there is life on this planet the remarkable wheel of the evolutionary algorithm will continue to turn.

And leaders and organisations now have a choice.  Introduce scientific thinking and access the power of the universal algorithm, or stick with the comfort of witchcraft.

Here are some fine words from Freeman Dyson, who died recently at the age of ninety-nine.

"The cultural evolution that damages and endangers natural diversity is the same force that drives human brotherhood through the mutual understanding of diverse societies. Wells's vision of human history as an accumulation of cultures, Dawkins's vision of memes bringing us together by sharing our arts and sciences, Pääbo's vision of our cousins in the cave sharing our language and our genes, show us how cultural evolution has made us what we are. Cultural evolution will be the main force driving our future." Freeman Dyson

Source: Foundation for Evolutionary Growth 

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John Raddall

John Raddall

 

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