Leadership in Complexity

"Leadership in Complexity" maintains a position and a viewpoint that each one of us is a leader of his/her own life not only to change oneself but also to act as agents of change for others through their actions and ideas. For this, one needs the courage to look at his/her own thought process to discover the underlying assumptions, beliefs, perceptions that create the apparent complexity and paradoxes one is engaged with in life.

That in short is the essence of social and cultural innovation and entrepreneurship. However, the important thing to be kept in mind is that we are not going to create any purely imagined 'desired future' in our minds rooted in idealism and run after that. For example, we are not going to say that 'let us build a more resilient community' or let us aim for more 'structure and order' realizing that resilience, structure, order are products of self organization.

Why is that? This is because 'complex systems' would not listen to what we 'desire'. They produce their own emergence, which take on various forms. For instance 'failures', 'insight' 'learning', 'wisdom', 'strange behavior', 'shortfall in attendance' , 'bad quality', 'low productivity', 'obesity', 'disease', 'epidemics' and 'love' are all cases of 'emergence'. And these are never fixed or static. They keep changing over time.

So, it is indeed stupid to have any fixed plan in the mind and exert our will to achieve the 'desired mental model' we have in mind. That of course does not tell us not to have any 'intention' whatsoever. Nor does it ask us to submit to 'fatality' of reality. Our path clearly lies in balancing between the two wheels of 'reality' and 'desire' forged by our will emanating from intention. Such balancing act is fueled by the heady mix of courage to pay attention to our thought process and the deeply felt intention to balance.

Our intention in most cases would be to adapt to the ongoing emergent phenomenon by exploring the rules that generate the emergence and then examine the underlying 'paradoxes' that shape and sustain such emergence enabling us to adapt through balancing (the Indian concept of jugaard) to give shape to a better collective future. Our aim is not to achieve this or that. Our aim is to simply adapt based on the emergence. It is a delicate balancing act like walking on the sword's edge and being in the fire at the same time.

I believe it makes life simpler, fun to live, helps us 'survive' better and also 'collectively thrive'.

The philosophical base that we are going to use is 'Complex Adaptive Systems'

The process that we would use to do so would be #Nemetics

And the tools that we would use would be many but mostly Dialogs, Learning by Doing, Iterations, Improvisations and even employ mathematical tools, if needed, like Time Waveforms, Fourier Transform without losing sight of highly explosive techniques like Meditation and the use of Principles of #nemetics

While knowledge lies in selecting the right technique for a given context or situation wisdom lies in balancing and adapting, where both knowledge and wisdom are contextual emergence.

Intention is the Difference that Creates the Difference!

Intention is the difference that creates the difference.

Same information creates two different meanings for two people viewing the same information at the same time. Their intention differs.

Same information creates two different meanings for a person over a period of time. This is because the intention towards the information changes over time. Therefore the difference is created.

Same poem can evoke two different responses from two different personas. The intention makes the difference.

Two persons speak the same sentence in two different ways. Intention makes the difference.

Same lecture is understood in two different ways by two students. Their intention towards the lecture, lecturer, content and subject differs. And that creates the difference.

A student says, 'I am not able to memorize anything. I must first understand something very well before it gets under my skin." It is her intention that would determine whether she would remember or fail to remember or remember after a lot of struggle and time.

Plain looking Jack loves a plain looking Jane. A plain looking Jane suddenly turns into a beautiful princess in the eyes of a plain looking Jack and not to other Jacks. They are suddenly transformed into Cinderellas and Hamlet. Their intention towards each other made the difference. Their intention towards each other creates the attention and determines the quality, nature and form of attention. 

One single photo posted on Facebook generates 31 different comments. It is the intention of a commentator towards the photo, photographer and other commentators that creates the difference. The intention that creates the difference is out in the open for others to feel. Palpable!

People enter a 'brain-storming' session already knowing what the management wants of them and they storm their brains or think accordingly. The output of such meetings is determined by the intention of the management. If the management's intention is to force people to buy-in something people would buy in. If the management's intention is to create an open creative environment to foster creativity and innovation then the output would be creative solutions and innovation. The intention of the management creates the difference in the outcome.

No one can possibly sell anything to anyone unless the intention of the buyer allows for that. Sales figure of different regions differ by the intention of the customers from different regions.

The win or losing of a political party in any democratic election is a result of voters' intention. The intention makes the difference between a winner and a loser.

Intentions create memories. Intentions create actions. Intentions create results. Intention creates beauty. Intention creates chaos and complexity.

But intention is a highly emotional response. It is not subjected to rational thinking, rationale, logic, or this theory or that. It is created from direct experience or direct perception of a person or influenced by others whom one trusts and respects. It is influenced by the environment (physical, mental, spiritual) one lives. It can't be influenced or modified or changed by force or by battering one with any mantra. It is sudden. It is emergent. It is chaotic.

Intention is also the glue that binds collaborative efforts.

Intention paves the way for a heart to heart dialog to create meaning and evolve into higher consciousness.

Intention creates love between two persons.

Intention creates the environment that determines whether an employee would give out his/her heart for the work or leave an organization.

Intention creates the relationship between the teacher and her students helping a student to love and master a subject.

Intention helps us find things and be happy about it.

Intention helps us link two distinct memories, words, thoughts, ideas, images, solutions, people into something more than any one of the original items. Intention is the source of creativity.

Intention creates a brilliant business or a failed one.

Intention helps us achieve seemingly impossible tasks.

Intention restores our health or destroys it.

Intention would determine whether a problem would be solved or would it remain unsolved.

But for creative flow to happen Intention must be matched by intention. Then only creativity flows.

Intentions can be felt or understood even in silence, without a word passing between persons.

Intention determines whether one would express in poems, prose, mathematics, scientific rationale, speech, art, stone,... etc.

Intention works like magic to create the differences that we see around us. There would never be a world where everybody thinks and behaves alike or can be forced to think or behave alike.

In others words intention is the cornerstone of personal development and creative leadership.

In simple terms, intention is, "What do you want?"

Those simple words must be the first words of a leader to his/her followers.

Are we clear about what we want?

Have we made it clear?

It hardly matters whether it is explicit or implicit. But it has to be there. Once there, the rest happens automatically and effortlessly.

It is the difference that creates all the differences.