A lot of blogs and business articles focus on the "leadership" thing. It seems that all that's right and all that's wrong with a company comes down to leadership. And training around leadership has become a booming business.
Based on my quick read in this area it seems the books, articles, blogs, seminars, emails, etc. all focus on a leadership as if it were one person doing the leading. We believe it takes a single leader to make a difference and we've made superstars of business leaders such as Jack Welch who were in "leadership" positions at successful companies.
But I wonder if this is all history - and the future will be very different.
Halo 3 - The New Leadership Model
I was watching my son play Halo 3 the other day. If you're not familiar with Halo 3 climb out from under your rock - it was probably the most anticipated game in history for the XBox 360 this year taking in over $170 million in it's first day of release. (Although this post highlights my experience with teenagers on Halo 3... the demographic for Halo 3 falls in the 18-34 year old category at least according to one
He was playing online with his three cousins (who live 500 miles away - two north and one south of us - so we're talking 1,000 miles total span - which is cool in its own right) in group mode whereby they make up a team and some other folks on the internet make up another team. The object of the game is to get to 50 kills (no ranting on violence in video games please.)
What struck me while watching is that at any given time during the game anyone can - and will - be the leader of the team. Depending on your location and weapon, you may be a scout, or a support person or the leader - calling the shots, telling other team members where to go to get the bad guys, directing traffic. You may be the leader one minute - shot the next - and someone else picks up the slack. What is so interesting is that it is seamless.
There is no discussion of who will lead and when. It just happens. There is no arguing over who is right/wrong. It is almost innate in how these 14-18 year olds manage their team to achieve their goal. It is something to watch. Leadership flowing from one kid to another with nary a word spoken about who is the "real" leader.
But there are some cues that help the teams function so fluidly.
First of all - each player on XBox Live (the service that enables the online game play) has a ranking that tells all the other players what their skill level is. So going into the game there are unspoken hierarchies of competency. Typically, better players stay alive longer and therefore have more "leadership time" and get preferential treatment visa vie leading.
Second - the service allows for real-time conversation. Each kid has a headset that allows them to talk to their team members. This is very important during the game as the kids tell each other where the bad guys are and who should go which direction. But more importantly, I noticed that after each "battle" there was a lot of discussion on what worked and what didn't. No judgments, just facts. The kids recapped their game, acknowledge successes and failures and got back into the next game.
Long-winded way of getting to these critical elements for managing, motivating and influencing today's younger workers...
Leveraging Transient Leadership
First of all - leadership is transient.
This group of workers believe that being a leader is situational at best. The current environment dictates who is the leader. The leader a few minutes ago may not be the leader in the next few minutes. In the business world the time frames may be longer (but not much any more) but the concept is the same. Workers today expect and understand that leadership is transient and are not phased by those kinds of changes. Whereas older workers may have grown up in environments where leaders lasted decades, today's new workers are able to quickly change leaders based on the environment presented.
Second - the ability to shift leaders is predicated on having information on skills.
As in Halo 3 - knowing what the person brings to the table is critical in order for a worker to shift alliances. Communicating and documenting skills will be one of the foundational blocks that will allow a company to leverage transient leadership.
Third - ongoing discussions on what worked and what didn't - as soon as the "battle" is over - are critical.
This will mean more candid conversations held as soon after the event as possible. We no longer have the luxury of months of preparation to discuss last year's marketing plan - we need to talk now and react now. That is the world we live in.
Cult of Company not Personality
All of this means our engagement tactics for this group of folks have to based on themes that are not tied to individuals - they have to be tied to the culture of the organization. Individual leaders will change more quickly in the future and as with Halo 3 - there needs to be a common theme for the company. For Halo 3, it is to survive and kill as many of the other guys as possible. For the business it needs to be that simple as well. Simple enough to allow multiple changes in leadership without jeopardizing the organization.
For the future reward and recognition strategies to influence the behaviors of the workforce need to tie back company cultural themes - not an individual.
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