Engines of Engagement: The Universal Teacher

In many ways, much of the dialogue around Generative AI is remarkably simple and, in it’s own way, comforting. There is a menu of polarised or provocative positions that one may choose from (a choice of starters from bias to untruths, a main course of hallucination, and for those with a sweet tooth, the death of the artist), as well as a general flavour of tech utopia or dystopia to flavour it with (AI will save or doom us, today or tomorrow, as soon as it becomes sentient or weaponised).

What’s not to enjoy? In a very real sense, all of these positions, topics, and ideas are true, or real and we are wise to be wary.

But these ‘truths’ are not definitive truths. They are features of a landscape, but not the landscape itself.

When we wrote ‘Engines of Engagement: A Curious Book About Generative AI’, we were keen to write the book that nobody else was writing and, hence, we wrote a book of uncertainty and space. We sought to inform the stage of debate, not lecture to it.

The important word is ‘curiosity’. The book is curious both in terms of our own outlook, and in terms of the artefact we produced. It is not a book of certainty.

One of the ideas we explored was the question of ‘intelligence’ itself. I was at a lecture recently where an eminent professor casually dropped in that they expected to see General Intelligence announced this year, probably by late summer. Others tend towards a rather more conservative view and say that we will never see it at. Our position: well, we remain unsure (although we are not cancelling our summer holidays to wait for an announcement), but the debate may be eclipsed by circumstance.

One could argue that semantics aside, if we treat a system as intelligent, then in a pragmatic sense it holds the card for such a quality. It’s kind of like Google Maps. Is it ‘trustworthy’? Well not in a quantifiable sense. But still i trust it. At least to get me to the cinema. At the point where we trust the output, where we treat the system as an intelligent one, then maybe it is?

This week has seen much excitement (at least in the Society of Nerds, of which we are enthusiastic members) in the notion of the Universal Teacher. Not a sequel to the Jean-Claude Vann Damme masterpiece, but rather the notion of a personal ‘teacher’ adaptive, unique, and expert at individual tuition. Perhaps the distinction is that this is not an ‘intelligent’ system that i can interrogate, but rather a system that can actively teach.

Are we about to meet the Universal Teacher? Or some semblance of such?

A technology that holds mastery (or again, maybe not a human conception of mastery, but which nonetheless is faultlessly masterful), that can react to individual performance, can structure developmental pathways and the formation of schema and knowledge, and which can adapt in approach according to individual performance. A system that can teach.

At first glance, this sounds obvious and (almost) easy. Right now i can utilise free to use tools to summarise books, synthesise ideas, answer my questions, explain their reasoning, produce step by step worked examples, or entertain me with stories, riddles and songs. That’s teaching right?

Way way back in the popular narrative of Generative AI (e.g. April last year) Donald Clark provided both a rounded exploration of what a Universal Teacher is (and exceedingly annoyingly made the Universal Soldier joke way before i came up with it), and posited that we may be headed towards it. Just over a year later, he indicates that it may now be here.

http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/2023/04/are-we-on-verge-of-having-universal.html

He also updates his definition with the rather offhand description (for such a monumental thing) that a Universal Teacher is “A free teacher who speaks, listens, remembers, tutors, using all media types, can read handwriting, provide personalised feedback, on any subject, anytime, anywhere, in any language”.

http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/2024/05/is-teaching-becoming-obsolete-with.html

There is little wriggle room here. Almost every word in that definition is built upon billions of dollars of investment, and decades of research. But the second word may be the most important.

When we talk about learning, about education, about teaching, we tend to conflate two things. Pedagogy and the Business of learning. There is an underlying science of learning, and there are many types of business built upon it (or in some cases, tangentially leaning upon it, but without much in the way of rigid foundations).

Generative AI and the layers of technologies that, together, are undoubtedly close to a notion of a Universal Teacher form a pedagogic revolution. And these same technologies form a tsunami that will break against much of the ‘business’ of learning.

I caught up with an old friend this morning, who talked about his daughter going through university. She’s studying art and he was decidedly underwhelmed by what she was being given. Little challenge, little space to experiment and explore, not much of a social experience (as half the students are remote and there is no structured online collaboration) and a hefty loan to pay for it all. This is the Business of learning. It’s just that at some point it may have forgotten about the learning part.

We spend years of our lives in formal education (if we are lucky enough to live in countries that can afford it, and where – dependent upon gender – we are allowed to access it). When we consider the idea of a Universal Teacher, it’s all too easy to focus on the details and minutia, the philosophy and pedantry, at the top of the debate. The reality is that for many people just a decent teacher would be a benefit. An imperfect but available one.

For me, the progression in these technologies brings risk, for sure, but overwhelmingly it’s a matter of hope. In the book we discuss how Generative AI makes high quality dialogue – once an expert and rare feature – commoditised. When we wrap that dialogic capability into a more universally capable engine – capable in that it’s trans-disciplinary, multi talented, not to mention able to ‘speak’ in many tongues – and as we see more radical development of the ability to truly adapt to individual cognitive differences and ability, we do see something truly incredible.

Because a Universal Teacher is a foundation of a model of learning that becomes delaminated from structural systems of education. It also paves the way for a re imagination of the structural landscape of learning. If we no longer need systems built upon industrial models of education, perhaps we can see more diverse entities emerge that support the social aspects. Instead of going to a University, maybe i subscribe to laboratory facilities, sense making communities, a Student Hall, and a book club.

Perhaps the reason why the latest progression towards a Universal Teacher has been somewhat ignored in more mainstream media – despite it’s radical potential – is that we don’t care that much about teaching. But to ignore it is to miss the point that sooner than later we will be considering our stance on the Universal Clinical system, the Universal Lawyer, the Universal Financial Advisor, and Fitness Coach.

My own school will soon celebrate 300 years of teaching. I suspect that in one years time the Universal Teacher will have undergone more change, development, and impact, than many of those 300 years.

Aspects of Social Leadership: New Writing

I’ve been developing a new body of work around Social Leadership, and thought i’d use today to pull some of those pieces into one place, partly for myself to audit where i am, to see what themes are emerging, and partly for convenience to share!

I’ve lightly grouped these, but they do not yet represent a coherent body of work. Perhaps see them more as Expedition Notes as i try to get lost in this landscape.

Starting with Landscape, most recently i’ve been exploring the ‘ecosystem’ metaphor, and in particular in this piece i consider it both as a way of viewing ‘formal’ and ‘social’ systems (and how they are entangled), as well as viewing the ecosystem as a landscape we explore – so a more direct metaphor for Social Leadership (which includes much of the new language of ‘boundaries’, and ‘motion’ – more on this later).

Social Leadership: Ecosystem Perspectives

And this earlier piece that considers ‘closed systems’, which talks about our desire to interfere and tweak systems.

Social Leadership: Closed Systems

Again a longer piece here looking specifically at the idea of ‘Interconnection’ – this is a bridging piece that links this new work on Social Leadership into the existing work on the Socially Dynamic Organisation. I note in this piece that this is not intended to be definitive as a list – but rather that it’s a structured way of getting lost in an idea.

Social Leadership: 14 Aspects of Interconnection

Our ‘Social Context’ is newer language that i’ve been using to describe the intersection of systems, the space we operate within. It’s a formalisation of a number of disparate ideas i’ve been chasing. I suspect that the notion of leading within our individual Social Context will be a core theme of the new work – as well as understanding how we bridge between contexts.

Leadership and our Social Context

Speaking of ‘bridges’, these two pieces explore the idea of bridging between things as part of Social Leadership:

Leadership: Motion – Difference – Bridging

The specific idea is common, that we bridge between systems, or through difference and dissent. This is not about ‘connecting up’ into one simple whole, but rather about making it easier to transition between diverse spaces. Indeed overall Social Leadership is best envisaged as a multi-cultural not monocultural feature. Leading within difference.

The Social Leader As Bridge Builder

The Social Contract takes me back to the original Social Leadership work: describing how our Social Contract is fractured was one of the foundational pieces of writing back in 2014. But here i have updated it, and will continue to do so. This conversation is really about ‘how’ we are engaged into our Organisations, and why.

Social Leadership: Evolving Social Contracts

As we are back in 2014, let’s share this piece, which directly reflects upon how the original book has stood the test of time, and where, and how, it has evolved:

Exploring Social Leadership

Some of the ideas i am exploring today are very different from back then. You will have noticed (if you follow my work more broadly at all) that the idea of ‘Boundaries’ has come front and centre.

Leadership as Systemic: Boundaries

Developing Leadership: Boundaries of Power

And here the language of ‘Trespass’. Whilst others may not see it, for me this next piece is central. It’s an idea i have not yet fully explored, but i really like this piece.

Social Leadership: Trespass and Boundary

And this piece is one of the most developed ideas – this is another of my favourites.

Developing Leadership: Disturbance – Meaning – Motion

Part of this new work is important, but poorly explored so far: the idea of imperfection, and being lost. These pieces all skirt around it, but i have not yet landed the idea.

Disorientation and Imperfection

Social Leadership: Revisiting Imperfection

WorkingOutLoud on Imperfect Leadership

And speaking of imperfection, i have used the notion of ‘Fragments’ quite often in this writing – this is an artifice of the blog whereby i share fragmented and disparate thoughts. These are quick and short posts, that dig me out of trouble on busy days, but actually quite often prove fruitful for new ideas. And they are always weirdly popular! Sometimes i use these to share illustrations before i have completed the writing behind them. Or sometimes just to chase an idea.

The Imperfection of Leadership: Fragments

Social Leadership – Fragments of Thought

Fragments: The Key To Capability

Fragments: Leadership at the Intersection

Social Leadership: Fragments

This next idea is not fragmentary, but rather sits centrally in the new work. It also bridges into the work on the Socially Dynamic Organisation: the idea of ‘collective capability’ is new in my work, but i’m really focussed on it.

Collective Capability and Social Metacognition

And this piece explores it from a different angle: how we ‘unlock’ capability, and what that means in a networked context. This piece is probably important to develop out further.

The Key To Leadership

These final piece is foundational, considering ‘structural and social’ leadership, which is a development of the language used previously about leadership at the intersection of systems:

Structural and Social Leadership

I realise that i’ve already written a decent amount this year, and the act of drawing it together will help me to refocus and diversify. I often liken the act of writing to that of finding, or creating, the vocabulary that is then subsequently used to explore more deeply. I’m still partly at this early stage, but also have a feeling that some language is becoming mature.

This work is shared as part of #WorkingOutLoud on new aspects of Social Leadership

Social Leadership: Ecosystem Perspectives

Social Leadership considers relationships and boundaries, not only between formal and social systems, but also more broadly, between tribal and community structures, between domains of disparate knowledge and capability, between systems of action and consequence, between ownership and influence, between certainty and safety, and between complexity and failure. And a host of other aspects. It is in this sense a systemic and trans-disciplinary tool, or lens, for leadership.

A ‘system’ is made up of an interdependent and interrelated series of components. So the electrical wiring in your house makes up one type of system, and the cells of your body another. But not all systems are equal: some are adaptive, whilst others are fixed. You expect your body to heal, but do not expect your washing machine to do likewise. You have to intervene to fix it.

Systems may display resilience, or fragility. And of course systems can be held within a taxonomy, so the kettle that sits within your home is both part of the electrical landscape, but also arguably a system in it’s own right.

I think a valid perspective is to consider that ‘Formal’ leadership concerns the systems, structures, power, and effectiveness of the formally defined Organisation, whilst ‘Social Leadership’ considers the broader Social Context that flows through and around this. The two are entangled, but whilst both are ‘systems’, they operate in different domains, and through different mechanisms. This perspective hence considers leadership as broader than the formal domain alone, but also less defined in that it acts in a more broadly realised landscape. Not one thing so much as a collection of them.

In my work on Social Leadership i have always been drawn to ecosystem approaches – ecological systems being biological and evolutionary – as they reflect a holistic and complex, interdependent and interconnected perspective.

But also because they do not have one point of balance: ecosystems are inherently in motion, through the life that they host.

Within the system we breathe in, and we breathe out. The health of the ecosystem is not one defined place, but more broadly a wider space. It can be ‘healthy’ in different ways (and at different costs). And to tend to it, to nurture it, is to understand this. For me (and in my more recent language) it speaks of leadership as regenerative, as dialogic, as in motion, as imperfect, as inter-connective, as humble.

To adopt an ecosystem perspective on leadership may also cause us to consider levels of abstraction, itself a valid part of systems thinking approaches. So i can observe a single tree – a system that supports thousands of insects, and is interconnected to the broader landscape – and i can observe the forest in aggregate, or the land as a whole, or the weather that plays across it. Or i can soar above it and see the whole landscape.

To move, to be in motion, to change our location is to change perspective. In Organisational terms this relates to our certainty, ability to learn, the new nature of knowledge, the creation of ‘meaning’, the role of communities, the social currencies that glue them together, of the role of stories and narrative, and to understand aspects of the inter-tidal, liminal, and edge-land zones. Unclaimed or unowned space that is nonetheless part of the ecosystem. Again, this speaks to leadership as an act at the boundary.

An ecosystem perspective on Leadership is a way to conceptualise what leadership is, but equally we can locate leadership upon, or within, the ecosystem – to consider it as a landscape. To switch lens to view the ecosystem as the location or context of leadership (as opposed to the conception of it).

To extend this idea we may also shift our perspective, to take the ecosystem as the landscape, and then to consider leadership as the act of moving through it: this is perhaps to consider leadership as way-finding, navigating, map making, being lost, providing shelter or as an act of the Guide. It may also allow us to consider the landscape itself as meaning.

Whilst my current writing is visualising and exploring Social Leadership itself, i could again shift upwards to look at the overarching context of the Social Age and hence how this evolved context exerts it;s own pressure upon the ecosystem (and hence upon our leadership).

I recognise that my language is becoming obtuse: but this is a space for thinking for me right now. This is about writing as an intense and personal act of sense making: it may be shared, but not to directly convey meaning. Rather to define and explore a space.

#WorkingOutLoud on Social Leadership

Social Leadership: 14 Aspects of Interconnection

I’m building out new work on Social Leadership, so my writing is necessarily exploratory and unfocussed as i develop vocabulary, ideas, and imagery for a new book. In ‘The Socially Dynamic Organisation’ (2019), i introduced the language of ‘interconnection’ from a perspective of Organisational Design, and now, in this new work on Social Leadership, i am exploring it through this lens of leadership. In this, i am also influenced by my current doctoral research on ‘the landscape as meaning’, and my separate work on ’Imperfect Leadership’, the notion of leadership through ‘motion’, and the exploration of ‘boundaries’ and ‘trespass’.

Today i am not sure where i will end up, which is appropriate both for a methodology of #WorkingOutLoud, as well as for an exploration of a landscape and how it is interconnected! To guide me, i will explore fourteen aspects of interconnection: not a definitive list, but rather i simply sat in the Springtime sun and allowed my mind to lose focus, and capture the words that came to mind.

To set a context: my previous work in this space describes Organisations as ‘Structural’ entities, organised by vertical ‘Domains’, and in parallel as ‘tribal’ (trust bonded) structures.

Interconnection is the act of more intentionally creating connection, visibility, or trade, between these structures, and specifically to recognise that parts of this network are invisible to us, or that gatekeepers exist in both formal and social domains.

Interconnection is hence a journey of dialogue, negotiation, movement, and through difference and dissent, as well of course as through connection and welcome.

As a backdrop to these ‘aspects’ of interconnection, it may be worth sharing the following ideas: that our understanding of a landscape is inherently contextual to where we stand within it; that ‘getting lost’ is a valid mechanism of exploration, that a map represents an abstraction and not a truth, that territoriality and boundaries are inherent to understanding power, and hence that leadership is not simply within one system but may be to move between systems or to gather stories, and finally that there is a humility to leadership as we cannot be powerful in all spaces and contexts.

So, fourteen aspects of interconnection related to Social Leadership:

1. Transplanting – to carry things from one space to another. This may be ideas, stories, mythology, rituals, or even people. Literally to ‘uproot’ and then plant in a new space. This is the act of supporting re-contextualisation, or of a structural ability to rewire, reconvene, relocate, repurpose. It’s an act of taking what we have and assembling it in new ways, or an act of deliberately re-contextualising narratives, beliefs, belonging, in new spaces. All this is in support of challenging our certainty, or exposing ourselves to cultural difference, as a foundation of the disturbance inherent in learning. The Social Leader interconnecting through transplantation also speaks of the Social Leader as curator, gardener, collector: the deliberate act of assembling and reforming connection, which can include as part of the deliberate re-authoring of context that sits at the heart of change.
2. Transposing – the act of ‘transposition’ is, whilst related to transplantation, different in that it is the action of directly swapping two things over. So taking something from one place, and switching it with something from another. In this sense it is more akin we weaving, in that both objects have a ‘home’ they are taken from, and may return to. So this may be about the act of interconnection by deliberately stitching together disparate structures – perhaps by moving people, or ideas, or stories, or resources, between teams. A thing plus a context. Like visiting a different island. This is again a deliberate act: the Social Leader transposing things to weave strength through interconnection. This is also an act of diversification, as it breaks through boundaries of knowledge, trust, understanding, certainty, conformity, and coherence. This is the Social Leader as guide, as trusted companion, also – and unusually – as mechanic, microscopist, or strategist.
3. Wayfinding – the act of moving between ‘places’. This is different from navigation, which is the act of using or following a map. One way to think of this is the difference between your ‘house’ and your ‘home’. The house is defined spatially, by map coordinates, legal ownership, the materials of it’s composition, the style of construction, and so on. Your home is a feeling, a connection, a matter of family, memory, belonging and comfort. Perhaps in this sense we view the Social Leader as interconnecting between spaces of comfort, belonging and belief, tribal spaces, community spaces, this is about the connection of disparate Social Contexts. This is the Social Leader as story weaver, as elder, as guide (but not navigator, to a preordained destination).
4. Map Making – an act of Social Leadership may also be to make maps, but to recognise that maps come in many flavours. There are those which are directly intended to be representational, showing each building, and working to a common scale, where one inch equals one mile, or one square equals one building. But there are also maps of emotion, personality, purpose, or maps that are created to project ownership or control. Maps that are deliberately distorted for convenience (as are projections of the earth onto a flat page) or control (as where one location is given greater size, or priority, to project power, deceive or delude. The map as deception. Map makers may therefore speak to the Social Leader as helping others to go from one defined space, or place, to another, or it may speak of the Social Leader projecting a context, narrative, or perspective as part of structured and deliberate change. A map of the future state is not directly representations, but rather aspirational, and yet is still a valid activity for leadership. To be cartographers of our future. This speaks of Social Leadership as dialogic, somewhat as archivist or documentarian.
5. Roaming – the aspects described so far have been somewhat intentional. A weaving, curation, or deliberate action. Roaming is less so: this is about walking the boundaries, about movement and pause. Roaming need not be purposeful, but is intentional in that we seek to be in motion. To change perspective, to climb the hill to see how the view differs. To walk in the forest, or on the exposed plain. Through movement to expose ourselves to difference, but not simply by reading, rather by immersion. So the Social Leader as inter-connector through Roaming is in motion through the Ecosystem of the Organisation. Willing to be lost, perhaps seeking it out in hope of emergence, insight, understanding or happenstance.
6. Pausing – related to Roaming is Pausing. The deliberate act of stopping. This may seem counter intuitive: we can interconnect through motion, but how can we do so through stillness? Perhaps because we can stand tall, as a beacon, or because we can stop to create a campsite – a transient space for connection and community. We pause as part of overall movement. The gap between breaths. This reminds me of the work i explore on Social Leadership Daily, which is a sixty second pause, to be in dialogue with our practice. The cost of pausing is one that needs to be committed to. It’s hard to stand still in busy systems, but the reward is a deeper perspective. This speaks of Social Leader as mindful practitioner, as caretaker, and the wisdom of stillness.
7. Photographing – whilst we may have historically consider the role of photography to capture a moment of truth, we have latterly learned, in the age of Generative AI (let alone photoshop) to apply new filters. Nevertheless, a role of the Social Leader as inter-connector may be to take photographs. To document culture, to produce exhibitions of these prints. To hold up a photo – a truth – and seek a response. The act of photography as imposing accountability – to be ‘caught on camera’. This speaks to me of the act of Social Leadership as being that of standing up and speaking out. Of documenting our systems in a methodical way, but also of analysing these through lenses of fairness, truth, and cost.
8. Sketching – an alternative mechanism for documentation, but which differs from Photography in that it is intentionally created with abstraction, with space, with imperfection. A sketch to capture the essence of the thing, not a direct representation of it: hence this speaks of the Social Leader as carrying forward ideas and the essence, perhaps finding patterns or an economy of language, and thought. An act of simplification perhaps, to enable more easily the communication of core ideas or stories. This is the Social Leader using narrative to draw out threads and weave them around individual context. Connecting through simple narrative, wrapped around broad or complex ideas.
9. Cross Pollinating – as the bees move between the flowers on the lavender outside my window, they carry the pollen between them. The act of cross pollination may be accidental – in that the bees are not intentional, but rather motivated by the sweet nectar – and yet they are intrinsic to the reproduction of the plant. The act of cross pollination may also be intentional, as the farmer who deliberately cross pollinates apples in the orchard, breeding strength or drought resistance between trees. This speaks of the Social Leader carrying ideas on their coat as they brush through cultures, and also of an intentionality – which relates to a core notion of ‘curation, a deliberate act of choosing where, and what, you stand for – to ‘pollinate’ or ‘pollute’ ideas between systems. But perhaps with a humility to recognise that this cross pollination is not without risks, as we see from the imbalance created by the release of e.g. rabbits into Australia. Short term understanding may be betrayed by the long term lost of diversity.
10. Weaving – i’ve written previously about ‘Culture Weaving’, about this idea that ‘culture’ is something we learn, are subsumed into, that we weave between us. So the Social Leader as weaver is about creating substrate, the mesh into which the threads are woven. It’s about interrelationships, that the tapestry requires structure, but that the structure does not dictate the picture. It also represents the recognition that our actions may be small, but that each thread contributes to the whole. The strength is in the alignment and collective sense.
11. Guiding – it may be almost mundane to consider that the Social Leader may forge interconnection simply by guiding others, but this simple truth speaks to me of leadership in the smallest of actions – to simply say ‘follow me and i will show the way’. This is not about blind trust or belief, but rather that we hold agency within broader structures, and sometimes we need a guide.
12. Soaring – one idea i explore in the Quiet Leadership work, that i want to bring back into this broader space of Social Leadership, is that we do not hover above the ecosystem, like a hawk, but rather we walk within it, leaving footsteps, casting shadows. But i realise that there may be a context in which we can be the hawk, to soar above the landscape, and to seek the wider contextual view. To soar, to rise above, as an aspect of systems thinking approaches – to ‘see’ the system as a whole, to view the horizon on each side, perhaps to lose the granular detail, but to spot the ranges of mountains and course of the rivers. This is the Social Leader at the macro level, and perhaps as far away from the ‘smallest of things’ as it is possible to get, and yet useful because our ability to place our individual action within broader context is important. Partly for ourselves, to belong and believe, but also to work out what we need to support or subvert.
13. Translating – systems may be similar and yet separated by language, by vocabulary, and hence an act of Social Leadership is to translate between systems. And in this to recognise that some things do not translate well. In this instance it may be that we are not translating from separate geographies, but rather parallel systems – formal to social, or one power domain to another. Helping to find similarity and commonality, but also to chart difference and dissent. This is to recognise that – as with translation between languages – Social Leadership is both structural and an art. It is a practice into which we place our ‘selves’.
14. Trespassing – and finally, an act of Interconnection is to trespass. This is the role of Social Leader to walk the boundaries, but sometimes to cross them. This may be in response to a cry for help, or because we cannot fully understand a boundary without moving across it. When our mindset is shaped by an understanding of ‘compliance’ that is ‘boundaried’ – that which you can and cannot do – it’s easy to see ‘trespassing’ as simply ‘wrong’. But our Social Context can be viewed differently: rather it is defined by a collective view of what is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, but which changes and evolves over time. We would not have (more) equal rights without the trespass of leaders across boundaries. We would not have change without the ability to see – and articulate – difference. And the trespass need not be in ‘space’, but rather may be in ‘self’ – to move between our different ‘selves’ is another aspect of metacognition and systems thinking. To use ‘self’ as a lens to re-contextualise the system.

There are themes that run across these ideas – and again, this is not intended as a definitive list, but rather as an intellectual exercise in considering interconnection – one of which is that in the context of Social Leadership, we see the system as inherently multi dimensional. So this is not about weaving strength into one dimension, an ideas that if we are more interconnected we are more tightly bonded and hence able to weather the story through brute strength alone. Rather this view speaks of being interconnected between systems and spaces, and hence to an elastic strength, which allow us to bend, not break. Not withstanding stress through rigidity, but through movement.

This work forms part of an evolving new body of writing exploring aspects of Social Leadership: it is part of thinking, part of #WorkingOutLoud and not shared with certainty or finality.

Social Leadership – Fragments of Thought

I’m continuing my writing on Social Leadership this week, but today just sharing fragments of thought, as well as a new illustration. As a reminder: i’m building out a body of work that will contribute to a new Social Leadership book, and in parallel developing some new illustrations that will either be part of this, or will develop into what i need.

The illustration of a lighthouse is inspired by an image that Sae shared with me for a different piece of work, but which reminded me that lighthouses – a perennial image around leadership – often were not viewed in isolation. To navigate, you would triangulate between three things e.g. yourself, a church tower (these were often built to be visible from the sea, for their fishing bretheren), and a lighthouse.

It’s a reminder to me of our interconnected context of leadership. One monument is not enough. You need the landscape.

Perhaps a reminder that behaviour too – our culture – our Social Context – is also triangulated between and within groups. Not one leader at the top, in the front, up above, who makes us all behave, or do, one thing, but rather a network of influence, of distributed input, within which we weave our ‘self’ in the local ‘system’.

It also reminds me of the other recent work on leadership as motion – in that ‘movement’ is a part of triangulation. To line things up, or bring them into view. It is inherently a contextual activity.

#WorkingOutLoud on Social Leadership

Leadership and our Social Context

Writing is thinking. I use my writing to expand and explore the central themes of my work, as part of a methodology of #WorkingOutLoud. Which is to say that i share my evolving ideas, not simply the ones that are fully formed. Within this process, there is an active development of language, usually unintentionally. As i explore new areas, or revisit old ones, i notice in my writing that certain phrases or ideas repeat, and in that sense i build my own vocabulary (and associated ideas). Today i’m writing about one of those phrases, the notion of our Social Context, and building it out into a broader aspect of the role of a Social Leader.

My description of Social Leadership previously described both our formal and social systems. Indeed, my most fundamental description of what Social Leadership ‘is’ has been to say that your formal power sits in the formal system – everything you can see, own, or control – and your Social Authority swirls around that – held in our communities, relationships, networks, and trust. More recently i have taken to describing Social Leadership as being at the ‘intersection of systems’. This reflects the fact that it is not fully ‘social’, beyond any context of work, but rather at the boundary or border of formal systems. Indeed, weaving it’s way over and under that boundary.

I have always been clear that Organisations need both: they need strong formal authority for the key mechanisms of consistency and conformity to give replicability and scale. This is the pillar of the global Organisations. But they need Social Authority to drive innovation, culture, creativity and change. Indeed, much of what we desire, or need, within our Organisations lies beyond that which is achievable with formal power alone, and we consistently see that leaders have an innate understanding of that, describing how much of their power is held in the permission and consensus of others.

And again, more recently, i’ve been using new work to explore ideas of leadership at the boundary – notions of the self as trespasser, of leadership as ‘motion’, and a dialogue with your practice.

The Social Context describes an overarching perspective on this: the leader operating within both formal contexts, and in a relationship with the Social Context, partly to ‘create’ it, but largely to nurture, understand, influence and engage with it.

The Social Context is therefore a broad space, representing both our individual experience and perspective, but also a more systemic one. I guess almost like a landscape and our experience of walking through it.

Crucial to this understanding is that whilst i previously described both formal and social aspects, i am now more explicit about how our Social Context is not simply a space we inhabit, but rather we create it, and it acts upon us.

This latter aspect is important, as it illustrates the impact of self upon system, an idea i’ve explored extensively in the Quiet Leadership work (which explores the Organisation as an Ecosystem) where we consider intention, action, and impact, and understand that you cannot be ‘in’ the system without both enhancing and degrading it. Nobody is neutral in their habitation.

Potentially this understanding would redefine the understanding of Social Leadership, to describe not parallel systems, but rather the Organisation as a structural entity that is entirely within the Social Context. Like the dome around the snow globe. You cannot, in this understanding, take the Organisations aside from it’s Social Context. It is enveloped, which is, i think appropriate. To abstract the Social Context out of the picture probably invalidates our understanding of how the formal Organisation truly works.

If i stretch myself into other areas of thought, i would also consider that the Social Context is not one thing, but rather one individual thing, so we each bring Social Context with us (like a Worldview), but also as a stage, and hence the understanding of the formal Organisation within it’s context becomes more kaleidoscopic.

This view suits my current understanding (and language) quite nicely, in that it allows us to talk of ‘lenses’ as part of leadership – understanding the lenses we are using, and how other lenses may give a different view of the same landscape.

Again, this is influenced by other aspects of my work (as a trans-disciplinary practitioner – or generalist – this cascade of influence is both a frustration and familiar feature).

It indicates that we may find value in ‘losing focus’, un-focussing our precision lenses, or of becoming wilfully disorientated or lost.

As i say, this is all early stage work. I’ve spent quite a bit of time this year so far in simply relaxing my focus, and exploring disparate ideas. And i think i will continue that for a period of time. But in the near future i will start to do more of this weaving work – drawing together a more holistic perspective around this new ideas, and with the foundation of work done before.

As part of this, i need a willingness to let things go. Some ideas are great, but time limited. Some are the ‘thing’, whilst others are keys that let you unlock understanding. But they are ‘one time’ keys. After you have used them, you can let them go. Or give them away.

Not everything has to be forever. Certainly not our understanding, which should always remain fluid.

#WorkingOutLoud on Social Leadership

Social Leadership: Evolving Social Contracts

The contractual bonds that bind us into Organisations are held within the evolved context of the Social Age. Whilst we have spent decades optimising our Organisations, ensuring profitability and agility, using aspects of scientific management, process optimisation, notions of humans as redeploy-able resources, outsourcing for cost and resilience, performance management (too often experienced as aspirational constraint) and cultures of busyness have given us some success, but at quite a cost – the cost being the fracturing of the Social Contract itself.

The Social Contract is wrapped around the written one: it governs not the utilitarian aspects of our job – what we do, who oversees it, and how we are rewarded – but rather the social context of it. This includes our discretionary engagement, invested trust, belief, pride, sense of belonging, loyalty, and energy. Quite important things… and indeed the very things that many of our Organisations are currently pinning their hopes and dreams upon.

We want ‘more’ from the people we employ – their invested engagement, energy, co-creation, collaboration, trust, ideas, belief and motivation – but at the very time when the Social Contract is at it’s most fragile, or entirely gone. When we need elasticity, we stand brittle.

We are right to have focussed on the efficiency and effectiveness of our Organisations: to drive profit is part of their purpose. But not at any cost. And the cost, where it has been borne, has often been borne by people who have weathered and survived multiple re-orgs, where they had to apply and reapply for their job – alongside what has been increasingly strident attempts to control every aspect of the ‘self’, when the broader context mitigates for greater agency.

And in any event, ‘work’ now exists within a broader space of engagement. The old paradigm, where you graduated, got a training position, spent your working life progressing through an Organisation, retired, and tended to the garden is so far gone that we can barely see it in the rearview mirror.

Instead, you may do an apprenticeship, or build your own startup, you will find a job through your community, carry your reputation in an external community, be coached, mentored, tutored, and challenged, through your most valued connections. You will learn more from YouTube, TikTok and podcasts than any wise old owl sitting in a corner office, and in any event you will have more ‘jobs’ than there are days in any month, across a wide range of Organisations, many of whom are consolidating, restructuring, being acquired, resisting change, or simply becoming irrelevant in the waves of change bought about by new technologies and, most importantly, evolved social expectation and desire.

Organisations are still important to us – our jobs still matter – but they are not the only thing. And if you want me to ‘bring my best effort’, the chances are that you will need to earn that right, not believe that you have bought it. There is a difference between utilitarian engagement and invested engagement. And it’s the latter that really matters.

This is not about being nice.

There is a structural imperative for Organisations to discover effective ways to contract the best talent, and to do so in ways that are sustainable for all concerned. And to learn how to do this when the nature of engagement (and contract) are shifting.

If we looked forwards, we would probably look towards models of Collective Capability, Interconnected Organisational Design, and the concept of the Socially Dynamic Organisation – or at least that is where my work takes me – the view that we know how to build structural Organisations at scale, but we have to learn how to build social ones at such scale.

To do so will give us the mechanisms of social engagement that fulfil the needs of both parties, in a deeply fair way.

The Pandemic – and particularly the road to recovery – have not helped this process. Much of the conversation about going ‘back to the office’ (or indeed ‘back to work’) has infantilised the relationship, and made stark the lack of trust in the very people we employed. It’s clear what people want – agency, belonging, trust, opportunity – and success. Often this aligns with what Organisations want. It’s just that the two sides, like waring couples, are finding more friction than trust.

Social Leadership provides a part of this solution: enhancing the Social Context of our Organisations, interconnecting beyond the structure, alongside an evolution of Organisational Design, and a reassessment of our mechanisms of effect. The foundational understanding of how our Organisations work.

To find this understanding requires a specific capability: an ability to look at the world through different lenses, and sometimes to make, or borrow, those lenses. A more trans-disciplinary perspective, and a willingness to recognise that much of what we consider to be ‘true’ is actually just familiar.

Formal contracts are moderated by HR and the law. The Social Contract is moderated by the communities that surround us. Meaning they are inconsistent, belief based, contextual, and often implicit, rather than transparent and clear. But they act strongly upon us nonetheless. To navigate this complexity is part of the role of a Social Leader. To ensure not only that we are ‘safe’ in the formal system, but also in the Social one, which may require us to consider how people hold their voice, and how it may be silenced. How they find agency, and when our mechanisms of control, and established power, may fracture that agency.

It is possible to be too safe.

In essence, to build a Socially Dynamic Organisation will require not simply a formidable approach to structural strength, but also to distributed social strength. To view the Social Context with as much clarity as our visible mechanisms of systems, process, hierarchy, formal reward, and formal control.

To weave a new type of Organisation, within a new context, and under both formal and Social contracts.

#WorkingOutLoud on Social Leadership

The Key To Leadership

The history of human social evolution can be charted through the technologies of enclosure, and trespass, and mechanisms of separation and control. Our modern society is built upon principles of collectivism, but part of that collectivism involves notions of ownership, and with ownership comes differentiation (of wealth, of status, of power). Our collectivism creates separation.

Or to put it another way: if we come together to build a village, we build a wall around it.

We reinforce notions of togetherness and otherness, we can map our trust to the height of our walls.

We separate field from field, and field from wilderness. We map our boundaries, partly to know what is ours, and partly to tell others to keep their hands off it.

It’s no surprise that one of our earliest architectural innovations was the wall: to keep people out, or keep them in. Although it may have taken us significantly longer to invent the lock.

Locks represent a change state: the gate, when locked, is part of the wall, but when open is a break within it. And gateways are transition spaces. Nobody lives in the gateway (although someone may live above it, or next to it, to control movement).

Locks are a specific technology as well as elaborate art form. They don’t simply carry out the action of separation, rather they visually represent it. If i see a lock, i inherently understand that access may be denied. And if i break a lock i inherently understand that my access is trespass.

We use locks for assorted ends: to keep people out, and to keep people in. To protect something of value to us, or to separate things that cannot be put together without good cause (we lock up guns in houses with children, and we lock away medicines).

We lock up things that have worth: either financially or intrinsically, like books, bibles and baubles, as well as things that we fear, like tigers in the zoo.

We talk about common goods, things that cannot be locked away, like access to fresh air, or water, but of course these things are controlled. Or stolen from us. And we have a tragic tendency to abuse the common, to neglect it. Sometimes separation, security, is a mechanism of safety and preservation.

A lock is not necessarily a binary separation: if the door is locked, i may be able to see through the keyhole. A tantalising glimpse of what lies beyond. Or perhaps i can shout through it.

An old lock can seize up, unless maintained. Indeed, it may even rust away, with access being granted by time alone. Or it may be a time-lock, preventing the vault in a bank being opened except during normal business hours.

Where there is a lock, there is a key. Or many keys. Walk around any major city and, in the suburbs, you will see lock boxes chained to railings, housing the keys for nearby AirBnBs (the keys have to be physically separated from the property, so the tax authorities or landlords don’t discover the illicit letting of the space.

We give spare keys to friends, or ask them back from former lovers. Or, if all else fails, change the locks (or lock people out, when their password stops working).

For all this talk of locks: what is unlocking?

We talk in Leadership about ‘unlocking’ things. About unlocking potential in teams, unlocking capability at scale, unlocking innovation, or unlocking change.

I like this language. I use this language. But as part of my own practice i am revisiting my core work on Social Leadership, and considering new ideas, such as ‘Collective Capability’, and ‘Imperfect leadership’, and hence find myself pondering locks.

The idea of the Leader as gatekeepers, as key holder, these things may be true, but exist within a more formal or power based view of leadership. Within the social domain (our broader Social Context), power may be more dynamic and collective, and capability may be a networked feature.

I’m particularly interested in the emergent features of our Social Context right now: what synergies or amplifiers exist, and how we (unlock!) access them.

I’m left wondering if there is maybe a proliferation of keys, and a proliferation of locks. But that the knowledge of what fits where is contextual.

This would align with my broader perspective on the multi dimensional organisation: that we inhabit multiple systems, of power, of influence, of control, concurrently curating the relevant ‘self’ in each one. So a ‘key’ that works in one domain may be useless in another (like your ‘job title’ may grant you access to a room, but not to my trust). This would present a more three dimensional view of capability, that it’s not simply a lock and a key, but rather a lock, a context, and a key.

And maybe a connection?

Perhaps the connection is the thing here: under a model of collective capability it is not enough to hold simply knowledge, or power, but rather we need to create meaning too (the ‘creation of meaning’ is another key aspect i’m exploring separately right now), which is both an individual and collective feature, so the ability to curate a community is a core leadership skill in that context of the Social Age.

Which makes sense in a somewhat circular way, as i describe how curating the ‘self’ is also a foundational aspect of Social Leadership (this was the first chapter of the first book about the subject).

This speaks of Leadership as an act of curation – creating conditions – weaving culture – interpretation – sense making. Leadership as a fluid and distributed function. In which case, not one lock and one key.

I guess there are other interpretations and conditions too.

I remember visiting the zoo in Singapore, walking through an enclosure, and at the end were two doors. Only one of which could be open at a time. To prevent whatever was inside from getting out (i forget if it was bats, monkeys, butterflies or birds – whoever it was clearly had a vested interest in escape). This type of conditional lock may be a useful perspective as well – where our actions do not ‘unlock’ something, but create other conditions under which a thing may be unlocked. Indeed, perhaps this gives us a perspective on something like reputation, or authenticity (if it even exists).

It speaks of leadership as indirect power.

As i write this, i can feel myself sensing the way, but also struggling with ideas, which is part of #WorkingOutLoud. To sketch out a landscape and then to think within it.

#WorkingOutLoud on Social Leadership

Fragments: The Key To Capability

I’ve been working on a series of longer pieces around Social Leadership as i explore the idea of a 3rd Edition of the Social Leadership Handbook, or possibly a separate book around the subject.

Today, thinking about Collective Capability, and the idea of the ‘key’. We talk about ‘unlocking potential’, but a key fits a single lock. When we consider ‘collective’, we may either need to think about many keys, or many locks, or simply that the metaphor is outdated (and possibly autocratic and controlling in any case).

So what – or who – unlocks capability… or frees it?

Reflecting that we act upon each other: through our words, actions, but also the folklore that surrounds us (of success or failure).

That learning is not a linear process, but that some connections re-contextualise that which came before.

So – perhaps – leadership is an act of re-contextualisation?

Is the key something made or traded? Or is curiosity, or learning, a lock-pick?

A reminder to myself to research when locks were invented – because i assume it was by people who had power (or wealth) and wished to retain it. Or that the knowledge was locked away. Or was it to lock people up?

Locks as the act of separation and division. Keys as power.

More on this tomorrow.

Generative AI: The Speed of Curiosity

What i’ve really noticed using Generative AI in research is the speed of my curiosity. Not simply speed of retrieval, but speed of synthesis and iteration. It reminds me of the process of marking up a large illustration, where you sketch out the rough outline before filling in the fine detail. Or the way i often create a high level structure for a book before actually writing much content, to allow me to balance the effort across all the sections.

Using tools like Claude i can more easily try things out: synthesising ideas, asking for depth, or inspiration. I can mark out a landscape and then delve more deeply into it.

I find that it’s easier to retrieve half remembered theories or facts, or to dive into entirely uncharted waters. In a weird way it’s like asking the server what their favourite desert is when you can’t decide.

It’s not efficiency without cost: i notice that i’m overall reading less. Partly because i do not need to, but partly because i have become impatient. Perhaps i will lose some of the happenstance and emergence of long form exploration, but overall the landscape i traverse will be broader?

It’s hard to know: will my perspectives become superficial, or will my self critical lenses survive the convenience of my accelerated curiosity?

I am, as you know, an optimist, so naturally i feel the benefits acutely, especially when i think back to my earliest experiences of research as a postgraduate, where i still had to get my supervisor to sign a piece of paper (after i’d cycled to the campus and wandered around till i found them), which i’d take to the library who would, after six weeks usually, ring me up to tell me that a photocopy of an article i’d requested had arrived. From there to here is a journey that sees the radial compression of time – to near instantaneous, through to the radical expansion of the creative space, as i have a partner in thought at my fingertips.

I know it will make me different, but better? Hard to know: to an extent it depends on which measure you are using.

My favourite use case (which i must not therefore mistake for a broad truth) is that Generative AI lubricates our collective thinking: working with Sae this week on new ideas we have used it as a dynamic dialogic partner, in the flow of our thinking. It’s felt like an energy added to our (already energetic!) conversations.

I’m pragmatic, but also stubborn. I do not intend to write ‘with’ Generative AI, any more than i intend to stop illustrating by hand. But will i use these tools to mark out ideas, to broaden my thinking and challenge my output? Asking for feedback, critique, ideas, or where to look next? I’m sure i will.

It’s easy to get caught up in the popular debate: about bias, about validity, about influence or infiltration, about the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’. All of those things are important. But let’s not miss the potential, the excitement, the dynamism and change.

I have no hesitation in saying that Generative AI will change almost everything, and faster than most Organisations will be able to think, let alone react. Things that we feel will last forever will be tumbled into the sand (including the memories of those very Organisations who felt their intelligence, history, money, and pride would make them agile, whilst failing to actually change).

At the heart of it, Generative AI will challenge legacy notions of value, and we will need to recalibrate marketplaces to accommodate that. I look at this within the broader context of the Social Age (which is already exerting existential pressure onto our systems) and the legacy of the pandemic, which has fractured some of the pillars that we rest upon.