#WorkingOutLoud On A Teaching Day

I’m flattered to have been asked to teach a day on the University of Pennsylvania doctoral programme: i thought i’d share an outline of the day, as it may provide a useful series of links and references around my current work on the Socially Dynamic Organisation. This week i’m offline, writing, trying to advance some long form writing, so i won’t be creating much dedicated material for the blog.

Overview

We live in the Social Age, a time of constant change: the organisational structures, leadership hierarchies, and types of knowledge, that got us this far, are not going to get us the rest of the way. In this session, we will explore the changes to our ecosystem, the new pressures bought to bear upon organisations, and the ways that they can adapt to face them. There are two aspects to any modern organisations: the formal, which is within our control, and the social, which is largely hidden and beyond our control. A Socially Dynamic Organisation will maintain a dynamic tension between the two, building a deep seated capacity to ‘make sense’ of change, to innovate in breadth, and to adapt.

We will consider, in this session, a number of key aspects:

• The ecosystem of the Social Age: what has changed, and how it’s impacted upon us.
• The rise of Social Leadership: what it is, the evolution of power that lies behind it, and how it intersects with formal authority.
• The new nature of knowledge: how organisations can gain access to the tacit, tribal, co-created and socially moderated forms of knowledge that lie deep within tribal structures.
• The landscape of trust: exploring how trust factors into the new Social Age, and how we can build strong trust networks.
• The design principles of the Socially Dynamic Organisation: a new set of organising principles, to adapt our organisations to be fit for the Social Age.

Reading list

An introduction to the Social Age

Exploring new ‘types of power‘, and the struggle for control.

Introducing the ‘Dynamic Tension‘ at the heart of a Socially Dynamic Organisation.

Why we need to evolve HR.

An introduction to the Socially Dynamic Organisation.

An introduction to Scaffolded Social Learning.

On why we need Social Leadership.

10 reasons for Social Leadership.

The Landscape of Trust.

Reflecting on types of knowledge.

Core text: the Social Leadership Handbook.