PLA Preconference (background reading: Wheatley)

"When an individual changes, its neighbors take notice and decide how they will respond. Over time, individuals become so intermeshed in this process of co-evolving that it becomes impossible to distinguish the boundary between self and other, or self and environment. There is a continual exchange of information and energy between all neighbors, and a continuous process of change and adaptation everywhere in the system. And another paradox, it is these individual changes that contribute to the overall health and stability of the entire system."

I like this quote, and I totally agree with her POV (what I've seen or read so far). However, none of it sounds new. Is it just me or has "new age" finally been adopted into business management strategy as as a new paradigm?

Leading at PLA

NOT ENOUGH GENERALS WERE KILLED
PETER F. DRUCKER, FOREWORD IN
THE DRUCKER FOUNDATION (1996), THE LEADER OF THE FUTURE

I have been working with organizations of all kinds for fifty years or more - as a teacher and administrator in the university, as a consultant to corporations, as a board member, as a volunteer. Over the years, I have discussed with scores - perhaps even hundreds - of leaders their roles, their goals, and their performance. I have worked with manufacturing giants and tiny firms, with organizations that span the world and others that work with severely handicapped children in one small town. I have worked with some exceedingly bright executives and a few
dummies, with people who talk a good deal about leadership and others who apparently never even think of themselves as leaders and who are rarely, if ever, talk about leadership.

The lessons are unambiguous. The first is that there may be "born leaders", but there surely are
far too few to depend on them. Leadership must be learned and can be learned - and this, of
course, is what this book was written for and should be used for. But the second major lesson is
that "leadership personality", "leadership style", and "leadership traits" do not exist. Among the
most effective leaders I have encountered and worked with in a half a century, some locked
themselves into their office and others were ultragregarious. Some (though not many) were "nice guys"" and others were stern disciplinarians. Some were quick and impulsive; others studied and studied again and then took forever to come to a decision. Some were warm and instantly "simpatico"; others remained aloof even after years of working closely with others, not only with outsiders like me but with the people within their own organization. Some immediately spoke of their family; others never mentioned anything apart from the task in hand.

Some leaders were excrutiangly vain - and it did not affect their performance (as his spectacular
vanity did not affect General Douglas MacArthur's performance until the very end of his career).
Some were self-effacing to a fault - and again it did not affect their performance as leaders (as it
did not affect the performance of General Marshall or Harry Truman). Some were as austere in
their private lives as a hermit in the desert; others were ostentatious and pleasure-loving and
whooped it up at every opportunity. Some were good listeners, but among the most effective
leaders I have worked with were also a few loners who listened only to their own inner voice.

The one and only personality trait the effective ones I have encountered did have in common was something they did not have: they had little or no "charisma" and little use either for the term or for what it signifies. All the effective leaders I have encountered - both those I worked with and those I merely watched - knew four simple things:
· The only definition of a leader is someone who has followers. Some people are thinkers.
Some are prophets. Both roles are important and badly needed. But without followers,
there can be no leaders.
· An effective leaders is not someone who is loved or admired. He or she is someone whose
followers do the right things. Popularity is not leadership. Results are.
· Leaders are highly visible. They therefore set examples.
· Leadership is not rank, privileges, titles, or money. It is responsibility.
Regardless of their almost limitless diversity with respect to personality, style, abilities, and
interests, the effective leaders I have met, worked with, and observed also behaved much the
same way:
· They did not start out with the question, "What do I want?" They started out asking, "What
needs to be done?"
· Then they asked, "What can and should I do to make a difference?" This has to be
something that both needs to be done and fits the leader's strengths and the way she or
he is most effective.
· They consistently asked, "What are the organization's mission and goals? What constitutes
performance and results in this organization?"
· They were extremely tolerant of diversity in people and did not look for carbon copies of
themselves. It rarely even occurred to them to ask, "Do I like or dislike this person?" But
they were totally - fiendishly - intolerant when it came to a person's performance,
standards, and values.
· The were not afraid of strength in their associates. They gloried in it. Whether they had
heard it or not, their motto was what Andred Carnegie wanted to have put on his
tombstone: "Here lies a man who attracted better people into his service than he was
himself."
· One way or another, they submitted themselves to the "mirror test" - that is, they made
sure that the person they saw in the mirror in the morning was the kind of person they
wanted to be, respect, and believe in. This way they fortified themselves against the
leader's greatest temptations - to do things that are popular rather than right and to do
petty, mean, sleazy things.

Finally, these effective leaders were not preachers; they were doers. In the mid 1920s, when I was in my final high school years, a whole spate of books on World War I and its campaigns suddenly appeared in English, French, and German. For our term project, our excellent history teacher - himself a badly wounded veteran - told each of us to pick several of these books, read them carefully, and write a major essay on our selections. When we then discussed these essays in class, one of my fellow students said, "Every one of these books says that the Great War was a war of total military incompetence. Why was it?" Our teacher did not hesitate a second but shot right back, "Because not enough generals were killed; they stayed way behind the lines and let others do the fighting and dying."

Effective leaders delegate a good many things; they have to or they drown in trivia. But they do
not delegate the one thing that only they can do with excellence, the one thing that will make a
difference, the one thing that will set standards, the one thing they want to be remembered for.
They do it.
It does not matter what kind of organization you work in; you will find opportunities to learn about leadership from all organizations - public, private, and nonprofit. Many people do not realize it, but the largest number of leadership jobs in the United States is in the nonprofit, social sector. Nearly one million nonprofit organizations are active in this country today, and they provide excellent opportunities for learning about leadership. The nonprofit sector is and has been the true growth sector in America's society and economy. It will become increasingly important during the coming years as more and more of the tasks that government was expected to do during the last thirty or forty years will have to be taken over by community organizations, that is, by nonprofit organizations.

The Leader of the Future (1996) is a book for leaders in all sectors: business, nonprofit, and
government. It is written by people who themselves are leaders with proven performance records. It can - and should - be read as the definitive text on the subject. It informs and stimulates. The first section of this book looks at the future of organizations and examines the role of leaders in the emerging society of organizations. The second part of the book gives vivid accounts of today's and tomorrow's leaders in action. It then turns to look at leadership development strategies, and it concludes with some powerful personal statements from effective leaders.

This is a book about the future. But I hope it will also be read as a call to action. I hope that it will
first challenge every reader to ask, "What in my organization could I do that would truly make a
difference? How can I truly set an example?" And I hope that it will then motivate each reader to do it.
Peter F. Drücker - Claremont, California, October 1995
Continue to Chap 1 – The new Language of Organizing and its implications for Leaders

Yuba County Library - Pull: The Power of the Semantic Web to Transform Your Business

Yuba County Library - Pull: The Power of the Semantic Web to Transform Your Business

Chat to my CyberTwin online now!

PULL

Just started David Siegel's new book, Pull: The Power of the Semantic Web...
Have been thinking a great deal about information, reading, books, internet, libraries, knowledge management basically. I'm finding that I am not reading books less these days, but with computers and the internet, I'm reading a bit differently.

I'm reading in both medium simultaneously. I'm broadening my reading experience by in-filling from the web. It is a brave new world with lots of scary big brothers and uncle sams looking over our shoulders, but it's a world where governments will be more transparent along with our personal lives. As with most things, we've got to take the good with the bad and make the most of it.

Back to PULL. Here's one of the ways I'm reading these days, I guess we could call it reading for future reference. (In the not too distant future, I'm sure this blog post exercise will become unnecessary as all the links from the book will be made available as part of the publishing package. But until then, here's the wysiwyg where "structured data comes out of the deep web and onto the open web, forming the foundation of the semantic web."

sciencecommons.org
ARTstor.org
McMaster.com
NIN.com
rhapsody.com
LiveLeak.com
crunchpad.com
jolicloud.com
freebase.com
semantic-mediawiki.org
instedd.org
thepowerofpull.com
commonapp.org
LarKC
Cyc
umbel.org
viaf.org
id.loc.gov
neighborrow.com Zoe member of readers anon???
onix.com pub format
zillow.com
transparensee.com
adaptiveblue.com
zantaz.com
daylife.com
autonomy.com
healthline.com
microformats.com
seamless.com
siri.com
delicious-monster.com
goodguide.com
dpreview.com
linkeddata.org
grainger.com
superpages.com
youtube.com/watch?v=voAntzB7EwE
xbrl comp lang
fpml comp lang
rubee new rfid
Dvorak keyboard
jolicloud.com
optimus maximus keyboard
crunchpad.com
liveleak.com
yammer.com
revolutioncard.com
ibm.com/think
fairtax.org
iousathemovie.com
y-t-c.com
e-patients.net
monitor.creativecommons.org
digital signatures
Ambient Findability Peter Morville
identityblog.burtongroup.com
srmsblog.burtongroup.com
identityblog.com
dataportability.org
mismo.org
trulia.com
streeteasy.com
dwellicious.com
ambient intelligence
3ds.com
legalzoom.com
hResume microformat
voice.google.com
inames.net
w-41.com
spime.com space + time (sterling, b)
widetag.com
gsi commerce

Web 3.0 = context Semantic web Get used to it. It's upon us.
Except for content metadata or format metadata. Intended use of data or content can determine designation.
Web 3.0 = smart data or metadata: maps, menus, manuals, receipts, invoices, catalogs...etc. The only thing that isn't metadata is content.

"...if you're not findable, you're not relevant. ...Bot to be relevant, you'll have to make a difference in people's lives." Peter Morville

"...the solution to the overabundance of information is more information." David Weinberger

"In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future." Eric Hoffer

Today at the gym, in the sauna, young woman reading an ebook on her iphone. Welcome 21st century readers, this twit's for you.

Foggy Brain Day