Knowledge leaders: ye shall know them by their achievements

Summary: Learned along the way, the story told here is a lesson of the important role that local and network knowledge leaders can play. I understand that this lesson applies to any organization. Note: a Spanish version of this article can be found here.

I propose leapfrogging to the opportunities of the emerging systemic civilization. Believing that impossible with just knowledge workers, I suggest developing knowledge leaders.

Contrary to 'knowledge worker,' I understand that the concept 'knowledge leader' has no place in the hierarchical authority of a person or a small steering group. The root cause of this limitation is the great influence of the Cartesian paradigm. Such leapfrog will avoid bankruptcy to organizations that will add enough value.

System leadership stems from the inefficiency of hierarchical authority in an interdependent world that has come close to their limits in important variables. Instead of a single type of leader, for example, in the book "The Dance of Change," Doubleday, 1999, Peter Senge and his colleagues envisioned three types of leaders: local line leaders, executive leaders, and network leaders.

Learned along the way, the story told here is a lesson of the important role that local and network knowledge leaders can play. I understand that this lesson applies to any organization.

The experience happened in several discussion groups devoted to specific themes, in which, as expected, my participation has been misunderstood by managers who expect their Cartesian groups to be closed, while I wanted to get the value added by the interdependence between groups. Managers exercised their hierarchical authority when they thought that a discussion or comment was deviating from the scope of the group.

For example, participating in 5 groups with the same discussion on a proposal for a systemic code of ethics, a manager interrupted repeatedly stopping the local and network learning that was emerging. Trying to transfer the discussion to a group he said was the best, the manager asked the other manager new Cartesian rules of discussion.

Trying to learn from the future, I started another discussion in many groups. Wondering if it was possible for a regular member might emerge via systemic 'scientific' contributions as a community leader of the group. I interpret this 'discussion leader' would be a local leader; while I also interpret I was trying to take on the role of the network leader between groups. This is the lesson perfected that responds to the new rules:

In a non systemic way only the internal value exists at a point which is discussed in which supposedly is the best group. This is where the analysis is king. It's about learning from the past.

In a systemic way, however, additional value can be obtained from the interaction between discussion groups on the same point so as to increase the internal values. The total value added is obtained from the dynamics between groups, which is difficult to anticipate. This is where the synthesis is the queen. It also is learning from the emerging future.

In the discussion of the code of ethics emergent learning came from the interaction of three groups. In fact, the best contributions on the code emerged from the group of the opposing manager, rather than the obvious group he suggested.

Notice that the update to From better places… to the emerging civilization, with Daniel Gulati’s post Be Proud of Your Accomplishments, Not Your Affiliations, is a signal of the systemic civilization to knowledge leaders which "ye shall know them by their fruits.”