Are Linkedin’s group owners, managers, facilitators, etc., in every case the only and real defacto leaders of their respective communities? Is it possible that a regular group member may emerge through systemic “scientific” contributions as their group community leader?
Those questions, which apply to all groups, are the result of leadership insights that are emerging in two complementary discussions in the Design Thinking (DT) Group of Linkedin. The discussions are: Design thinking in one word? and A Proposal to Define the Limits of Design Thinking. A comment from the second discussion shows the large management scope and potential implications covered:
DT or better yet the simple, but not simplistic, abDucTing is a systemic approach that emerged to replace the non systemic and obsolete scientific management. W. Edwards Deming identified scientific management with the tyranny of the prevailing style of management and to fill the void he proposed what he called the system of profound knowledge.
The abDucting process (the means) will fill that void by following what Tim Brown said about DT: "Although I would love to provide a simple, easy-to-follow recipe that would ensure that every project ends … successfully …, the nature of design thinking makes that impossible."
In other words, abDucTing is proposed to fill the void towards Deming’s system of profound knowledge. Probably as a result of Linkedin’s design flaws, I can now fully understand the meaning of the many fights others and I have experience with non systemic managers and owners of Linkedin groups. They were simply power fights over the system’s void.
I guess that in many situations group facilitators think they own the members of the community and that they have been defacto chosen as their leaders. Are they really the community leaders? Do they behave as community leaders? Or can other community leaders emerge from Linkedin groups under the present Linkedin system?
I don’t want to call for a debate, which concentrates itself in learning from the past. I want to use the abDucting process itself to call for a generative dialogue, to learn about the emerging governing structure of Linkedin or its competitors systems. That would be an invitation to dance, instead of an invitation to fight. However, it would be naïve to think this would go on without a fight. In those cases, concentrate on leadership – forget just dancing; fighting is also OK to let abDucTing emerge (a small bit of poetry).
Please contribute to a better Linkedin’s group government process. Please consider repeating what you post in your group under this blog post article of the Grupo Millennium Hispaniola. Thanks a lot.
