Create something every day

I have two ideas that I’ve been working up for areas to research during my Clore fellowship.

I’d like your help helping me to decide what I should be looking at, so here are the two ideas with a 350 word explanation of each.

I will be producing a 20,000 word paper (or equivalent - blogs, wikis, video interviews count).

Idea 1: “Conversational Leadership”

Over the last decade the term ‘thought leadership’ has become commonly used to label a particular style of leadership that involves distilling influential ideas into easily understandable and sharable concepts and then disseminating them through a variety of means to bring about some kind of change in those outside of one’s immediate organisational leadership structure.

With the sudden growth of social media technologies over recent years, is there something new emerging from this style of leadership? A new style where individuals are applying social media technologies to reach and influence a large number of people, but engaging in two-way conversations with many people in a highly public way, and in so doing acting as ‘conversational leaders’?

This model of how one can potentially influence another’s thinking given appropriate tools and access has caused widespread debate. Is the term ‘thought leadership’ jargon or is it a useful term to use when discussing how highly influential individuals are able to instigate change outside of what would historically have been considered their control? Are there any fundamental differences that are emerging in leadership styles of those who use social media platforms to communicate? Do MPs on Twitter have a different way of leading than those who are not?

I intend to find out what the truth is about these ‘conversational leaders’, and try to get an understanding, first hand, of what it means to be one. What issues does this mode of leadership bring up? What tools and techniques play a part? What are the aims of the people following this method of leading others? Do they even perceive their activities as ‘leadership’? Is there a perception that this is not a leadership role in the classic sense? Are we seeing something new emerging in terms of how leaders are expected to behave? Is this purely a technological trend or is this pointing to something longer-term and a fundamental shift in how leaders will lead in the 21st century?

Idea 2: “Leading by Accelerating Serendipty”

We live in exponential times. The instant availability to large amounts of information on an individual level is now at arguably the highest level we have ever seen.

Breaking news has migrated to online social networks as the place to ‘hear it first’ to the point where social technologies like Twitter are now more swift at reporting world events than any other network.

But that availability of information leads to a number of problems. We suffer from increasing ‘choice paralysis’ and information overload. Finding valuable nuggets of information in this sea of data can be hard.

Conversely, it is increasingly difficult for leaders to be able to know how to structure their organisations to enable them to react quickly to changes in the marketplace.

It is common for leaders to look to research and development departments to investigate new technologies, and to marketing and PR departments to investigate how to use these new channels for communication in effective ways.

But with such rapid changes occuring as a background, how should leaders structure their organisations? How should staff be enabled to be ‘listeners’ and to engage in using social media tools to bring about measurable benefits? If it is unclear what benefits come about through using these tools, how do organisations justify their use? How should organisations be physically structured and laid out in terms of location, architecture and interior design? What factors enable rapid collaboration and innovation?

I propose that at the heart of many of these issues lies the concept of ‘accelerating serendipity’. The idea that it is possible to lead an organisation in such a way that whilst not being aware of the intended ‘destination’ for where that organisation might be headed, it is possible to put in place management structures, policies, physical layouts, working methods, business practices and communications strategies that enable for a higher incidence of the ‘happy accident’. These ‘happy accidents’ could be potential business opportunities emerging from enouraging more collaborations with partners, enabling staff to mingle and discuss ideas in open plan environments, or encouraging staff to use ‘open innovation’ models for research.

I intend to research this theme and to discover if what I understand as ‘accelerated serendipity’ is a real factor that leaders think about, or if some of their behavioural trends could be labelled and made more meaningful when brought under such an umbrella.

What do you think?

These are drafts - hence blogging it before approaching people about it, but both of these areas are close to my heart and I could see myself spending the next year researching them. But which one? Which is most realistic given my already insane workload? Which would be most useful to you? Let me know!