I’ve written recently about the convergence of dualities that’s happening all across the world, and this understanding is profound and huge and important.

But I’ve come to believe the ability to hold a paradoxical tension in our minds is just as important as recognizing it at a macro scale.

The best (or we could say most helpful) behaviors seem to stem from an inclusive perspective.

Not either/or, but both/and.

The examples I gave in the dualities post apply here as well. An individual mindset which can bring together what seems like polarizing viewpoints (Eastern/Western, masculine/feminine, individualistic/familial, left brain/right brain) actually performs better, particularly in the world that is emerging.

F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” I’ll take it a step further: I am claiming that this ability actually makes an individual more valuable in the new economy.

Because of the ways in which the world is changing, if we wish to thrive — or even just compete — in the new economy, our mindset must evolve as well.

Here are a few more practical examples of paradoxical thinking.

Everyone is unusual (we all have utterly unique strengths), but at the same time we are all the same (we are all human beings). The truth is in the tension. It’s not either/or. When managers begin to grasp this, they quickly become the type of leader people want to follow.

Something like “impact” doesn’t even occur in pure dualities. We can’t have the impact we want on anything — there are many things outside of our control — but at the same time we truly can impact the world around us. We don’t have complete control over what happens, but we do have power over certain things which lie within our sphere of influence. The most helpful perspective lies in being able to retain both thoughts, not one or the other. When we begin to understand this, we gain a sense of freedom and power in our ability to make choices.

The truths of the world around us lie somewhere within these paradoxes. It will benefit us greatly if we can find a way to embrace the tension.

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There’s a cottage industry called “coaching” that’s sprung up over the last few decades (it’s quite a large cottage, but still).

On the surface there’s nothing wrong with this.

But I have come to believe that the fact this industry exists at all is an indication of a dirty and not-so-little business secret…

READ THE REST ON THE LEADCHANGE BLOG>>

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P.S. We’ve got the beginnings of a great dialogue in the comments section — come and add your thoughts!

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There are a whole bunch of folks talking about how the world is changing. It’s easy to miss this conversation, because like most things in our increasingly fragmented/niched world, certain realities are only evident when we look for them. (I’m sure you’ve noticed that the information deluge makes it easier for us to “hide” in whatever circle we travel in.) But whether we’re looking or not, there truly is something happening.

As a wise guy once said, the times they are a-changin’.

And they’re a-changin’ in ways we’ve never experienced before.

Life is faster, more unpredictable.
Business models are less stable.
Communication is always on, and is coming from 360 degrees.
Power structures have flattened.
Consumers are more powerful, CEOs are less powerful.

As human beings, we’ve never felt quite this connected before. At the same time, we’ve perhaps never felt quite this vulnerable, either.

To a large degree we’re headed into uncharted territory, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a few reasonable understandings about what’s ahead.

In the interest of helping to make a bit of sense about the future, I wanted to share an insight about this transition with you.

So much of where we are coming from is dualistic, in the classic sense. We’ve got a number of dichotomies we cling to: Eastern/Western, masculine/feminine, individualistic/familial, left brain/right brain. But the new world that is emerging is connecting everything. It’s colliding forces that used to be separate. (Even old, polarizing enemies like capitalism/communism are finding a new smashed-together life in places like China.)

What’s the implication here?

The things that used to be separate will not be much longer.

Soon — probably much sooner than we think (i.e. now) — we will be navigating gray areas which used to be black and white. A strange new world where left and right brain thinking are equally important, or where a feminine approach is more effective than the traditional patriarchal one, is an environment that operates with completely different rules.

This means the people who can ask the right questions, easily let go of old assumptions, and bring fresh critical thinking to steer through gray areas are the ones who will thrive.

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P.S. The other implication is that we — all of us — have many important choices to make in the coming years. When dichotomies collide, some things will stay and other things will go. We must commit to taking the best of both worlds, not the worst.

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Today, I have one question I’d like to ask you.

It’s just going to take a bit of setup to get there.

Recently I’ve begun doing some research into the works of Max Weber. Though you may not know his name, he is widely considered to be “one of the three principal architects of modern social science” (to quote Wikipedia), along with Karl Marx and Émile Durkheim.

What’s most interesting to me about Weber’s work is his focus on bureaucracy. While this certainly isn’t a sexy topic, it’s pretty safe to say that it’s a subject which affects both me and you on a daily basis. From classic examples like the DMV (*collective sigh of exasperation*), to elected or campaigning politicians (*collective eye roll*), to the TSA line at the airport (*collective groan*) to the dreaded yearly performance review at work (*one more sigh*), we are all regular victims of these systems.

This is where our friend Max comes in. He says there are three ways to organize the power/authority in a society:

1. Charismatic,
2. Traditional , and
3. Legal-Rational.

They’re pretty much exactly what you think. Charismatic leaders get to lead because they are seen as charismatic or gifted. Traditional leaders are put in place because of a cultural tradition — think monarchies. Legal-Rational leaders are seen as authorities because the legal/bureaucratic system in place gives them the power and permission to do so. (For a bit more on these levels go here.) Weber saw these stages as a hierarchy of sorts, a kind of “tribe evolution”– an inevitable social growth pattern. Cultures that evolve will naturally advance from a Charismatic model towards a Legal-Rational one.

He also foresaw the negative effects of this growth: something he called “the shell as hard as steel.” A Legal-Rational model of power naturally creates something called bureaucracy, which in turn delivers an oligarchy where a few rule over the many. As this happens, it systematically generates a confining, dehumanizing society. (Sound like anything else I write about?) Also translated as “the iron cage,” this is the inescapable result of a Legal-Rational system.*

So, at long last, here’s the question:

What if there’s a #4…?

What if there’s something that’s more evolved than Legal-Rational?

I think there is, and I also think it’s on the way.

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*Read more about the “iron cage” here. It’s worth your time.

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We are quickly moving into a world that is filled to the brim with ideas, information, and knowledge. There has been talk for many years about “knowledge workers” and a “knowledge economy,” but as we can clearly see (and maybe even more importantly, feel, through the overwhelming information deluge which floods us daily), there is no simply no shortage of ideas anymore. If anything, we are approaching the point where it’s simply too much for most of us.

This is why your great idea doesn’t matter.

To be fair, my great idea doesn’t matter, either. (As an “idea guy,” this is quite painful to admit.)

The marketplace is saturated with ideas, information, and knowledge. In economic terms, the supply is beginning to outstrip the demand — and as we know, this simple equation determines what is valuable.

So in a world that couldn’t care less about “another great idea,” what actually matters?

In a word: execution.

In this kind of world, the right questions are things like:

• What can you do to bring your great idea to life… in the real world, helping real people?
• Is your great idea practical, tangible, and actionable?
• Does your great idea actually solve a problem that needs solving?

If not, we just don’t care.

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“Branding” in the 21st Century isn’t about marketing.

It’s about reality.

And it has almost everything to do with people.

It’s about who your people are.
It’s about how they treat each other.
It’s about how they’re treated by the leadership.
It’s about how they treat your customers (every single interaction, all day long.)

We used to be able to “fake it,” right? All we needed was a great publicist and some connections to mass media. But none of that matters anymore, because in the economy of tomorrow news comes from everywhere, all sides, all the time.

If we’ve learned anything from the seemingly endless business scandals of the last decade, it should be this: what’s hidden won’t stay that way.

Because of this, the “new brand” is all about authenticity: truly doing what you say you will. It’s about integrity, honesty, and transparency.

In the new economy, brands must be grounded in reality (what they really are) AND paint a picture that people like (what they could be) in order to succeed.

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In the old world, we needed a lot of laborers. We needed a lot of people to take “this thing” and move it over to “that place.” We needed people to “push that button” all day. We needed people expend all sorts of energy doing a whole lot of things that we just don’t do anymore. We needed a lot of people to scale the work.

Now, it’s not that we don’t need those things anymore, it’s just that we don’t do them any longer. Increasingly, this kind of “assembly line” work is getting pushed further and further away, especially in the US, due to globalization and technology.

And yet, our organizations are still built to encourage button pushers.

How did we get here?

One of the best short explanations I’ve seen comes from a fabulous book called Tribal Leadership.* Here’s an excerpt/summary:

Between 1890 and 1920, 80 percent of the rural population moved to the city to take millions of new factory jobs, and they brought their children with them. On the farm, many children meant many helpers, but in the factory, many children meant many accidents and acts of exploitation. Children’s welfare and child labor practices became the issue of the age, and most people felt that something had to be done to protect and train the children while mom and dad worked in the factory.

The solution was to train a new generation of workers by teaching them inside a system that looked a lot like a factory. In school, bell rings, go to class; bell rings, recess; bell rings, go back to class; bell rings, eat lunch; bell rings, go home. At school, children with the “right” answer get a gold star, then an A. A star pupil is one who does the homework and has the right answers. This new system undid the classic liberal education, which said that the value was in the well-designed question, and this shift in focus made the worker exploitable, often consigning him to a Stage Two or Three career.** In between bell rings, children learned what they needed to become effective workers, and that amounted to reading, writing, and math. The system didn’t emphasize creative thinking, strategizing, leadership, or innovation. Stars were smart conformists, and people who stuck to the pattern became model students.

When children come of age, they find a familiar model. Whistle blows, go to work; whistle blows, take a break; whistle blows, go back to work; whistle blows, eat lunch; whistle blows, go home. A star employee is one who knows the right answer to a factory problem, obeys the rules and doesn’t make waves.

The current incarnation of our schools were created to serve the old world. They teach students how to stay in line and push buttons and follow orders.

But those aren’t the things the world needs anymore. In basic economic terms, the demand for assembly line workers is plummeting. And on the other side, the need for more people who can do creative, connective, collaborative, complex work — instead of just “pushing the button” — has grown much higher than the supply of them.

We’re churning out button pushers into a world that doesn’t have buttons.

Because of this disastrously outdated system, we’ve got a job crises that goes much deeper than just having (or not having) a “job.” We’ve got a full-blown work epidemic, and it’s going to take a whole lot of us working together to fix it.

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* I honestly can’t recommend this book highly enough. Please buy it. And read it. At least once.

** This will make sense when you read the book.

UPDATE 9/5/11: Here’s a great post on this topic today from Seth Godin.

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A short startup story:

From the seed of a new idea grows a great business concept.

The passionate leader rallies a small group around his or her cause and begins to build a movement.

Investors see dollar signs.

As the crowd grows, it becomes more difficult to manage.

In order to make sense of the chaos the challenge of scale brings, an older, “wiser” business leader (or leaders) are brought in to “bring organization” to the fledgling group.

Unfortunately, this older, wiser leader doesn’t really have any idea how to lead this new group other than the way they’ve always done it. So “departments” are created, “titles” are dispersed, “HR” is christened, and pieces of the tribe’s original soul begin to seep out through the cracks that begin to form. The energy the startup once had is stifled by being stuffed into an organizational structure that was designed in, and for, the last century.

The old ways of working aren’t working anymore.

Because people (you and me) have changed what we expect from our work, old methods of management are DOA the moment they are implemented.

The way we design our organizations now is based on work that required people to do repetitive, mindless, un-creative tasks. As this kind of work becomes less and less common — and it will continue to go this direction — our current methods of motivating tribes get more and more counterproductive. In fact, they actually start to suck the life out of us.

Isn’t it time for something new?

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My industry is falling apart… and I couldn’t be happier about it.

Why?

Because it is time for HR to die.

This might sound like something melodramatic or vindictive, but truthfully, it’s neither. Let me explain.

If we’re going to put things in boxes (something I vehemently hate but try to make peace with for the sake of communication), I work primarily on the OD side of HR/OD, which stands for “Human Resources/Organizational Development.” In an organization, this is the group who deals with anything “people-related.” In theory, it’s the human side of business.

In practice, though, it often ends up being more about Human Resistance than being a Human Resource. To add insult to injury, this side of business doesn’t really get treated like a respectable part of the business, either. There are (at least) three very good reasons for this (and none of them are the “fault” of HR/OD people):

1. First, it’s due to the way HR came into existence, through personnel functions and labor relations. From the very beginning, it was seen as subservient to the “real” leaders, who ran things like finance, operations, or sales.
2. Second, HR/OD typically deals in the “softer” side of business — meaning it’s harder to quantify than something like finance, operations, or sales. (I hope the irony of how much more difficult this supposed “soft” side of business can be isn’t lost on you.)
3. Third, because of #1 and #2, the folks that have been historically attracted to these roles have tended to not know how to speak the language of business — it hasn’t been necessary. Of course, now it is, but this creates a vicious cycle leading us back to HR/OD not being respected.

Recently I’ve been noticing a trend for many organizations to outsource more of their HR/OD workforce. These people can, supposedly at least, easily shift into a more consultative type of role, and by doing this a company can reduce it’s full-time employees and drastically cut expenses.

What’s exciting about this seemingly scary trend is that if it can continue on a large scale, and HR can disintegrate to the point where it doesn’t look anything like where it started, there will be an opportunity to build something new in its place — which is exactly what needs to happen.

Also, I’m pretty sure most of the wonderful people I know in HR/OD would relish the opportunity to actually, finally, BE a human resource (something the current system will never allow).

We, as a workforce and marketplace, haven’t been ready to create something new until very recently. But now we are. The evidence is piling up around us, in the form of the R.O.W.E., the 20% rule, and “crazy” new ideas entering the business lexicon from books like ReWork and Drive (and hopefully My Book when it comes out).

Soon, we will build what should have been there all along: internal, equal, top-level* strategic business partners who are 100% sold out to building a healthy work environment, fostering exceptional company culture, and championing full employee engagement. (I call the leader of this group a Chief Culture Officer, and it is one piece of the puzzle in the very exciting future of organizations.)

The death of HR will mean the birth of something much better.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait.

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P.S. For a more in-depth look at this issue, download the article “Talent Pool or Talent Puddle” by Marc Effron and Miriam Ort.

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*I say “top-level” so you know where in the organization I’m talking about — but I had to add this footnote as a caveat, because, as we know, the real leaders of the future lead from the bottom.

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This isn’t what I was intending to post today but over the weekend, my invisible mentor, Seth Godin, posted two entries that are absolutely essential reading to help us recognize the revolution that’s currently happening in the world of work.

PART ONE: THE REALIZATION IS NOW

Americans are frustrated with the world and pessimistic about the future. They’re losing patience with the economy, with their prospects, with their leaders (of both parties).

What’s actually happening is this: we’re realizing that the industrial revolution is fading. The 80 year long run that brought ever-increasing productivity (and along with it, well-paying jobs for an ever-expanding middle class) is ending.

It’s one thing to read about the changes the internet brought, it’s another to experience them. People who thought they had a valuable skill or degree have discovered that being an anonymous middleman doesn’t guarantee job security. Individuals who were trained to comply and follow instructions have discovered that the deal is over… and it isn’t their fault, because they’ve always done what they were told. READ THE REST…

And it’s not just the internet that’s driving this change — though the web is accelerating it. Globalization was already happening before Google. Humans are changing the way they think about the world, and business, in fundamental ways.

PART TWO: THE OPPORTUNITY IS HERE

At the same time that our economic engines are faltering, something else is happening. Like all revolutions, it happens in fits and starts, without perfection, but it’s clearly happening.

The mass market is being replaced by multiple micro markets and the long tail of choice. Google is connecting buyers and sellers over vaster distances, more efficiently and more cheaply than ever before. Manufacturing is more of a conceptual hurdle than a practical one.

The exchange of information creates ever more value, while commodity products are ever cheaper. It takes fewer employees to generate more value, make more noise and impact more people.

Most of all is this: every individual, self-employed or with a boss, is now more in charge of her destiny than ever before. The notion of a company town or a stagnant industry with little choice is fading fast. Right before your eyes, a fundamentally different economy, with different players and different ways to add value is being built. READ THE REST…

Many people are noticing the shift. We agree that it’s unprecedented and irreversible. But this is my concern — while there are tangible, helpful suggestions for how individuals can respond to the big shift (Seth is amazing at this), I haven’t seen enough suggestions for what leaders of organizations are supposed to do.

Here’s the question:

How do we re-organize in a way that doesn’t suck?

This is where we’re going…

(Also, this question will be answered in detail in the new book, which is probably getting A New Title. More on that soon!)

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