Integral Leadership Review
Volume II, No. 9 - October 2002

Table of Contents

Leadership QuoteReturn to top of page

"Leaders and followers are both following the invisible leader - the common purpose. While leadership depends on depth of conviction and the power coming therefrom, there must also be the ability to share that conviction with others, the ability to make purpose articulate. And then that common purpose becomes the leader. And I believe that we are coming more and more to act, whatever our theories, on our faith in the power of this invisible leader. Loyalty to the invisible leader gives us the strongest possible bond of union."

Mary Parker Follett, 1941

Look for the November Issue of Integral Leadership Review that includes an excerpt from an interview with Leo Burke, former head of Motorola's leadership development program and now Associate Dean for Executive Education, University of Notre Dame.

MissionReturn to top of page

I am grateful to the more than 480 subscribers to Integral Leadership Review. Your support means that we can move closer to a way of viewing and being in the world that is integrative, generative and supportive of our evolving integrity - learning to align our theory and our action, our values and assumptions with achieving what is important to us. Also, I am grateful to the many kindnesses, suggestions and offers of support we have received.

The mission of this e-publication is to be a practical guide to the application of an integral perspective to the challenges of leadership in business and life and to the effective relationship between executive/business coaches and their clients. My vision includes that this will be a place where others, as well as myself, can continue to develop and share ideas about integral leadership and integral coaching.

Russ Volckmann

The Integral Model of Leadership Return to top of page 
Integral Leadership - Part 19

Meaning Making
(19th Article in a series on Integral Leadership)

In a report on research about leadership, the authors defined their study as "meaning making in a community of practice." [Ospina, Sonia et al, "Co-producing Knowledge: Practitioners and Scholars Working Together to Understand Leadership," Building Leadership Bridges 2002, Cherrey and Matusak, eds., International Leadership Association.] They went on to write,

"Leadership is perceived as a process in which people come together to pursue change, and in doing so, collectively develop a shared vision of what the world (or some part or corner of it) should look like. The role of articulating the vision may be taken on by one individual or by several. It may be rotated or shared. The emergence of leadership is, therefore, always a collective process of meaning making."

What, exactly, is this meaning making that they refer to? It is at the heart of the upper left quadrant for individuals and the lower left quadrant for collectives, be they organizations or societies. Ospina and her associates described the lower right aspect of this as a process of co-production. This process of CO-production is intended to lead to collective meaning making that alters lower left, culture. The product is some level of shared purpose, the invisible leader of Mary Parker Follett.

And the individual must make meaning in this context. How do individuals make meaning in the context of leadership in our businesses and organizations? They do so in a number of ways, each of which relies upon their senses.

To the extent the individual is "attuned" to their senses they are able to gather information that they can use to create meaning. A question that gnaws at me a bit is what about all of that information that is not available to our senses? And does this matter?

The implicate order of David Bohm provides us with a sense of this. Mike Jay discusses this a bit in the interview below. And so do Ben and Roz Zander in their book The Art of Possibility. Is tapping into the implicate order a spiritual process, a developmental process and/or simply a process of meaning making? Does the implicate order matter?

And here step in the developmental psychologists, the Kegans, Graves, Loevingers et al. Their models are essentially about developmental levels and meaning making. The thesis is that one's meaning making is determined by one's level of development.

Developmental theory suggests that every new level of development has more information, potentially. Every level has important information to bring to decision making, problem solving -- meaning making. What drives development may be the hope that new learning, development of consciousness, will lead to new ways of perceiving and understanding the world, the universe. As we develop we begin to see life with a capacity for including more and more of the complexity. Each new level of learning does not replace the lower level, but provides a context for it.

In situations requiring some form of leadership we are always dealing with incomplete or imperfect information. If leadership is about change then leaders are always operating in a zone of ambiguity and uncertainty. I have been arguing in these articles that a major reason for adding a collective perspective to our understanding of leadership is that the diversity that is included makes it possible for us to engage more effectively with the challenges of complexity.

Perhaps a better question is what senses are we developing that will enhance our capacity for meaning making? The answer is, "All of them!" But what are they? We know about some of them: seeing, smelling, tasting, hearing, feeling (sensing). Then there is this idea of a six sense, be it described as intuition or ESP. If intuition is really a way of meaning making, i.e., seeing the patterns and possibilities among phenomenon, then that leads us into the realm of senses of which most of us have very little awareness. Nor can we find particularly strong evidence of reliability of those who claim to have access to these senses.

It doesn't mean that they don't exist, however. And, again, if we are on a developmental path, if leadership is to develop, what is the path for increasing the access and reliability of these senses? If it is not an individual path, only, then it is also a collective path. And we are challenged by it.

Michael Jones, pianist and lecturer writes ["The Leader's Journey and the Imaginative Life," Cherrey and Matusak, eds., Building Leadership Bridges 2002.]

"…to truly see the gifted nature of the world means catching it out of the corner of your eye. Thus, sensing comes before understanding, 'what' and 'when' comes before 'why' or 'how to,' and imagining comes before the reasoning mind.

"Therefore, in living organizations, everyone is a leader to the extent that they possess the 'imaginative sight' to see what the mind cannot see. That is, for leaders to lead living organizations they need to think as nature thinks. This means to think aesthetically. What gives us this 'aesthetic capability' is the quality of attentiveness that comes from seeing the poetry in the world of another."

There are various ways we can access the world, indeed the universe(s), for meaning making. Growing consciousness of how we do so is essential to the leadership journey, individually and collectively.

"Consciousness precedes being: consciousness, yours and mine, can form, deform, or reform our world. Our complicity in world making is a source of awesome and sometimes painful responsibility - and a source of profound hope for change. It is the ground of our common call to leadership, the truth that makes leaders of us all."
Peter J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak, 2000.

And just to make sure that no one takes this as some abstract notion meant for those who are spiritually inclined, consciousness is about all aspect of life, all aspects of being. It requires a Newtonian perspective and a quantum perspective. It requires attending to meaning making at all levels of the spiral that we can individually access. Then this critical awareness, so vital to the survival of the earth as we know it and the evolution of sustainable societies within it, can be served by bringing the collective talents and capacities for consciousness together to meet our requirements on all levels.

Thus, we have the challenge for integrating individual and collective leadership.

Coaching Tip: Explore Meaning Making Return to top of page 

Important to the coaching process is supporting the leader and the collective of which s/he is a part to gain clarity about how they make meaning in the face of change and ambiguity. One approach is to explore meaning making in levels that parallel those of learning: performance enhancement, individual and system change, and transformation -- a change in meaning. Executives that I work with currently are finding the exploration of transformational learning, the learning about the learner, to be an important asset in their own growth and in working with others. Such transformative learning is primarily about themselves as individuals and their relationship with the collective. It is about exploring the shared field.

Global Integral Research, Inc. Presents:  Return to top of page
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This two-day workshop is a certification program in the Wade Mindsets System for Leadership Development. This unique approach is based on adult developmental psychology and how it affects:

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In an experiential, multimedia workshop, participants will learn:

Certification includes training in using the Wade Mindsets Work Inventory (http://www.wademindsets.org) and permission to use this web-based, statistically reliable instrument for assessing the mindsets predominantly used in work organizations by employees at all levels. Assessment is so quick and affordable it can be used across entire employee populations as the basis for individual, group, function, or complete organization applications. Databases can be created for consultants and client companies. Certification also includes the right to use leadership development materials furnished by Dr. Wade.

Wade Mindsets Systems is an integral approach that not only sheds light on individuals and their relationship to others and to work, but also on the environments, cultures and infrastructures that suit them best. Its most exciting implications involve work and organization design. An optional third day of the workshop is available for people certified in the first two days. It covers certification for Wade Mindsets System for Organizational Design. It includes:

When:
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A Fresh Perspective: Generating Leadership Return to top of page 
Mike Jay and Generati

Mike Jay is one of the most interesting people I have ever met. He is a bit of a diamond in the rough as a former collegiate football quarterback, US Marine Corporal and recovering consultant and aspiring developmentalist. Prolific in his intake of information and ideas, as well as his integration of these in constructive ways, he constantly pushes the envelope. Today he is the founder, creator and continuing innovator of B\Coach Systems, LLC, a world-class developer of business and executive coaches. One of his more recent innovations is a program on spiral coaching in which he includes integral theory, spiral dynamics, and the Leadership Development Profile presented and interpreted by Susann Cook-Greuter. Let it be known that he is one of the best teachers I have ever had. Visit www.b-coach.com for info. I began the interview by asking Mike about a concept that is central to his work.

RV: What is this concept of generati?

MJ: I developed it as a result of trying to find "the keys to leadership." I studied leadership both in and outside of corporations. I've been a leader all my life. I've always gotten out front and I've always been out front-sometimes for the wrong reasons. People have put me there and I've always led things. I think in large part that is due to a lot of innate hardwiring: my dominant traits and my influence traits. Some people say I have the gift of gab and stuff like that. I think that there is both an innate reason and a nurtured reason - a conditioned reason.

When you go into military service you're naked. Nobody knows who you are. They don't care who you are. They don't care where you're from; you're just one of the troops. And yet, when you rise to the top you have to look back and say well, what is it that makes people leaders? That's the one thing that I tried to figure out and I still don't really know the answer.

Along the way I studied as much about leadership as I could and then applied that using my experience to discover what worked and what didn't work. I came up with six core competencies in the beginning, which were attention, intention, capability, alignment, coaching and this concept of generati.

Later, I realized that generati itself was not a competency, that it was a state that the other five produced when they all were integrated as meta-competencies. I began to talk about integrating leadership a long time ago, just like a lot of other people have. You were one of them. So a natural integration is just natural development that a person goes through as they ascend through more complexity. They uncover this and that and all of a sudden they really begin to realize that they have to integrate things. Otherwise they leave stuff behind.

So this concept of generati came from the literati, the digerati. I thought we can have a generati, because the whole idea is to create these generative states when you are a leader. In other words, not just win, not just win-win, but find a way that the win-win produces an additional win in the ecology of things. Then you're not picking up the pieces after you win-win. That's the philosophy that is guiding what I'm doing right now in terms of…how does that apply to the world at large.

I want to combine a way to put mind, body, spirit together with the issues of business and the issues of wellness. One of the things that I believe strongly is that most of the social change that is going to take place over the next millennium is going to come as a result of what happens around business. I know individuals are extremely important. They are business. At the same time I believe that business, because of resources, because most people spend their time there…as entrepreneurs, self-employed people, business owners, even investors…they're constantly hooked into business.

I see so many people each day that are ignoring the relationship that we have to have with business because they don't like what's going on in corporate America. In a lot of cases I don't blame them. But I believe that we can make the changes from the inside much faster than we can from the outside, even though it might seem that it's hopeless.

I visited the International Holistic Health Association, which is a movement that has been around since the seventies, I believe, and formally in the eighties. They are now starting to hold worldwide conferences on holism. It really intrigued me. But when I I read their principles, they had literally forgotten about business. How can you be holistic and forget about business? Capitalism may not be the best thing to create humankind's consciousness and growth, but how can you possibly talk of holism when you don't talk business. That's the thing that I'm bringing to the table.

I have this idea…I have this dream about society having a better workplace, about society having a better life, about us taking care of all the people, not just some of the people. While there has to be merit and incentive, there can also be ways that we feed that back into the system so we don't leave half of the population like we are right now. To me, this whole integral thing is more than just a bunch of words. It's about a commitment to create generative conditions and to find a way to get other people involved even though I'm not the easiest person to get involved with because of this passion and intensity.

So that's why generati is here and that's why I believe in what you're doing and I believe in a lot of the things that people are beginning to talk about: the movement from first tier to second tier, the movement from conventional to post-conventional, the movement from a self-authored state into a state of higher levels of self-awareness.

I teach this and believe in it significantly. I believe that it is worthy of a commitment that I have for the rest of my life. I don't know how that's going to come about. The only responsibility that I've taken so far is for my own action. I'm not going to be too much attached to any outcomes because I believe that if I just take action and the universe knows that I'm taking action that things will work out the way they need to.

RV: How do you make this real for issues of leadership when you're working with other people?

MJ: I talk to them about what I'm talking to you about now. In fact, I think I've gotten to the point where a lot of people see me as more of a missionary than a leader, because I constantly question people about whether they're being generative and not questioning them from the standpoint of saying, "Hey you! You go be generative." I look for ways to help people begin to look at a broader perspective.

I talk about personal, business and network domains of effect as equivalent to the "I, we, it" domains. Like most of the people who have come to this integral place, I realize that there are some common denominators in humankind and consciousness. When we get people to consider the facts of their decisions and their actions in not only their personal domain but in the business domain as well as in the network domain…decision quality improves dramatically.

Add to those three domains of effect the invisible domain -- the implicate order. None of us really have access to that. If you had access to the implicate order, direct access, then you would probably not be dual anymore. In that case (non-dual) my question is…are you in fact human? I don't know about that. I'll leave that to somebody else to figure out. But that's where I draw boundaries. In other words I know there's an implicate order. I know that there's a field out there that represents the infinite intelligence and the collective unconsciousness. To the extent that we can access that through personal action, the consideration of business consequences, the consideration of consequences in more than one order in the network domain, that is probably the key thing in generative leadership.

RV: You've mentioned three domains, internal, business and network, and getting into questions about how we develop and grow in an integral sense in these areas. I think most people who read this are familiar with a wide range of things around internal and business, but perhaps not about network. Could you say some more about that?

MJ: I got introduced to the network domain and its meaning with Kevin Kelly's book, Out of Control. I remember him writing about the formations of network and connectivity. When you begin to understand things like Metcalf's Law, which states that the value of the network increases at the square of each additional node, you begin to understand how human connectivity is going to change the world and how, instead of living in societies we may live in networks.

The network function describes much more about our ability to relate to people than to perhaps any other things. We've used things like communities, organizations, nation states, regions and continents to describe organization in the past. There are some new rules around network, because of not only the influence of software and connectivity, but the fact that we're beginning to see that connectivity hasn't relieved us of the chain of being bound by our physical presence.

There is a way we can connect with people who are of like desire: people from all over the world, from every culture, all kinds of networks. And all the networks that I have are special because they are centered around a particular aspect that draw people to them. There is an interesting book that I would encourage everyone to read called Netocracy [www.netocracy.biz] They began to talk about where the world is headed. And I do think that we're headed in this particular direction just as a result of our current level of consciousness and current evolutionary path.

I believe in this philosophy of integrating personal freedom with business reality. I believe that we all have the personal right for expression but there comes a time when we have to pay attention to business reality in the collective, in the personal and business and network domains. I think that there are so many things to think about as we move forward in terms of network: how they're going to work; what the causal effects are going to be as a result of people realigning their lives in terms of the network. For instance it is very difficult for me to align around a political persuasion that defines me with tighter boundaries than I would prefer. I find myself gravitating towards an apolitical position even when I know that it is important in our democratic society to take an active part.

RV: That brings us back to this notion of developmental levels. Networking probably means that we're going to expand the scope of our relationships across developmental levels as well. At least there's that potential. What ideas do you have about this notion of developmental levels and what leadership might look like in a networking environment?

MJ: I want to ""re-thank" Don Beck who urged me to do Spiral Dynamics work last year, because it really informed a large part of a philosophy that I could not give a name to. I kept feeling that it's not an issue of getting everybody to go somewhere, getting everybody to be something or getting people to become enlightened. I don't think that human consciousness necessarily needs that. What I think it needs may be more along the lines of the Dalai Lama in terms of compassion. We can use compassion to look at what Graves said, i.e., that people have a right to be who they are.

What I think of leadership doing is understanding people through understanding development. That's the next frontier, if we're not already in it. We should immediately get things like Spiral Dynamics, the integral work, the work that Bill Torbert and Susann Cook-Greuter are doing -- all those kinds of things that Loevinger, Piaget, Kohlberg and all those have handed off to everybody, Kegan's work -- getting that is part of the leadership program. Because you as a leader have to begin to understand how to communicate not to someone but with everyone, to bring them into the field of consciousness that the organization is trying to create that is generative.

The only way to do that in my view is not to ask those people at particular developmental levels to say, "Hey, come over here and be in my level" but to go there and to respect and honor them where they are and to serve them in growing horizontally or vertically, whichever way for them is yielding the greatest level of well being.

RV: Your work involves integrating many different approaches, including developmental and integral theory in working with change in business through coaching. What are the key challenges you are facing.

MJ: I'd just like to muse on a couple of things. I continue to ponder the issues of conventional and post-conventional, the issues of first tier and second tier. I really believe that we do need people who are more integrated leaders. I believe that the problems that we have in the world today are beyond the capacity of much of the leadership that we have to solve. And I do not know the answers. I do believe that the conversation or the dialog should consider "what it is to be these kinds of leaders."

I had a wonderful conversation the other day with Catherine Fitzgerald editor of Executive Coaching: Practices and Perspectives. We talked about coaching executives and the fact that there are times when she sees these leaders, these special people that are very different than the run of the mill, and she can tell that there's something special about them. They are special in terms of their ability to create generative environments, the places where people can feel good about their contributing, be filled with energy and intrinsic motivation, care and love and hope for people and to continue to see their organizations move. They are very few and far between.

I find it difficult to describe these leaders because of the paradoxes of leadership that we have at high levels today. I think that a frontier is finding a way to get those leaders out somewhere so they can model their approaches. We know that learning occurs basically through vicarious processes. We've got to find and identify these types of leaders so that we can get them into places where they can do the kinds of things that the rest of us are led by…are influenced by.

RV: Wouldn't this require supporting them or working with them in a way to help them create "right" results?

MJ: Yes, there's no question about that. I wish I could point to one of them right now. I know some really good leaders, but they're not the kind of leaders that we need. But the one thing that I'm curious about is how can leaders help us? How can they help us speak the language of people unlike them that will get people to understand that you can get results…this other way.

I know I'm really going out on a limb right now and I don't want to criticize the Dalai Lama, but he's a leader that many people have looked to and I certainly have enjoyed listening to him and studying his work over the years. I'm not sure that the organization that the Dalai Lama leads would be an effective business organization, although they have to pay the light bill as well. But I'm trying to think of leaders that both have the spiritual quality and at the same time have the ability to communicate to people at all levels of the organization...at the same time they create a generative environment.

People like you and I and most everybody else who have a retirement account or stocks get disenfranchised from our roles in our part of this integration. We end up unknowingly, unaware that we're putting pressure on these leaders to operate in paradox in a way that is not generative.

I wish there was a way to get the Dalai Lama to find a way to do business so that we'd have a model. Currently, people look at him and say, "Well, that's fine for spiritual stuff and that's fine for that over there, but there are no business principles there." Yet people at lower developmental levels can't extrapolate from the higher levels of development into the lower levels of development…truly the paradox of which I'm referring.

So we need examples. We need concrete steps. We need a system that people are running and showing that they care about other people and it's not just a system where everybody is following the guru. The thing that I see missing today is that we have this disconnect between the spiritual side of things and the business side of things. The business people rail about the spiritual things and the spiritual people rail about the business things, but there's no integration.

Ultimately, I'm trying to find ways to do this kind of work. We've introduced models that oftentimes we call Trojan horse models. I am asking for a model of spirit that doesn't look like a model of spirit, but to function with it you have to be spiritual.

I think that there are opportunities and I see lots of wonderful people. I mean, the first that comes to mind is Don Beck who is working all over the world trying to spread the knowledge that he has. And other people like Ken Wilber who is working in different ways with theory, ideas and strategies with business to help them move forward in these ways. These are the things we need to know more about.

Or maybe there needs to be more access. I had a very difficult time getting any access at all to people like this. It's been very difficult. I've had to work; I've had to really earn my way into where these people would even consider my ideas or talk to me. That's the kind of thing that makes it difficult when we have business people who can't get access or spiritual people who don't invite business people to come and be a part of their process and models. That's what's missing! We need to begin building some of these models and show people that we can get results without having to tear peoples' hearts out. We need to show this can be done without having to steal all of the dignity and respect from our fellow man. We need to find ways to promote diversity in the ways of development, as well as gender, race and creed.

Then we can point to that and say, "Look! This is working. Let's learn about that!" rather than just the business people going from business to business saying, "Let's go do what IBM is doing." or "Let's go do what GE does." or "Let's figure out the HP way." We know that's all connected with spirit, but there's not a model that we can show people. There's separation of church and state and all of a sudden that's a separation between spirit and business.

RV: When you talk about our needing to develop new models do you include models around the very notion of leadership itself? As you know, in my work I've been raising this question in lots of different ways about our continuing to think about business leadership as an individual act, an individual role, and not looking at it as both an individual role and a collective phenomenon. And I'm wondering if you have any thoughts about that.

MJ: Sometimes, when you become an executive you fail to remember that you're still a person and other people fail to remember that you're still a person. The first thing that came to me when you were talking is that we have an individual responsibility to the world: to be aware, to be generative. Yet when we take that into a business or organization we have influence over that system because of our leverage. That fiduciary responsibility is both individual and collective. In other words, there's a loss of identity from the person into the fiduciary responsibility that relieves people of behaving as human beings.

And so, I think you're on the right track. You and I are running parallel, if not converging, in terms of what we're looking at. If I go back and revisit the five meta-competencies of our leadership model, we look at attention, which is really just mindfulness. We say attention because mindfulness is not a business term, per se, at least not in general.

We look at intention and that has to do with creating theories of right action that are based on a spiritual model. We look at capability which is important in all quadrants as well as alignment between the quadrants. And then, of course, coaching, which serves as a boundary spanner.

My idea of coaching is different than that of most people. For most people a coach is anybody who advises, gives information, support, anything can fall into that category. I read lots every day about how a person can coach if they can influence somebody. My idea of a coach is someone who builds capability rather than dependency. This is the essential business ingredient in management leadership today - capability. It is helping people become capable at their level of capacity, rather than dependent. I realize that's a r\evolution. I've been in enough organizations and managed enough people and enough people have reported to me, that I know this is no easy task.

It can be done if you take this position of individual and collective responsibility. We have a responsibility to help others get what they need. We have a responsibility to help the business processes execute. We have a responsibility to make sure that the business process and the people getting what they need do not harm the network of vital relationships. At the same time we need to build increasing levels of capability. The reason why…because we have increasing levels of complexity every day. If we stay stagnant in terms of capability then the problems being generated by the current coping system we have are not going to be solvable. We won't have people at a capacity to solve the problems or generate what is required. So in business and in society we need to continue to develop those people that want this journey of leadership and provide them with support and resources, as well as theory and practice for generative development.

SummaryReturn to top of page

In another departure from the pattern, this month's summary is of a remarkable audiotape from a conference. This tape is of a presentation by Bill Isaacs and Rev. Jeffrey Brown, "Collective Leadership: Principles and Practices for Dialogue-Based Profound Change," 2001 Systems Thinking in Action, Pegasus.

Bill Isaacs begins with Margaret Mead's observation that "A small group of thoughtful and concerned citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has." And then explores questions like,

He notes that inquiry and violence cannot coexist.

A member of the audience contributed, "Inquiry and answers cannot coexist." Answers do violence to inquiry.

Another asks, "What does the transition from violence to inquiry look like?"

In many corporate settings, the demands for collective inquiry is more and more evident, more required. The principles of dialogue are principles of collective leadership.

Much of the rest of the tape is a presentation by Rev. Brown of his experience in joining with others to address the issues of juvenile violence, particularly the growing numbers (over 150 in one year) of juvenile murders. His is a story of transformation from middle class pastoral endeavors to a minister who walked the streets with like-minded ministers of other persuasions where juvenile violence was at its worst in Boston.

As a result of asking the people on the streets, youth and others, they came up with a ten point plan. The community effort became known as the Ten Point Coalition. Public and community agencies joined the dialogue that Rev. Brown and his colleagues initiated.

Juvenile murders dropped to zero for two and a half years. The essence of his story was that through the efforts initially of four ministers, leadership alliances were formed with the youth and other "marginal" people in the streets and ultimately with police and other public agencies. These efforts were transformational, not only for the youth, but for police leaders, as well.

One of the drivers for bringing together the first four leaders was the recognition that they needed the diversity of perspective and the determination for the process to go forward. They recognized that what they were undertaking was personally dangerous. If one were killed, the others would be there to keep the effort continuing.

Principles that were identified from this and other experiences include:

CODA,
Russ VolckmannReturn to top of page

Stuart L. Hart and Clayton M. Christensen, "The Great Leap: Driving Innovation from the Base of the Pyramid," MIT Sloan Management Review, Fall 2002, 44,1.

This article represents a larger view of leadership, business leadership, in the sense of a system leading on a developmental edge in a way that transcends many of the issues we face as a people on the planet earth. It presents a systemic developmental perspective that transcends and includes notions like that of Jonas Ridderstrale and Kjell Nordstrom of the Stockholm School of Economics, Funky Business: Talent Makes Capital Dance (2000):

"Traditional roles, jobs, skills, ways of doing things, insights, strategies, aspirations, fears, and expectations no longer count. In this environment, we cannot have business as usual. We need business as unusual. We need different business. We need innovative business. We need unpredictable business."

Hart (University of North Carolina) and Christensen (Harvard Business School) argue for an economic development approach they call "disruptive innovation." Building on their work with C.K. Prahalad and others the authors offer an economic development strategy for generating growth and satisfying social and environmental stakeholders by building industries that help to lift the huge proportion of our fellow human beings out of poverty.

Part of what is interesting and integral about their approach is that it transcends and includes developmental levels. First, it offers a path for sustaining the economic viability of private industry in the world. Second, it offers a path to providing economic opportunity to the poor. Third, and not the least important, it provides an approach that will help us address the degradation of the ecology.

"Keep in mind the fundamental conditions that lead to the success of a disruptive innovation. The product or service must be one that initially isn't as good as those being used by customers in mainstream markets; as a result it can take root only in new or less demanding applications among non traditional customers….

"Disruptive innovations allow many more people to begin doing things for themselves that could only be done either with the help of skilled intermediaries or by the wealthy before the disruptions…The social good is well served through disruption which has, over the decades, created millions of jobs, generated hundreds of billions of dollars in revenues and market capitalization, and raised standards of living by making available cheap, high-quality products."

The authors provide several examples of disruptive innovation. For example, a company in Bangladesh provided wireless service to rural villages. Women in the village were given the technology and, as a result, increased their incomes, raised their status, and reduced the time and travel required by farmers and other villagers to connect to markets and suppliers. This even cut back on the costs of using fossil fuels required for travel. Even the phones are charged with photovoltaics.

The authors conclude "that existing mainstream markets are the wrong place to look for major new waves of growth."

"Global companies that follow the principles of disruptive innovation and set their sights on the developing world will not simply be taking a leap of faith. By taking a great leap to the base of the pyramid, they will be giving themselves a chance for sustained corporate growth while also helping to lift the poor out of poverty and opening the way to sustainable growth for the global economy."

This article is an example of the kinds of shifts in thinking that are possible when we approach the challenges of the world integrally. Rather than trying to dispose of the market system in some fashion or another, it is time to shape it so that it can enhance the well-being of all on earth.

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Dedication

Dedicated to Chris Newham with deep appreciation.

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Thanks for taking the time to consider this epublication in a world of data overload. For leaders, collaborators, consultants, academics and coaches alike, I welcome you to some ideas and a dialogue that may benefit us all. I hope you will contact me soon with your idea, reference or article. Suggestions on improvement are welcome.

Russ Volckmann, PhD
Coaching Leaders in Business and Life
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© 2001-2006 Russ Volckmann. All Rights Reserved

Russ Volckmann, PhD, LeadCoach™
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