About this talk

As web companies strive to tailor their services (including news and search results) to our personal tastes, there’s a dangerous unintended consequence: We get trapped in a “filter bubble” and don’t get exposed to information that could challenge or broaden our worldview. Eli Pariser argues powerfully that this will ultimately prove to be bad for us and bad for democracy.  Pioneering online organizer Eli Pariser is the author of “The Filter Bubble,” about how personalized search might be narrowing our worldview.

Is Twitter part of the solution.

Lately I have become disillusioned with Twitter. Well not exactly disillusioned but wonder if the time / value trade-off is worth the effort.  Don’t get me wrong.  I have met some very interesting people through Twitter but to do so has taken a lot of focused effort and consideration.  Lately, I have too many connections be able to properly filter.  There are programs out there that will gladly suggest people I should follow based on who I already follow or who follows me. While I do filter based on my own interests, if carefully managed, I have much more control over who and how closely I follow people.  Of course once I start clicking the links within the tweets, I end up back in the hands of “Big Brother”.  Still it makes me wonder if Twitter has an important role to play after all.

Related articles

• 5 Questions with Eli Pariser, Author of ‘The Filter Bubble’ (techland.time.com)
• Twitter presents: great taglines for Eli Pariser’s talk (ted.com)

And for an alternative view

• Eli Pariser is wrong (glinden.blogspot.com)

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Well I don’t always do a very good job of this at all.  In fact, I have so many fingers in so many pies that I often lose sight of what I am really trying to achieve. So starting at the beginning of this year (and no it isn’t a New Year’s Resolution just good timing), I am going stop running on a treadmill – no not literally and use my time a little more wisely.  This means that a couple of blogs – including Eclectic Change will lie dormant for a while.  I will let you know when “I am back”.

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The juxtaposition of these two concepts derives from a great post on Tanveer Naseer’s blog “Is Leadership an Art or a Science?” Generally speaking most of us admit that leadership is both.  But I became interested in another comparison after seeing some terrific discussions on this month’s Think Big regarding women and economic power.  I am borrowing the term “labyrinth” from Alice Eagly, professor of sociology at Northwestern University. I first came across Eagly’s argument that women face a labyrinth more than the glass ceiling in a HBR Article from September 2007. A wonderful update can be found at Big Think “The “Glass Ceiling” Is Actually a Labyrinth ”

I designed a (tongue in cheek) chart below that outlines my views on the differences between an obstacle course and a labyrinth.  I think it is pretty easy to see how typically identified male skills better fit the obstacle course while the more often identified female skills fit the labyrinth.

Besides the alliteration, I think that the metaphor of labyrinth is fitting to all aspects of leaders and leadership. Surprisingly the two concepts of Leadership and the Labyrinth have only been joined when talking about women and the ministry. I suspect there is some additional insight here but I am not sure what it is.

But what about the future – will it be the obstacle course of the past?  I think not. With increasing complexity comes uncertainty, ambiguity and the need for new systems.  It there by seems pretty obvious who might be better suited to the new demands of leadership.   Different skills will be needed and women have one asttribute or competency that it appears most men refuse to develop. When all is said and done, it really boils down to one thing:

Women will make the better leaders of tomorrow because they are willing to ask for directions.

For a more validated analysis based on good research, the clip below may serve you best. It goes beyond the issues of challenges of women reaching the top but goes deeper into the value and ROI when industries embrace diversity. Eagly also points out how complexity has had an impact on leadership.

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Earlier this month Tony Schwartz wrote an interesting HBR blog post Happiness Is Overrated. It certainly stirred up a lot of emotions in the comments.  Initially, I was inclined to disagree with Tony, but he was making some valuable observations.  As I have grown older I also discovered these truths for myself.  For the past five years I have never been happier or more frustrated.  Being happy takes hard work! It means doing the right thing each and every moment – an impossible task. It means doing what needs to be done even when you don’t want to do it but you do it because it needs doing. It means (unfortunately) not being first in your own life. Maybe happiness is overrated after all. But maybe experiencing happiness, the right kind of happiness is a message. A message that in that moment, you know what you do is important.

Happiness is about the little things we do everyday. I have been completely unable to find the source of this video and I would love to give attribution.  Take a few minutes to enjoy.

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What kind of environment fosters the development of good ideas? This video below looks at this question and provides and overview to the answer from Steven Johnson’s new book “Where Good Ideas Come From” People often credit their ideas to individual “Eureka!” moments. But Steven Johnson shows how history tells a different story. We have all heard of the need for incubation but Johnson has observed that this process rarely occurs in isolation.

We need to create environments of conversations and dialogue.  In the past, it was the coffee houses that Johnson, I am reminded more of the salons of Paris and elsewhere.  Our challenge is to utilize the new social networks for meaningful reflection and exchange of ideas and not the “noise” that they often appear to be generating.

QUESTION: What tools do you use to stay connected both in mind and in relationship?

And for those who would like to dig in the topic, you can watch this 18 minute TED conference from the same Steven Johnson.  His fascinating tour takes us from the “liquid networks” of London’s coffee houses to Charles Darwin’s long, slow hunch to today’s high-velocity web.

The title of this post is a quote from Johnson as he ends his TED presentation.

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You may be thinking that this is a trick question and perhaps you are right.  For some time now, I have been using the family system as a micro version of what happens in larger organizational systems.   So what better way than to look at the parental role as leader and how it plays out in gender differences?*

I begin with the story of my two parents.  The year is 1944, Bletchley Park, England.  My mother at 25 was less than half the age I am now.  She was a Flight Sergeant in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force and newly wed to my father, a civilian and to her surprise almost 5 years her junior.  My mother had planned on making a career in the Air Force after the war but instead was decommissioned and by the early 50′s was raising a family as a stay-at-home Mum.  She always volunteered outside the home; often with women identified organizations such as Girl Guides, Planned Parenthood and the Elizabeth Fry Society.  In her fifties, she went back to school to become first a Real Estate Agent and then a Medical Secretary.  My father’s career took off after the war.  He went back to school, became an Electrical Engineer and immigrated to Canada with his wife and two small children.  He worked his way up Ma Bell and retired as a senior manager with over 600 people reporting to him.  He took pride in the nickname they had for him: “Hill the Mover: Hire, Fire, Transfer or Retire.” (I am not quite so sure it was meant as a compliment.)

So who was the better leader in my family configuration?

The Christian perspective is that the husband is the head (aka leader) of the household.  This has led to many debates as to the meaning and I am sure the same can be said in other religious practices.  Personally, I think this quote from “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” exemplifies how most women feel:

Toula Portokalos: Ma, Dad is so stubborn. What he says goes. “Ah, the man is the head of the house!”
Maria Portokalos: Let me tell you something, Toula. The man is the head, but the woman is the neck. And she can turn the head any way she wants.

My mother certainly believed this to be true.  So who is the better leader?

My premise is that neither and not for reasons that you might suspect.  I do think that all the roles and responsibilities of “leadership” can not be successfully handled by one person alone.  It is too large a burden to carry. For this reason, I am a great promoter of “collaborative leadership”.

Like many parents, my father and mother were excellent managers but not leaders in the modern sense. This is a sincere compliment.  They knew how to plan, organize, staff , direct and control. As I work with senior and new leaders, I am discovering that the art of management is becoming a lost skill.  We are trying to develop leaders without first ensuring that the foundation of management is there.

Most families have the potential for being a great leadership model but many fall short.  Each member does not have an equal voice. There is no mutually developed aligned vision.  Engagement of all the family members is often lacking.  Power . . . trust . . . the list could go on.

Ask yourself these questions in the context of leadership and see if they fall into the “traditional” gender role of male or female.

• Who pushed you to take risks?
• Who expressed emotions best?
• Who was the most accepting of your differences?
• Who encouraged you in your dreams?
• Who trusted you, your choices and your decisions?
• Who was the most compassionate?
• Who asked you for your opinion?
• Who was the strictest or had the most “rules”?
• Who challenged you to think bigger?
• Who made you feel safe?
• Who really managed the money?

Now, in hindsight, I am much more inclined to not only forgive but forget my parent’s shortcomings.  I see them for what we all are: human and flawed.  My Dad could be a bully and my Mum a martyr. That said, they were excellent role models.  And in the last few years, they stepped down as the leaders of our family and turned the responsibility over to my brother and me.  I only hope that I will have honoured that trust.  I also have my own blended family and it is pretty obvious to me . . . I am a good manager (gender be damned) but I have a lot to learn about the practice of shared leadership.  I am working on it!

* I have a confession to make.  I am much more inclined to support demographics as an influencer of style before gender or generational differences.  But that, perhaps, is another post.

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