Thread by @swardley

i.e. the traditional are those who believe the future of work is office based and strongly dependent on procedures whilst the next generation are more biased towards remote work and the use of guiding principles ... you will then find ...

... the traditional are far more biased towards learning via in person lectures with experts whereas the next gen are biased towards remote learning with "live" scenarios and gameplay ...

The traditional are far more ouput driven whist the next generation focused on outcome ...

The traditional are all about powerful and charismatic leaders, hiearachy and top down direction whilst the next generation are more distributed leadership, non hiearchical and swarming of people ...

The traditional see decline in their future, the next generation see growth ...

... and before you ask, no it's no a size thing. Select for companies over 1,000 employees and the differences are there as well ...

So, the point about the table is simply this ... there are two populations out there - the Traditional and the Next Gen. Your company is probably somewhere between those.

Over time, you will become more Next Gen like, we all will ... or we will decline.

It's no different to what happened in 2011 ... oh, I know there's a mad rush to go all DevOps today but those companies are being led by the hopeless. Should have been doing that a decade ago.

So, it's the same with the new table ... I expect some to recognise themselves in the next generation whilst the majority become confused, defensive and even dismissive about points. The "that's just startups" line will be common. For them, I'll just say ... see you in a decade.

In a decade we will know whether we can use population studies to identify changing characteristics in organisations and whether the corporate corpus is an evolving creature. This will be the third test of this, each becoming more defined, more precise.

X : Thoughts on returning to offices?
Me : Hmmm, "powerful" and "charismatic" leaders concerned over loss of status symbols and other instruments of power demanding the workforce return to the office in order to re-establish this but promoting this as all about some other reason?

X : Not a fan?
Me : It's an opportunity to evolve. I think it's daft to make a mad dash for the past.

X : What about a hybrid model?
Me : Office first and Remote first are hybrid models, it's a question of balance. It's not Remote Only but Remote First.

X : Does this imply only weak and characterless leaders can federate decision-making and authority?

Me : No. What it says is that traditional orgs identitfy with a powerful and charismatic leader in a hierarchical, top down structure ..,

... whereas the next gen have more distributed leadership i.e. it's not one powerful and charismatic person, the leadership can be transient or multiple people and they operate more in a swarm focused on outcomes and driven by principles.

X : What is causing the changes?
Me : Ah, we mapped this out before the survey. Connectivity is behind much of this but I'm not sure "cause" is the right word.
X : Explain.
Me : What may well be happening is that human nature at a society level is re-asserting itself ...

... i.e. our concept of leadership is itself a very artificial construct that has been placed and reinforced in our society e,g, every mob needs a leader. Well, that's a nice circular justification for the role of leader.

Which is why things like WSB / GameStop are more interesting than just a crowd of "little" people take on "big" hedge funds ... it's actually a pointer to a new form of leadership. It has purpose, direction, a fluid form of structure, principles, rituals but no actual leader ...

... or at best transient forms. Yes, the PR firms and others try to create / manufacture a leader (which you need to destablise a collective) and where they can't they turn to the usual "shadowy leaders in dark smoke filled rooms" concepts.

It's quite amazing to observe, it even has its own symbols and stories - Diamond Hands - and from a hedge fund PR perspective it's a nightmare. How do you kill a collective which has no leader or won't identify with one but has all the beneficial characteristics of "leadership".

X : You might be conflating management with leadership. It’s nice when managers have leadership skills. It’s perfectly fine if leadership arises within the team more organically too.
Me : You maybe conflating leaders with leadership.

X : You need a leader to make things happen.
Me : Explain that to the hedge funds who lost tens of billions against WSB / GameStop. Try "the loss isn't real, they don't have a CEO, Board and layers of executives" ... see how that works for you.

X : You've identified two discernable populations and chosen names that frame your conclusions (tut);
Me : Yes. Two different populations and I've chosen a direction based upon their beliefs on the future. That was my call. I could be wrong but let me get burned by that choice.

Me : It was the same in 2011, two different populations and yes, I framed the direction based upon their beliefs over the future. I made that call as well. Let get me burned for that one as well, if I was wrong.

X : What does leaderless leadership mean?
Me : It's a different form, away from an archetype of heroic leader. It could be many, transient or even a different role - more nurturing / gardening / servant - concept. It's one where it becomes difficult to identify who the leader is.

X : Can leaderless leadership help form sustainable and productive collectives?
Me : These are all novel heading towards emerging practices ... so at best we can point to prototypes - Burning Man, Buurtzorg, WSB, Masks4All, Holocracy ... no-one has the answers yet.

X : How do you think leaders will respond to the concept of leaderless leadership?
Me : It depends upon them. I'm expecting quite a few vociferous reactions.

X : Your table is making me aware of some things I hadn't seen before. It's making connections.
Me : Interesting. Is it making you question?
X : Yes.
Me : Good. That's encouraging.

X : Is leaderless like serverless as in there are still servers?
Me : You just can't identify who the servers are?
X : Are you talking about people or machines now?
Me : Yes.

X : What timeframe for these changes?
Me : My best estimate is that the changes will become more clear over the next decade.

X : Is that from the survey?
Me : No, that was a targetting system I built in order to be able to create the survey.
X : Where did that come from?
Me : Maps, changes of meaning and a network of human sensors.

X : Social media, collaboration and networks are critical for these changes on leaderless leadership?
Me : Yes. Getting back into the office is more than just office space, there's a whole world of power wrapped up in this. We have some challenging times ahead.

X : So, there is no leader?
Me : No. The leader is transitory i.e. it's constantly changing. You can't say "this person is the leader" as it'll vary from moment to moment.
X : How do you do this?
Me : Those practices are novel / emerging. We don't know how to "do it right" yet.

X : Holacracy?
Me : Those are prototypes, experiments in this space. From what I have so far, it seems the principles are critical along with awarness being a function of everyone.

X : What principles?
Me : Good question. I suspect you will not only need all of these in place but there are a few additional higher order principles that I'm currently trying to map out as a best effort ...

... it's a bit like the whole pioneer, settler, town planner structure. It only works if you have almost all the principles above in place. I suspect we will get to a stage of working out all the additional principles we need to allow this new form of organisation to emerge ...

... at the moment, I can only say that there are two populations, one is experimenting in this direction and ... well, like most experiments there will be hiccups along the way. The other population is ... well, stagnating in the past? It's not very happy anyway.

X : If we don't know how to do this right, why not wait until we do?
Me : That was a common response to the last table created in 2010, published in 2011. We should wait until we do know hence all the clamour today to go DevOps. Hint, all the advantage of this has long gone ...

... in fact, I hate to disappoint you but in many of those now starting their DevOps journey are just investing heavily into building the new legacy. You should be focused up the stack i.e. serverless / FinOps etc. All I'm trying to do is point where you should focus now.