X : Blah, blah, blah, business leader.
Me : Business leader?
X : Yes, that's what I am.
Me : The ability to lead people that you pay to be lead by you?
X : No, I give direction.
Me : Would anyone follow you if you weren't paying them? I think business manager might be more apt.
X : I am a leader.
Me : In a very loose sense of the word. I could argue that I am beautiful by paying a thousand people to say so ... doesn't make it true. I understand where you're going but I wouldn't go around calling yourself a business leader. What's wrong with manager?
X : I am more than a manager.
Me : So it's not about the role and what you do, it's about ego?
X : No, it's about the simple truth that I lead.
Me : Gosh, nothing simple in this. How many ways can we unpack this. I better not.
X : Why?
Me : I'll cause more harm than good.
X : Cat got your tongue?
Me : Hmmm, if it makes you happy to call yourself a business leader then fine. Just consider ...
X : What?
Me : how it makes those around you feel.
X : Why would I care?
Me : Yes, that is what I was afraid of.
X : I don't understand.
Me : You never will.
X : I will.
Me : Ok. Leadership is not something you give yourself, it is something others give you. They choose to follow you. In your case, they're not choosing to follow you, they're choosing to get some money for which a condition is attached of obeying your instructions.
Me : That's not leadership. A more apt phrase might be economic slavery. If "your" people didn't have to work for money, how many would voluntarily be lead by you? Have you ever played WoW / Eve online?
X : That's a game. What has that got to do with business.
Me : Everything.
Me : These online environments provide a world where you can build guilds but you have to do so through concepts of belonging, values, principles and purpose. If you can build a 600 person guild on something like WoW with nothing at all ... then you'll know how to lead.
X : That's just rubbish. I run a very profitable company.
Me : You were pomoted into that role and you've never built a company. Just think about taking some time, have a bit of fun and try building a guild on a MMORPGs. See what happens.
X : Waste of my time.
Me : Probably.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Simon Wardley

Simon Wardley Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @swardley

14 Oct
A fascinating example of narrative, creation and teaching methods all in one. It is quite amazing ->
X : Why so amazing?
Me : It's something @snowded reinforced at Map Camp yesterday. The examples of continuous small efforts in creating momentum to create change in a system. @snowded is always spot on with this stuff.
X : What's that got to do with videos?
Me : It's not really about videos, it's about art (whether videos or video games or whatever) and it's ability to influence societal values and hence power structures.
X : I don't get that map.
Me : You don't need to. All you need to understand is we change society through art.
Read 9 tweets
13 Oct
Asked about pipeines in maps ... as simple as I can
You can think of pipelines as categories for many evolving components that we have choice over (i.e. substitution) ... for example, content in entertainment (i.e. films).
X : Isn't power a commodity?
Me : Hell's bells. I'm showing you an example to explain the meaning of a pipeline. Fair point though. Is this clearer?
Read 4 tweets
12 Oct
X : Do you think UK has done a good job with COVID?
Me :
1) It's not over.
2) It did a better job for a time given the truly awful start -
3) There is still not enough testing and isolation in my view. Should have learned from China.
X : Learn from China?
Me : Yep. We should have clocked that.
X : Masks?
Me : Good idea. I was suckered into the whole droplet view (which was WHO advice last year) ... thank heavens for Masks4All and the work they did.
Read 15 tweets
10 Oct
This has almost nothing to do with what is beneficial to the economy and almost everything to do with power, status symbols, inertia and vested interests. UK should be encouraging adaptation not trying to recreate the past. Disappointing from a UK Gov figure ->
X : Do you think it really matters?
Me : I wouldn't talk about it if I didn't. We need our corporations to adapt, the new behaviours that are emerging depend upon remote working, distributed communication and access to data.
It's all about future state. As we currently stand, China will be the space fairing nation of 2050 with km wide space stations, the emerging Star Trek -phys.org/news/2021-09-c…

The UK will do a nice line in luxury yacht rental and frozen yoghurt - ft.com/content/351cf2…
Read 20 tweets
9 Oct
X : Last year you said that China would start to focus on tackling inequality.
Me : Social mobility will become increasingly important for competition around the world. This was obvious years ago but it was clearly signalled that China would make this play a few years back. Why?
X : Common prosperity, tackling tech vendors etc?
Me : Yep. It's all about future competitiveness and exposing the achilles heel of the Western system. Not much we can do about it. We're at the start of the program though, it'll take years for the effect to be seen. Why?
X : This is more than just raising people out of poverty?
Me : Of course. This is all about being seen as successful in economic terms, building that sense of belonging and safety within the collective whilst undermining other collectives as people question ... why?
Read 6 tweets
9 Oct
X : How do you do strategy?
Me : First, I start by observing the environment (including producing a map). Then I challenge and interrogate the map. Finally, I start scenario planning on the map with scribbles that represent different connections and gameplay. Why?
X : Is there a method?
Me : Rounds of challenge and scenario planning on the map. There are playbooks (I have over 100 patterns I've collected) which you can apply but it's mainly thought plus more interrogation. It's not a perfect or formal exercise.
X : What patterns?
Me : hmmm
Me : This is a list of some basic gameplay. It'll be good enough for you to explore. But, don't bother to do this until you've got mapping and basic principles sorted. If that's not the case then your only strategy is "to stop punching ourselves in the face".
Read 18 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(