I’m not a very political man. You may even call me apolitical. I always vote, but I often vote based on the issues versus being tied to a political party. I’m politically Neapolitan. But that doesn’t mean I can’t tell you about a good story that involves Government, regardless of your or my political stripes. In my home province of British Columbia, Canada, there has been a program in place now — called IDEAS2ACTION — where citizens have been asked to get involved, submit ideas and help shape opportunities for skills development across the entire province. The process the Provincial Government followed is best summarized by the graphic found below: There have been over 125 ideas submitted and vetted, with a fantastic accompanying dashboard that
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There are a lot of fools in our organizations today. Why else is employee engagement at deplorable levels? Why else do we see senior leaders failing to adopt social collaborative technologies inside (or outside) the organization? Why else do we see authoritative, autocratic, fear mongering and controlling leaders still operating in vast numbers? Why do we see information and knowledge hoarding? It’s because the people who act this way are fools. They have a fear of open leadership. They are the FOOL. (It’s an acronym) Work with me. In my book Flat Army: Creating a Connected and Engaged Organization I define open leadership as follows: “the act of engaging others to influence and execute a coordinated and harmonious conclusion” There are some key words and
Flat Army revolves around five key frameworks that leaders and organizations need to consider if they want to improve employee engagement and business results. They are: Connected Leader Attributes Participative Leader Framework Collaborative Leader Action Model Pervasive Learning Collaboration Technologies Each of the five frameworks has an associated graphic that helps depict what they’re about. I’ve made available a short presentation on Slideshare where each of those five frameworks and the corresponding graphics are available for you to review. (You can see it below as well) What is a FLAT ARMY? from Dan Pontefract
Far too often I come across stories or direct examples of a leader who has surrounded herself with the same general characteristics and behaviours of the leader herself. And not in a ‘geez, this beer tastes great’ way. The trait I see that causes the most damage or stagnates a team and indirect teams into an endless pit of debate is the ‘no’ trait. No, that will never work. No, I don’t think we should pursue that. No, it’s not something we would ever do. These are lines a leader might say, but leaders are equally influenced by the team she is surrounded by and it’s highly likely she might be fed the ‘no’ ingredient well in advance. It’s the ‘no’ seed planting approach. Some