The point of no return Organisations have always been around, as they were needed to help people survive and prosper. They provided a range of indispensable services such as solidarity in case of crisis, security against risks and life improvement through the invention and production of necessary goods and services. So, the purpose of an organisation is to achieve what an individual cannot do on his own. But is this still true? For many years, organisations based their work on the principles of management by objectives, which involved directing and controlling employees. As author and inspirational management expert Tom Peters notes, “Organisations exist to serve. Period. Leaders live to serve. Period”. Such a concept has led people to lose a sense of purpose in the work they have been doing and to ask the critical and legitimate question: “Where is my life going?” Perhaps we should reformulate the question by asking if the existing format of organisational work is still valid and meets the main purpose of human life. Leaders as well as employees are questioning themselves about the relevance of their work; slowly but steadily, they are losing their commitment to companies solely driven by profitability. It is becoming obvious that people’s work expectations have changed in dramatic ways, ie they want to work less
and have more benefits. New technologies such as non-organic intelligence are having a growing and intense impact on business. The primary concerns in our society, pollution and climate change for instance, do not seem to be being addressed and are mostly ignored or even worse, exacerbated by existing organisations, which are often motivated by short-term gains. Many organisations fail to help people lead meaningful and full lives and, as British philosopher Bertrand Russell rightfully states, they “produce a sense of impotence in the individual, leading to a decay of effort”. Based on the innovation that is already happening in some organisations, we believe there is indeed a major need for re-inventing the way we think, interact, create and produce together. We need to have order and balance in our collective lives, but not in the way it was still configured right up until the end of the 20th century. The organisation of the future We like to think that the organisation of the future will be characterised by joint leadership and that people will be empowered and inspired to be creative by bringing the human and non-human brains together. What could be the characteristics of such an organisation? There is a need to invent a strong partnership with NOI. Companies should establish and structure processes geared at promoting hybrid intelligence, ie the cooperation between AI and the human mind. We must also rethink the concept of team leadership; in this new set-up, every member of staff would be empowered to lead projects and leadership would become a shared phenomenon. Organisations would create greater flexibility in the way people work together; what would count is not the number of hours you spend at work, but the quality of output. Traditional functions are becoming obsolete and roles are already growing increasingly interchangeable. We should move away from employees having singular jobs towards making their functionality more creative and cerebrally challenging. Companies should also use ‘unlearning’ as their default mindset. When it comes to jumping into the unknown, we have to be open‑minded and ready to recognise and discard in a timely manner activities, ideas and operations that are growing outdated. Having a corporate culture that imprints the concept of unlearning in its DNA is an absolute must for the organisation of the future. We also have to keep in mind that, as Abraham Lincoln believed, “the best way to predict the future is to create it”, meaning we must invent tomorrow now. We can already observe numerous efforts to change organisational practices, so they become future proof. The problem is that leaders often envisage the future as having some kind of continuity of the past – and that is where the problem begins. Going back to our roots Looking back at history, at first glance it appears that we have moved from administrator jobs to management and then to leadership. The question now is: What’s next?
Defining deep leadership
Vision comes first: a humanistic approach helps to shape employees’ aspirations
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• Shared power: power should be fluid and move around according to individual talents and the requirements of any given scenario • Prioritising camaraderie: a high level of networking within teams and between individuals is a must • Continuous self and team development: challenging each other in various ways, discussing critical human issues and experiencing some kind of mind expansion • Empowerment as a principle: leadership will become increasingly virtual in the sense that there will be times when leaders will not be so visible, nor so active, and the practice of self-empowerment will be encouraged • Focus on meaningful activity: examining the meaning and value of what people do within these new organisations • Adoption of AI technology: most of the routine tasks that need to be done quickly will be taken care of by NOI. Deep leadership should promote its acceptance and implementation, as it will help people to better reach an understanding of the new reality
42 | Ambition | MAY 2023
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