Open Source Leadership

OPEN SOURCE LEADERSHIP Leslie Gadman and Cary Cooper

OPEN SOURCE LEADERSHIP

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OPEN SOURCE LEADERSHIP Leslie Gadman Strategy Consultant and Associate Professor in Strategy and Organizational Behaviour, London South Bank University

and

Cary Cooper Pro Vice Chancellor (External Relations) and Professor of Organizational Psychology and Health, Lancaster University

© Leslie Gadman and Cary Cooper 2009 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2009 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN-13: 978–0–230–20191–0 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne

For Linda, Brenda and Thea Three lamps, One Light, one Light-mind, Endlessly emanating all things. One turning and burning diamond, One, One, One.

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CONTENTS

List of Figures

viii

About the Authors

ix

Acknowledgements

x

Introduction

1

Chapter 1 New Game, New Rules

25

Chapter 2 Open Source Leadership

40

Chapter 3 The Universe’s Rules

59

Chapter 4 The Rule of Attention

77

Chapter 5 The Rule of Awareness

94

Chapter 6 The Rule of Intention

114

Chapter 7 The Rule of Structure

127

Chapter 8 Conclusions

147

References

172

Index

175

vii

LIST OF FIGURES

2.1

Open source innovation

45

3.1 3.2

Mood and destiny Open source leadership model

66 72

7.1 7.2

The commitment cycle Open source supply chain

135 139

8.1 8.2

Networks of networks Open source leadership model

156 158

viii

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Dr. Leslie Gadman teaches Strategic Management and Organizational Behaviour at London South Bank University and is a Visiting Fellow at Imperial College London and the University of Nottingham School of Business. He gained his PhD at Lancaster University. He has served as a consultant to private companies and public agencies in the areas of strategy formulation and implementation, change leadership and knowledge management. His research interests are centered on the impact of the Internet on business performance and culture. He has published in journals such as the Asian Journal on Quality, MIT’s Sloan Management Review, and the Journal of Management Science. He is also the author of Power Partnering: A Strategy for Business Excellence in the 21st Century (1996). Professor Cary Cooper is Pro Vice Chancellor (External Relations), Lancaster University and Professor of Organizational Psychology and Health, Lancaster University Management School. Cary is the author of over 100 books on occupational stress, women at work, and industrial and organizational psychology, has written over 400 scholarly articles for academic journals, and is a frequent contributor to national newspapers, TV and radio. He is currently Founding Editor of the Journal of Organizational Behaviour and Co-editor of the medical journal Stress & Health (formerly Stress Medicine). He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, The Royal Society of Arts, The Royal Society of Medicine, The Royal Society of Health, and an academician of the Academy for the Social Sciences. Cary is the President of the British Academy of Management, is a Companion of the Chartered Management Institute and one of the first UK-based Fellows of the (American) Academy of Management – having also won the 1998 Distinguished Service Award from the Academy of Management. In 2001, Cary was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for his contribution to organizational health. He holds Honorary Doctorates from Aston University, Heriot-Watt University, Middlesex University and Wolverhampton University. ix

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This piece of food cannot be eaten, Nor this bit of wisdom found by looking. There is a secret core in everyone not Even Gabriel can know by trying to know Rumi We are most grateful to the people who made up our three composite open source leaders and to the writers in the field of leadership who informed our sense making of open source leadership. Quotes attributed to the composite open source leaders throughout this book are derived from conversations between the authors and senior leaders over a period of eight years. They have been offered freely on the basis that they could be quoted, but anonymously. Above all, we offer our sincere gratitude to psychiatrist Dr Robert Richardson, whose groundbreaking exploration into the integrative, interactive and emergent nature of the human brain formed the lens through which we discovered the profoundly simple rules of open source leadership. Every effort has been made to trace all the copyright holders but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity.

x

INTRODUCTION

With nearly 1 billion people online worldwide, social networks are rapidly becoming a collective force of unprecedented power and, for the first time in human history, mass cooperation across space and time is suddenly economical. According to Mitch Kapor, the founder of the Lotus Development Corporation: A decade ago we were at the dawn of that era and not at all clear about what it was going to be like. Now we are part of the way into it, so some things, like e-mail and e-commerce, we can safely assume are going to be major features of life for the next half century. And there are new phenomena rising out of the Internet that were utterly – or almost utterly – unanticipated, like Wikipedia, which is creating a new online community bent on upgrading our communal knowledge. (http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=2586) It is this knowledge that is redefining our taken-for-granted assumptions about the nature of truth. The Internet has given us the means to define the truth from our perspective – not as institutionally appointed experts tell us. For the first time, we have the means to define our own epistemology from our understanding of what it means to function effectively as part of a consensual domain where collective ideality enables survival and prosperity. Thanks to the Internet, we have made manifest a process that is as old as civilization itself – a manifestation that is feared by repressive governments, industry leaders and interest groups who derive their power through selective truth claims. For them knowledge really is power. But as recent events in Burma and China have shown, the days of censorship are over. The irrepressible nature of people, combined with Internet-enabled technology, is writing a new chapter in history. Today, Wikipedia’s articles are the highest or almost highest ranked results for Internet searches and the content of these searches is enter1

OPEN SOURCE LEADERSHIP

ing the knowledge food chain headed by journalists, who routinely read Wikipedia articles and then include them in their publications. But academic experts, among other so-called knowledgeable people, have argued that Wikipedia can’t be trusted, because its articles are written and edited by volunteers who have never been vetted. Nevertheless, studies have found that the articles are remarkably accurate, even if this does prompt us to ask how such claims can be made. The answer is that, at least among Wikipedia’s community of more than 7 million registered users, there is an emerging epistemology that has organically evolved a set of policies and procedures for removing what that community regards as untruths. The net result (please excuse the pun) is that Wikipedia’s explosive growth is a direct result of Wikipedia becoming a consensual domain, which keeps readers coming back to the website and not only taking from it but putting back into it information deemed to be accurate by that consensual domain. Truth and falsity claims in Wikipedia are not based on laws such as mathematics or science but more on principles such as consistency. Its epistemological standards are rooted in a web-based community where objective truth is replaced by verifiable truth. “The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth,” states Wikipedia’s official policy on the subject, in one of Wikipedia’s three core content policies developed in 2003. The two others are “no original research” and “neutral point of view.” So, no one can edit their own Wikipedia entry, nor can they express their personal point of view. Furthermore, truth claims must be verified by following a link to some kind of legitimate, authoritative, and verifiable publication. These policies have made Wikipedia a consensual platform where people with different and often emotionally charged points of view can rationally discuss their positions, find common ground, and document their differences. This is not only the essence of Wikipedia’s success but also a manifestation of consensual development in social communities that leads to innovation. So what has Wikipedia to do with the practice of leadership? The answer is, everything, because not only are we changing the nature of our epistemology, we are being changed by it. For example, not too long ago, cost competition was the only competition. Operational effectiveness was the key driver and in manufacturing, the challenge was to bring all aspects of the operation into a single coherent process known as “manufacturing resource planning”. Later, enterprise resource planning came along with the challenge of improving the efficiency of 2

INTRODUCTION

the business’s entire processes, systems and structures. Today, as costs reach an all-time low, companies are turning to new ways to achieve differentiation. In most cases, this has taken on a customer focus, where a business focuses its attention on becoming more responsive to the needs of customers. Value networks are replacing value chains as more companies adopt the practice of network resource planning. Responsiveness is the key word – responsive to customers, supply chains, and market opportunities. Looking ahead, as responsiveness becomes a commodity, the new business challenge will shift to “velocity” where the first correct response received will win the business. We can see this happening today in much the same way as the stock market system, where buyers and sellers meet, usually anonymously, to agree on prices of commodities such as energy or telecommunications capacity. Examples include Altra Energy for natural gas and Elance for matching freelancers with projects. They can be driven either by sellers (such as AdAuction.com, which runs auctions of advertising space on the web and other media) or by buyers (such as FreeMarkets, which does reverse auctions of industrial materials and equipment). Collaboration hubs are also examples of velocity-based business models that go far beyond the transaction phase to help companies get projects done, from design through manufacturing to distribution. Bidcom, for example, provides a single online workplace for large contractors to collaborate with architects, store blueprints, work through permit processes, and purchase building materials. This evolution through cost, responsiveness and, ultimately, velocity is not happening in a linear and sequential fashion. As each succeeding dimension comes into play, it is not replacing the others but is becoming, for a time, the preeminent one. Now all three dimensions have come fully into play, the leading competitors are using them to increasingly similar effect – effectively neutralizing their competitive advantage. As a result, the basis of competition is moving toward a search for distinctive combinations of all three dimensions that best match the evolving needs of different parts of the marketplace. Each combination brings with it increasingly higher levels of complexity and change. The more complexity, the more change, the more change, the more complexity. Open source leadership is ideally suited to this new world because dealing with this combination of complexity and change requires a level of skill among CEOs and their teams that enables them to tap into the kind of knowledge that produces better, cheaper, and faster decisions and, ultimately, better business results, 3

OPEN SOURCE LEADERSHIP

which consistently achieve that all-important one degree of distinction between themselves and their competitors. Take, for example, the case of Howard Schultz, chairman and CEO of Starbucks Coffee. The story of Starbucks goes beyond a record of growth and success for yet another coffee company. Schultz built a different company in a different way. He proved that, as he put it, “a company can lead with its heart and nurture its soul and still make money.” Schultz, like many other open source leaders, achieved success by creating and sustaining a culture that is continually conscious of its emotional responses to situations of uncertainty and ambiguity. In a world where differentiation is becoming increasingly harder to achieve, one degree of distinction from your competition can mean a lot and applying the principles of open source leadership doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice long-term shareholder value. Meaningful and sustained change in business, community, government, and society does not happen by accident or through simply imploring people to be creative, think differently, or change the way they do things. Meaningful and sustained change comes about through open source leadership. We believe these qualities arise from within the leader and include linguistic skills that engage the hearts, minds, and bodies of people who interact integratively to produce outstanding results. These results are sustained through cultures of stability, focus, and innovation and lead to the eventual achievement of highly challenging objectives. When all things are equal, which they so often are not, open source leaders create uniqueness in their products and services and in the ways they are delivered. This uniqueness makes them outstanding – in that they stand out, not in an egotistical way, but in a way that is powerful in its simplicity. Standing out in business means winning more business and standing out in other endeavors means winning in different ways. Whatever your perspective, there is little doubt that winning leads to increased interest and opportunity to disseminate new knowledge for the common good. The question is, can these skills be acquired or are they “hard wired” into the DNA of outstanding leaders? We believe open source leadership is a skill possessed by all, yet realized by few. For those who do connect with their true spiritual potential, the rewards are great. We believe it is possible for anyone to engage their potential and, in so doing, bring into alignment the form, field and flow of their lives and businesses in ways that cause remarkable things to happen as if by accident – “a blessed conspiracy,” as well-known psychiatrist Robert Richardson 4

INTRODUCTION

(2003a) calls it. We believe this because, quite simply, to do otherwise would be counter to the way the universe works. We believe that cultivating the gratitude, intimacy, and humility of our true nature is crucial to the evolution of business and life itself. It is especially important in the face of the lightning-fast demands of our stormy and unforgiving environment. The leadership challenge is that in this era of overwhelming complexity and ambiguity, contemporary leadership practices are failing to respond to this new world order because they are based on outdated assumptions about the way the world works. These tenets, which emphasize “power over and control of” people, have outlived their usefulness. To seize today’s rich patterns of opportunities, we need trust and openness, shared information, clusters of capabilities, and a focus on teaming these capabilities through creative leadership. We call this “open source leadership” because it is a way of thinking and acting that lies at our source and becomes manifest in many wonderful ways and for many different reasons. It is a balance of intellect and intuition that leads to understanding, appreciation and openness to the magnificence of ourselves and others. After reading this book, we hope we will cause you to rethink your approach to leadership, especially the significance of leading over managing. We also hope you will be compelled to embark on a journey to make open source leadership a permanent and natural aspect of running your enterprise and leading your life. We expect that what we are about to say will not come as a surprise to many of you. You are more than likely aware that the old ways of doing things, which served you so well over the years, are not working anymore. Like many, you have probably seen a dramatic shift in the global political landscape. Every day and in every way you will have witnessed unprecedented stresses on the physical environment and startling setbacks for some of the most successful companies in the world. Together, these changes suggest that the underlying assumptions of the industrial era have outlived their usefulness. The trends driving these changes are many and varied, for example: ■

■

An increasingly intense level of international competition is forcing businesses to become more efficient and effective if they are to survive. Increasing competition from low-cost economies like China and India appears likely to continue this trend. The growing power and capability of information and communications technologies (ICTs) are driving and enabling new organizational 5

OPEN SOURCE LEADERSHIP

structures, processes and roles. Closer electronic ties between businesses and their suppliers and customers are now critical to sustaining competitive advantage. New ICTs have made it possible for vastly increased amounts of information to be shared within and across organizations and for decision making to be delegated much more widely. A new assessment of people and their capability is underway. Partly driven by competition, partly by demographics and partly by changing ideas of human potential, we have come to understand that communication, coordination and learning are not peripheral activities that people do in their spare time. Rather, the sharing of information and the construction of shared interpretations are essential activities of any human community, business or otherwise. For example, Mitch Kapor’s reference to Wikipedia shows how we are able to develop an encyclopedia on the Internet that aspires to hold the knowledge of the entire world: What makes this encyclopedia unique is that it is created and maintained by the people who use it. And it’s free, in all of the languages that people speak. That’s the aspiration. Every page, every article is editable by anyone at any time. It’s bigger now than Britannica. It’s certainly more current. (California Magazine, March/April 2006, 1(117): 2) In other words, its “source is open.” There is no systematic arbitration of truth, no one deciding what we can or cannot read based on their worldly knowledge. As Mitch Kapor says: Who said the arbitration of truth is ever systematic? Or that it could be or should be? Who said that quality emerges out of gate keeping? There are issues of information quality in Wikipedia. There was recently an entry that was put in as basically some kind of joke, which made an untrue allegation that went unchallenged for several months. But that’s the exception, not the rule. If there are issues of information quality, you then ask the right question. The right question is not, “Why is Wikipedia bad?” The question is, “How do you manage to be so good?” Not perfect, given how it operates. (California Magazine, March/April 2006, 1(117): 2) In other words, Wikipedia is a perfect example of integrative interactive emergence when people have the means and the motive to collaborate on a big idea. The product is emerging and it trains itself. 6

INTRODUCTION

New Internet-based technologies and trends like Wikipedia are driving changes on a scale rarely experienced more than once or twice in a century. Like many, you have probably reached the conclusion that the period of organizational change we are now entering is potentially as significant as the Industrial Revolution. The consequence of this shift, for yourself and other leaders in the 21st century, is an unrelenting challenge to invent new and innovative ways to become efficient and flexible, to plan strategically, and adapt swiftly to the unexpected. The open source revolution has arrived and it’s here to stay. In the following chapters, we define the personal characteristics of an open source leader and provide key tools and frameworks to design and construct your own development plan. We also describe the skills necessary to invent a new language of leadership practice more suited to the complex challenges we face today. We have intentionally avoided limiting our scope to the practice of open source leadership in business because leadership manifests itself in a host of different ways for a host of different reasons. For example: ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

military leaders like Alexander the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte political leaders like Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill social reformers like Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King spiritual leaders like the Buddha and Christ thought leaders like Galileo and Einstein business leaders like Steve Jobs, Pierre Omidyar and Bill Gates.

Leaders have been variously defined as people who have vision and articulation and can spot anomalies in the normal flow of life and express them as opportunities that ultimately influence people to change their habitual ways of doing things. Other descriptions consider them willing to take on high personal risk, incur high costs, and engage in self-sacrifice to achieve their vision. Some writers talk about the ability to make realistic assessments of the environmental constraints and resources needed to bring about change, while others believe they must be perceptive of others’ abilities and responsive to their needs and feelings; also that they engage in behaviors that are perceived as novel and counter to norms while channeling ego needs away from themselves and into the goal of building something great. While we agree that leaders do some or all these things, we have identified one core element that all successful leaders possess and that is the natural ability to be “open to the source” of their inspiration and as a conse7

OPEN SOURCE LEADERSHIP

quence become the source of inspiration to others. In the three communities we studied – the enterprise, public service and the volunteer community – we found patterns of leadership practice that not only yielded remarkable results but also created a deep sense of meaning and identity for those involved. The practices we observed were neither random nor carefully thought out in advance. They revealed an ability to shape outcomes while having a positive influence on the wholesomeness, preciousness, and freshness of life’s potential of all those they came across. While we focus on the individual skills necessary for open source leadership, our message can be applied to entire organizations and communities at the same time. Hence, an organization can be open to its source and in turn be a source of inspiration to those who integratively interact with it. The open source leaders we studied for this book share one thing in common – a deep conviction in the power and collective will of people to overcome intractable problems. Not surprisingly, the results they achieved surpassed anything attempted by individual effort alone and thanks to the magic of the Internet, the integratively interacting energy of the physical presence of networked communities had become manifest. For example, in the case of our open source leaders who formed an open source research community to tackle the problem of tropical diseases, we discovered a community of people who were deeply dissatisfied with the way the big pharmaceutical companies approached drug discovery. Among other things, they found that the big pharmas lacked the incentive to develop treatments for diseases afflicting the poor, since those needing them were least able to pay. To overcome this problem, a community of medical biologists, lawyers, entrepreneurs and healthcare activists became open source leaders, encouraging and enabling the sharing of literature, data, and other scientific intellectual property among a huge community of scientists, universities, and industries. The results so far show dramatic reductions in the time and cost of discovery, development and manufacture of cures for tropical diseases. The practice of open source leadership in communities like this has been evident among great leaders throughout time. Yet while the Buddha, Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and countless others have been winning the hearts and minds of large and diverse numbers of people for many years, nothing can compare to the global reach attainable today through the World Wide Web and the Internet. For the first time ever, we are witnessing an entirely different level of consciousness, reflecting our minds’ intention toward wholeness, our hearts’ passion to connect and our bodies’ willingness to 8

INTRODUCTION

emerge at a deeply spiritual level. For example, in our earlier account of the Wikipedia encyclopedia, we saw the emergence of this new consciousness challenged by traditional views of power and control. When people heard that any page could be edited at any time by anybody, they were horrified, because their values about people led them to the conclusion that people would say stupid, wrong things, or advance their agendas because there were no controls, no one in charge. Old school “clock logic” thinking stems from an ideality that believes people are untrustworthy and unable to manage themselves. As a consequence, we need to have managers who can control people to overcome this inherent unreliability. As Mitch Kapor tells us: They think you have to have somebody in charge. I say the fact that any page can be edited by anybody at any time means every single bit of it can always be improved. If there is a problem, you can fix it. Or somebody else can. Or you can say, “This ought to be fixed,” and post a note – and then somebody else comes along and fixes it. So the dynamics for improvement – assuming that’s what the community believes in and that there’s a critical mass of people that value that – that’s what drives up the quality and the usefulness. There’s got to be a critical mass of people who believe in democracy and are willing to practice it, or it’ll wither and die. So this “Tinkerbell” idea means that you have to believe in it and that which people are going to identify as a weakness is a fundamental condition of all social systems. (California Magazine, March/April 2006, 1(117): 2) Long before the advent of the Internet, Martin Heidegger (1962[1927], p. 195) prophetically declared that: We are naturally world disclosers and by means of tools, technology and coordination we awaken coherent spaces or worlds which make possible a distinct and pervasive way in which things, people and selves appear and in which certain ways of acting make sense. Today we certainly have the tools and the technology, but it is doubtful that we possess the skills necessary to awaken our consciousness to new worlds of opportunity. If open source is such a rapidly emerging phenomenon, we have to ask ourselves why open source leadership is still an unknown phenomenon and why today’s leaders are trying to manage tomorrow’s organizations using yesterday’s practices. 9

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The answer lies in a mistaken belief that people, things, and the world they occupy can be understood by “clock logic” abstraction. Such abstraction attempts to make sense of the phenomenal world by reducing complex systems into things which are not really things but aspects of a highly complex set of integrative interactions. If you watch Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 movie Modern Times, or read Frederick Winslow Taylor’s (1911) Principles of Scientific Management, you will understand what we mean. The emergence of clock logic in the first half of the 19th century was directly linked to the rise of science and technology, and as a social movement aimed at taking the “meta” out of physics by applying the achievements of science and technology to the socalled wellbeing of humankind. It was based on the Platonic premise that the objective world of physical reality could be separated from the subjective worlds of people – that reality could be experienced as independent of the consciousness of the person interacting with it. As clock logic gained dominance, so did the idea that human progress could be achieved by harnessing science to create a technology for human ends. It was characterized by three basic doctrines: 1 There was the conviction that empirical science was not just a form of knowledge but the only positive source of knowledge in the world. Argument, backed by hard scientific evidence, was the means of establishing truth and the basis of the adversarial system in science, law and politics. 2 There was a movement to extend scientific knowledge and technical control into human society, such that propositions that were neither analytically nor empirically tested were considered meaningless and dismissed as emotive utterances, poetry, or mere nonsense. 3 There was an intention to cleanse the human mind of mysticism, superstition, and other forms of pseudo-knowledge. Even Adam Smith’s (1776) reference to “the invisible hand of God” in his book The Wealth of Nations appeared to have been overlooked by those self-interested individuals who fueled imperialism, created the factory system, and amassed wealth with little regard for moral or social values. Today we have Enron, WorldCom, and Tyco, each of which cheated investors and embezzled millions. This would not be significant if not for the fact that most global corporations today enjoy profits larger than the GDP of most of the countries they occupy. And few of these 10

INTRODUCTION

global corporations pay regard to Adam Smith’s “hand of God” when it comes to making life worth living for their people and those directly and indirectly impacted by their presence. We have power elites that control the means of production, division of labor, work rules, and so on; political power elites that make the laws and control the judges; and cultural power elites that determine which imaginative works structure our aspirations and self-definitions. These elites have inflicted a huge cost to human life, have given us hierarchical structures of distrust, and have placed unprecedented stresses on our sociocultural and physical environment. As Peter Senge (2008, p. 10) points out: The very same skills of separation, analysis and control that gave us power to shape our environment are producing ecological and social crisis in our outer world and psychological and spiritual crisis in our inner world. Both these crises grow out of our success in separating ourselves from the larger fabric of life. While clock logic works extremely well in the design and operation of machines like aircraft and pacemakers, it has serious limitations when applied to people and other natural systems. This is because rather than seeking balance and harmony, clock logic thinking and practice gives the mind preeminence over emotion, body and spirit. This has significant implications when it comes to our ability to adapt to changing circumstances in business, society, and the environment. In The Medici Effect, Franz Johansson (2005, p. 55) describes how clock logic limits potential: We hire experts … and we believe these experts know the truth about things. They assume what is probable or not and the range is a few degrees in either direction. Clock logic is calculated, controlled and predictable – it values thinking and doing. We propose that in this age of complexity and enhanced uncertainty, another kind of logic is more appropriate for the challenges at hand. This approach looks for the best in the world around us, in our colleagues, and in the groups we are leading. It calls upon skills honed over thousands of years of existence involving networks of people sharing a burning passion to solve big problems and willingly offering their skills, knowledge and experience to achieve unexpected connections and unlikely combinations of solutions. We 11

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see this in the many different open source communities in existence today. While they are designed for a wide variety of purposes, they do have some attributes in common. There are communities of software developers who work on large projects, whether it’s Linux (an open source operating system enabling computers to perform multiple tasks), or the Mozilla project (providing intellectual property and funds to develop open source software projects), and the Mozilla Firefox web browser. There is also the community of people who contribute to Wikipedia. They don’t have the same technical skills, they don’t write code – they actually write text and edit and so on. But they’re all collaborative undertakings, meaning they succeed because people are able to interact voluntarily. There is no hierarchy. There’s nobody in charge. It’s not a business. People are there because they want to be there. They are tied together by values and practices and they get things done. But how do they manage this? What is it like as a production process? What are the motivations? How is the activity coordinated if nobody is in charge? We intend to answer these questions in our book. We are sure you will agree that people work a lot harder on things they like and open source leadership taps into this energy by seeing the best in people and having the vision to see creative and improbable opportunities and the skill to make them manifest. This kind of leadership is about having the capacity to see with an appreciative eye the true and the good, the better and the possible – to believe that whatever you are up to in life will happen without a doubt if you can access the deep spiritual resources that lie at the source of our inspiration and creativity. Although we have already made the point that open source leadership is not exclusive to business, it is worth noting that companies like Procter & Gamble (P&G), LEGO and Google have turned to their customers in creative ways in order to develop new generations of products. Elsewhere, following its failure to detect the 9/11 terrorist attacks or to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the American intelligence agency has adopted an open source leadership approach to counterterrorism through A-Space – an internal communications tool modeled on the popular social networking site Facebook. The list is growing at a dramatic pace, as communities like Android, the human genome project, LEGO, P&G, 3M and Novartis discover the power of “opening to the creative source of people” and rethinking and unlearning their past clock logic thinking and practice. Leading these communities requires: 12

INTRODUCTION

■

■

■ ■

■

the skill to access and value the innate source of human potential that lies at the heart of the community the ability to constructively engage and connect people with one another to pursue what they care about most knowing how to gain power by giving it away knowing how to guide the pursuit of human potential toward awakened opportunity knowing how to set strategic boundaries while valuing the fact that people’s aims are often imagined, uncoordinated, and unrelated to the actual outcomes.

Although this alternative lens differs significantly from the ways of our clock logic past, the awareness it offers is crucial to sustaining ourselves, our communities and, ultimately, our planet. In business, open source leadership is about creating long-term value by avoiding predictability and control and “inside-the-box” thinking. It is about integrative, interactive and emergent creativity encouraging and supporting people to open up to their creative source. For businesses, the end result is about creating what Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne (2005) call the “blue oceans” of new demand and avoiding the “red oceans” of high competition and shrinking opportunities. Whatever you are up to, the essential nature of open source leadership is the belief that there is something intrinsically creative operating within the trinity of mind, heart and body and that their convergence generates awareness that goes way beyond self-imposed limitations. For example, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin attribute the sustained success of their business to their ability to attract talented technologists and businesspeople. As they say: “we owe our success to those who are talented and empowered to change the world.” For Page and Brin, open source leadership means creating a workplace with important projects, where employees can contribute and grow. This is the spirit that defines open source leadership, which is less about separation and scarcity and more about integration and the provision of synergistic structures that enable outcomes which go way beyond those achieved by individual effort. For example, while researching community leaders, we came across a technology project called InSTEDD (Innovative Support to Emergencies, Diseases and Disaster), a network of people sharing a passion to provide early warning of catastrophic events. InSTEDD is funded by Google.org, the charitable foundation of Google Inc. and other private investors, 13

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each of whom has made sizable contributions. Dr. Larry Brilliant, the program leader, has a vision to synergistically bring together the technological, medical and organizational skills necessary to manifest his mission. The community has a website running open source software applications, which allow users to share information and solve problems. For example, a user can send a message about a patient with untreated symptoms in Laos via SMS. That message could then be broadcast to other aid workers showing the location and allowing the detection of disease patterns and location of specialist skills. Eventually the software will be released free and open source. Clock logic has no place in these kinds of circumstances because it blatantly lacks an appreciation for the power of synergistic interaction among passionate human beings. It fails to take into account what Alexis de Tocqueville called the “social fabric of society” (Allen, 2005) and Francis Fukuyama (1992) calls the “ability to trust those you know.” This combination of association and trust promotes positive change, and the nature of the universe is such that when change is wished for strongly enough and actions are taken to start that change, the movement generates a momentum of its own. As Heidegger (1962[1927]) said, “we are natural revealers” and we just can’t help ourselves from sharing what we know with others to overcome intractable problems. While the power elites might still believe in the value of clock logic to control people, as recent attempts in Burma and Tibet have shown, all the evidence points to the fact that the collective will of the people, united by a common purpose and networked by Internet-enabled technology, will always prevail. As much as clock logic leadership might wish otherwise, the horse has bolted from the stables. As an accurately predictive Gartner survey in 2001 pointed out, within five years, 80% of commercial software would include elements of open source technology. In its survey, Gartner found that: Many open source technologies are mature, stable and well supported. They provide significant opportunities for vendors and users to lower their total cost of ownership and increase returns on investment. Ignoring this will put companies at a serious competitive disadvantage. Open source principles support open access and transparency, offer the potential to connect and expand communities of shared interest, and provide a sense of ownership. By tying profit to social good, open 14

INTRODUCTION

source leadership works for the benefit of shareholders, while improving people’s lives and ultimately making the world in general a better place to live in. In this book, we have combined these essential patterns into three phenomenal identities: the entrepreneur, the public servant, and the social community leader. Avoiding the temptation to offer one more theory of leadership, we hope to initiate a journey of exploration into the skills necessary for open source leadership and the ability to balance predictability and control with openness to multiple sources of creativity and innovation. We intend the book to be read with a critical eye, inviting you to recognize those moments when our words are in accord with your views and when they are not. We hope that what we have to say stimulates you to expand your capacity, virtue and talent as an open source leader. To do this, we share our interpretations of the actions of three phenomenal leaders and show how each supports four fundamental ways to create wealth while engaging life’s potential: 1 Our phenomenal leaders cause discontinuity in the normal taken-forgranted flow of life to reveal new worlds of genuinely new possibility rather than repeating the patterns dictated by the status quo. 2 They generate the capacity to open hearts and minds to the environment’s rich opportunities. 3 They are selective and timely in their pursuit of those opportunities, knowing when to make things happen and when to let things happen. 4 They skillfully shape human and technical processes, structures and systems to make the best use of “disclosive space” and passing time. The “disclosive spaces” they create are rich in Internet and communications technologies, enabling the integrative interaction of the creative talents of people (we borrowed the concept of “disclosive space” from Heidegger’s (1962[1927]) account of “worldhood” in Being and Time). They form powerful extended relationships with customers, customers’ customers, complementors, partners and suppliers, which lower costs, increase quality, and shape the practices of a wider society. Our book offers compelling evidence that remarkable organizations are led by people who intentionally satisfy the concerns of individuals and communities. They leverage the creative adaptability of people through committed speaking and acting designed to create unswerving loyalty toward employees, customers, customers’ customers, suppliers, distributors, communities, communities of communities, and nations. 15

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They continually challenge the taken-for-granted assumptions that form their worlds and bring about change that creates wealth and addresses the deep emotional concerns of all those involved. Their essential purpose is nothing less than transforming the way the world occurs to people by creating synergistic interactions that achieve results far greater than individual action. We argue that these organizations are not shaped by accident but by intentional design embodying a passion to transform the way the world occurs to people and instill an emotional connection through trusting and compassionate relationships based on peaceful and loving intentions. In the words of Lao Tzu, the Chinese Taoist philosopher, author of the Tao Te Ching and older contemporary of Confucius: If there is to be Peace in the world, There must be Peace in the nations. If there is to be Peace in the nations, There must be Peace in the cities. If there is to be Peace in the cities, There must be Peace between neighbors. If there is to be Peace between neighbors, There must be Peace in the home. If there is to be Peace in the home, There must be Peace in the Heart. If there is to be peace in your home, there must be peace in your heart. We transform the world most effectively by transforming ourselves. This book is filled with a variety of tools to help you transform your heart into a beacon of peace. It is not a difficult task – simply one that requires willingness, awareness and surrender to an ideal that is easily attainable, one heart at a time. In writing this book, we have broken with tradition. It is not our intention to offer another theory of leadership nor do we provide a list of ten habits or five steps to make you a better leader. We hope to take you beyond the narrow view that the skills needed to be an open source leader are out there just waiting to be discovered through models, theories or following the best practice of others. We propose that your ability to bring about creative and lasting change comes about through engaging your innate ability to appreciate new ways of doing things and engaging your linguistic skills to bring them about. This is similar to Michelangelo seeing 16

INTRODUCTION

David in the block of marble and releasing him. Consequently, in our elaboration of this practice in the world of enterprise, the world of public service and the world of the volunteer community, we have avoided the copious use of case studies to sharpen our distinctions. Instead we focus on one phenomenal case of each, which represents the collective patterns we have recognized in our research. We believe our approach sets us apart from earlier studies because it recognizes that the success of civil democracies and free markets does not rely on the skills of social elites but on skills accessible to everyone driven by an innate desire to make life better for themselves and others. We invite you to consider that everything we see, hear and touch, everything we think, feel and perceive – every bit of everything and the space and time that it occupies, every phenomenon and the awareness that realizes it – are an expression of one energy. As the great 13th-century Sufi poet and philosopher Jelaluddin Rumi said: “The lamps are different, But the light is the same” (quoted in Harvey, 2000, p. 186). It is our deep sense that the whole is being revealed through its parts. It seems possible that it’s our job, our part in the evolution of the universe, to provide the awareness necessary to realize the whole – to realize God. This concept of an innate human quality is reflected in this poem by Rumi entitled “One, One, One”: The lamps are different, But the light is the same. So many garish lamps in the dying brain’s lamp shop, Forget about them. Concentrate on essence, concentrate on Light. In lucid bliss, calmly smoking off its own holy fire, The Light streams towards you from all things, All people, all possible permutations of good, evil, thought, passion. The lamps are different, But the Light is the same. One matter, one energy, one Light, one Light-mind, Endlessly emanating all things. One turning, and burning diamond. One, one, one. Ground yourself, strip yourself down, To blind loving silence. Stay there, until you see You are gazing at the Light With your own ageless eyes. 17

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It is our intention to help you to master the skills that lie at the heart of human creativity, which have governed evolution for over 15 billion years and informed the most powerful philosophies, teachings, and religions in the world. Once mastered, these skills open the space for new and innovative conversations among those who share a passion for living life at its best and who have discovered ways to apply those skills to overcome big challenges like profitability, poverty, education, and the environment. We also encourage a new look at the role of language in leadership, believing that it offers more than simply describing what is already known. If we go back to the Heidegger’s claim that we are world disclosers, we can say that language makes things appear and, as a consequence, enables a whole new set of innovative conversations to take place, which ultimately change the fabric of the world as we know it. For example, a conversation with an astronomer can transform the world of a person who simply looks at the night sky and sees stars. Through the descriptions of an astronomer, we will become aware of planets, galaxies, constellations and black holes as if they were not there one minute and then suddenly appeared the next. Through the words of an astrologer, Taurus, Libra and Scorpio appear with the promise of a future prediction. Through our words in this book, we hope to make distinctions that trigger, as Richardson (2003a) says: changes in your awareness as we disrupt your ideality (I – Deal) to reveal aspects of reality that might otherwise remain hidden. Speaking clearly and accurately, we hope to bring awareness of an aspect of reality that had been real, but possibly not yet realized by you. This process of making new distinctions has been outlined in the amazing work of Gerald Edelman (1987) and others, who explain that our recollection of new information is a recalling of the new networks that represent the new information with the hundreds of thousands of networks that serve to represent your world view – your “ideality.” As a consequence of the reactivation of the newly established networks, you can integrate the new information into your ideality, which governs your interaction with reality. In other words, your ideality has evolved to represent more of reality than it had before and allows you to interact with more understanding – one minute no stars, the next stars all over the sky. During our search, we discovered that clock logic misses the point that leaders or managers practicing leadership are not necessarily 18

INTRODUCTION

successful because they possess unique skills, rather, these skills are available and accessible to everyone if they know where to look and how to apply them effectively. So we have avoided the temptation to present numerous cases of best practice and offer instead a new set of distinctions intended to encourage you to explore and discover a new world of possibilities for yourself. Consequently, we don’t present a theory of open source leadership, nor do we tell you how to succeed in this domain. Rather, we hope you will develop the skills to routinely see the world anew and build structures of participation that lead to “integrative interactive emergence,” a skill as old as time itself. Richardson (2003a) uses this term to describe our ability to disrupt normal streams of consciousness and interactively integrate the minds, hearts and bodies of like-minded, like-hearted and like-bodied people to bring about innovative, sustainable, positive change far exceeding that attainable by those same people acting independently. According to Richardson (2003a), the ultimate complexity that we witness in nature and manifest in being human arises from this reiteration over billions of generations of integrative interactions, which are governed by the same trinity of relatively simple rules. He says: These rules are fundamentally interdependent, operate throughout the universe and underlie the nature of everything. The whole is greater than the sum of its contributing parts. Because integrative interactions generate emergent products that are greater than the sum of the contributing parts, the new information can contribute to an evolving ideality that has never existed before. Interacting with reality through the new ideality alters our participation with it and because our participation contributes to the emerging reality, evolving ideality alters evolving reality. This helps to explain the powerful emergence of social networking and the way in which people have embraced Web 2.0 technologies in their quest. It is as if we just can’t resist the desire to connect with others and to emerge as individual identities on our journey toward wholeness, connectedness and emergence. We suggest that creating new idealities through words, phrases, and other symbolic representations offers lenses through which others can look into aspects of reality they might not otherwise have seen. In other words, ideality can reveal reality and serve to illuminate reality with awareness. One of the most powerful lenses at our disposal today is 19

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the Internet, which is illuminating reality with awareness – awareness which, over the past 10 years, has emerged from the integrative interactions of thousands of users into a place of interaction and participation with people creating and sharing content and social connections on the network. We consider this book a lens that will illuminate your reality with awareness. As you read, please notice when something we say provokes an emotional response and shine the light of awareness on its origins. If you feel anger, is it because our ideality conflicts with yours? If you feel happiness, is it because our idealities are aligned? Whatever the emotion, we invite you to allow the feelings to emerge and decide which aspects of the book compel you to explore further. Reading in this way will ensure true learning. As Rumi said: We have two kinds of intelligence, one acquired as a child in school memorized facts and concepts from books and from what the teacher says, collecting information from the traditional sciences as well as from the new sciences. With such intelligence you rise in the world. You get ranked ahead or behind others in regard to your competence in retaining information. You stroll with this intelligence in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always more marks on your preserving tablets. There is another kind of tablet, one already completed and preserved inside you like freshness in the center of the chest. This other intelligence does not turn yellow or stagnate. It is fluid and it doesn’t move from outside to inside through the conduits of plumbing learning. This second knowing is a fountainhead from within you, moving out. (quoted in Harvey, 2000, p. 98) If you accept our proposition, you might recognize that rather than using language to implore and deplore, to praise and condemn, to offer and impose, to conclude and exclude, to declare and deceive, to persuade and dissuade, to hide and confide, you can simply use it to disclose and recognize that your experience of the world is as unique as a snowflake. When we free ourselves from the clock logic ideals of right and wrong, we break free from the constraints of doing the same things differently to doing entirely different things. As one frustrated student once commented after sitting through a most difficult and complex lecture on quantum mechanics: “I am amazed at the way the professor left unobscured the vast darkness of his subject.” Similarly, because the distinctions we are making in this book may possibly not make immediate sense to you, we ask that you take an unconditional approach to 20

INTRODUCTION

what we have to say and compassionately and trustingly engage with the distinctions we present through the stories and observations we have made during the course of our study. Please don’t take our word for anything you are about to read, but please do see for yourself. Read with a critical eye and ask, is what you are reading true in parts of your life? Go deeper to explore where your recognition comes from. What do you think is missing in our accounts and, finally, on balance, what do you find compelling about our observations and conclusions? It is our intention to shine the light of awareness on a set of distinctions aimed to provoke, evoke and invoke a desire within you to further explore and discover a new world of possibilities for yourself. In the three domains we have studied – the enterprise, public service and the volunteer community – we have observed patterns of leadership practice that are remarkable because they produce outstanding results and they create a deep sense of meaning and identity for those involved. The patterns we observed reveal an innate ability to shape outcomes while having a positive influence on the wholesomeness, preciousness and freshness of life’s potential of those involved and those affected by their actions. Rather than seeking to impress you by sheer numbers of people studied, we have combined their essential qualities and patterns of practice into three phenomenal identities – the entrepreneur, the public servant, and the community leader. In so doing, we hope to initiate a journey of discovery and disclosure aimed at developing the skills necessary for you to open to the source of human potential and shine its light on new worlds of opportunity and possibility. It is the skills required to reveal these new worlds while balancing predictability and control with openness to multiple sources of creativity and innovation that we describe here. We invite your natural skepticism in the hope that you may recognize those moments when our words evoke a deep sense of connection with your past experiences – moments that provoke deep disconnects with strongly held views about right and wrong, good and bad, logical and illogical. Above all, it is our wish that you will feel compelled to discover new ways to expand your capacity, virtue and talents as a leader – staying with the dissonance long enough to see a new world occurring. We compare and contrast our three phenomenal leaders with an extensive search among various types of developmental and evolutionary theories. Our search yielded a “four-quadrant” model of consciousness and its development (the four quadrants being intention, structure, attention and awareness). Each of these four dimensions 21

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was found to unfold in a sequence of nine possible combinations of major stages or levels, and these 36 major levels yielded a theory of leadership that is comprehensive in its nature and scope. This model is used to indicate how this synthesis can inform the practice we call “open source leadership”: 1 Disrupting the status quo. 2 Offering new possibilities while opening others to the possibility of realizing more of themselves than previously imagined. 3 Knowing when to act and when to wait in the pursuit of those possibilities. 4 Shaping processes, structures and systems to make the best use of their time. Knowledge of these new worlds is diffused through rich Internet and communications technologies, which enable synergies of talents to transform into creative and innovative ideas. Over time, these relationships extend to other networks including suppliers, complementors and buyers, which lower costs, increase quality, and shape the practices of a wider society. These elements come together successfully when led by people who intentionally work to improve the quality of life for people using a coherent narrative that engenders loyalty and commitment among all those involved. Their challenging and enquiring minds bend path dependencies, such that they bring forth entirely new worlds of opportunity – worlds that had never occurred to people before. These events don’t happen by accident but are intentionally designed through a nexus of trusted, committed and compassionate relationships. For example, in a recently formed collaborative partnership between Intel and IBM, their intention was to speed up the development of wireless applications based on Intel’s servers and clients and IBM’s WebSphere middleware. The collaboration had a pan-Scandinavian focus aided by technology-enabled integrative interaction among teams located at IBM’s Helsinki-based mobile ebusiness center and Intel’s wireless competence center in Stockholm. The deal extended both companies’ existing relationship in the wired world and paved the way for further partnerships with application developers. Increasingly, companies like Microsoft, Linux, IBM, Intel, BP, Benetton, 3M, Oracle, Dell and P&G are creating competitive advantage by integratively interacting the skills, talents and experiences of people inside 22

INTRODUCTION

and across their boundaries to create new knowledge to take on and overcome complex business challenges. Over the past two decades, management innovations enabled by ICTs have moved companies toward the ideal of the “boundaryless” organization, where formal reporting structures and detailed work processes have a diminished role in the way important work is carried out. Instead, informal networks of employees are encouraged to exist alongside the formal organization and these communities of common interest are increasingly at the forefront of new idea development. The general health and connectivity of these groups has a significant impact on their knowledge-creating capability, strategy execution and organizational effectiveness. Many corporate leaders intuitively understand the benefits of this flexible approach, but few spend any real time assessing or supporting them. And because they do not receive adequate resources or executive attention, these groups are often fragmented and their efforts disrupted by management practices or organizational designs that are biased in favor of task specialization and individual rather than integrative interactive efforts. Not surprisingly, the best examples of ICT-enabled collaborative practices are to be found in companies where IT defines competitive strategy, as in Microsoft, Intel, Linux and Dell, and where it enables competitive strategy, as in BP, Benetton, 3M and P&G. For example, at P&G, knowledge creation through collaboration is considered a critical factor in its ability to adapt to rapidly changing market forces. The company manages a vast range of activities including research and development (R&D), marketing, supply, production and transportation. It used to be mired in procedures, but now has processes that foster learning and tie people’s jobs to creating value. It is flat and lean and every individual in the company has the basic capability to communicate, collaborate and share information routinely, without the underlying infrastructure acting as a barrier to information flow. More recently, its Connect + Develop program has helped to extend the company’s innovation process to include 1.5 million people outside P&G. Our intention in this book is not to cram new information or beliefs into your head, neither do we wish to convince you of anything you don’t already intuitively feel is right. Instead, we hope to bring about a shift in your awareness or consciousness – to awaken you to a world of new possibilities. In that sense, our book is not “interesting,” because to say it was merely interesting would mean you could keep your distance from it by playing around with ideas and concepts in your mind and 23

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agree or disagree. Instead, we have written this book so that it will be about you, and through your interaction with it, we hope to change your state of consciousness. To do otherwise would be meaningless, yet it can only serve to awaken those who are ready. Not everyone is ready yet, but many are and with each person who awakens, the momentum in the collective consciousness grows and it becomes easier for others to grasp. If you don’t know what awakening means, read on. Only by awakening can you know the true meaning of that word. A glimpse is enough to initiate the awakening process, which is irreversible. For some, that glimpse will come while reading this book. For many others who may not even have realized it, the process has already begun. This book will help them recognize that fact. For some, it may have begun through loss or suffering, for others, through coming into contact with a spiritual teacher or teaching, through reading some spiritually alive and therefore transformational book – or any combination of the above. If the awakening process has begun within you, reading this book will accelerate and intensify your experience. The ideas and concepts presented here may be important, but they are secondary. They are no more than signposts pointing toward awakening. As you read, a shift will take place within you.

REFLECTIVE NARRATIVE 1 Why am I reading this book? 2 What are the specific challenges I face and how do I think open source leadership might help? 3 What do I think I will recognize as I read this book? 4 What do I think I will read that will cause me to doubt the soundness of my existing ideas and opinions? 5 What will I do differently as a result of reading this book?

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CHAPTER 1

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Massive changes in the shape of the world economy are deeply influencing our political systems, our industrial and environmental landscape, our socioeconomic structure, and our personal relationships. Advances in ICTs have played a large part in this change, especially the speed with which Internet-based applications have emerged onto the scene. For example, at the start of the 1990s, China was largely a planned economy and the Soviet Union still existed. Few people had heard of the Internet and email seemed closer to science fiction than reality. Now these technologies have matured into a host of applications, which both reflect and enable our natural passion to connect with one another. For the first time in history, we can see the patterns of these connections mapped in the various networks exploding onto the Internet. In business, the Internet has rewritten the rules as nearly 1 billion people worldwide go online, their shared knowledge and online reputations rapidly becoming a collective force of unprecedented power. For the first time in human history, mass cooperation across time and space is shaping a whole new game, requiring a whole new set of rules. Welcome to the age of “open source leadership,” a new style of leadership designed for a new kind of world – one which sustains environments that are infinitely improvisational, where people do things they regard as worthwhile, and where their presence is valued. In order to better understand the rules of the new open source game and how leadership must realign itself to this dramatic transformation, it might be helpful to apply the lens offered by George Land who, in 1973, proposed a unifying theory of transformation in his book Grow or Die. According to Land, all things grow and develop in a four-phase pattern: gather, repeat, share and transform. For example, babies move through the gather phase by taking in nourishment and growing in size. This stage is marked by growth of sameness, simply getting larger without changing form. Once the first 25

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stage is accomplished, the second stage of growth can begin. In the repeat phase, teenagers grow by influencing their peers to be like them. Growth is achieved by replicating one’s likeness in a given subculture. Children do this when they join with their peers to dress or talk in like manner. At the biophysical level, cells do this by dividing, creating literal extensions. For example, when two adjoining cells prepare for division, they condense their DNA into chromosomes. The membranes around the cell nuclei, together with protein structures called “microtubules” divide the cell’s genome into two equal parts and pull each part into the resulting daughter cells. In Land’s terms, groups that form around self-similarity are replicating themselves and are in the second phase of growth. Land’s third phase of growth, share, is the most mature stage. This is when adults mutually grow through reciprocal interaction and form a larger whole, whether in a corporation, community or family. We see this theme repeated in the ‘Fibonacci sequence’ developed by Leonardo of Pisa (also known as Fibonacci), where the power of these reciprocal interactions is a kind of explosion of emergent creativity. Fibonacci depicted this process mathematically in his 1202 book Liber Abaci where he introduced the sequence, which states that after two starting values, each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers. So the first number of the sequence is 0, the second number is 1, and each subsequent number is equal to the sum of the previous two numbers of the sequence itself. For example, 0 + 1 = 1, 1 + 1 = 2, 1 + 2 = 3, 2 + 3 = 5, 3 + 5 = 8, 5 + 8 = 13, 8 + 13 = 21 … to infinity. The Fibonacci sequence (see Basin and Hoggatt, 1963) shows how the progressively productive process uses what it produces and is a perfect illustration of the way open source leadership creates emergent products that are greater than the sum of the individual parts. In the repeat phase, the important message from Land is that we grow by maximizing sameness, but in the share phase, we grow by maximizing differences, so that a higher social order or social system might thrive, giving way to transformation in phase 4, which, by its very nature, ends up succeeding and encompassing the former system. In the world of economics, Joseph Schumpeter (1975) coined the term “creative destruction” to describe similar kinds of events in economics where discontinuous change renders all that has gone before obsolete. In the world of business, Richard Foster and Sarah Kaplan (2001) suggest in their book, Creative Destruction, that corporations can outperform capital markets and maintain leadership position only if they creatively 26

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and continuously reinvent themselves. For example, in Only the Paranoid Survive, Intel’s founder Andrew Grove (1996) stresses the importance of constant vigilance verging on paranoia for what he termed “strategic inflection points.” These are events that signify the imminence of fullscale change in the way business is conducted. As Grove points out, simply adopting new technology or fighting the competition as usual is insufficient because strategic inflections build up force so insidiously that you may have a hard time even putting your finger on what has changed. The only thing for certain is that something has changed. So strategic inflections can be deadly when unattended to and companies that decline as a result of them rarely recover their previous greatness. For example, following the events of September 11 2001 at the World Trade Center, the fortunes of Victorinox, the makers of the famous Swiss Army knife, were transformed forever as downturns in travel and heightened security restrictions on its pocket knives led to catastrophic declines in sales revenues. Although it was the case with Victorinox, strategic inflection points don’t necessarily have to spell disaster, but if disaster is to be avoided and a threat transformed into an opportunity, a business must become adept at quickly changing its business model and operating in new ways. The same applies to newcomers and incumbents alike, where a strategic inflection point may mean an opportunity for new periods of growth and if done well, they can cause strategic inflection points to occur for their competition. For example, at Intel in the mid-1980s, the Japanese memory producers brought a strategic inflection point so overwhelming that it forced Intel out of memory chips and into the relatively new field of microprocessors. The microprocessor business that emerged caused huge inflection points for other companies, bringing difficult times to the classical mainframe computer industry. In the field of science, strategic inflection points have been recorded over the centuries. For example, when Copernicus proved that the planets moved around the sun rather than the earth, or when Darwin (1859) introduced his theories about the origin of species, they were doing more than just building on past discoveries, or explaining new experimental data, they were actually bringing about shifts in consciousness of revolutionary proportions. So strategic inflection points or, as Thomas Kuhn (1962) called them, “paradigm shifts” occur from time to time and follow the gather, repeat, share, transform pattern described by Land. When they occur naturally, they are seen as forces of nature, but when introduced 27

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by people, they are often resisted and the ideas underlying them not widely accepted until long after their introduction. What’s more, they often have implications that go far beyond the insights of their creators. Take, for example, the introduction of limes into the British navy. It is a little known fact that, after James Cook reported to the Admiralty his findings on the positive effects of lemon juice and limes in the treatment of scurvy, it took the Royal Navy 20 years to officially recognize the practice. Writing shortly before his death, James Cook (Nutrition Health Review, 1992) complained that: Every innovation whatever, though ever so much to their advantage, is sure to meet with the highest disapprobation from Seamen: Portable Soup and Sour Krout were at first condemned by them as stuff not fit for human beings to eat. Few men have introduced into their ships more novelties in the way of victuals and drink than I have done. It has, however, in a great measure been owing to such little innovations that I have always kept my people generally speaking free from that dreadful distemper the Scurvy. Events of this nature open up the space for new conversations to take place, which in turn lead to further distinctions. Known today in the open source community as “breakouts,” these new distinctions lead to others, in a kind of chain reaction of creativity as each new idea builds on the other in a Fibonacci sequence. For example, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, created what some have dubbed “the Facebook economy” by opening his privately held social networking site to third-party developers. In so doing, he has transformed Facebook from a popular website to a platform on which other businesses can operate. Eight months later, more than 14,000 applications from third-party developers are live on Facebook, allowing users to do everything from flirt to browse for books. The most successful are profiting from advertising revenues and benefiting from Facebook’s transformation into the social operating system of the Internet, poised to support a whole new generation of businesses. Some of the most successful companies of the last 25 years haven’t always been based on radically new products or technologies. Some have sprung up from their leaders’ ability to identify and cater to markets that were emerging but whose needs had not yet been identified. For example: ■

Jack Bogle, founder of Vanguard Group, sold index funds directly to 28

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■

shareholders who previously had been charged high sales commissions and management fees Charles Schwab, through his San Francisco-based discount brokerage, gave “Main Street access to Wall Street” Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank, set out to “break the cycle of poverty” in his native Bangladesh by making loans to very poor villagers, thereby enabling them to become self-supporting entrepreneurs.

These leaders succeeded because the new markets they identified sustained demand for their products and services. Customers whose needs had never been met began to thrive and prosper, as did the companies serving them. The message for open source leadership is not to focus just on the dominant or most profitable markets of the day because these are obvious and likely to attract enormous competition, but to identify underserved markets (or niches) and customers (or segments) that no one else is targeting, enter these new areas and develop successful businesses long before their competition. However, to stay ahead, open source leaders know they have to continuously innovate and in order to do that they must “open” themselves up to a wider “source” of idea creation than that existing within the four walls of their business. For example, Google recently announced its strategy for the mobile sector, which focuses on web-based applications, super-fast search and location-based services that use GPS technology to help users to locate specific services or assistance based on where they are at the time. The company attributes the speed with which these innovative web applications come on stream to its open culture, where users are paid for their contributions to Google’s own mobile operating system. The company’s culture of open source leadership ensures that partnerships are central to its mobile strategy. A group of wireless technology companies, known as the Open Handset Alliance, which includes Sprint, T-Mobile, NTT DoCoMo, Qualcomm and Motorola, has stated its intention to use the search giant’s software to power cellular phones. Google’s software, called Android, includes a mobile operating system and mobile software applications that are distributed by the company for free under an “open source” software license. According to the Open Handset Alliance website, “Android is available under a ‘commercial friendly open source software license’ that, unlike some open source models, allows handset manufacturers and mobile operators to develop their own proprietary extensions to the 29

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software and does not require them to contribute their enhancements back to the open source community” (www.openhandsetalliance.com/ android_overview.html). The initial version of the software development kit for Android was released in 2008, along with the Android Developer Challenge, a scheme to award a total of $10 million – in amounts ranging from $25,000 to $100,000 – to developers. Google’s plans reveal a company that is entrepreneurial and willing to take on established mobile players, such as Microsoft, Verizon Wireless and AT&T. Viewing this through Land’s lens, it is possible to position these new business models in the third phase of transformation in our society, based on “sharing”, the most mature stage. The explosion of reciprocal interactions in open source communities is producing emergent products more creative than anything emerging from the minds of people working individually. While the repeat phase emphasizes growth by maximizing sameness, the share phase emphasizes maximizing differences, so that a higher social order or social system might thrive, giving way to transformation in phase 4, which ends up succeeding and encompassing all that has gone before. As we mentioned earlier, the tradition under transformation is “clock logic abstraction” and its emphasis on sameness and the belief that the objective world of physical reality can be separated from the subjective world of people. While clock logic has its place in the world of quality control, financial regulations and product and transportation safety, it has no place in the world of people and creativity. It is at this point of balance, between freedom and order, that open source leadership plays its most critical role. We say critical because the sharing phase emphasizes the importance of difference in the creative process. It requires the skill and will to embrace ambiguity, surprise and constant change and to create and maintain structures that leverage the interactive potential of free-spirited people. We propose that open source leadership is the defining competitive advantage in an emerging global economy where a significant proportion of the competition still plays by the old rules. For example, in the developing global economy, companies and governments still prefer discipline over adaptability. Their business models aim to achieve profitability by enslaving millions in quasi-feudal, top-down organizations where efficiency always wins out over ethics. These standards don’t only prevail in emerging markets like China and India – as the following account graphically illustrates, even the USA has its fair share of “old school” tyrants. One of our colleagues recounts the following story. 30

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I have spent six months or so in America over the last year and confirm that the longer you watch the stranger it becomes. It is a bit like the new Doctor Who series. The company I consulted for is a multibillion market cap financial services organization. My assignment involved developing and implementing international business and direct-to-consumer strategies. Anyway, enough of business-speak. The company does well but at the top it is a weird work environment. The CEO: a 41 year old, 20 stone plus, v. bright ex-bond trader and totally “in your face.” He has all the baubles of wealth – exotic watches, a Bentley and the ownership or use of a jet. His office is full of trophies – for example strange metallic statues of bulls (to celebrate done deals) and a model of a Lear jet. There is a punch bag in the corner. The room is a caricature of 1980s’ Wall Street success. No books in sight. (In fact, there were no books in the executive area at all. People get their news from the Net and are so focused on work that they hardly seem to know what is going on outside the local ZIP code.) The CEO has created a cult following of Harvard MBA (and so on) groupies who hang out with him in the office and at his pad. He plays games with them. Others play it safe. Challenge, confrontation/ resistance results in isolation/covert or actual dismissal. The only executive on the board is the CFO and he lives the numbers. The other (all nonexec) board members are good and useful eggs but seem to have been selected (by the CEO?) as deal facilitators or industry “names.” I didn’t detect the existence of anyone who might challenge the CEO’s behavior or act as his mentor. Consequently, top-level decisionmaking processes are weak and politics are rife, for example executives speak regularly about others being “with them” or “against them” in a personal and business sense and meetings adjourn without commitments. Some of this is symptomatic of rapid growth – but the symptoms seem unusually severe. At the executive level, it is certainly the most extreme example of the “cult of one” that I have ever seen in a publicly listed company with such a high market cap. More generally, most of the employees do not have a passport and are under 30. The brightest among them have been with the company for more than a year or two. They seem to have stashed away millions. The success of the company has made it a magnet to some bright sparks (and this has both pluses and minuses). (An LSE-trained Harvard MBA felt Singapore might be rather dangerous; so we can’t go there.) The market cap of the company went up US$250 million while I was there and has gone down US$250 million since I left. This is the first time I have done any form of pure consultancy work and it is a rather 31

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strange, nearly out-of-mind, experience. I think that what ultimately is missing is responsibility (for execution). As far as I can see, it is about asking a few questions in a deeply mysterious and paced manner, making copious notes and then only referring to them to quote people verbatim (which flatters and is v. action science) and then disclosing what everyone knows but doesn’t want to talk about in a way that hopefully doesn’t get one ejected from an upper story window. (Gravitas is very important and there is no place for passion. It is important to be seen as a processing machine.) Ideally, disclosures should be accompanied by a 72-page PowerPoint presentation (I do mean 72). By the way, among American business circles, dialogue without PowerPoint is meaningless. I learnt that bullet points are not enough. Three-dimensional 6 x 6 charts work well most of the time as do pretty charts based on big blue arrows about processes. Believe it or not someone even showed me a corporate usage scheme for PowerPoint; it detailed acceptable fonts and recommended color combinations and referenced RGB colors. A PowerPoint and general inflection point for me was a super-bright Harvard MBA deleting a slide in a draft presentation that included data that didn’t suit a conclusion. Organizational development people might describe this behavior using terms like “ladder of inference” and “skilled incompetence” – I call it something more basic. I made friends easily with the security staff (not because of the uniforms) and cleaners in the office skyscraper. They work 16 hours a day for less than our minimum wage – 2,034 people (or something like that) walk by them each morning and none of them says anything meaningful or civil to them. This has made them a little gruff (saying “have a nice day” 4,068 times daily doesn’t help either). Conversations with these chaps helped me to begin to fully understand what the lack of social safety nets really means. Maybe I should become a labor organizer. From this account, we can see that blindness to the ethics of human respect, conforming to standard operating procedures, and measuring costs and profits to the penny may not necessarily hit your bottom line, but would you want to take that risk in your business? There is increasing evidence that retention of intellectual assets is becoming increasingly difficult in today’s market environment. When competing on competence and innovation can mean the difference between failure and success, merely being a low-cost producer is not sufficient. In The Delta Project, Arnaldo Hax and Dean Wilde (2001) warn that zero-sum games, where one company wins because another loses, 32

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inevitably lead to market saturation and product commoditization, while Clayton Christensen’s (1997) The Innovator’s Dilemma shows how this zero-sum game led to the demise of the minicomputer giants in the early 1990s. The message Christensen takes from this example is that disruptive innovation causes successful businesses to fail not because these businesses are poorly managed, but because they are well managed under the old zero-sum game rules. In the case of Digital Equipment Corporation, Christensen found that while the company had been successful for years, it imploded under the management that made it successful. In The Innovator’s Dilemma, Christensen (1997, p. 198) says: This book began by posing a puzzle: Why was it that firms that could be esteemed as aggressive, innovative, customer-sensitive organizations could ignore or attend belatedly to technological innovations with enormous strategic importance? In the context of the preceding analysis of the disk drive industry, this question can be sharpened considerably. The established firms were, in fact, aggressive, innovative, and customer-sensitive in their approaches to sustaining innovations of every sort. But the problem established firms seem unable to confront successfully is that of downward vision and mobility, in terms of the trajectory map. Finding new applications and markets for these new products appears to be a capability that each of these firms exhibited once, upon entry and then apparently lost. The mighty Digital Equipment Corporation, which had dominated the minicomputer industry for years, was killed by technological innovation of the same sort that it had used to muscle into territory formerly held by IBM. Christensen’s summary of the management decision is that they had a choice: improve and introduce existing products that make 50% margins and sell for $200,000 while increasing margins and prices, or turn to lower end products (PCs) that have 20% margins and sell for $5000, with decreasing margins and decreasing prices. The decision back then was pretty obvious. But today, with 35% of the patents in the world going to small companies, the threat of disruptive innovation looms large for the big corporate giants. The world has changed. In fact, many of the most innovative people out there are in small companies. They were leaders. They were technologists in big companies. But they didn’t like the environment in big companies, so 33

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they went and became a small company. Now they’re out there, and they’re doing highly innovative work, but what they lack is market access and scale. This is where Christensen believes the large corporate’s strategy needs to be going. This is the new game in town – how to create business models that align the innovative power of user-led open source communities with the market access and scalable manufacturing models so well managed by the big corporate giants. Today, some of the big name players of this new game are 3M, P&G, LEGO and Google to name but a few. Their success is based on their willingness to adapt their closed source adaptation business models to take in ideas from the outside world in a kind of blended open source innovation/closed source adaptation approach, synergistically interacting the scale advantages of the big company with the hungry attitude and agility of a small entrepreneur. According to Larry Huston (2008), former vice-president of knowledge and innovation at P&G, the way to execute this blended approach is to: Get very clear on what your strategic intent is. Are you doing it to solve a specific problem? I might be a car company and I’m looking for a new battery technology. Well, am I trying to solve a battery technology problem? Or, am I like a P&G, which fundamentally has said, “The invent-it-yourself innovation model is broken, it’s not sustainable. Therefore, I’ve got to build a totally new capability. I’ve got to redefine my organization as my ten thousand people in addition to the two million people that are outside and redefine myself as two million, ten thousand people.” For companies like P&G who are seeking to establish new business models, open source leadership offers great scope to use advanced ICT to transform fragmented supply chains into rich networks of commitments. These commitment networks address the deep concerns of their people and those they serve, and, in turn, open source leaders recognize that market boundaries exist only in people’s minds. This was evidenced by the eventual winners at the low end of the minicomputer market who didn’t let existing market structures limit their thinking. To them, extra demand was out there untapped and their challenge was to create it by shifting focus from competing to creating innovative value to unlock new demand. Competition in the old game is therefore rendered irrelevant as are its values of scarcity, conflict and competition. 34

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The new game means a whole new set of values based on open source principles. Open source leadership shifts the emphasis away from doing the same things better to doing entirely different things. Whether you are an entrepreneur, social activist, politician or educator, the deregulation and descaling effects of new technology have dramatically reduced the barriers to entry, and companies are finding themselves enmeshed in “value webs” and “ecosystems” over which they have only limited control. Disintermediation and outsourcing, along with the growth of open source projects and industry consortia, are leaving firms with less and less control over their own destinies. The new game threatens anyone attempting to make a living out of creating and selling intellectual property. Drugs companies, film studios, publishers and luxury goods manufacturers are all struggling to adapt to the new game, where information and ideas are sourced from a deep well of human potentiality demanding to be free. The Internet is rapidly shifting the bargaining power from producers to consumers. In the past, customer “loyalty” was often an artifact of high switching costs and limited information, and companies often profited from customer ignorance. This is no longer the case. Today, customers are in control as never before and in a world of near perfect information, there is less and less room for mediocre products and services. For the first time in human history, mass cooperation across time and space is suddenly economical, and with 1 billion people online worldwide sharing information, knowledge and ideas, the myth of omnipotence that has underpinned clock logic management for so long is now exposed. While this has yet to be realized in today’s emerging market economies, where the power of knowledge still remains in the possession of a wealthy and powerful minority, their competitiveness will, over time, be severely undermined. Creating alternatives to this limiting and outdated view lies at the heart of open source leadership, which challenges the assumption that the objective world of physical reality can be separated from the subjective mental world of individual thoughts and feelings, or that reality can be experienced as independent from the consciousness of people interacting with it. Business practice is changing from pure product differentiation to include new sources of wealth creation based on connectivity and continuous creativity. Open source leaders are thinking and acting like entrepreneurs, using the Internet and ICTs not only to enable their efforts, but also to form value propositions previously unimagined. These propositions are delivered by 35

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networks of people emotionally committed to satisfying the concerns of stakeholders within and outside the organization, and cultivating gratitude, intimacy and humility among them. When enabled by effective networking tools, these collaborations become a formidable force, whether inside your organization, with your trusted suppliers who have huge talent bases, or with people outside who really have no reason to have a relationship with you. An example of this kind of participative collaboration can be seen in the account of Carlos Ghosn, executive vice-president of the Nissan Motor Company. Ghosn (2002) successfully led the transformation of Nissan where, according to him, so many of the problems encountered could be traced back to misplaced assumptions about tasks such as capacity management, corporate mission, and the identity and self-esteem of its members. All these elements combined to make a company that was completely out of tune with the challenges of running a viable global automotive business. Like so many of the examples we studied for this book, Ghosn’s success was his willingness to speak the unspeakable and in doing so disclose the new world that Nissan was ultimately destined to become. In recent years, there has been a noticeable shift in emphasis concerning the practice of strategic innovation. Not too long ago businesses preferred what we called “closed source adaptation,” where their efforts largely focused on doing the same things a little differently. Consequently, this emphasis on sameness and control meant that any strategic partnering was predominantly closed or internally focused. For example, Dell operated in the highly commoditized PC market where there is little to differentiate one PC from another. Its business model aimed to serve markets where standards had already been established and where innovation focused on its internal business processes. Over time, we noticed an emerging strategic inflection point as companies started to introduce innovative products into existing and new markets. We called this “open source innovation” because it emphasized creative experimentation as a natural and spontaneous way of working. This was quite different to closed source adaptation, which emphasized a more planned and controlled approach. The open source software development movement was an early example where software development programmers were able to read, redistribute and modify the source code for a piece of software and the software evolved. Users improved it, adapted it and fixed bugs and this all happened at a speed greater than conventional software devel36

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opment. By working together, a community of users and developers improved the functionality and quality of the software, and it appeared that this rapid evolutionary process produced better software than the traditional closed source methods. Oracle Corp. adopted a similar approach by creating strategic partnerships with smaller companies. Its aim was to leverage and combine with its own talent the unique knowledge and talent of these companies to create new products and to quickly exploit the highly lucrative markets dominated by its competitors. For example, in a recent announcement, Oracle intends to sell computer hardware for the first time in its 31-year history. In order to make this four-year transition, Oracle spent more than $35 billion to acquire about 50 other software makers. When we first published the findings of our study, people told us that open source innovation would never catch on because the risk of exposing proprietary assets to outside agents was too great. Today those fears have proved unfounded, as companies like P&G lose market share to competition that can produce faster, better, cheaper products. In a recent statement, its CEO said: “7,500 researchers are no longer enough to sustain our lead.” As a consequence, business unit leaders at P&G have been tasked with the challenge of sourcing 50% of all new products and services innovations from outside the company. One point worth noting is that the practice of open source leadership is not necessarily exclusive to enterprise and entrepreneurship. For example, history will show that Internet-enabled social networking combined with Barack Obama’s skills as an open source leader paved the way for a newer and arguably more ethical form of political campaigning. In a recent account of Obama’s social networking strategy, David Talbot (2008) of MIT’s Technology Review described how Obama used social technology to great effect. While Hillary Clinton had about 20,000 volunteers at work in one key state, Obama garnered 104,000 through his social networking site, www.my.barackobama.com, known as MyBO. This was the same site, together with the main Obama site, that had already collected $55 million in donations in a single month. In addition, the MyBO site could send instructions to constituents with little effort and its databases could analyze lists of volunteers by geographic microregion and pair people with appropriate tasks, including prepping nearby voters on caucus procedure. It was possible to go online and download names, addresses and phone numbers of people in a neighborhood and tell them to get out and vote. This was especially effective with those who were undecided. 37

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Meanwhile, a continent away, in Bangalore’s Avalahalli neighborhood, open source leadership has transformed the life of 32-year-old Sabira Khanam, a woman disabled by polio and now living on her own. Financed through microfinancing, with an initial loan of 10,000 rupees (about $250), Sabira opened a small-scale kerosene distributorship and later, with a second, smaller infusion, she financed her sister’s wedding. A third loan of 20,000 rupees launched a business sewing sequined saris for sale to local women. Khanam now rents a large masonry house purchased through microloans rather than local unscrupulous money lenders, who charge 2–10% monthly interest for long-term loans and much more for small, short-term loans. This is yet further evidence of the irrepressible human spirit to flow through our mind’s intention toward wholeness, our hearts passion to connect and our body’s will to emerge. And while more than half of India’s 1.1 billion people lack access to the kinds of financial services that made such a difference for Khanam, their potential to do so still remains. So imagine the possibilities for our planet if 4 billion of the 6.5 billion people in the world were to open to the source of their true potential. It would be like the old bumper sticker that said “imagine if the whole world farted at once.” Imagine what great things could be accomplished if 6.5 billion people synergistically interacted their skill, will and being at once. Because we live in an increasingly global capitalist economy, the potential of microfinancing to help lift people out of poverty is huge. In her own way, Khanam is a shining example of open source leadership. She leads a group that includes nine other borrowers, all women, who have financed everything from down payments on motorized rickshaws to materials for the manufacture of incense. The accounts of open source communities and their leaders are too numerous to mention, but suffice it to say, the indomitable human spirit has so much to offer and open source leadership is the key to unlocking this vast pool of pure human potential. Whether applied to the Obama campaign or to a Grameen Bank project in Bangladesh, these stories can be added to a rapidly increasing number of community, philanthropic as well as business models which are supporting a new wave of democratization. The strategic inflection point is approaching and as governments and companies like Intel, 3M, LEGO, Google, Apple and GE follow suit, the need to balance open source innovation with closed source adaptation has never been more pressing. Open source leadership is at the heart of this challenge, harnessing learning and innovation through natural and spontaneous experimentation. 38

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REFLECTIVE NARRATIVE 1 What aspects of this chapter are new to you and has anything you have read made sense to you? 2 Where have you experienced something like this before? Have you ever worked in a clock logic business? Have you ever had a clock logic boss? Have you ever experienced an open source leader and open source leadership and recognized the difference? 3 What have you read that you simply cannot agree with? What have we missed in this chapter according to your personal experience? 4 After reading this chapter, do you feel compelled to do anything different?

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CHAPTER 2

OPEN SOURCE LEADERSHIP

So far we have painted a picture of the new game and the new rules driving the need for open source leadership. It is now our intention to concentrate on the skills required to practice open source leadership. Leadership is perhaps one of the most overused and least understood terms of our age. It is probably the most researched topic in organizational behavior and there are more leadership theories than you can poke a stick at, each giving partial answers to highly complex leadership questions. As Nobel Prize-winner Richard Feynman (1994, p. 22) once said: I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I am not absolutely sure about anything and there are many things I know nothing about. Not bad, coming from a Nobel Prize winner and pretty good advice for those of us crazy enough to seek absolute certainty about a phenomenon that has so many competing theories. There are, however, points where there does appear to be absolute convergence and these are that leadership is the power of one individual to guide the actions of another. Leaders are individuals who advocate change and who try new approaches to problems. Leadership is often conceptualized as a set of behaviors or a product of the interaction of the leader’s personality and the demands of the leadership situation. This view leads to contingency theories of leadership, which is whole different pathway. So, in order to weave our way through this maze of definitions, we borrowed from the helpful approach adopted by Ken Wilber (1997) who is regarded as the world’s most influential integral thinker. When faced with a complexity of conflicting theories, Wilber simply backs up to a level of generalization at which the various conflicting approaches actually agree with one another. For example, Wilber (1997, p. 22) says: Take the world’s great religious traditions: Do they all agree that 40

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Jesus is God? No. So we must jettison that. Do they all agree that there is a God? That depends on the meaning of “God.” Do they all agree on God, if by “God” we mean a Spirit that is in many ways unqualified, from the Buddhists’ Emptiness to the Jewish mystery of the Divine to the Christian Cloud of Unknowing? Yes. That works as a generalization – what Wilber calls an “orienting generalization” or “sturdy conclusion.” Wilber likewise approaches all the other fields of human knowledge: art to poetry, empiricism to hermeneutics, cognitive science to meditation, evolutionary theory to idealism. In every case, he assembles a series of sturdy and reliable, if not irrefutable, orienting generalizations. Using this method during the course of our study, we find as a generalization that leading is different from managing even though both processes can be performed by the same person. A manager is a person who performs the specific process of managing and holds a formal title or fills a formal role in the organization. The manager is responsible for the performance and productivity of one or more subordinates in a particular organizational subunit. We often think of managers as advocates for the status quo and stability, while a leader resists the status quo and proposes changes. Leaders are also able to influence others to pursue their goals. Thus, the study of leadership is much broader than the study of management. For example, in his attempts to understand the roles of the manager, Henry Mintzberg (2004) has developed a formulation that analyzes the manager’s job in terms of roles. He based his managerial role classification system on detailed analyses of how managers spend their time. He identified 10 roles that managers fill in their jobs, which can be generalized into three broad categories: ■

■

■

Interpersonal roles – connect managerial behaviors that establish working relationships. Informational roles – allow the manager to collect and distribute information. Decisional roles – those behaviors used to set, implement and monitor progress toward goals.

Managers often sequence their roles to build working relationships based on mutual trust and high performance expectations. Managers often get to know their subordinates and become involved with other departments. Networking allows the manager to gather information 41

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and function as the spokesperson for the work unit. Finally, stable interpersonal relationships and good information lead to decision making, goal setting and resource allocation decisions. Sometimes managers erroneously sequence their managerial roles. They initiate their decisional roles before they have sufficient information and have established dependable interpersonal working relationships. Leadership research and writing advances on three strongly related fronts, with organizational scholars and management experts believing that the leader has some influence on the outcomes of work and the success of the organization. Yet there is still a lack of integration between these fronts. For example, the trait approach to leadership differs from the behavioral approach, which stressed the importance of the constancy and predictability of the leader’s behavior across leadership situations, while some believe that integration exists in the form of the situational approach to leadership. We don’t believe this theory goes deep enough into the phenomenon we call leadership, when you consider what history tells us about famous leaders like Wellington, Napoleon, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela or Joan of Arc. These people were shapers of destiny and were bestowed with an almost mythical status – as if they were gifted by some divine providence. This is reflected in the literature on leadership, which is replete with accounts of great men and, more recently, women who possess the ability to see the unimaginable, undertake the impossible and achieve the unbelievable. It is as if these qualities are unique to a particular type of person and become manifest in their speaking and acting in ways that ignite the spark of creativity in their followers. While we don’t disagree with any of these descriptions, we do believe they miss a deeper, more significant quality, which we believe can only be found by following Wilber’s “integral method” to arrive at an orienting generalization for open source leadership. We cover this in greater detail in the next chapter, but once applied to our study of leadership, we arrive at our theory, which we call “open source leadership.” To explain this essential quality that lies at the heart of leadership theory, we use the story of the great artist and sculptor Michelangelo as a lens to reflect on the core aspects of open source leadership. We might say that Michelangelo’s capacity to see David in the slab of marble before transforming it into the beautiful shape we see today in Florence, and his ability to foresee such potential lying in the heart of a block of stone rejected by others because of its imperfections are essential qualities of open source leadership. 42

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So open source leaders see the best in the world around them, in their colleagues and in the people and groups they lead. In Shapers of Destiny, Deepak Chopra (2004, p. 3) believes that: A leader is the symbolic soul of the group. The soul is an archetypal expression of who we are. Everything dynamic about us comes from this deeper level of spirit. Because individuals grow from the inside out, so do groups. Sometimes a group needs a parent or protector, at other times a ruler, muse, or visionary. The leader operates from the soul level to cause these shifts, which then get expressed on the surface as success. Open source leaders have the vision to see creative and improbable opportunities manifesting in their environment, the skill to realize them, and the capacity to see with an appreciative eye the true and the good, the better and the possible. The materials they work with are the complex ecosystems of integratively interactive relationships among people, institutions and supporting structures, which require the cultivation of positive effects in the lives of those involved. Their finished product is the constructive engagement of people with each other and the facility to pursue what they care about most, resulting in a society that is improved by their creative emergent presence. By “facility,” we mean: ■

■ ■

they make it easier for people to have equal access to information, resources and tools they enable rich interconnections of shared interests and capabilities they create a sense of ownership over outcomes and a sense of identity as someone who improves their own lives and those of others.

Because these complex ecosystems are not exclusive to one particular business, open source leaders must be comfortable with transparency and sharing information within a wider context. Indeed, it can be argued that, as Land suggested in Chapter 1, the sharing phase of transformation is characterized by the quality of difference among the members of a community. So the wider the context, the more creative and improbable the opportunities manifesting. While there is a range of ecosystems, from pure open source strategies like Linux and Apache to more blended approaches like Google and 3M, the fact remains that 43

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open source leadership needs to balance adaptive creativity with radical innovation to ensure the continuation of existing products and services while introducing new ones. For example, in Microsoft’s attempt to make one of its operating systems more competitive with open source software developers, the company introduced its Shared Source program. This allows some governments and technology companies to gain access to selected Microsoft code. While there are obvious risks to allowing access to proprietary information, the benefits are a constant stream of creative breakouts that simply could not be achieved by internal efforts alone. For companies like Microsoft, pure open source approaches are antithetical to their proprietary business models, yet we believe, over time, we will see them move more toward the hybrid models described above. Possibly they will move more toward service provision like the Google services – Gmail, Google Chrome and Google maps – that are free. They will be open to that extent, but they’re not fully open. Their source code will remain proprietary and they will continue to control the data. We believe that the most stable, profitable new forms of business model are yet to emerge and will reflect a blended approach of closed source adaptation and open source innovation. Open source leaders must decide on the risks and benefits associated with taking on any new venture, their knowledge-creating capacity and, as Microsoft illustrates, the degree of trust and openness they are willing to ascribe to the users of their products. All these factors have a significant influence on their ability to successfully exploit information to make better decisions that are highly knowledge intensive and entail significant business risk. This does not mean that adapting and innovating strategies are mutually exclusive but that one takes precedence and is supported by the other. It is the role of open source leadership to understand the unique balance of each and to align financial and intellectual resources accordingly. Our research revealed that the most successful businesses have mastered the art and science of this balance (see Figure 2.1). For example, when Apple Inc. set out to create the Apple Mac, it was located as far away as possible from its existing business infrastructure. Apple customized operational processes, systems and structures specifically to support the Mac’s unique mission. The new facility proudly flew the pirate skull and crossbones flag, and the employees, many of whom were new to the company, took on a similar identity. One popular joke going around at that time among Apple employees 44

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High Information enabled

Knowledge driven

Data rich Low

Knowledge transformed

Complexity/Velocity

Adapting C1

C2 C3 Collaboration

High

Innovating C4

FIGURE 2.1 Open source innovation Source: Gadman and Cooper, 2005

was: “How many Apple Mac employees does it take to screw in a light bulb? Answer – one. The person places the bulb in the socket and the universe revolves around them.” Without open source leadership, this joke may well have backfired because the success of the Apple Mac and many of its subsequent iconic products like the iPod and iPhone has been due, in large part, to Apple’s ability to establish synergistically interacting ecosystems of shared concern and need. As we mentioned earlier, open source leaders must be both adaptive and innovative and build business models that reflect and support these qualities as they work toward the achievement of their strategic mission. Google also performs these two seemingly contradictory elements extremely well, in that it has a laser-like focus on efficiency for its core assets and a radical openness to innovation and experimentation for everything else. When it comes to optimizing the performance of its search and advertising platform, Google is incredibly disciplined and performance driven. Because it generates such phenomenal wealth from its core business, Google can afford to invest time, money and effort into its search for potentially disrupting innovation that might create growth opportunities. Using the model in Figure 2.1, there are four specific types of blended approach that can be applied. They are as follows: ■

C1 – In low complexity environments where knowledge creation is not

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considered mission critical, partnering of any kind tends not to be a priority. In these contexts, the objective of the open source leader is to manage the input–output relationship between the company and its environment by ensuring clear product/market positioning, resource allocation, planning, organizing, human resource management and control. In a C1-type of business, management practices and business models tend to favor task specialization and individual rather than collective relationships. Consequently, detailed plans rather than guidelines tend to be the norm and knowledge connectivity is low. We see this in many commodity-based industries like paper and plastic bag manufacture where technological innovation has gone as far as is humanly possible or where companies are happy to compete on a low-cost basis. Either way, margins and cost control are the challenge for these companies. C2 – Where there is low environmental complexity yet a high need for knowledge creation, open source business model seeks to establish communities of common interest within the four walls of the business. In these circumstances, new knowledge emerges from the free exchange of ideas among employees. These ecosystems focus on competencies, reduced time to market, and the increased value of intellectual assets. They appeal to their employees desire to take on a shared challenge, to work alongside highly talented colleagues, and they provide the opportunity for personal development and offer a sense of identity. Sharing knowledge is part of the culture and, in some cases, is linked to the performance review process. These ecosystems may range in size from small working groups of less than 20 members to full communities of hundreds of participating individuals. Their survival depends on how well interests are met by the community resources. In the course of a successful project, different communities will come and go. New ones will spring up, grow and possibly become dormant or die. As long as thriving communities still exist, the larger project can be considered alive and well. ICT plays a large part in the success of these ecosystems because they feed the natural desire for people to gather for social interaction. Open source leadership ensures ease of collaboration for community members. Boundaries are permeable and the number and density of connections to the environment is increased to speed information flow and adaptation. Information is transparent and a diversity of opinions and experience to speed innovation is encouraged. The challenge is to recombine and reinvent and people are 46

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encouraged to borrow ideas and practices liberally, making every product upgradeable, breeding ideas and processes early and often, and viewing interchangeable modules for people and products essential for mass customization. These experiments are aimed at continuously upgrading the performance of services and products, understanding the requirements of customers, knowing where to target their products, how to market and sell their products, and developing new channels to market. Dell and P&G fit well into this category because they successfully use their knowledge to develop and run proprietary processes and practices that give them a significant competitive advantage over the competition. Sharing this with others outside the business would not be to their advantage. C3 – In highly complex and dynamic environments where innovation provides competitive advantage, the focus of open source leadership is predominantly to the outside world and the business model aims to enable self-organization among employees and to balance control with experimentation. Consequently, guidelines rather than detailed plans are used and knowledge connectivity is an essential aspect of relationship building. In C3 cultures, group memory is the holy grail of knowledge management efforts. However, the effort to capture and categorize is often more trouble than workers and managers are willing to put up with. If the culture of the organization or team is suitable to a conversational working style, the best IT solutions offer a combination of synchronous collaboration tools such as videoconferencing, instant messaging and screen sharing with asynchronous environments that allow teams to work across geographic and chronological boundaries. In this way, they can quickly produce both a highly effective online workspace and an instant archive that becomes searchable group memory. New team members can easily get up to speed and ask questions that haven’t already been answered. Managers can tune in and get a pulse on the state of the project. Customers can be an integral part of the project team, viewing the process and giving feedback along the way. Trusting and stronger working relationships are established for future contracts. And everything is embedded in a clear context (the flow of the conversation), which makes for better, more integrated work and learning. Sun Microsystems fits well into this category. For example, in its NetBeans open source project, the company used an open source community to develop an integrated development environment for the Java language. The company benefited because it was able to 47

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increase not only its own population of Java skilled programmers but that of its customers. Also, because their servers run well on Java, they were in a position to sell more of them. Lastly, an unexpected outcome from the community was an innovative idea that created the potential for a future geographic information systems market, which had never before been contemplated. Another example of this open source approach is the American logistics firm FedEx, whose corporate vision of satisfying worldwide demand for fast, time-definite, reliable distribution requires an intense customer focus. FedEx’s information systems and networks were initially developed to improve its C2 needs for internal operational efficiencies and cost reduction. By integrating its Internet application programming interface for use in customers’ internal networks, it actually engages more customers to use the Internet, with the automation of shipping and tracking possible through integration with FedEx. Another of its software products, Virtual Order, helps businesses to get online by giving them the software to set up an online catalog that resides on FedEx’s secure server. The key factors of success for FedEx are low cost, ease of use, free setup and service, and trouble-free ordering, payments and delivery. Integrating its services within the supply chain of its customers also raises customer switching costs and competitor barriers to entry. Products like FedEx Insight offer large customers a new level of visibility into their shipping activities by helping to plan their manufacturing or distribution resources, manage their inventories and returned goods, decrease inventory management costs, and increase customer satisfaction. Additional FedEx ebusiness tools allow companies to connect their existing environment to FedEx information systems and vice versa. FedEx has developed expertise in applying technology to shorten the order to delivery cycle with services including transportation, order processing, distribution center operations, fulfillment, inventory control, purchasing, production, and customer and sales services. The focus is on its ability to interconnect and distribute information to all supply chain players. FedEx has forged strong relationships and developed innovative technology solutions based on customer needs. Being a technology leader, FedEx has a wide array of partnerships in technology. It has partnered with Orbit Commerce to provide Internet commerce services on a rental basis for small busi48

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nesses, and established an Internet-based supply chain partnership with Cisco for all network supplies for running the end-to-end Internet-based network. In addition, AT&T has a deal with FedEx to create a wireless Internet site for package tracking and delivery. FedEx has also signed exclusive delivery agreements with a number of etailers like eToys, ProFlowers, Value America and L.L.Bean. An order on one of these sites automatically triggers a FedEx dispatch request. FedEx’s focus as an international logistics company gives the companies who sign with it a genuinely international reach. C4 – Where environmental complexity is high, but requirements for knowledge creation are low – having already been established and held in patents and so on – this is the domain of the incumbent market dominator. These partnerships are characterized by highly knowledgeable people delivering products and services that are the result of extensive research and have become the de facto standard. For example, as we mentioned earlier, Google is dominant in the advertising search market yet does two seemingly contradictory things extremely well when it balances efficiency for its core assets with a radical openness to innovation and experimentation for everything else. Because it generates such phenomenal wealth from its core business, the company is profligate about anything else that might create growth opportunities. Other C4-type companies, particularly in the biomedical startup market, focus on the product development of biomaterials for a variety of applications. Often these businesses incorporate some key expertise in their founding team, a team which often includes graduate students who initially helped to develop and refine some of the earlier key processing technology. These relationships lead to others in a kind of ripple effect, which builds on relationships with the original lab and with those who had a tacit understanding of how the idea really works. By adding many of those people to its scientific advisory board, it is able to become adept at drawing complex ideas and external scientists into its R&D group without upsetting its existing ideas and culture. In all cases, C4 companies are highly skilled at measuring, valuing and managing their intellectual assets. They acquire and retain highly skilled employees and they are knowledge driven, in that they are able to embed individual-based knowledge in the company and make it accessible and useful across the organization. Typically, this category is occupied by companies that have been in 49

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some or all of the previous categories and are now able to benefit from the results of their experiences. The benefits of this are stable, safe and reliable products and services protected by time-based patents such as those seen in the aerospace, academic, pharmaceutical and nuclear sectors. The risk of being in this category is that of complacency, and those who occupy this category must remain vigilant to replacement opportunities when patents run out. As Land (1973) has illustrated in Grow or Die, once we have completed a transformation at one level, we enter a gathering phase at a higher level, so that a firm in C4 is potentially in a vulnerable place if it is not constantly vigilant to spot emerging inflection points created by external market forces or disruptive innovations. For example, Dell’s C4 business model allows it to target products at emerging markets like China and India. Its strategy means it can tap into the potential of high-growth markets outside its own domestic economy. From a C4 perspective, success means Dell is in a strong position to compete with rivals such as Hewlett-Packard, Taiwanbased Acer Inc. and China’s Lenovo Group – all of whom are expanding aggressively in emerging economies as sales growth in the USA and other developed markets slows. The primary difference between a C4 strategy and a C3 strategy is the extent to which internally driven innovation serves to strengthen the competitive position of that business. Once competitive rivalry increases through open source innovation methods, as is the present case with the Google phone and the iPhone, a C3 strategy needs to be adopted – requiring the involvement of others outside the business to lend a hand. Such democratization of innovation makes sense because buyers often have as much, if not more interest in improving a company’s product as the company itself. For example, General Electric (GE), like P&G, used to be a classic C4-type company until competitive rivalry changed everything and now it is common practice for GE to hold events in China in its appliance industry and invite hundreds of suppliers to share their top problems and request ideas for solutions. Creating synergistically interactive structures of participation is an open source leadership skill involving the establishment of trusting and committed relationships with partners and complementors outside the organizational boundaries. This approach requires a number of different skills in order to be successful, for example maintaining the 50

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uniqueness and direction of your mission and getting others in the network to buy into this. At P&G, for example, a brief or problem description is created, outlining the problem to be solved. This is then broken into discrete segments that form the basis of problem descriptors. From this brief, teams develop a taxonomy of science terms and begin the search for scientists and technologists who are known to hold a specialization in that field. One interesting pattern emerging for team members is that there are rarely any blind alleys. There is always someone who, if they can’t help directly, will know someone who can. These are what are known as “transaction-based networks.” A second approach is relationship based, where companies are approached because they have a complementary technology, which, when synergistically interacted with your own, creates an emergent product greater than that which could have been produced by them on their own. This is analogous to the recent acquisition of Norwegian-based FAST by Microsoft in its bid to challenge the dominance of Google in the search and advertising field. So C4 business models require open source leaders who are vigilant for disruptive strategic inflection points. They, like Microsoft, must go on the offensive when their pockets are deep enough to sustain ongoing innovation practices, which usually include the formation of committed and trusting relationships with external partners. As the old saying goes, “if it ain’t broke, break it,” and take every opportunity to do what Google is able to do so well, which is to blend closed source adaptation strategies with open source innovation strategies. The business benefits to be gained from adopting the most appropriate partnering strategy and organizational design are significant. Whether it’s a desire to tap expertise globally to solve problems locally, a wish to respond faster to changing customer demands, or a desire to develop and launch new products or services faster than the competition, a company’s partnering strategy and its design and execution must be inextricably linked. Whether it’s a case of doing the same things better, doing better things or doing entirely new things, a company’s choice of one of the four business models described above must be influenced by the nature of its business environment and its confidence in the knowledge of its people to successfully take on and overcome the challenge. In cases where environmental disruption is considered high and knowledge levels well suited to maintaining existing product/service offerings, a company will tend to favor an adaptive strategy over an innovating one. Consequently, any efforts to innovate will be more 51

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controlled and iterative in nature, with partnerships designed to foster knowledge creation, capture and dissemination inside and across the organization. On the other hand, in situations where environmental disruption is tolerable and knowledge levels high, a company might favor a more innovative approach to delivering its portfolio and take on a more experimental approach. In such cases, partnerships are more externally focused and designed to challenge existing knowledge with radically new ideas. Business models aimed at adapting and innovating must be balanced with the right blend of partnering. If companies intend to stimulate knowledge development through external partnerships, they have to consider the state of the organization when they decide how much experimentation is enough. To lead and manage external partnerships, you must continually assess when experimentation is moving away from the guiding values and core mission of the company. Such loose/ tight control is essential if knowledge generation is to continue to feed the strategic aspirations of the firm. Open source leaders are constantly open to making use of new perspectives that might ultimately change the core mission of the company. They should carefully observe the impact of new ideas on existing culture and gauge the degree of stress people in the organization are willing and able to accept. Ultimately, the difference between going it alone and going with others is a personal choice but I hope that the information presented here will make that choice more informed. Managers have historically struggled to successfully manage innovation. They get a bewildering array of often conflicting and confusing advice. What has been lacking is a collection of well-grounded theories that explain the actions managers should take in particular circumstances. Through his research, Christensen (1997) has developed a set of theories to help guide managers as they seek to answer seven critical questions when trying to build new growth businesses, again and again. These key questions are: 1 How do we stay ahead of our competitors? Businesses seek out situations where their innovations disrupt normal patterns of behaviour. In other words, taking on their competitors in markets they either cannot or will not contest. This is possible by either seeking out nonconsumers who will welcome a simple product or by launching an attack on the low end of an incumbent’s market in a space the incumbent is actually happy to give up. 52

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2 How can we better understand the needs of our customers? Customers buy products to solve their problems. Success comes when you develop a product that successfully matches a circumstance that customers find themselves in. Because it is often difficult, if not impossible, for customers to tell you what they want or need, the normal means of predicting future market needs often fall short of customer expectations. 3 How integrated should we be? In circumstances where products are not good enough to meet customer needs, you need to be integrated to improve your product performance. In circumstances where the product is more than good enough, you can beat competitors with speed, responsiveness and customization. 4 How should we determine our strategy? In highly uncertain situations, traditional strategy development methods tend not to work well. In these situations, it is necessary for you to consider adopting more emergent methods, which allow you to modify your strategy when you encounter unanticipated opportunities or threats. 5 From whom should we seek investment? Your financing source should match your circumstances. If you are seeking to dominate a niche market, you need investors who are willing to push a potentially disruptive innovation toward large obvious markets. 6 Where should our innovation reside? Your resources, both tangible and intangible, define your competence or lack thereof. When an opportunity comes into the threshold of your competence, you should adopt a C2 strategy. Conversely, when opportunities do not fit your competencies, you need to adopt a C3 strategy by acquiring the necessary competencies from elsewhere or by housing the innovation in a separate organization. 7 What is your role as leader? In disruptive circumstances, you need to adopt an internal C3-type strategy. This means involving your entire workforce in developing and implementing strategy. For example, Google executives have adopted a questioning approach where employee teams are invited to offer ideas based on their experience of future macro- and microenvironmental forces. The following story, featured in Cooperrider et al. (2005, p. 67), offers a good example of a visionary leader taking an open source approach to strategy and action. It is an account of David Cooperrider’s meeting with Stef Wertheimer, a wealthy Israel businessman, who offered to show him an example of how it is possible to make business an important force for peace: 53

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We flew in the morning to the Galilee region, across the desert to an area without any natural resources. It is called Tefen and later I discovered that this unassuming man was perhaps the wealthiest person in Israel; his worth was estimated to be over four billion dollars and what he has created now accounts for over 10% of Israel’s export GNP. His name is Stef Wertheimer. And for what he has accomplished, he honestly deserves to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. When I got out of the helicopter, I could not believe my eyes. Up until the mid-1980s Tefen was a barren hilltop grazed by local goat herds. Today the scope of industrial exports manufactured at Tefen equals that of the entire Jerusalem area. Beautiful homes and neighborhoods surround what Werthheimer calls a “capitalist kibbutz” – with four Tefen Model Industrial Parks that have given birth to more than 160 new businesses and schools for all the children that now populate the area. Most surprising: the whole thing is based on the principle of co-existence, Arab and Jewish living together, going into business together, building schools and art museums together, and dramatically transforming entrenched conflicts into collaborative energies for economic empowerment, development, and peace. The Israeli billionaire Stef Wertheimer is literally igniting a revolution in hope by harnessing the best in business to easily and rapidly melt frozen animosities and in the process create islands of peace and shared prosperity. His theory: create 100 more of these islands – a distinct and special kind of entrepreneurial industrial park modeled after the “Tefen Miracle”– and strategically locate them throughout the eastern Mediterranean. It’s literally this region’s version of a Marshall Plan and one which growing numbers of supporters from Turkey, Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority, believe could lift the region out of poverty and take the biggest step toward finishing terrorism. It’s something all of us should take notice of. This story illustrates how open source values and practices can be successfully applied to the most unlikely of circumstances – born from a growing conviction that creativity and entrepreneurship are powerful forces that can create conditions for lasting peace, dignified living and the eradication of strife. While we agree with this, we also believe that creativity and entrepreneurship are not exclusive to war zones but are desirable states for any society seeking to make life worth living for its people. 54

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Creative potential is inherent in all things and when applied to human society is not necessarily confined to wealth creation or political leadership but to shaping outcomes that have a positive influence on overall human progress. For example, when a concerned group of medical biologists, lawyers, entrepreneurs and healthcare activists became dissatisfied with the way large pharmaceutical companies developed cures for rare tropical diseases, they decided they could do it better. Because the big pharmaceuticals had little incentive to develop treatments for diseases that afflicted those least able to pay for them, the group set up an open source community called the Tropical Disease Initiative (TDI), which enabled scientists from laboratories, universities, institutes and corporations to share information, ideas and resources to develop new drug targets. Today, the TDI has made history by showing that a group of concerned individuals interacting synergistically can make life worth living for their fellow humans. They have achieved this by producing cures of tropical diseases in a fraction of the time and cost of the large corporate giants. Increasingly, examples like TDI are popping up everywhere, and whether it’s the Himalayan Dog Rescue Squad in Nepal providing search and rescue aid to mountaineers and mountain communities, or P&G combining the wisdom of a global community of 90,000 scientists to carry out R&D problems for cash, these open source communities share one thing in common – they are led by people who are skilled in synergistically interacting the “spirit” and “self-expression” of the people to produce outcomes that achieve superordinate goals. This skill is not unique to a certain class of society nor is it a unique gift some of us possess. Rather, it is an ability to open to your source of true inspiration and, in so doing, become a source of inspiration to others. The people who inspired us to write this book were sensitively attuned to the balance of their inner world of inspiration with the outer world of objects and activities. They were able to move between these spiritual and physical domains in ways that brought about what Schumpeter (1975) called “creative destruction,” or breaking the dayto-day stream of consciousness so that new and exciting possibilities are able to emerge. The responses shared by both leader and follower are fight, flight, ego, inner direction, intuition, creativity, higher guidance, and unity. A mixture of these responses arises in our brains every day. One or more responses go into every situation and therefore must be known by the leader. The myth of omnipotence we once bestowed on our so-called “great men” has been exposed for its inadequacies, 55

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as we can see in our continual failure to overcome the chronic problems of our global society. This is because human consciousness plays a primary role in the way leaders emerge from ordinary lives. Each of us has the ability to lead and inspire. It takes a big dream, energized by spirit, felt in the heart, believed in the mind, and achieved by the body to make something big happen in our lives and the lives of others. Whatever our consciousness can imagine, we can accomplish. These are the underlying principles of open source leadership and they reach back to ancient times, forming the core of the most powerful philosophies, teachings and religions in the world. Einstein’s relativity, Heisenberg’s quantum uncertainty, the Buddha’s impermanence and Shiva’s dance all point to a convergence of thinking about the nature of our universe, which is that each of us is an expression of an evolving universe that is actively engaged in awakening to itself. While the intellectual skills necessary to be an open source leader may eventually be offered by universities and business schools, the power to understand the inner self and the power to synergistically interconnect emotional, intellectual and spiritual energy may not, yet all three are essential skills for open source leaders. The reason they are difficult to learn by traditional teaching methods is because they are the product of the cognitive, affective and perceptual processing of the right side of the human brain. As such, according to Richardson (2003b): “our brains’ synergistic interactions are the most complexly organized expressions of our universe’s energy.” Consequently, the learning process is more inductive and the skills required more an expression of our self-knowing evoked by spiritually aware guides than knowledge acquired through books and lectures. A helpful lens to explore this point is offered by the work of humanistic psychologists, like Kurt Goldstein (1965), Carl Rogers (1989), Abraham Maslow (1998), Frederick Hertzberg et al. (1959), who believed that self-knowledge occurs when we have a need that cannot be satisfied by the very knowledge that gave rise to the need in the first place. For example, in Toward a Psychology of Being, Maslow (1998) described an ascending hierarchy of needs that generated creative energy for their solution. At the lowest level, these needs are related to physical nourishment and safety, which are the most basic and extrinsic, while at higher levels, we have needs related to social inclusion, esteem and self-actualization, which are more intrinsic. In The Universe’s Rules, Richardson (2003b) advances the notion of self-actualization by making the distinction between intrinsic and 56

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extrinsic needs in a kind of human evolutionary ladder. In this ladder, he explains that self-knowing is a reflective process occurring at increasingly higher levels of abstraction. Typically, when we are at lower levels, we engage in win–lose and master–slave relationships that are reflexive in nature and devoid of any real learning. However, once we progress beyond this stage, we enter into the realm of self-knowledge attained by self-reflection and interaction with special teachers. From this perspective, it is possible to say that open source leaders and those they lead co-create one another. They do this by forming an invisible spiritual bond where the leader exists to embody the values that followers hunger for, while followers exist to fulfill the leader’s vision. According to many in the humanistic psychology movement, this process of energy transformation is invested in bioenergetic expression and in maintaining and resolving transferences with our teachers, and, in so doing, discovering our uniqueness and taking ownership for ourselves of our experiences and assuming responsibility for our behavior. We believe that these principles are universal and run like a golden thread through the lives and teachings of all the prophets, seers, sages and saviors in the world’s history, and through the lives of all truly great men and women, including those we studied for this book. Without exception, every human being has the ability to transform any weakness or suffering into strength, power, peace, health, and abundance. And when these energies combine synergistically, they generate emergent products that are far greater than the sum of individual effort. This is what we have learned from the people we studied and it is these people and others like them who are changing our world for the better. As our consciousness expands, it informs new fields of exploration in ways that ignite an evolutionary flow that changes the way we see ourselves and our universe. This is probably why Stephen Hawking (1988), in his book A Brief History of Time, believes that the lifelong search for a complete unified theory of the universe will come about when the Darwinian principle of natural selection ultimately produces minds powerful enough to solve the puzzle. For someone practicing open source leadership, their cognitive development will require them to rediscover the skill of practicing “mindfulness,” which will allow them to continually adapt to circumstances as they happen rather than maintaining attachment to old beliefs that are out of date and no longer relevant. They know that as each breakdown occurs, the new information interrupts their view of the world, revealing aspects not 57

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previously encountered. This evolutionary process has been going on for thousands of years and gathers speed each time we improve our capacity to accurately represent reality with symbols and communicate them to future generations. Open source leadership is an expression of that evolutionary trend as we move away from clock logic reality. That is probably why Stephen Hawking thought the printing press was the most important invention of the last millennium and why we believe the Internet will prove to be the most important invention for this millennium. We believe this because it increases the speed of the evolutionary process by allowing us to inform one another about potentials and opportunities that might otherwise be overlooked. Echoing ancient principles laid down in contemplative philosophies, this transformation of energy is not a random affair but follows fundamental universal rules, which, in turn, inform the practice of open source leadership. In the next chapter, we will explore these fundamental rules and show how they make up the lens through which we view and make sense of the practice of open source leadership.

REFLECTIVE NARRATIVE 1 What qualities make you a good leader? What is missing or could be improved upon? What would others say about you if you posed these questions to them? 2 How do you listen to others with whom you agree? How does this differ from listening to those with whom you disagree? 3 As a result of reading this chapter, do you feel compelled to do anything differently? If so what?

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Are you looking for me? I am in the next seat … When you really look for me you will see me instantly. You will find me in the tiniest house of time. Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God? He is the breath inside the breath. (Kabir, www.poetry.enlightened.org/article.php?id_article=42) As we pointed out in the Introduction, Heidegger (1962 [1927]) reminds us that humans can’t help but seek answers to complex questions about the environment and our relationship to it. Such need for disclosure leads us to develop tools and methods that enable discovery and increase our knowledge of the unknown. They also allow us to communicate our knowledge in ways that bring forth new worlds and establish pervasive and distinct ways in which things, people and selves appear and make sense to us. Throughout his life, Albert Einstein repeatedly claimed that “God does not play dice.” Einstein believed that, in spite of its uncertainty, the natural world made sense because it possessed an underlying order in which particles had well-defined positions and speeds that evolved according to deterministic laws. In A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking (1988, p. 100) expressed a similar view, when he said that the whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in a random manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired. For those studying the atmosphere, turbulent oceans and the fluctuations of wildlife populations, this was a hard concept to grasp, but 59

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building on the conversation started by Einstein and Hawking, scientists have discovered new ways to make sense of disorderly systems. Physiologists have been able to explain the chaos that develops in the human heart, the prime cause of sudden, unexplained death. Ecologists have made sense of the rise and fall of gypsy moth populations. Economists have dug out old stock price data and applied a new kind of analysis. These emerging insights have inevitably spread to the natural world and have changed the way astronomers talk about the solar system and the way political theorists explain the stresses leading to armed conflict. In this chapter, we explore the notion of underlying order and its relationship to human nature, especially our natural propensity to integratively interact if left to our own devices. In order to do this, we apply Wilber’s (1997) methodology, which he terms “integral study,” to arrive at a set of sound generalizations or “universal rules,” which allow us to understand the intrinsic creativity emerging from synergistic interactions among like-minded people in social networks. It is only with a thorough understanding of natural laws or rules that we believe we can begin to unravel the mystery of these underlying patterns, and, using them as a lens, we attempt to show you how complex interactions among people can be managed in ways that maximize the source of human potential lying at the heart of human enterprise. These being natural rules, we discovered that they applied to a range of situations from organizations in crisis, societies emerging from oppressive regimes, or nations in economic transition – the patterns were the same. Our lens revealed how we act as mirrors for one another and how our synergistic interactions allow us to successfully pursue those things we care most about and which make life worth living. Our lens also revealed that we gain power by giving it away and our pure potential naturally seeks awakened opportunity. Applying our lens, we also saw how the complex interactions taking place on the Internet may well be an evolving expression of a universe in the process of awakening. After all, each one of us is a natural expression of universal potential seeking wholeness, preciousness and freshness. We achieve this through continuous pursuit of our life’s mission, which is always and in all ways welcomed by the unbounded possibilities existing in our universe. According to the Buddha, this impulse to awaken is inherent in all manifestations – it’s all “Buddha nature.” The universe’s potential for awakening can be understood by consciousness – the most highly evolved expression of our universe’s energy. 60

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Attempts to define and discover the origins of this energy will ultimately bear fruit, as scientists conduct experiments to prove the existence of a force that gives mass to the universe and makes life possible. For example, they believe that the particle known as the “Higgs boson” originates from the force of the big bang. So, if Einstein was correct and God doesn’t play dice, then it’s no wonder He only reveals Himself to those who believe without evidence. Not even the large hadron collider at the CERN research center on the Franco-Swiss border can do that. Today, the existence of this invisible energy – call it God’s energy, Buddha nature or whatever term is meaningful to you – is widely accepted by scientists, and this energy was formed milliseconds after the big bang created the universe, some 15 billion years ago. Recognizing the essential principles that govern the universe’s evolution within and behind our individual experiences of being human is in service of that understanding and realization. As Chopra (2008, p. 22) tells us, “where there is energy, there is the universal life force that exists everywhere.” This energy, which comes in many forms including heat, light, electricity and gravity, is the prime mover of all activity; it is life and consciousness. In The Universe’s Rules, Richardson (2003b) explains that the complexity manifest in human nature arises from the reiteration over billions of generations of integrative interactions of this energy. This complexity is governed by the same trinity of relatively simple rules: “These rules are fundamentally interdependent, operate throughout the universe and underlie the nature of everything.” We believe these rules are fundamental to our understanding of open source leadership. Richardson’s (2003b) “universal rule” states that: The whole is greater than the sum of its contributing parts and because integrative interactions generate emergent products that are greater than the sum of the contributing parts, the new information can contribute to an evolving consciousness that has never before existed. Through open source leadership, we leverage this consciousness and, in so doing, alter our participation with it, and because our participation contributes to the emerging reality, evolving consciousness alters evolving reality. In economic history, “Austrian business cycle theory” illustrates this point extremely well. Schumpeter’s (1975) well-known term “creative destruction” describes catalytic events that lead to discontinuous change and render all before them obsolete. 61

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Similarly, in the field of science, Kuhn (1962) referred to these processes as “paradigm shifts,” believing that the progress of science is not gradual but a kind of “punctuated equilibrium,” with moments of epochal change similar to Copernicus’s revelation of the planets moving around the sun rather than the earth. As true open source leaders, these scientists did more than just build on past discoveries, or explain new experimental data; in truth, they were literally altering consciousness and thus altering our participation with it. Because our participation contributes to the emerging reality, evolving consciousness alters evolving reality. Paradigm shifts occur from time to time in business as well as in science, and, as with scientific revolutions, they are often hard fought and the ideas underlying them not widely accepted until long after they were first introduced. Furthermore, they often have implications reaching far beyond the insights of their creators because they generate conscious space for new conversations for possibility. For example, Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web, did not set out to invent a contemporary cultural phenomenon, rather, it was something he needed for his work (Berners-Lee and Fischetti, 1999). He wanted to solve a problem that hindered his efforts as a consulting software engineer. His innovation was not to invent the World Wide Web, but to apply hypertext to the growing reality of networked computers. Later on, he expanded the idea and made it available on the Internet in the summer of 1991. The World Wide Web was certainly disruptive to the business models of many firms, but this was not Berners-Lee’s concern, yet the idea took hold so rapidly that we are now looking at successors to several earlier generations of net technology. What began as a solution to a specific need rapidly grew as our participation with the World Wide Web led to evolving consciousness about the power of online participation. With dizzying speed, the integrative interactive consciousness led an emergent first generation of the commercial Internet, which was dominated by content that was only marginally interactive. Web 2.0, characterized by features such as tagging, social networks and user-created taxonomies of content called “folksonomies,” added a new layer of interactivity, represented by sites such as Facebook, Delicious, and Wikipedia. Analysts are now wondering what would deserve to be called “Web 3.0” but one thing is for sure, it will be in the service of greater integrative interactions among people and things, which will lead to higher levels of consciousness. In fact, Web 3.0 has been described as a set of technologies that will offer effi62

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cient new ways to help computers organize and draw conclusions from online data. Once again, this confirms Heidegger’s (1962[1927]) point that we are “world disclosers,” using tools and technology to discover more and more about the world in which we live. We simply cannot resist the desire to connect with one another and to grow our individual identities as we strive for wholeness, preciousness and freshness. More importantly, the connections we do make are not simply linear transactions but are highly synergistic interactions that produce results much greater than the sum of the individual parts. In other words, there are always elements interacting integratively to produce an emergent transcendent product. In Chapter 1, for example, we used Land’s unifying theory of transformation as a lens to explain the new game of the 21st century. In his unifying theory, Land (1973) demonstrated how the three expressions of gathering, repeating and sharing conspired to produce emergent products that were transformational or greater than the sum of the individual parts. Other examples include: ■

■ ■ ■

the economist’s pursuit of self-interest, division of labor, and freedom of trade the Father, Son and Holy Spirit of Christianity Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva of Hinduism Dharma, Sangha and Buddha of Buddhism

Other important trinities in science are: ■ ■

the three dimensions of space – height, width and depth the three stages of time – past, present and future – which conspire to comprise space and time.

In his years of studying the human brain, Richardson (2008) offers three expressions of pure spiritual potential, which he believes emerge from the integrative–interactive processing of the sub cortical brain (limbic system and hypothalamus mainly) that is responsible for maintaining the balance of the intra and interpersonal environments. Of the existing theoretical models of practical wisdom, we have been particularly drawn to the “balance theory,” advanced by Yale psychologist Robert Sternberg (1998). Our interpretation of this model 63

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indicates that when individuals act in ways that are practically wise, they are performing three distinct balancing acts. They strike a balance between intrapersonal (that is, self), interpersonal (that is, group) and extra-personal (that is, societal) interests. In Meetings with Remarkable Men, George Gurdjieff (1963, p. 46) offered consciousness, conscience, and sensation to form “the tripod upon which an integrated development of human potential must be based.” In his book, In Search of the Miraculous, Peter Ouspensky (1949, p. 276) talked of “the existence of trinities in everything from the creation of galaxies, to the movements of atoms, to the lives of people.” Trinities of integrative interaction also underlay the practices of music, dance, drama and poetry in the performing arts of India. These examples offer important clues to the awakening of consciousness in open source leadership. No matter where it is practiced, this kind of leadership is unique because it recognizes the existence of pure spiritual potential as the motivating force bringing order to underlying chaos. And it is spiritual potential that generates the energy to fuel our movement toward reactivity and creativity. This energetic life force that moves within, without and between us is ever present in our extended bodies as well, swirling with the wind, exploding with the surf, swaying with the trees, and rolling through blades of grass. The existence of life’s energy may be invisible, but it is certainly not beyond our ability to be conscious of it. For example, when neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor (2006) suffered a stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain, she had the experience of feeling the difference between the two halves of her brain. As she lay in the hospital bed, with almost no conceptual sense of the world, she says she was able to witness sensory processing of the right side of her brain as a oneness with the energy of the universe. At the same time, the left side, which kicked in and out of function, created distinctions that separated the oneness of her right-brain experience into parts that could be analyzed and given meaning through language. This experience convinced her that she had been living her life at a fraction of its potential; that she was actually happier when relying on the right side of her brain. The stroke was caused by a severe hemorrhage in her left hemisphere, which is responsible for language, ego, ambition, selfcriticism and so on. To her, this represented being the best in the hierarchy and reflected the things she had valued most in her life, to the exclusion of what she called “right-hemisphere attributes.” These were qualities that recognized that everything was connected; everything was in flow and had a big picture perspective. Her left hemisphere provided the 64

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details of the external world. The left hemisphere thought in language, the right in pictures and these were two very different worlds. Thanks to evidence like this, we can see that we are spiritual energy manifesting human form, not the other way round, and this influences consciousness while not being consciously chosen by us. This is because our consciousness exists in the stillness and silence of right-brain creativity. When the noise of left-brain intellect drowns out the wisdom of spirit, we find ourselves reacting from or suppressing our pure spiritual potential in accordance with past experiences of need-satisfied and need-not-satisfied and the degree of welcoming in our environment. This revelation offers a lens through which we can better understand and explain the behaviors of open source leaders. It allows a greater depth of understanding about how we instinctively know that harmony must exist if we are to balance the synergistic forces that bring order to our lives with the entropic forces that bring disorder and chaos. The consequence of this learning is that, as open source leaders, we must relate to the uprising of our spiritual energy as we experience it as feelings that reveal the level of satisfaction and balance in our lives. Whether we are a family in disarray, a company without vision, or a nation struggling toward a new kind of freedom, we are not just responding to the challenges of life intellectually but spiritually. The truth is that each of us is acting out of these two basic themes of need-satisfied and need-not-satisfied and these needs range from the primitive need for food and shelter to the higher needs of self-worth, love and spiritual meaning; there is some response to fill that need, ranging from struggle and competition to creative discovery and divine inspiration. These two needs dominate our inner life, they override all external goals and they are universal. Humanistic philosophy informs us that needs and responses are organized in rising order: lower needs are followed by higher ones and lower responses are also followed by higher ones. Bringing these two hierarchies together is the most powerful thing an open source leader can do because it is our human condition to find impermanence intolerable. Yet the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths tell us that it is futile to long for permanence because nothing lasts forever. As Michael O’Leary, head of Ryanair, said before the latest crisis in the airline industry: “Recession, I love it. Bring it on!” Well he may well be eating his words now, as his company fights to stay viable in the present economic climate. When we understand and live by these noble truths, we suffer less because we are less attached to our ideals and beliefs about what constitutes 65

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goodness and badness. When we assess something as bad, we can relax in the knowledge that nothing bad lasts forever. Similarly, when we assess something as making us happy, we also realize it will not last forever either. Why would we want to do that? Because it helps us to be more aware of how we are reacting to our experiences at all times and reveals creative opportunity. After all, evolution proceeds through integration and differentiation. For many people, this is not an easy pill to swallow, as those who have experienced a company in decline will know from bitter experience. When things are not going well, it is not easy to think about actualization because the loss of security shrinks our event horizon and causes us to be more reactive as we seek to satisfy that most primitive of needs – the need to survive. External pressures, such as economic depression, social migration and competitive forces generally, also trigger this need. It is the primary task of open source leaders to lift the spirit of people to increasingly higher levels to acquire meaning and self-worth, no matter how bad the situation. Buddha and Christ offered the highest level of inspiration to fill the universal need for unity with God. In hindsight, we realize that it must have taken a seismic shift in the mind of the Reverend Martin Luther King for the US Civil Rights Act of 1964 to be written. We propose that an essential skill in open source leadership is the ability to avoid the urge to suppress or react to these fears of impermanence, but to visualize the future you want to bring about, feel it, imagine you already have it, and then make the changes from within before manifesting them as ideas for others to accept and follow. Figure 3.1 illustrates this more clearly and outlines the challenges faced by leaders as they manage the complex set of interpersonal, intrapersonal and transpersonal interactions taking place within and without their organizations. Destiny

Possibility

Deny

Resentment

Resignation

Accept

What is simply so?

What do I want? What do I trust? What do I need right now?

FIGURE 3.1 Mood and destiny

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At the top left, we have those elements of our lives that are somewhat determined for us. For example, life and death, which form what we might consider to be our higher purpose in life, which, when aligned with environmental possibility, lead us to the expression of our pure spiritual potential. This might also be considered right action or the moral doctrine of the rights and duties of each individual. According to this universal rule, each of us has a higher purpose in life, which takes us on a journey leading to increasing levels of consciousness and bringing us ever closer to the ultimate universal consciousness or the field of all possibilities and infinite creativity. The sum of all our experiences is the only thing we can really hang our hat on and be sure our hat will be there tomorrow. The subjective microreality that presents life to our perceptions is only reality from our point of view. This reality has a structure even though you cannot see it as a higher purpose. This personal reality, as you see it, is in fact a part of the universal reality. Because the objective reality is strictly structured as science tells us, the subjective personal reality is also integrated into this universal structure. This is the structure we are looking for here – the hidden patterns of life. Knowing this makes it possible for us to know what to expect. While influenced by conscious choice, the decisions we take on our journey through life are not completely of our choosing. We are each traveling on a pathway guided and informed by our higher spiritual consciousness and shaped by our unique talents. The expression of our unique talents shapes outcomes that have a positive influence on overall human progress and ultimately serve to awaken the universe. As we pointed out earlier, Hawking (1988) explains this progression toward universal awakening through the Darwinian principle of natural selection – the idea that as self-reproducing organisms, we will be subject to variations in our genetic material and upbringing that make us different. These differences mean that some of us will be more able than others to draw the right conclusions about the world and to act accordingly. Such actions are more likely to lead to survival and reproduction and, as a consequence, their patterns of behavior and thought will dominate and this evolution will ultimately lead to awakening. Some of us use our talents to pursue a cause or mission such as improving human rights or eradicating world famine, while others help to define and implement innovative strategies to accomplish a specific objective like landing on the moon or creating sustainable energy sources. Some of us, like Isaac Newton and Thomas Edison, use our talents to develop and reinforce concepts by uncovering the prop67

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erties of nature to improve the productivity of life. Others, like Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela, raise the overall consciousness of society toward a superior state of living. On the right-hand side of our model, we have the domain of awakened possibility. This is the unbounded range of options available to us, which, if we are awake enough to see them, serve to transform our spiritual potential into awakened consciousness. While bounded by the somewhat deterministic nature of our destiny, the domain of awakened possibility offers limitless choice to manifest our talents in the service of our destiny and the destiny of the universe. In this space, we can realize and unfold our spiritual consciousness and a unique talent for the service of our universe’s awakening. Awakened consciousness in this space generates self-understanding and knowledge to deploy our resources and inner instincts for the service of ourselves specifically and society generally. It also allows us to strengthen our talents by combining them with those of others who complement our strengths. It is in this space that genuine inner freedom guided by our higher purpose in life can be realized. Freedom from self-imposed limitations transcends external situations and circumstances. It is freedom from conditioning, freedom from the past, and freedom from the predictable. The opportunity to attain this level of transcendence is a sacred gift we receive at birth, but to realize our gift, we much accept its limitations on our freedom to choose, as well as its awesome advantages if we are prepared to work within those limitations. One of the striking things about reality is that it is seldom according to our wishes. That is why we want to know about its structures, so we can deal with it. Life is a challenge and we have to overcome the hurdles placed before us. This is the root of those problems – the impressions we perceive present to us a highly subjective and completely personalized point of view. But these impressions are also often painful and frightening. There is a contradiction within our instruments of perception. We have these highly complex, almost miraculously sophisticated tools for perception – eyes, ears, feelings and so on – and yet what we see is often not pleasant. This is an indication that the universe dictates what we perceive. Impressions are delivered to us, including our sense of individuality, and this can often lead to tensions and misconceptions and to the impression that reality is not what we wished for. There are more contradictions. For example, we are part of a universe that is almost eternal, yet we live only a very brief life span. We feel we are made to live forever, but we don’t. Furthermore, evolution has shown us there is a constant in the devel68

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opments of reality, progress. Everything is always on the move, seeking preciousness, freshness and wholeness. Nature is changing all the time but one thing remains – constant change. The progress that has been made in the past in the form of evolution is available to us. We are the result of everything that has gone before us. For example, it is our destiny to pass through a process of transition from birth, early life, adult life, old age and eventually death. There can be no denying this destiny, yet so many of us live our lives in denial of this fact and become resentful when our minds and/or bodies let us down. The booming market in anti-aging cosmetics and cosmetic surgery is testament to this fact. While some of us struggle to stay young, others simply don’t bother, preferring instead to accept that, for them, nothing is possible. They adopt a reality which accepts the fact that life has dealt them a hand of cards and there is no point in trying to change that. This is evident in cultures that are in denial about age or social standing and, as a consequence, retire people at a certain age or leave them to fend for themselves when they are unable to pay their way in society. Whether in denial of the forces of destiny, or denial of the possibilities in life, or a little of both, the effects are the same – we waste precious time and energy stuck in our neurotic stories of what could have been, should have been, would have been … if only. When we apply the energy of denial, the world shows up that way to us. We literally bring forth a world according to our stories, our styles and our stances. We suppress or express dissatisfaction as the projections, protections and protests of our neuroses. Reactive projection leads to fear and anxiety, reactive protection leads to hurt and sadness, and reactive protest leads to anger and revulsion. As Richardson (2003b) tells us: Reacting from our denial leads to misery and suffering but accepting and relating to our destiny and opportunity allows access to our pure spiritual potential. When we can truly realize and accept what is simply so we open ourselves up to life’s rich possibilities. Some of the greatest obstacles to true liberation are limiting beliefs and habitual behaviors, including the mistaken belief that external forces limit our happiness. True freedom comes from breaking loose from the prison of past conditioning and the repetition of old memories and thought patterns. The past is the known and offers no opportunity for choice and possibility, and the future exists only in our imagination. Freedom lies in the present moment, the only place where we can choose 69

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from an infinite range of possibilities. Relating to our true nature leads naturally to insightful intimacy with our potential for understanding, appreciating and opening to the wholeness, preciousness and freshness of life and the universe. Relating to our resentment, resignation, fears, hurts and frustrations transforms them into the interest, caring and willingness that generates the mature fruits of soul. While it is in our nature to balance the energy of our life’s higher purpose with our spiritual potential, it is our second nature, reactive conditioning, which makes this difficult if not impossible to attain. From this basic structure of reality, we derive most other patterns in our experiences. The hidden patterns of life have their source in the false notice that we are isolated from each other and from the elements in the natural world around us. The way we react in the first place depends on our self-image. What we think about ourselves also strongly influences the way others will respond to us. Low self-esteem and a negative self-image will, almost certainly, result in bad habits and self-destructive tendencies, thereby lowering our chances and our life span. All this is triggered by the wrong images our senses deliver to us. They make it appear that we are the center of the universe but in fact we are not, and a consequence of this illusion is the mistaken belief that we are completely separate from the rest of nature. This wrong self-image limits the possibilities available to us and isolates us from our spiritual potential. It takes open source leadership to set the example and inspire others to reconnect with their true creative nature. In accepting and relating to our higher purpose, we experience our natural pathway because we know and accept that it is simply so. This is the key to unlocking its mystery because listening to your inner self and relating to those negative feelings of resentment and resignation inevitably leads to freedom. Once you accept your higher purpose or mission in life, you are free to move onto the final questions: What do I want? What do I trust? What is needed right here, right now? When need is satisfied, our potential is welcomed by opportunity, and freedom of choice is the natural consequence. When we move beyond our limitations and expand our sense of identity, exhilaration rises from deep within us because, as Richardson (2003b) tells us, integrative interactions generate emergent products that are greater than the sum of the contributing parts. When this happens, the emergent product of awareness becomes awakened opportunity that pure spiritual potential requires to be realized as soul. As an open source leader, living your life in touch with your higher 70

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purpose in life and its limitless possibilities, you become an inspiration to others. Remember, everything in the universe is interconnected and when you orient your life in this way, you become a mirror for others who, while not recognizing your talents in themselves, do recognize them when they see themselves reflected in you. When you act from your deepest spiritual intuition, articulate this in ways others can understand, buy into and then ensure an integrative structure, you achieve a three into one integrative interaction yielding emergent outcomes that are truly extraordinary. By your inspiration, you will unleash the forces of self-expression within individuals toward the achievement of superordinate goals, whether you lead an enterprise, a society, a nation, civilization at large, or the universe as a whole. Applying Richardson’s universal rules to our understanding of open source leadership, we find four distinct rules interacting integratively to reveal emergent products that are greater than the sum of their individual parts. They reflect the same trinities used by nature to create everything manifest around us. Once we become conscious of these trinities and the powerful consequences of their integrative interactions, we are able to realize great success with effortless ease in everything we do. By “success,” we mean the ability to achieve inner peace and happiness and, as a result, achieve all that is ultimately possible in our lives. As open source leaders, you will learn how to “open” and draw from your inner “source” of pure spiritual potential and thus awaken to the limitless possibilities offered by the universe. When interacting integratively, you will experience consciousness that is both inspirational and transcendental because success and affluence flow in abundance. Through your increased wisdom as an open source leader, you will gain access to increasing levels of creativity as you balance symmetry, or unity of form, with harmony or unity of field and synchrony or unity of flow, and this trinity of energies is an integral, integrated and interactive part of our natural world. As open source leaders, you will use these energies with care to create strong foundations of valuing and trust among those who make up your enterprise, whatever that may be. You will know how to ensure mutually dependent interactions among those around you and thus realize higher levels of intellectual, emotional and spiritual growth. You will find yourself continually mindful of your thinking and the consequences of your actions and will listen with compassion and nonjudgment to others. As open source leaders, you will draw insights from a deeper understanding of and tolerance for the perspectives of others. 71

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Open source leadership is a journey of continual exploration and discovery, not a destination. Our continual practicing brings about inner courage and change that manifests as inspirational actions to those around you. Your belief without evidence becomes their belief without evidence. Your ability to match need and response applies to any situation, whether offering microfinance to struggling communities, helping a family overcome the loss of a loved one, or realigning two merged corporations, so long as you remember to listen to your inner voice because it calls from a place beyond cognition, a place of interest, caring and willingness that can mean the difference between conscious creativity and unconscious reactivity. As Richardson (2003b) says: Relating to your inner voice of pure spiritual potential will infuse your world with the awareness needed to transform fear into interest, hurt into caring and revulsion into willingness. Gratitude, intimacy and humility are the mature expressions of interest, caring and willingness that comprise the essential soulful ingredients of conscious – compassionate – presence. Cultivating gratitude, intimacy and humility through relating to your spiritual consciousness is crucial for our evolution. There is always a jumble of needs and responses that must be sorted out. Otherwise, groups will be crippled in turmoil. Fear and survival, competition and creativity, vision and love make their own demands. They each have a voice, whether you hear them or not. Yet underneath there is only one voice, the silent whisper of pure spiritual potential that understands everything. Stay listening and it will reveal all you need to know. The four universal rules that allow open source leaders to create wealth and abundance in their lives and the lives of others are shown in Figure 3.2, and each is discussed below. Organismic potential

Unbounded possibility Space

Opportunity

Pure spiritual potential

Attention

Awareness

Time

Structure

Intention

FIGURE 3.2 Open source leadership model

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1 The rule of attention: The first principle states that consciousness is pure, positive, creative, spiritual potential and that consciousness creates things through the application of thought, not the other way round. With the rule of attention, you make things happen by constantly and intentionally disrupting and transcending, or ending the trance of existing views of normality. It is a conscious process of opening up to your source of spiritual potential and through synergistic convergence transcending your awareness of what is possible. As Thomas Kuhn (1962, p. 136.) put it: making your new idea sufficiently unprecedented to attract an enduring group of adherents away from competing modes of inquiry while leaving it sufficiently open ended to allow for refinement. At its heart is the belief that there is something intrinsically creative operating within the trinity of mind, heart and body, and that their synergistic convergence generates awareness that goes beyond self-imposed limitations. In the trinity, attention always and in all ways harmonizes the opposing forces of space and pure spiritual potential to produce emergent products that are greater than the sum of the individual parts. 2 The rule of awareness: Open source leaders respond from the higher levels of spirit. They understand that their followers yearn for freedom, love, and spiritual worth. Therefore they respond with creativity, vision, and a sense of unity. One of the qualities each of the people we met had in common was an ability to drown out the opinions of others – opinions which, if allowed to take hold, would dominate their own inner voice. Some called it God’s voice, others simply an instinctual knowing that never lets them down. For example, when asked how he recognized the talents of top basketball players like Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Bones McKinney, the legendary Boston Celtics coach Red Auerbach quipped that his judgment was based on two things, namely his left eye and his right eye. In other words, Auerbach was able to open to the source of potential in each of his players long before they became the legendary greats of their time and, more importantly, long before they were spotted and signed up by rival teams in the American Basketball League. So open source leadership is the ability to make history just like Auerbach, Michelangelo, Gandhi and Mother Teresa by nurturing synergistic interactions among fractious, opinionated, free-spirited people and transforming them into something of great 73

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beauty. In the trinity, awareness always harmonizes the opposing forces of opportunity and spiritual potential to produce emergent products that are greater than the sum of the individual parts. 3 The rule of intention: The third principle states that the source of all creation is pure consciousness. The outcome of any situation is defined in advance by the vision that goes into solving it. Therefore inner qualities determine all results, a rule reflected in Ghandi’s encouragement to “be the change you want to see in the world.” However, it is important to remember that intention must be balanced with awareness if we are to fully awaken to our spiritual essence. Hindsight is 20/20 and foresight a walk in the dark, yet it is a walk we must make if we are to realize our true potential. This requires a strong belief in ourselves and an ability to listen to and follow our heart. This is the directing and animating principle of the universe. When we talk about open source leadership and creativity, we are talking about creating hot environments where the “dots get connected” and consciousness makes unprecedented things happen. In this third rule, intention harmonizes the opposing forces of opportunity and time to ensure emergent products that are beyond belief yet achieved with the least effort. 4 The rule of structure: Implicit in this fourth principle is the idea that real creativity comes from well-designed and integrated interactions between yourself and your collaborators. Great creative leaps happen only when the interactions are improvisational. For example, in Indian music, as much as 90% may be improvised and because so much depends on understanding the spirit and nuances of the art, the relationship between the artist and guru or teacher is the keystone of this ancient tradition. Likewise in open source leadership, improvisation requires a special kind of knowledge and also requires a level of comfort with not knowing. From a Zen perspective, part of what an organization must achieve is “beginner’s mind.” Some companies have effective techniques for achieving beginner’s mind through challenging the expertise of people and helping them to perceive new realities. For example, GlaxoSmithKline’s new CEO Andrew Witty didn’t fit the usual model of the GSK executive, in that he was not a scientist like his predecessors. However, in recognition of GSK’s low standing among investors, he was chosen because of his charismatic nature, his knowledge of economics, his expertise in management, his taste for government relations, and his unusually broad background in Asia and Africa, as well as Europe and North 74

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America. While improvisation and beginner’s mind are indeed essential qualities, it is important to recognize that people have a built-in hierarchy of needs and wants, which must be understood and embodied in the structure of whatever creative idea you are trying to manifest. These are the needs for survival – safety, achievement, belonging, expression, self-esteem, freedom, love, and spiritual worth. All are intrinsic and you must know deep down how to fulfill any need with the least effort and struggle. Open source leaders who can tap directly into this knowledge gain tremendous power compared to those who concentrate on external goals and rewards only. Creatively designed integrative interactions are central to the philosophy of many of the open source leaders we met. Also essential is their ability to attract and leverage talented people who share their vision and beliefs. Many attribute their success to employees who are talented and empowered to achieve great things. Central to this philosophy is the ability of people to contribute and grow in environments where talent and hard work are rewarded. What greater working environment could anyone wish for? In the fourth principle, structure harmonizes the opposing forces of space and time, producing emergent products that are beyond imagination with effortless ease. So these are the four rules linking your internal world of spiritual potential with your outer world of boundless possibility. The universe’s rules have the power to harmonize and balance the opposing forces of synergy and entropy. For example, when the energy of longing moves you into reactivity and creativity, you may find yourself unable to recognize boundless opportunity. This is usually experienced by negative self-talk that further serves to hinder progress. Until these forces are harmonized by silence and stillness, there will never be awareness of the boundless opportunities that lie between the words. So, in brief: ■

■

■

■

Awareness reconciles our spiritual potential with the universe’s boundless opportunities. Intention reconciles our need to actualize opportunity with timely action. Structure ensures a balance of timely action with best use of the space we occupy. Attention ensures we don’t become complacent with the life we create and thus stifle our pure spiritual potential.

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In the following chapters, we will look deeper into each one of these trinities to learn the skills of open source leadership.

REFLECTIVE NARRATIVE 1 What did it feel like to read this chapter and how did you put those feelings into words that made sense to you? 2 What past experiences were awakened by your left brain and how did you feel about them in light of what you already know? 3 What conclusions have you reached about the authors’ ability to see the big picture that you could paint for them? What does your picture look like and are you stretching the bounds of your consciousness beyond what is comfortable for you? 4 What will you do differently to manifest the elements of your picture?

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CHAPTER 4

THE RULE OF ATTENTION

In our Introduction to this book, we explained our intention to adopt an approach that sets us apart from more populist writers on leadership. We did this because we believe that the success of civil democracies and free markets relies less on the skills of social elites and more on the skills accessible to everyone driven by a desire to make their life and the lives of others worth living. In our elaboration of the skills underlying open source leadership, we have created examples of leaders from three areas – the world of enterprise, the world of public service and the world of the volunteer community. Each person is a composite of key themes or collective patterns of behavior that emerged from the many people who took part in our study. This allowed us to uncover the essential skills required to become a competent open source leader. In adopting this somewhat unusual approach, we hope to avoid the copious use of case studies to illustrate our point. In considering “the rule of attention” in open source leadership, we have highlighted one significant distinction between this skill and those described in modern leadership literature. Applying the rule of attention allows us to go beyond merely forecasting future needs of society, to determining which needs the members of that society will consider important long before they recognize them for themselves – assuming such recognition happens at all. For example, as president of the microfinance enterprise Kiva (www.kiva.org), Premal Shah initially focused his attention on microfinance during a political science seminar at his university. Using an undergraduate research grant, he returned to his home town of Ahmadabad in India to work at a microfinance institution. This initial exposure at university drew his attention toward alleviating poverty and away from whatever he would normally be noticing – thus, attention focuses energy and uses that energy to transform things and situations. For Shah, it took a stint at a management consulting firm and later six years with the Internet startup company PayPal before he realized the opportunity for which 77

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he had been unconsciously looking. Before leaving PayPal, he was able to persuade the company to offer free transactions to his nonprofit online lending platform Kiva. This example illustrates the initiating power of attention, where a university seminar on microfinance triggered a chain of events that led to Kiva and its transformational impact on improving the lives of poor people. Clearly, Shah didn’t attend the seminar because he wanted to become president of a microfinance company called Kiva, nor did he join PayPal because he wanted it to be the financing engine of his enterprise. These opportunities came about through his awakened consciousness triggered by a change in the focus of his attention. This happens because we only know what we know when we need to know it. It’s a fact that we require contextual stimulation because we know more than we can say and we can always say more than we can write down. If you ever watch TV programs about house buying, you will recognize this phenomenon as clients provide detailed briefs specifying their exact requirements, yet when the host presents properties matching these requirements, the client often opts for something entirely different. In other words, the rule of attention is the first stage in a process of discovery leading to the creation of a world that would not otherwise occur to people. For example, in a predominantly engineer-driven company like Google, its members love to find new challenges and solve problems in novel ways. They have a knack of always questioning accepted wisdom in every area. For engineers, it is not so much a challenge of discovering solutions that already exist out there in the world, but more about bringing forth creative solutions that shape future reality. By thinking and acting in this way, it is possible to create your future, rather than letting yourself drift toward mediocrity through the repetitive cycling of normality. Open source leaders take responsibility for their lives by avoiding excessive negativity and unkindness. They wonder how the brain delivers our thoughts to us without asking us if we want them. The answer is that the brain comes with a set of options. One of these options is that you can focus your attention and by guiding your attention, you can influence your mental activity. For example, artist David Hockney had an almost obsessive belief that the paintings of the old masters were actually traced using camera-like devices. Certain features of these paintings drew Hockney’s attention toward proving his claim and seeking an explanation as to how and why the old masters had created many of their paintings with the help of lenses. Studying the 78

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prints of five centuries’ worth of paintings in his Los Angeles studio, his attention was drawn to the way Vermeer captured the intricate patterns in the folds of a tablecloth and the way Caravaggio recreated a curving, foreshortened lute. Hockney also suspected that Rembrandt had been looking through a lens while creating his haunting selfportraits. His attention was first alerted in 1999, when he visited the Ingres exhibition at the National Gallery in London and was struck by the French artist’s small but uncannily accurate drawings of visitors to Rome during the 1820s. Ingres’ works were completed quickly and Hockney couldn’t help but wonder how he had achieved this. Then he realized that the lines reminded him of the tracings Andy Warhol did to create his silk-screen portraits, lines “made without hesitation, bold and strong.” The key in Ingres’ case, he theorized, was a camera lucida. A small prism atop a stick, it enabled an artist to look straight ahead at a bowl of fruit and also look down through the prism and see its image superimposed on his sketch pad. Another was the Caravaggio painting of Bacchus holding a goblet in his left hand, one of several Hockney claimed were right-handed subjects inverted by a mirror. In using his initial attention as an energy driver, Hockney was able to prove that the old masters had developed a method of producing excellent works of art in double-quick time. Using our minds in this way, we are able to realize the things we want by deliberately creating them through the conscious exercising of our own free will choices. For example, nobody asked Chuck Barfoot or Jake Burton to invent the snowboard, but in the early 1990s, Barfoot in California and Burton in New England – in snowboarding circles, the acknowledged pioneers – produced something that not only changed our lifestyle, but also formed successful enterprises that established snowboarding as a social phenomenon and a way to improve the lives of people in the communities where they set up their businesses. Furthermore, as the industry developed, the effects of their innovation sent ripples of inspiration – like a stone dropped into a lake of pure spiritual potential – across an entire industry, giving rise to further innovations in clothing, safety equipment, footwear, mountain resort layout and transportation. It also changed the shape of traditional ski resorts through new trail designs and the development of half-pipe and snowboard parks. Without exception, in the early stages of their development, all the major incumbent manufacturers of ski equipment and apparel failed to recognize the disruptive power of their enterprise. They simply dismissed Barfoot and Burton as inconsequential players in the small and unprofitable niche teenage skateboarding market. Yet in 79

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the space of a decade, by focusing their attention to what was missing, Burton and Barfoot had transformed the snowboarding movement into a multibillion dollar industry and a social phenomenon appealing to old and young alike. Snowboarding had literally disrupted the winter sports industry and marketplace to such an extent that its incumbents were left struggling to respond and have been playing catch-up ever since to the growing numbers of customers defecting to the more trendy snowboarding scene. So how does the rule of attention free us from the limiting effects of our patterned thinking? Our taken-for-granted assumptions about what is, should and could be possible almost always lock us onto one set of options and off others. This phenomenon, known as “inattention blindness,” leads us to be conscious of only a tiny fraction of the infinite possibilities available in the universe. Consciousness differs from awareness, in that consciousness says you are alive, while awareness says you are alive and awake. Attention means that you are alive, awake and actually reading this. Being attentive means reading about reality and understanding its meaning. Realization means seeing reality. People often fail to notice changes in their surroundings because their attention is elsewhere. Even stranger, if you are concentrating on something, you can become blind to other events that you would normally notice. “Inattention blindness” is also known as the “boiling frog syndrome,” where people come to accept certain events as normal, despite the ease of producing sound arguments to the contrary. The boiling frog syndrome is as follows. If you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will jump out. But if you place a frog into a pot of lukewarm water and slowly turn up the heat, it will boil to death. Take inflation for example. We’ve grown accustomed to inflation over the past 25 years, but that doesn’t mean we don’t continue to be hurt by its effects. Inattention blindness happens because while we have an extraordinary capacity to represent reality, we can also misrepresent it. Our misrepresentations of reality obscure the presence – the universe – that lies within and behind every presentation. Reality as we perceive it is like being in a bubble in the ocean of existence. We can’t look beyond our own bubble because that is all there is: the field of our perception. Our bubble is the totality of our life and our point of view is always inside it. Our senses tell us there is a vast ocean around us, but all we can actually detect is our own bubble of reflected reproduction. We all live inside our own bubbles of experience. To us, our bubble is all there is and is therefore of the utmost importance to 80

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us. To the universe, our bubble is just one among uncountable others, in an ocean that is bigger than we can possibly imagine. Now, if we identify with our field of experiences, we should feel microscopically small. Just look up, see the infinity of the night sky and know that you are close to nothing. You may assess yourself as important, but objectively you are almost too small to be detected. When we can detach ourselves from our bubble of perceptions, we see things very differently however. If we can avoid thinking “that bubble of experiences is me, that is what I am,” there can only remain the plain notion that perceptions are what we see, not what we are. But the question remains, if it is not me, then who is it? The answer is simple, the universe is one thing (unus “one” and versus “to turn,” meaning literally, “turned into one”). What we see is a reflected reproduction of reality, yet it is still real. Thus our own personal bubble of experiences is in essence an inseparable aspect of the universe. It is the universe, or at least a little part of it. What we see is not reality, even though it appears to be so. What we actually see is a reproduced image created by our minds. Now, if this reproduced image is not you, it is the universe. It appears separated from the universe only from the point of view of the one identified with it. To everybody else, it is clear to see: a person is a little part of the totality of the universe. We have no problem understanding this when it comes to other people. So instead of regarding ourselves as isolated from everything else, it is better to look upon ourselves the same way we see others, within a context. Others are clearly as much a part of the universe as you. The bottom line is, you are a part of the universe and even if you are only a tiny part of it, it still means that the qualities of the universe are also your qualities. The nature of the whole of totality is also your nature. The essence of existence is also your essence. Our true being is infinite, eternal and omniscient. It is only because our senses wrongly tell us that we are isolated from the rest of reality that we are unaware of this fact. As a consequence, we limit ourselves and cannot make use of our true spiritual potential. The bubble surrounding the ski industry only allowed the incumbents to notice changes that were already happening within their industry and then exploit them – as they did once snowboarding had become established. In our study, we found that the open source leaders who created the snowboarding phenomenon didn’t do so by attempting to predict future trends within the established ski society, instead they looked elsewhere to 81

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the young radical skateboarding community to determine which needs would seem important. They played a leading role in making the transformation occur. In his book How Customers Think, Gerald Zaltman (2003, p. 198) highlights these limiting effects of consciousness as they relate to predicting customer needs. As he says: 80 percent of new products or services fail within six months when they’ve been vetted through focus groups. Hollywood films and TV pilots – virtually all of which are screened by focus groups – routinely fail in the marketplace. Even though few question their value, a huge gap yawns between customer intentions expressed in focus groups and behavior in the marketplace. This was undoubtedly the case for our snowboarding entrepreneurs who were able to show people a future they could not see for themselves. For example: In 1742, the British naval commander James Lind begged the British Navy to institute a program for making citrus foods available on all voyages. In a book he wrote after an especially long journey with many fatalities, he described miracle cures encountered with the use of lemon juice. Lind was practically ignored for his advice. However, 62 years later, the British Navy did adopt the procedure when Captain Cook succeeded in avoiding scurvy altogether by giving his sailors lime juice on three successive voyages. (Nutrition Health Review, 1992) Does this mean we must follow the advice of the visualization gurus, books, DVDs, courses and seminars, which tell us that if we wish to achieve something big in our lives, we must first visualize it? The answer is yes and no because visualization only works when you have paid attention to the void you are looking to fill. Not all change is necessarily entrepreneurial or innovative, and the changes described by visualization practitioners are helpful when looking to refine something that already exists. Paradigmatic change of the type we recognize in open source leaders is an altogether different affair. Because of the tricks of our eyes, the world we experience is not the real world of unbounded possibility but a world brought forth by our history of interacting with it. Consequently, great opportunities can be missed 82

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when we view our world through the lens of our own unconscious belief system reinforced by the thoughts, ideas and beliefs floating around in the mass consciousness, or by picking up and buying into the beliefs of others. Open source leaders open the space for synergistic interaction by causing things to happen in our lives. So Burton and Barfoot didn’t carry out market research to determine what skiers wanted in the future, they developed a winter sporting activity that skiers would subsequently seek out because it held the potential to change their personal identities and their way of life. So the rule of attention enables us to cause change to happen rather than merely chasing it. It is our fundamental proposition that, because we are expressions of an evolving universe that is actively engaged in awakening to itself, the act of open source leadership is a perfectly natural process that we practice now and again throughout our lives. It is not a skill learned by a privileged few at elitist business schools, but a natural talent possessed by us all and practiced consistently by the people we talk about in this book. It is our proposition that these skills are so natural because each of us is here on this planet to contribute to generating the awareness required for the universe to realize its potential. As Richardson (2003b) tells us in The Universe’s Rules: This is our primary job, no more, no less. If we humbly take this to heart, we’ll discover in every step of progress we take, as well as each and every mistake we make, our universe’s integrative, interactive and emergent nature is revealed. Likewise, we humbly suggest that it is the primary role of open source leadership to generate the awareness required for the universe to awaken to its potential. After all, do you have anything better to do? Using the lens as our metaphor, we recognize that each of us has a unique universal perspective that is shaped by our history of interactions with that universe. Our cultural lens ensures that every act of knowing shapes our world and, in the words of the Buddha, we are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we shape our world and use words to communicate its form. The downside of our thinking process is that we often think too much and most of us become lost in our thoughts. We become so engrossed with our internal dialogue that we drown out the emotional message calling from deep within us. It is this message that contains the pure wisdom of our spiri83

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tual potential – with all its abundant universal creativity. The problem with thinking is that its message is from the past and it is conditioned by years of cultural noise from our childhood, our neighborhood, our fatherhood and our motherhood. You might say our history is our story of what is, could be and should be happening and because it is a story based on our history, it is distorted by space and time. Consequently, our stories are always out of context and, you might say, irrelevant, but they are the best thing we have for preventing us from repeating our mistakes. So our thoughts shape our world and in turn our world shapes our thoughts. It’s a strange kind of circularity peculiar to humans because the world we experience isn’t the world but a world we bring forward from our history of interactions with it. This path dependency is easily recognized in the example of the QWERTY keyboard. Why on earth would anyone design a keyboard by positioning the keys in that fashion? The answer is that the QWERTY keyboard configuration was designed in the days of mechanical typewriters in the 1870s and was a creative way to avoid the user hitting two keys at the same time and jamming the hammers together. On reflection, this original need shaped the design context that lost its relevance in the age of computer keyboards, yet we still use QWERTY without thinking too much about it. So it is with conditioned thinking, we start off believing that something has a use in satisfying a need, only to find ourselves forgetting to ask if it is still useful a few years down the road, and, before we know it, the thinking that went into the design and subsequent usage ends up shaping our own practices. The essential challenge of being awake is to recognize that the voices in our heads are conditioned thoughts and not necessarily truthful representations of a world out there. When we acknowledge and accept the fact that our inner world shapes our perceptions and actions, we can also acknowledge and accept that it is possible to miss an awful lot unless we pay attention through the process of mindful contemplation. In Chapter 6, we explain in detail the rule of intention and the importance of visualization in that creative process, but first we must be attentive before we can be intentional. You might say that “attention energizes while intention transforms.” This was certainly the case with our open source leaders in the new world of snowboarding. They needed to pay attention to what was missing within the traditional ski culture before they could become intentional about manifesting their vision of a skateboard on snow. Once this was achieved, the rule of intention took over and subtly organized its own transformation. 84

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This transformational process involves our active and passive engagement of our senses of tasting, smelling, touching, hearing, seeing and feeling to detect and utilize the boundless opportunities presenting themselves every second of every minute of every hour of every day as if by accident or coincidence. Have you ever noticed how clever advertising does this? You see your favorite film star wearing a beautiful shirt and you visualize yourself right into that picture. You then go out shopping on the weekend and you spot the same shirt everywhere you go. It’s like it just appeared overnight, even though it had been in the shop windows the weekend before. For our snowboard pioneers, being intentional allowed them to share their vision with the people whose help they needed to manifest their big idea. Once we become intentional, we are also guided to the knowledge required to make manifest our vision. With our snowboard pioneers, their intention guided them to the knowledge required to laminate the snowboard, anchor bindings to it, select the best materials for it, and so on – ironically, the people holding this knowledge were those in the ski industry. The big ski equipment manufacturers had the knowledge but not the attention or intention to apply it in a different direction. Our challenge is to let our attention inform our vision and once this happens, the manifestation of our vision becomes easier. In essence, our attention shifts our focus and allows us to communicate and gain commitment from those whose help we need. This act of commitment, and the subsequent trusting collaboration among committed people, leads to the slow and steady manifestation of our vision and as things around us begin to change, so do we. For example, when you look at old movies, you realize that what was normal to earlier generations simply looks out of place today. If you don’t believe us, take a look at the early James Bond movies and compare the attitude toward women, the enemy, the ICTs, the style of transportation, not to mention the quality of filming and special effects, with today’s equivalent. Open source leadership is about paying attention to the needs embedded in our normal, taken-for-granted ways of doing things and then using our awareness, our intention, and our structure to bring about changes that are truly historical because they change the way the world appears forever. Whether it is making history through snowboarding, curing rare cancers, replacing body parts, or performing heart bypass procedures, the fact remains that open source leadership is about reacquainting ourselves with the talents we were naturally born with. As Hawking (2001) emphasized in his book, The Universe 85

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in a Nutshell, humans have altered the evolutionary process through sharing information across generations in a manner that transcends life’s conventional genetic transmission. Just as Hawking believes the printing press was the most important invention of the last millennium, we believe the Internet and its associated technology will be the most significant invention of this millennium and of those to come. As we experience the explosion of Web 2.0-enabled social networking, we see the principles and practices that have formed the core of the most powerful philosophies, teachings and religions in the world. Einstein’s relativity, Heisenberg’s quantum uncertainty, the Buddha’s impermanence and Shiva’s dance all point to a convergence of thinking about the nature of our universe. These principles and practices reflect an essential belief that each of us is an expression of an evolving universe that is actively engaged in awakening to itself. As we search for the skills underlying open source leadership, we find with our composite entrepreneur from a group of senior managers in the computer manufacturing industry that her ability to lead her people depended to a large extent on one significant and obvious fact – she was able to use language to create a shared appreciation for that to which she had drawn attention. But remember, attention energizes and she also used language to generate commitment and coordinate action among her helpers. So why is communication using words, mathematical formulae, and other symbolic representations of experience so important? The answer is that we are compulsive communicators, driven by an essential need to inform each other of possibilities and opportunities that might otherwise go unnoticed. In fact, our identities are wrapped up in our ability to address concerns with committed action, facts well known to our entrepreneur. She is also aware that, once her attention is drawn to a particular anomaly, she must choose her words carefully if she is to successfully win the hearts and minds of those people who will be essential to her success. Her success must become their success. She is aware that in order to achieve the cognitive, affective and perceptual products that emerge from integrative interactions among people, she must be highly sensitive to where their energy is being invested. She is continually conscious of her bioenergetic expression and maintains and resolves transferences. When she does this, she knows she will discover her uniqueness and is comfortable to take ownership for herself and her experiences, as well as assuming responsibility for the behavior of her supporters. As a deeply spiritual person, she is aware that these prin86

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ciples are universal and run like a golden thread through the lives and the teachings of all the gurus, seers, sages and saviors in the world’s history and through the lives of all truly great men and women. Her awareness came about early on in life with the loss of her father. At an early age, she took on the responsibility of bringing up her younger siblings. Among other things, she put food on the table by picking cotton in the snake-infested fields of steamy southern Alabama. As a Christian, her faith sustained her during some of the hardest times she had ever known and after graduating from college, she formed her own company. She knew that working for someone just didn’t feel right. It somehow didn’t fit with a deep longing she had – a longing that had no voice but felt real to her. Because of her early experiences, she holds a deep conviction that every human being has the ability to transform any weakness or suffering into strength, power, perfect peace, health, and abundance. She finds this deep conviction essential because, when she focuses her attention on anomalies, she knows initially that she will be alone in her quest. It is she alone who knows what is missing and she alone who must live with the void. If this were not the case, she knows her ideas could hardly be considered original and almost certainly would have been picked up elsewhere. Knowing this, she prepares for the inevitable resistance and negativity from the very people who will ultimately become her biggest supporters. This is because they, like her, are at different emotional stages in their lives and the responses they share are fight, flight, ego, inner direction, intuition, creativity, higher guidance and unity. She knows that on any given day, one or more of these responses will be playing themselves out as people interact, collaborate and trust one another, and as the inevitable unforeseen breakdowns occur and are resolved. Just as there is a rising hierarchy of responses built into us, there is a rising hierarchy of needs that she must understand, such as the need for survival, safety, achievement, belonging, expression, selfesteem, freedom, love, and spiritual worth. She knows that, like her, these needs come from deep within us and have evolved over time. She also knows that for every need, the right response can be found. Because this match is not random, she is in touch with the wisdom of her soul and knows how to fulfill any need with the least effort and struggle. As Steve Jobs (2005), founder of Apple, put it: Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of 87

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other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. It is this sustaining belief that makes our entrepreneur more than just an inventor. She not only knows how to come up with great ideas, she also knows how to make them manifest through synergistic interaction among people. As an entrepreneur, she knows how to transform great ideas into equally great products through practicing open source leadership. While our entrepreneur is aware of these universal principles and the way they have governed our emergence since the beginning of time, she is also aware that the symbolic representation of them, such as emails, reports, project plans and prospectuses, is new. As a consequence, she takes it upon herself to ensure that it is everybody’s responsibility to become aware of their conditioned mental processes and how they shape the reality they bring to each interaction. As an open source leader, she practices mindfulness in every situation encountered. She is aware of her reactions in everyday situations. She is continually conscious of the thoughts running through her mind and knows how to avoid amplification of the negativity that she sees around her. She achieves this by refusing to react to it and being aware of what her mind is doing. She is there as the witness of her mind, so that the witnessing dimension, which is awareness or presence, grows. She knows she is not her thought processes because they are conditioned through years of integrative interactions in her own society and culture. As such, there is dysfunction built into the very structure of her thought processes and she knows how easily this can ignite her ego. Remembering Richardson’s (2003a) fundamental rule that “integrative interactions generate emergent products that are greater than the sum of the contributing parts,” we recognize the skillful way our entrepreneur shifts her attention and the attention of her collaborators as she shares her anomaly with others. She knows that if communicated successfully, she can inform fields of exploration in ways that ignite an evolutionary flow that changes the way she and her people see themselves and their world. The new information serves to interrupt their normal, taken-for-granted view of the world, revealing aspects not previously encountered. So when our entrepreneur uses language 88

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in a special way, she knows she is doing more that describing things. She is making things appear and offering distinctions that increase the ability of her people to understand and act. You will recognize this fact if you have ever strolled down a familiar pathway with a friend who is a botanist and, assuming you are not a botanist, your friend will introduce you to trees, shrubs, and flowers that have always been there, but not for you until your friend spoke them into appearance. Similarly, look into the night sky with an astronomer and see planets, constellations and supernovas in a sky previously filled with stars. When we treat words as representations of objects, we restrict ourselves to a world that is the same or similar to the past. When we skillfully verbalize our attention, our words become revelational and consequently open up new worlds of opportunity. We engage our pure spiritual potential to evolve and in turn contribute to the evolution of the universe. In other words, new information offers new lenses through which we can see into the nature of things, allowing new insights that could not be realized without the lenses. But awareness and insight are only part of our challenge, because in addition to thinking differently, we must also act differently. When we do, we become a revelational mirror on which others gaze and, in so doing, come to know themselves. As the saying goes, “talk is cheap,” but cheap talk cost millions, while committed talk is priceless. According to Richardson (2003a), personal and universal awakening is best achieved through integrative interactions among people and things that generate emergent products that are greater than the sum of the contributing parts. In addition, this new information can inform fields of exploration in ways that ignite an evolutionary flow that changes the way we see ourselves and our universe. Consider the profound changes in thinking and practice brought about by Einstein’s (1916) “theory of general relativity,” which dramatically transformed our view of gravity and the movement of objects in space. Around the same time, Max Planck introduced his “quantum principle” and later Werner Heisenberg his “uncertainty principle” and opened our eyes to the new world of “quantum mechanics,” thus proving that the space within which we live and interact is not empty, but filled with particle and wave energy to which we are attuned and upon which the universal energy of consciousness lives. These ideas echoed ancient principles laid down in contemplative philosophies, such as the Buddhist belief that the energy to awaken 89

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is inherent in all manifestations. Traditionally called “chi,” “prana,” or “life force,” this energy is consciousness itself. As David Hawkins (2005, p. 89) puts it: The universe is a field of consciousness. The implications of this are enormous, because it means that we are in constant communication with the world around us and our physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual nature is elegantly attuned to that of others. This is not a random affair but one which follows fundamental universal rules. When we apply our attention, we begin an emotional journey toward transformation and, as we pointed out earlier, emotions and moods are powerful amplifiers of our thoughts. What we think and feel becomes drawn into our experience, regardless of whether we are aware or not. That is why the better it gets, the better it gets and the worse it gets, the worse it gets. According to Richardson (2008), our emotions are the essential energy of need that moves us into reactivity and creativity. They maintain the balance of the intrapersonal and interpersonal environments and, while being influenced by conscious choice, are not chosen. In The Blessed Conspiracy, Richardson (2008) says: Relating to emotion we may begin to realize an opportunity to experience the energy of emotion simply as heat and movement in the throat, chest and belly. Thus we can experience emotion as the precious resource that it is – the energy of life. Relating to emotion, rather than reacting from it, leads naturally to the development of the mature capacities we call “interest”, “caring” and “willingness.” Relating to and reacting from emotion is the difference between conscious creativity and unconscious reactivity. Relating to emotion nurtures the essential energy of life with the awareness required to transform fear into interest, hurt into caring and revulsion into willingness. Gratitude, intimacy and humility are the mature expressions of interest, caring and willingness that comprise the essential ingredients of conscious – compassionate – presence (soul). Cultivating gratitude, intimacy and humility through relating to emotion is crucial for our evolution. When attention is paid to previously overlooked areas that are missing in a particular space such as a market or a society, the integrative 90

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interactions between it and pure spiritual potential lead to emergent products that are greater than the sum of their parts. When attention is paid to an anomaly and communicated successfully, the emergent product is an emotional response from your collaborators that determines the extent to which your vision will be realized. We always speak and act from an emotional context and that context affects the results we achieve or don’t achieve. For example, the actions available to us when we are fearful are different from those available when we are gracious. Our emotions form the background of our actions and when they persist over an extended period of time, they form our moods. Unlike emotions, moods are not usually tied to particular events. They can be related to our biological makeup, the time of year or life, the city we live in, or an assessment we have made about a situation or about life. When we say that attention must be paid to an anomaly and communicated successfully, we attribute that success to your skill as an open source leader, to identify the mood of those whose help you are looking to enlist. Imagine the conversation which must have taken place between Christopher Columbus and his banker when he asks for a loan to sail over the edge of the flat earth. You can imagine the banker’s reply – “not with my money.” When Grove (1996) drew attention to the growing threat of the Japanese memory producers, his senior executives at Intel simply didn’t believe him. After all, the mood in his company was optimistic, with steady growth predicted well into the future. Grove had spotted what he termed a “strategic inflection point,” a point so overwhelming that, if left to develop, would force the company out of the memory chip business. His skill as an open source leader was to remain attentive to the anomaly, while convincing others of the need to intentionally transform the corporate mission, business model and product range. Interestingly, the microprocessor business that replaced memory chips has since caused strategic inflection points for other companies. Conscious contemplation, compassionate enquiry, and unconditional presence are the skills required for open source leaders to pay attention to both the opportunity presenting itself and the mood of the people who will play a critical role in its successful attainment. They are practical expressions of mind, heart and body, fully engaged in the awakened privilege of being human: ■

Conscious contemplation utilizes the representation of a realization that something is missing, such as a gap in the ski market, the willingness 91

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to seek a cure for a tropical disease or the need for microfinancing for small enterprises, to orient awareness in a mindful exploration of reality. Compassionate enquiry utilizes questions, such as “What is needed here now?,” “What is simply so?,” “What do I really want?,” to orient awareness in an open-hearted welcoming of reality. Unconditional presence utilizes silence and stillness and open space to simply allow the reality of the present moment to reveal itself.

These three practices interact integratively to generate an emergent product – a state of being – that seems soul-full, in that understanding, appreciation, openness, gratitude, intimacy and humility are natural qualities of the experience. As these skills develop within yourself, you will recognize their manifestation reflected in the actions of so many high-profile history makers – like Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa – people who called attention to gaps in awareness and were able to creatively disrupt the status quo while intentionally and inspirationally maintaining their vision of a better world. For example, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. lived in a clock logic society where contemporary wisdom applied rational clock logic to issues of racial inequality. Adopting Gandhi’s methods of passive resistance, King was able to challenge the status quo and raise consciousness of the wrongness of racial segregation. Ironically, his passive resistance triggered active resistance from racists and anti-racists alike. Consistent with universal rules, King’s success came from his dream of a day when his children would be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. His vision appealed directly to the collective spirit of the American people, bypassing intellectual logic and going straight to the heart and soul of the matter. Harmonizing the entropic forces of racial prejudice with the synergistic forces of the pure potentiality, King was able to launch a sustained and structured campaign, which ultimately led to the alignment of spirit with mind, heart and body to make manifest his vision of a world where people of a different racial history and color lived side by side with white American society. Intellect always abstracts complexity into simple things, but as Gregory Bateson is often quoted as saying, “it takes two to know one,” and in order for something as complex as a society to achieve transformational change, harmony must exist between the conflicting forces of synergy and entropy. Because of our varying levels of need 92

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and response, we are, at a very deep level, wired to seek pleasure and avoid pain and, as Dr King found to his cost, challenging the status quo can be literally and metaphorically dangerous to your health. As an open source leader, you must be skilled in overcoming resistance without invoking fear. This happens when you connect with the human spirit and appeal to the wisdom of consciousness lying in the creative space between left-brain logical processing and right-brain creativity and universality. This is essential because, as the Buddha reminds us, we are what we think and all that we are arises with our thoughts. With your thoughts, you make the world. If the world you inhabit is one of hate and discrimination, as was the case with the Martin Luther King, your thoughts and actions must be in the service of harmony, which takes you to that silent place of wisdom. Only then can we bring forth new worlds by intentionally awakening our pure spiritual potential to access the infinite possibilities and opportunities present in the universe. This will be the topic of our next chapter.

REFLECTIVE NARRATIVE 1 What are the most leveraged conversations you need to be having with your team or organization right now regarding new knowledge in the form of scientific and technological advances? 2 Which leadership qualities are holding you back? 3 Which leadership qualities would help you to initiate those conversations? 4 How could you put into place the conversations needed? 5 What do you need to learn in order to address your needs?

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CHAPTER 5

THE RULE OF AWARENESS

The “rule of awareness” is based on the principle that pure spiritual potential is limitless consciousness, yet what you experience is circumscribed by your history of social interactions. From an ontological perspective, or being where you have been, this means that your history shapes your perception of reality or your “ideality.” As a consequence, identifying with what you see is like wearing blinkers that focus your mind’s eye on specific details, instead of on the whole of reality. Learning takes place when past experiences resonate with new distinctions and we open our awareness to new worlds of abundant possibility. Or put more simply, we only learn when what we expect doesn’t show up in the way we expect it to. Learning takes place when we feel compelled to explore these new worlds while existing in our present one. As the 3rd-century neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus said: “the way up is down and the way out is in.” In this chapter, we encourage you to go down and in to that quiet, creative, right-brain space where pure spiritual potential exists and is accessed. This is an ageless source of wisdom and guidance that flows from within and softly speaks to us. We invite you to open to that source of inspiration because it has so much to say, yet it is all too often overlooked. This is because most of us have too much going on in the logical left brain, the side that brings order and structure and to which we give so much prominence. We place too much reliance on what that side of our brain has to tell us, which means we don’t take enough time to create space for the stillness and silence required to really hear what our inner voice of wisdom is telling us. When we ignore our inner voice, when we turn our back on our true source of inspiration, all we are left with are the images of what and who we should be, could be, would have been, if only … based on our ideality of our world “as if.” The problem is that the world emerging from our left-brain consciousness has no spiritual dimension to it. It simply goes on and on and on, rather than in and in and in. Without 94

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the spaciousness that comes from awareness, there can be no listening for our true source of inspiration. In this chapter, we explore the skills necessary to locate that space within. This is why we position the rule of awareness as the harmonizing force balancing our attention with our intention. Such a balance is important because practicing awareness means surrendering to the known, to your ideality. If you can imagine your awareness as a vast lake with great width, breadth and depth, then your intention must be balanced lightly with the lake in order to allow its wisdom to emerge from its depths. You might imagine intention as a gentle breeze blowing across the lake, creating ripples that radiate out across its surface before returning once again to a state of stillness and calm. Once calm, the breeze of intention returns once more to disturb the surface of the lake. Our awareness is the key to a lock that opens the box of our current ideality and allows us to take in a much broader, deeper and wider view. By allowing your lake of awareness to awaken your consciousness, you are able to access the boundless possibilities it holds for you. Intention is then able to inform your decisions to choose the most opportune for your purpose, while leaving behind those which do not serve to fill the gap that originally caught your attention. Like the breeze on the surface of the lake, this decision cannot be forced but must be allowed and informed by awareness. Check out the moonwalking bear awareness test video on YouTube (www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4) and you will see what we mean. The video clip shows two teams of basketball players. One team wears white shirts and the other team black. Both teams begin to pass the ball and you are asked to count the number of times the white-shirted team passes the ball to each other. The video plays and during the passing game, a person in a black bear’s costume moon walks through the middle of the proceedings. We have showed this clip hundreds of times and while most people count the number of passes correctly, nobody sees the bear. This is what happens when too much attention is paid to understanding a problem and too much intention paid to solving it. That is why awareness is so critical to our creative process because it harmonizes the energy between “attention that energizes” and “intention that transforms.” Open source leadership requires the skill to harmonize this energy by suspending attention long enough to allow the concern that initially caught your attention to become absorbed into your pure spiritual consciousness. Once this happens, the creative right half of your 95

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brain flows in perfect harmony with the consciousness of the universe and connects you with the space of infinite possibility. You don’t need to seek answers to your questions, you simply need to believe that there are answers out there waiting to be invited in. Practicing unconditional presence in this way is essential to open source leadership because it accesses our first nature that is exquisitely attuned to universal consciousness. It is our second nature that causes us to react because we cannot stand a vacuum. As a consequence, we resort to answers as quickly as possible and, more often than not, we come up with answers to questions we never even asked. On the other hand, if we are skilled, we can utilize our intention to focus the energy of these emerging answers and transform them into outcomes that fulfill our wishes. As we said, attention energizes and intention transforms, but without becoming aware of the bigger picture, we end up forcing intentional action on something that cannot be forced and, worse still, too much forcing pushes creative opportunities away. When this happens, we are left with the same old unoriginal solutions, which not only lack creativity, but also only lead to small incremental changes. You calculate the number of passes, while totally missing the moonwalking bear. At the Imagination Lab Foundation, an independent, nonprofit research foundation based in Switzerland, they take the business of creative awareness seriously. They support scholarship that complements traditional management and organization theory with ideas grounded in the arts and sciences, especially those of imagination and play. The Foundation acts as a virtual fund that supports research through its annual Imagination Lab Award for Innovative Scholarship. (www.imagilab.org) The distinction between traditional organizational and leadership practice and open source leadership is an important one to make because, as we pointed out in our Introduction, open source leadership does not lend itself well to traditional classroom instruction. In fact, it is not a body of expert knowledge that can be formalized and transmitted as information. Instead, it must be developed through lived experience and through mindfulness of that experience. Since the costs of actually experiencing a significant threat can be overwhelming, organizations need ways to develop practical wisdom by stretching the limits of the thinkable and simulating confrontations 96

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with the limits of possible action. One method of expressing such imaginative possibilities is “storytelling.” Optimally, stories can help us to learn from other people’s experiences without having to suffer through them ourselves. Aristotle recognized this particular function of narrative and emphasized the importance of tragic theater for the moral development of the citizens of a democracy. Of course, the capacity to tell a good story is widely recognized today as a skill that can help organizational leaders to communicate and motivate action. When people at any level of the organization gather to share stories about how they have dealt with unexpected change in the past, they participate in a learning process that helps organizations to become more strategically prepared for challenges that arise unexpectedly. A second skill that open source leaders use to raise awareness is the application of “embodied metaphors,” which provide a unique and different means for orchestrating organizational and strategic change. Because they include more than “language-only” analogies, embodied metaphors tap into the deep knowledge that really impacts an organization. Thus, when open source leaders build embodied metaphors, they set in motion a virtuous circle of imagination for an organization – the builders give the metaphor shape, which then shapes what they think and how they act. Shakespeare may have had it just right when, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (5.1.14), he said that “imagination bodies forth the form of things unknown.” One of the best exponents of the embodied metaphor is Antanas Mockus, the former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia. Mockus, a self-confessed eccentric mathematician and philosopher with no political experience, left his professorship at the Colombian National University to take up politics or, as he described it, “being in charge of a 6.5 million person classroom.” Colombians desperate for change and for a moral leader elected him as mayor, setting in motion an amazing transformation. At the beginning of his political career, Mockus focused his attention on the apparent disregard Colombians had for human life. As he put it, “there cannot be another priority than re-establishing respect for life as the main right and duty of citizens.” His attention to this anomaly led to the creative emergence of ideas and actions, which resulted in the reduction of homicides from 80 per 100,000 inhabitants in 1993 to 22 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2003. His inspired ideas, for example painting stars on the spots where pedestrians (1,500 of them) had been killed in traffic accidents and using mimes to encouraged people not to jaywalk or behave irresponsibly in public, led to a reduction in traffic fatalities 97

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by more than half. Initially, 20 professional mimes shadowed pedestrians who didn’t follow crossing rules – a pedestrian running across the road would be tracked by a mime who mocked his every move. Mimes also poked fun at reckless drivers. The program was so popular that another 400 people were trained as mimes. Mockus used embodied metaphor to improve Bogotá’s environment, by reducing water consumption during a drought. Appearing in a commercial taking a shower and asking citizens to turn off the water as they soaped led to an initial reduction in household water usage by 14%, which continued to drop to 40% less than before the shortage. He also introduced car-free days in the city to encourage the use of public transport and bicycles. He championed efforts to bring drinking water and sewage services into every home in Bogotá; sewer hookups went from 70.8% in 1993 to 94.9% in 2003, and water provision went from 78.7% to 100% in the same period. While embodied metaphors like mimes on street corners and occasional men-only curfews may not work in every city, Mockus’s success in Bogotá is a good example of the value of trying innovative approaches to solve seemingly intractable problems. One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different outcome. It’s always a good thing to try something new, even if it looks a little crazy. Practicing open source leadership in this way enabled Mockus to make his concerns become the concerns of fellow Columbians. With an open source leader’s inventiveness, Mockus asked the people of Bogotá to pay attention to and share his concerns about levels of violence, lawless traffic, corruption and gangs of street children who mugged and stole. For many, Bogotá was a city perceived to be on the edge of chaos and anarchy. Yet, while desperate for change, people needed Mockus to create the kind of coherent narrative that united them in a common cause. Looking through the lens of open source leadership, with its focus on right-brain creative thinking, we can better understand why the mayor’s practice of communicating through symbols, humor and metaphors was so successful in creating a coherent narrative. For example, when many hated the disordered and disorderly city of Bogotá, he wore a Superman costume and acted as a superhero called Supercitizen. People laughed at Mockus’s antics, but the laughter began to break the ice of their ingrained ideality. The inspiration for Mockus’s ideas came from Douglass North, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, who believes that in order to change deep-rooted values, you need to have a solid grasp of the cognitive sciences to understand 98

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the way in which the mind acquires learning and makes choices. North’s (2005) research focused on understanding how people make choices – under what conditions the rationality postulate is a useful tool, and how individuals make choices under conditions of uncertainty and ambiguity. These are fundamental questions associated with open source leadership and are central to our own research and the conclusions we reached in this book. Economics is all about decision making and the factors affecting it. Policy makers tend to think of these factors as a closed set of financial instruments – exchange rates, taxes, subsidies and so on. Mockus’s experience indicates that this is not the case and points to a need for more creative ideas. Creativity is not something that comes solely from the logical left hemisphere of your brain. It begins at the right brain, precognitive stage, where intuition, silence, stillness and openness all play an essential part. As our open source leaders say: Ideas come from a random matching of one thing with another. Life is a continuous learning exercise where learning a new piece of data stimulates thinking about its relationship with something already known. It’s all about intuition. Awareness comes from within. It comes from practicing mindfulness and that takes skill. Shutting down your inner voice and allowing the words to come from the stillness. I have often solved the most difficult problems by going to sleep with them on my mind. In the early stages of waking up, if I pay attention, the answers come. It never fails me. As Mary Oliver (1997) tells us, we must let the soft animal of our body love what it loves, and we can do this by allowing our awareness to take us to that space between the words of our inner voice to the space of stillness where all creative endeavor is born. In other words, getting in touch with the silence and stillness deep within, where there’s no mental noise. Out of that stillness, when the time is right, an impulse emerges – a feeling, a strong sense that something wants to be born into this world. According to Richardson (2003b), this kind of awareness is the most highly evolved expression of the universe, revealing and realizing the nature of the universe: We humans are privileged to experience the awakened product of 99

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fifteen billion years of universal evolution. We are the universe waking up to itself. Human ingenuity has begun to realize aspects of the universe’s potential that apparently needed awareness’s integrative interactive influence. Pure spiritual potential is and always has been real but it requires awareness to be realized, because if we are to think truly outside the box of our conditioned past, we must learn how to create the space for awakening to occur. Unfortunately, this space can only be allowed, it cannot be forced, yet it is our conditioned reactivity that keeps us pushing for answers to questions that have not been fully explored. Our conditioned minds simply cannot stand the unknown – this goes back to our school days, when we were expected to have answers to questions in order to graduate. We went to college and did the same, then we graduated and went to work where we were expected to do the same and then we got promoted and the demand to know increased and so on. We say that nature abhors a vacuum, but nothing could be further from the point when we recognize that our true nature works in quite the opposite way. For example, if we take a leaf out of nature’s book, we see that nature is lazy and always looks for the easy way out. After all, grass doesn’t force itself to grow, it just grows, and so it is with humans. Our true nature is to take actions that demand the expending of the least amount of energy to grow and awaken. In physics, this is the “path of least action,” which means, among other things, that natural events use the smallest measure of energy necessary for acting along a path. Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis (1744), an 18th-century French philosopher, named this phenomenon “the principle of least action,” when he said: In all natural phenomena, a quantity called action tends to be minimized … God, being the supreme mathematician, had created the “best of all possible worlds” by insisting that everything in it obeys the principle of least action, an economy of effort. That is why water flowing downhill follows the path of least resistance as it is pulled downward by gravity. Electricity flowing through a circuit behaves in a similar fashion; while every available path has some current flowing through it, the amount of current through each path is inversely proportional to its electrical resistance. Atmospheric distur100

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bances flow on the path of least resistance by flowing toward zones of low barometric pressure, where lower air density offers less impedance to the storm system than higher pressure zones. Likewise, if we truly wish to break away from our conditioned reactivity, we must take a leaf out of nature’s book by relating to the question arising from the focus of our attention rather than reacting to it. By relating to our questions, we combine with the flow of nature to intimately connect with our pure spiritual potential for understanding, appreciating and opening to the wholeness, preciousness and freshness of the true nature of life and the universe. Relating to rather than reacting from the natural frustrations that occur when we can’t find immediate answers to our questions brings awareness into relationship with our spiritual potential. This awakens the creative complementarity of our spiritual potential with boundless environmental opportunity. Rather than relating from need and looking to the environment for opportunity, we can generate our own awakened opportunity through relating to our need for answers. This is what differentiates open source leaders from the rest. When we react from need, we unconsciously engage a kind of “lock-in” effect, where insignificant events in our past lock us into quite predictable responses and lock us out of alternative ways of experiencing and acting in our world. As the Buddha suggested, we are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world. We are deliberate creators of our universe and it is from this certainty that some things appear before us while others remain hidden. It is this certainty that allows us to seek pleasure and avoid pain, but it also holds the potential to blinker us from other more fulfilling ways of living our lives. It’s as if we are trapped in a universe of our own making, which in turn makes us. However, as neurobiologists Umberto Maturana and Francisco Varela (1987) point out in their book The Tree of Knowledge, there is no “objective” reality. If the basic requirements of life are fulfilled, then living systems have complete freedom to create their own worlds instead of merely reacting to what already exists. The subject is therefore crucially involved in the creation of its only seemingly objective reality. Maturana and Varela developed a systems model of elementary life processes and the processes involved in arriving at knowledge or discoveries. This systems model radically revolutionized the conception of the world as perceived by biologists and also our traditional understanding of the way the world works. It demonstrated that it is cooperation and tolerance, rather than compe101

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tition, that form the foundation of all life processes. The world in which we live is a world that we create together through a process of cognition. It is up to us whether we recognize and act on the rules of life as laid down in our biological inheritance, or whether we fail to recognize them and thus destroy the foundations of our life and our humanity. We are what we experience and our experience is based on who we are, which is based on our history of emergent biological and social interactions. This circularity, this inseparability between action and awareness, means that every act of awareness brings forth a universe and every universe informs our search for fulfillment – this tendency is the closest thing to a core purpose or motivation for life. The new term for life, as defined by Maturana and Varela (1987), is “autopoiesis,” where auto means “self” and poiesis means “creation” or “production.” In other words, autopoiesis means self-making or self-creating – it is a theory of a unity of subject and object in human history, the inseparable integrity of being. So that which has been proposed by sages, mystics and philosophers has now been backed up by the field of natural sciences. It is an innate urge to grow, to realize your potential, and to differentiate. This insight is gained through your own experiencing. As we have said throughout this book, we ask that you expand your view that the skills required to be effective in the world are somehow out there waiting to be acquired through models, theories and following the best practice of others. We propose that the skills required to be effective in the world also occur when we engage our capacity to spot opportunities arising from our potential to be what is needed to be effective in the world. As we mentioned in Chapter 4, the QWERTY typewriter keyboard arrangement solved a temporary mechanical problem on early typewriters and became the predominant standard for modern computer keyboards – which are anything but mechanical. When we engage our awareness, creativity comes beating a path to our door, yet our natural response is to interpret its message as a coincidence or a happy accident. Whatever you wish to call it, with a prepared mind, the universe will speak to you. Richardson (2003a) calls this awakened space “presence” or “awakened presence” and awakened time “patience.” He suggests that presence and patience have something to do with recognizing opportunities as they arise or, as others might say, being lucky. We believe this is the essence of open source leadership because it allows you to break free from the conditioned patterns of your past to create entirely new worlds of opportunity. 102

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Looking at our composite open source leader, we see him practicing these same skills as he journeys along his life’s pathway. He is proud of the fact that he is a “fixer and an improver” – never satisfied with anything. “Give me an idea,” he says, “and I will try to improve on it.” He is also aware of his natural ability to “trust his instincts, no matter what.” His mission in life is to be open and receptive to change – “to trust and be open to the spiritual guidance from within.” He told us of his willingness and ability to allow insights to emerge from the shadows of his subconscious: As we go through our day, we get many ideas. We either learn to be receptive to them or close them up. Everybody has different ideas, it’s just a matter of opening our minds sufficiently to realize their potential before we judge them. Here we have a clear indication of the effects of holding attention and intention in dynamic balance and applying the reconciling force of awareness to create movement. As our open source leader went on to say: If I learn something about science, or space, or technology, or human nature, I try to store it away for memory purposes and it usually finds other combinations. So life is a continuous learning exercise and a continuous stream of new things coming in. Awareness, he tells us, is often confused with coincidence: When you become aware of new information through reading a book or meeting someone interesting, you often just pass it off as coincidence. But that’s not really the case because you already had a question in your mind which needed an answer. If you are careful, you can creatively forget the question until the answer arrives. We agree that luck has very little to do with creativity. Once your concern is allowed to enter deeply into your spiritual consciousness beyond the noise of our thinking dialogue, it goes to work for you. It’s just at a level we mistakenly call our “subconscious,” but nothing could be further from the truth, because it is consciousness operating at an entirely different level of awareness. This level of awareness synchronizes our conscious energy with that of the universe and its unbounded 103

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possibilities and opportunities. It connects us with the energy and information that is timeless and boundless – we just need to know how to practice awareness to reap its bountiful gifts. Another important skill practiced by our composite open source leader is his ability to trust and relate to the longings he instinctively knows are guiding him along the “path of least effort” toward his ultimate goal, no matter how tough it becomes. As he puts it: You have to really believe you can do it. Then it doesn’t matter if you can or you can’t. You don’t know that, your mind doesn’t know that, your body doesn’t know that. So therefore you can do it. At this point, you may be asking why, if we are naturally predisposed to taking a path of least effort, we constantly choose the hard way. Our response is that difficulties arise from an unwillingness to let go of the past rather than taking a leap of faith into an unknown future. In the Four Noble Truths, the Buddha reminds us that suffering is caused by attachment to things we think are permanent when they are not. Transient things don’t only include physical objects but also ideas and, in a greater sense, all objects of our reality. In other words, attachment leads to the narrow view from the box of our current ideality that we talked about at the beginning of this chapter. Our composite open source leader calls this “traumatic experience syndrome,” where people will cling to old values because the future looks too uncertain, saying: I think you will see that most people somewhere along the line have faced their TES [traumatic experience syndrome] and some have decided to make their own destiny, no matter what the consequences might be. Ask yourself why people from other countries excel. Look at the way Vietnamese and Chinese children have surpassed American children at school. They have been at war, in poverty and they treated this as a major opportunity. He goes on to tell us: Until we reach the point where we can admit to catastrophic failure and value its potential for learning, we will be condemned to a life of mediocrity. It is impossible to predict the future with any degree of 104

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accuracy and it’s easy to be wise after the event. You have to wonder why Harvard University’s motto is “Veritas” [Latin for “truth”]. Maybe that is why they attract so many students. They have a handle on the truth. But I don’t buy that, I believe the truth emerges in action and action requires that you trust that the dots will connect as you launch yourself into the unknown. At no point during this time does our composite open source leader make any reference to learning these skills through education or training, despite the claims of Harvard University. Clearly his practice is naturally intuitive. As he says: Many of the powerful inventions that broke out of the NASA space program came from attempting to put a man on the moon. Nobody set out to invent fast foods or silicon-based lubricants, they came as a consequence of that original mission. If you are not open to “breakout opportunities,” you will not see them. Images of the “moonwalking bear” come to mind here. Another open source leadership skill is the ability to take significant knock-backs from those you expect to buy into your ideas. Remember, if creativity is to be truly original and disruptive, by definition, it will not have been thought of by anyone else and therefore will not be immediately embraced as a great idea. To be otherwise means it will have either been thought of already or is simply an adaptation of an existing idea. Those who followed the collapse of the minicomputer industry in the late 1980s will know that the reason for its demise wasn’t that these companies could not design and build PCs. It was because CEOs of the major minicomputer corporations couldn’t buy into the business model nor would they listen to those people who could. This was the case with Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs who, at his Stanford University Commencement address in 2005, talked about his unceremonious removal from the company he founded and grew into a thriving $2bn business. In order to leave more time for research and development, he handed over operational control to a new CEO, who subsequently fired him. Jobs (2005) said: How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But 105

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then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone and it was devastating. The loss was disorientating for Jobs who recalled how he felt a complete and humiliating sense of failure. He even considered leaving the industry he loved and trying something else, in other words, reacting to the humiliation rather than relating to it. But, in true open source leadership style, he applied the wisdom of awareness by asking the question: “Why would I run away from the very thing I love?” Relating to his fear, he changed the focus of his attention by recognizing the void and allowing awareness to reveal new opportunities from his pure spiritual potential. As Jobs (2005) said: Something slowly began to dawn on me – I still loved what I did. The turn of events … had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over. I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired … was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. Here we can recognize another quality of open source leadership, which is the ability to move on from resentment of past injustices or from resignation to the futility of trying to change a bad situation, like the citizens of Bogotá. It is the ability to detach from past failures or hardships and embrace a path of least effort to open new worlds of opportunity. As Jobs (2005) says after he was fired from Apple Corp.: It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life … I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired … Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. Closely related to this willingness to let go of past misfortune is the ability to be intentional about your future. As our composite open source leader points out: I have been seriously ill all my life, to the point that I didn’t go to 106

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school until I was 16. I am very aware of my physical state, and the way I got myself unhandicapped was to use mind control to become intentional about changing my attitude and building my self-esteem. Another skill we recognize in our composite open source leader is his ability to stay in the present moment – the only place where awareness can take effect. This avoids attachment to the past and places concerns of the future with our intentionality. Remember, when we stay in the present moment, we are better able to see what’s missing in our day-to-day stream of consciousness and, as a result, we are better able to tune our awareness into the boundless possibilities out there in the universe. As the saying goes: “If it ain’t broke, break it.” For our composite open source leader, his rule is to Look in the mirror every morning and remember that my “sleeping giant” can return at any time and so I resolve to make each day count. I don’t look for anyone to empower me, not in any aspect of my life. I figure I am the “master of my own destiny” and that’s just the way I am. Sure, I know I am driven but that’s just to make sure I get the most out of my life. These ideas are reflected in the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths where we learn that suffering is the consequence of attachment to ideals and things as if they were permanent when in fact they are quite the opposite. The reasons we suffer are desire, passion, ardor, pursuit of wealth and prestige, striving for fame and popularity – and all are impermanent. In other words, we crave for and cling to stuff that is here today and gone tomorrow. Because the objects of our attachment are transient, their loss is inevitable, thus suffering follows. Objects of attachment also include the idea of “self,” which is a delusion because there is no abiding self. What we call “self” is just an imagined entity and we are merely part of the ceaseless awakening of the universe. Having survived a debilitating illness, our open source leader learned the lesson of impermanence in a very real way. As he says: In addition to everything else, I have inherited a cholesterol problem that has killed most of the male members of my family. It almost got me, but I was lucky that my initial heart attack was not fatal. Anyway, 107

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my family history means that within five years, I will be undergoing bypass surgery for certain. It’s not probability, it’s a fact. So I live every day like it is my last, because there is a high probability that it will be. Here we have a clear indication of the skills essential to the practice of open source leadership. Few, if any, were acquired from external sources, but rather evoked from a deep sense of rightness and a listening to and trusting of the inner voice. As Jobs (2005) tells us: Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. According to Richardson (2003a), prior to our emergence, this process was a natural part of earth’s evolution where the natural environment provided the opportunities that the potential needed in order to be realized. He says: The evolutionary concept ‘Natural Selection’ is a lens crafted by Charles Darwin that reveals the creative interplay between potential and opportunity. The universe’s potential continues to arise to fill every available niche. The competitive aspect of natural selection known as the ‘Survival of the Fittest’ is a consequence. Human awareness creates awakened opportunities where and when the natural environment doesn’t provide it. We humans create environments. This is what makes open source leadership so truly unique. It not only taps into our natural source of pure spiritual potential, but it also creates awakened opportunity rather than forcing us to choose from the limited opportunities available in our narrow view of reality. In a manner of speaking, the universe’s potential wants to be realized and as long as we don’t violate the other universal rules, we can utilize these rules to fulfill our dreams and desires. As Richardson (2008) tells us: You have probably heard that “where there’s a will there’s a way.” A complementary lens-phrase could be stated as “wherever and whenever there’s a need there’s a seed.” The energy of need is potential 108

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and need calls attention to itself. I’ve practiced for years with the mantra “the seeds of our gifts are alive in our needs.” In a nutshell (seed), awareness is an expression of potential that responds to potential to create fertile fields in which the infinite seeds that hold the universe’s potential can root, sprout and bear fruit. In other words, God wants to be seen and needs to be seen if the fullness of God’s gifts are to be realized. In the following account of a project called InSTEDD (Innovative Support to Emergencies, Diseases and Disaster), we get a sense of how the seeds of the gifts of an integrative interactive network of dedicated people are alive in their need to create emergent products greater than the sum of their individual parts. The project is a not-for-profit venture aiming to help communities use Internet and communications technology to identify and warn others of outbreaks like avian flu or disasters like Hurricane Katrina. The technology – which includes social software like Twitter and Facebook – is used to interactively integrate rescue responses and help save lives. The network of dedicated people includes Google.org, the charitable foundation of Google, which invested $5m in the project, The Rockefeller Foundation, which donated $1m, and a third six-figure amount from a foundation associated with venture capitalist and Google investor John Doerr. The idea for a natural disaster early warning system came from Google.org executive director and epidemiologist Dr. Larry Brilliant, whose background with the World Health Organization and its eradication of smallpox program raised a need that would feed the seeds of his gifts. With this as the focus of his attention, Brilliant became aware of the need to provide an early warning system. In his own words (www.mindfully.org): My dream is to fulfill the much-needed role of an independent agent bringing the technological, medical and organizational skills necessary to help the humanitarian aid community accomplish early detection of public health threats and disasters and ultimately help them to make the world a safer place. InSTEDD officially started in October 2007, when Dr. Eric Rasmussen took the reins as president and CEO and began hiring people and reaching out to the aid community. Looking at the backgrounds of Brilliant and Rasmussen and the executive team they put in place, we 109

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recognize both the qualities of open source leadership and the application of the seeds of their gifts alive in their shared need to bring about the achievement of this humanitarian goal. For example, Rasmussen directed work in Afghanistan in 2004 and 2007 and in Indonesia as head of a Civil–Military Coordination Team for the tsunami response in Banda Aceh in early 2005. Later in 2005, he deployed with Joint Task Force Katrina in New Orleans, coordinating a small portion of the relief response after Hurricane Katrina. To enable the best possible interactions to take place, integration of their efforts is via a website that runs on open source software, which is itself the result of integrative interactions among a global community of software developers. This website performs a range of functions including the ability to bridge web service and phones with a location/ detection feature that can link to a layer in Google Earth. This allows a relief worker to send a message about a patient with untreated symptoms in Laos via SMS and that message could then be broadcast to anyone subscribed to that particular relief worker’s messages, including aid workers at Unicef or InSTEDD’s headquarters. This shows the aid worker’s location and notes on a Google Earth map. The software also allows an SMS to be sent onto Google Earth in an emergency center and it sees a dot with a color-coded response, with the respondent’s name and date. Underneath that, there’s a button that says reply and aid workers can integratively interact to deploy resources closest to the scene. A second application is a modification of Facebook, which allows aid workers to see where all their nearby contacts are, as well as reach out to all their “friends of friends” in the humanitarian community in the case of a crisis. So we can see that the possibilities are limitless when the needs of a group of dedicated people integratively interact the seeds of their gifts of skill, knowledge and experience to make the world a safer place for their fellow human beings. As we have said, when life is worth living, we can awaken from the fear of survival to blossom with the fruits of our pure spiritual potential. Once again this story shows how we are all on a journey from unconscious to conscious alignment with life – living proof that open source leadership is less about separating people from one another and more about integratively interacting the minds, hearts and bodies of networks of dedicated people using web-enabled structures to achieve emergent transformation. Leadership based on clock logic has no place in this kind of world and as Alexis de Tocqueville wrote “in the US the proliferation of 110

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voluntary associations made the social fabric of the nation that much richer” (quoted in Allen, 2005). In our own time, Francis Fukuyama (1992) has asserted that the ability to trust those you know is one of a society’s most valuable resources. This combination of association and trust runs deep to the heart of every relationship we have. Sadly, we appear to go through life with a total disregard for the power of trusting relationships. We assume that our sincerity, reliability and competence will enable us to deliver on our commitments. Yet, when we fail, we are amazed that others suddenly label us as untrustworthy. We speak our commitments irresponsibly and as they represent big promises, we can end up in a lot of trouble if we break them. So trusting relationships promote positive change, and the nature of the universe is such that when change is wished for strongly enough and committed action is taken, that action generates a momentum of its own. We just can’t stop ourselves from sharing and, while power elites might try to stop us, as they have attempted to do in totalitarian regimes like Burma and China, in the long run they will never succeed. Neither will clock logic business models based on the withholding of proprietary information. As a 2001 Gartner survey accurately pointed out, by 2006, 80% of commercial software would include elements of open source technology. The Gartner report stated: Many open-source technologies are mature, stable and well supported. They provide significant opportunities for vendors and users to lower their total cost of ownership and increase returns on investment. Ignoring this will put companies at a serious competitive disadvantage. Trust is central to the business model of Pierre Omidyar (www.youngentrepreneur.com), founder of eBay, who believes that: People are basically good and that connecting them with the right tools can build trust and opportunity and harness the power of commerce and competition for social progress. Unlike clock logic, with its emphasis on separation and control, leadership based on open source principles – which value open access and transparency – offers the potential to connect and expand communities of shared interest and provide a sense of ownership. By tying profit to social good, open source leadership works for the benefit of shareholders, simultaneously making the world a better place. 111

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As Richardson (2008) reminds us: It is possible that our universe’s potential is infinite. The key is opportunity and we humans create opportunity. That’s our particular talent. The universe’s infinite potential needs infinite opportunity for its realization. Although the potential is real, it can’t be realized without complementary opportunity. At present, it is only awareness and the wide open future that offer the infinite potential of complementary infinite opportunity. Like the horizontal complementarity of synergy and entropy, in the grand scheme of things – including past, present and future – potential and opportunity are equal in quantity and reciprocal in quality. In any present moment, when the potential–opportunity ratio approaches one, creativity is the natural consequence. Once again drawing on the work of Richardson (2008), we find the origins of awareness in nature. He says: With enthusiasm human awareness can realize an awakened opportunity that transcends the limitations inherent in the environmental conditions. Unconditionally, enthusiastic awareness is an awakened expression of the universe’s infinite potential realized in and as awakened opportunity of unbounded awareness. Unconditional enthusiasm is literally full of the integrative interactive influence that we sometimes refer to as “God.” I’m suggesting that these three rules have been partially understood intellectually by scientists and philosophers, appreciated intuitively by mystics and shamans, and opened to instinctually by all humans, during the history of the cultural evolution of our species. It’s now time for our shared understanding, compassionate appreciation and open application of these universal principles in all aspects of human activity. Living takes on three main pursuits – from our heart we have a passion to connect, from our body we have a will to emerge, and from our mind we have an intention toward wholeness. If we are to experience life at its best, we must achieve a healthy balance between all three. While all three exist in each of the rules of open source leadership, we find that one in particular predominates in each of our four rules. For example, in Chapter 4, we explored the mind’s intention toward wholeness as we revealed the way attention causes us to expand 112

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our awareness to take in a wider perspective, which notices what is missing in our day-to-day stream of consciousness. In other words, to place our attention on the question revealed by the gap, we must allow that question to sink below the surface of consciousness to rest on the quiet riverbed of our pure spiritual consciousness. In this chapter, we have shown how. It is our passion to connect that is so essential to this process of open source leadership, because the answers matching our questions reside in the minds, hearts and bodies of other people. As we move to the final two rules of open source leadership – intention and structure – we will see how our mind’s intention toward wholeness and our heart’s passion to connect integratively interact with our body’s will to emerge to achieve emergent transformation. Awareness is like a solvent that dissolves the distorting residue of past experiences that lacked the awareness necessary for clarity. We believe that the universal principles that have governed evolution for 15 billion years are behind every expression of our being human. If we relate to our expressions as they arise, rather than just react from them, we will bring awareness to a potential that may require further awareness for it to be realized fully. In the next chapter, we take a look at our third universal rule for open source leadership, intention.

REFLECTIVE NARRATIVE 1 What is your preferred means of identifying and tackling problems? 2 What do you find most often gets in the way of achieving your aims? Do you have too many or too few opportunities available to you? Or is it that nothing you do seems to work? 3 How often do you find yourself taking on impossible challenges? 4 What emotions arise when, no matter how hard you try, there seems to be no way to solve your problems? Do you angrily express your emotions or suppress them? 5 When you are in this state, what is your internal conversation doing for you? Is it allowing you to awaken new opportunity or is it forcing you to take the same old useless pathways? 6 What do you need to learn in order to achieve awakened consciousness?

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The impossible exists only until we find a way to make it possible. (Mike Horn, adventurer/explorer) The third universal rule is the “rule of intention,” which is based on the belief that consciousness exists independent of biology, everywhere in nature and the universe. As David Hawkins (2005, p. 89) tells us in his book Power vs. Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior: One of the corollaries of the ‘Law of Attraction’ is the principle of conscious creation. In order to get what we want, we must deliberately create it. Through our awakened consciousness and free will choices, we humans are unique in that we have the potential to bring forth new worlds of possibility by our awakened engagement with it. To do otherwise is to lead a life circumscribed by past experiences and stories of what could have been, if only. To lead an unawakened life is to lead no life at all or, at best, your life will happen by default, most likely through your own unconscious belief system reinforced by the thoughts, ideas and beliefs floating around in the mass consciousness, or by picking up and buying into the beliefs of others. So conscious creators cause things to happen and consciousness occurs through our right brain’s synergistic interaction with the pure conscious energy of the universe. In its precognitive state, this awareness is experienced as heat and movement in our body, which we represent using language to describe and inform our thoughts, feelings, memories, instincts and beliefs. Relating to what’s arising in mind as thinking, heart as feeling and body as sensation seems to clear the perspective and evoke a simple understanding of, appreciation for and openness to our nature, our source, our ground. It does not seem to matter where we start or what we contemplate, it all seems to arise 114

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from the same ground, which is a shared ground. It was this oneness that neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor (2006) experienced when a stroke shut down her left-brain processing and silenced the voice of logic emanating from her left hemisphere. In that moment of silence, she became one with a universal consciousness freed from the left brain’s processing of words and phrases. In a split second, she became one with the consciousness of the evolving universe. When we are intentional, we put things into effect. We do this through accessing the universe’s common ground of data and energy in a way that awakens and informs our awareness of the infinite possibilities it holds. It changes the influence of that information on our lives and the lives of others. But what is awareness? What is the relationship between awareness and space and time? As we have already mentioned, open source leaders are able to consciously contemplate the activities going on around them. They pay attention to those activities through compassionate enquiry and become aware of creative options through unconditional presence. They then intentionally transform these creative options into real products and services, which enrich the quality of their lives and the lives of others. Creating this synergistic alignment leads to awakened space and time, in which we experience our world and its activities. Richardson (2003a) calls this awakened space “presence” and awakened time “patience” and it is likely that presence and patience have something to do with recognizing opportunities as they arise. For example, Intel’s Andrew Grove became aware of the presence of what he called a looming “strategic inflection point” at a time when all was going so well that others around him could not see what he saw. So a phenomenon often misunderstood as a coincidence can now be understood as awakened space. This is an essential skill in open source leadership, because it allows us to break free from the conditioned patterns of our past to create entirely new worlds of possibility for the future. For example, in Chapter 5, we discussed the work of Dr. Larry Brilliant, a leading figure in the successful WHO smallpox eradication program. As a direct consequence of his involvement in the synergistic interactive emergent creativity of that community, smallpox was transformed from a daily risk for many to a distant memory. In other words, while determining our destiny, our life purpose also informs us of the best options to pick out of the boundless possibilities existing in the universe, and it is our intentional actions and thoughts that optimize and inform our choices for action. This is the mental template 115

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that open source leaders use because they have the skill to see the best in the world around them, in their colleagues and in the groups they lead. They have the vision to see creative and improbable opportunities and they know how to make them manifest. By being intentional, we are able to see with an appreciative eye the true and the good, the better and the possible. It allows us to awaken opportunity when most other people only experience needs after they have been articulated by others. We have so much underutilized creative capacity and if the open source community has taught us anything, it is that people want to contribute to endeavors that result in win–win solutions to intractable problems. In other words, they enrich the quality of life for themselves and thus for others. Their energy guides the pursuit of pure spiritual potential toward awakened opportunity, and while this may appear to be uncoordinated and often unrelated to the actual outcomes, the results speak for themselves. In open source communities, people work a lot harder on opportunities that make life better for themselves and their communities. They willingly engage their potential, their talent and their skills by activating their mind’s thinking, their heart’s feeling and their body’s sensing. By being skillfully intentional, open source leaders create a common sense of purpose and values that others willingly buy into and, through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional skill, they focus the attention of others on what could, should and will be required to make their intention manifest by maintaining a healthy balance of randomness with predictability. For example, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar applies the principles of open source leadership when selecting suitable investment targets for his venture capital foundation. According to Omidyar, the new ventures he will invest in must allow equal access to information, resources and tools. They must connect to others who have a shared interest and create a sense of ownership over outcomes and engender a sense of identity as someone who will improve the quality of life for themselves and others. In other words, he intends to bring about synergistic interactions that produce products greater than the sum of their individual parts. Furthermore, these integrative interactions are no longer enjoyed exclusively by members of developed economies. Increasingly, we are seeing economic and social change happening on a global scale through the practice of microfinancing, a credit delivery system providing banking services targeted at the rural poor. The basic idea behind these community development banking schemes is to make 116

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small loans available to the impoverished without requiring collateral. In Bangladesh, the idea began as a research project, launched in 1976 by Professor Muhammad Yunus, then head of the Rural Economics Program at the University of Chittagong, to examine the possibility of designing a credit delivery system offering banking services to the rural poor. Known as the Grameen Bank Project (grameen means “rural” or “village” in Bangla), it was transformed into an independent bank by government legislation in 1983 and in 2006, Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (divided into two equal parts). Today, Grameen Bank is owned by the rural poor it serves; borrowers own 90% of its shares, while the remaining 10% is owned by the government. This project and others like it are based on the belief that the poor have skills that are underutilized and that integratively interacting those skills can lead to economic and social change. Furthermore, one of the other great benefits of this kind of integrative interaction is that the output is always more creative than the sum of the individual parts. For example, the microfinancing firm Kiva gives the theme a creative twist by offering a web-based platform that allows individuals to make loans to small businesses in developing countries. After two years in operation, the social networking site has attracted $1.5 million a month by enabling lenders and borrowers to access the efforts of 67 microfinance institutions around the world. These institutions administer the loans to the selected entrepreneur. Kiva screens each application, posting a five-star rating based on its repayment history, audits and independent evaluations to help lenders assess the risk. At his Nobel address, Yunus (www.nobelprize.org) said: Nothing less than world peace is at stake. 94 percent of the world income goes to 40 percent of the population while 60 percent of people live on only 6 percent of world income. Half of the world population lives on two dollars a day. Over 1 billion people live on less than a dollar a day. This is no formula for peace. It appears that the desire for open source interaction is a phenomenon whose time has come. There is increasing evidence that the idealism of this generation is more global, more intentional, more entrepreneurial and more integrative than anything witnessed in the past. For example, Premal Shah, president of Kiva (kiva is the Swahili word for “unity” or “concord”), had his attention drawn to the potential of microfinancing 117

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to alleviate poverty during a political science seminar. He said the experience “set a fire burning which could not be extinguished.” With an undergraduate research opportunities grant, he returned to his childhood roots in Ahmedabad, India to work at a microfinance institution. The integrative interactions he undertook formed a lifelong love for this method of poverty alleviation. As an open source leader, Shah’s initial attention led to a course of action aimed at expanding his awareness, which, over time, turned to focused intention. A similar story is told by Kiva co-founder Jessica Flannery who was awakened to the potential of microfinancing during an unscheduled speech given by Yunus. She likened his impact to a match dropped on an oilfield – such is the power of language to awaken the attention of some people and not others. In her case, her attention led to a raised awareness, which in turn brought forth worlds of opportunity. As Yunus (www. nobelprize.org) says: Such ideas seem untenable initially, but you have to think positively and boldly. At Grameen, we don’t have any legal instrument between the lender and the borrower, and it is a very scary thing when we are lending more than $4 billion. Everybody asks, “What will happen if nobody pays back?” I say, “But everybody pays back, so why should I worry about it?” Is that open source leadership, or what? With this kind of synergistic interaction, the emergent manifestations often appear as if by accident or coincidence rather than by design. For example, Shah joined PayPal, itself a fledgling dot com startup, and as a result of that decision was able to leave six years later with the experience, knowledge and skill, together with PayPal’s offer of free transactions, to help establish Kiva – a decision which helped it to become one of the biggest players in microfinance. As Richardson (2003b) reminds us: It often seems that the way things work is: “if this occurs – whatever this might be – then that will follow; but, if this doesn’t happen then that can’t happen.” The Buddha called it “interdependent co-arising,” which is a nonrandom influence such that, in order for something of consequence to be realized, certain things have to happen. Richardson calls this a 118

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“blessed conspiracy,” and it is helpful to think of this in the following simple example of an everyday object like a table. The table’s existence is possible due to the existence of things that might be called “the nontable world”: the forest where the wood grew, the wood cutter, the axe, the carpenter, the iron ore that became the nails and screws, along with countless other things that have relation to the table like the parents and ancestors of the carpenter, the sun and rain that made it possible for the tree to grow. If you grasp the table’s reality, you see that in the table are present all those things that we normally think of as “non-table” things. However, if you took away any of those “nontable” elements and returned them to their sources – the nails back to the iron ore, the wood to the forest, the carpenter to his parents – the table would no longer exist. So is there creative power in interdependent co-arising when it’s turned toward the future? We believe so, but only if you realize that to get what you want, you must deliberately create it through the conscious exercise of your free will choices, selecting from the wealth of possibilities in your “non-table” world. To illustrate this point, we share Tolstoy’s story of the emperor’s three questions (www. yuni.com). One day it occurred to a certain emperor that if he only knew the answers to three questions, he would never stray in any matter. What is the best time to do each thing? Who are the most important people to work with? What is the most important thing to do at all times? The emperor issued a decree throughout his kingdom announcing that whoever could answer the questions would receive a great reward. Many who read the decree made their way to the palace at once, each person with a different answer. In reply to the first question, one person advised that the emperor make up a thorough time schedule, consecrating every hour, day, month, and year for certain tasks and then follow the schedule to the letter. Only then could he hope to do every task at the right time. Another person replied that it was impossible to plan in advance and that the emperor should put all vain amusements aside and remain attentive to everything in order to know what to do at what time. Someone else insisted that, by himself, the emperor could never hope to have all the foresight and competence necessary to decide when to do each and every task and what he really needed was to set up a Council of the Wise and then to act according to their advice. Someone else said that certain matters required immediate decision and could not wait for consultation, but if he wanted to know in advance 119

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what was going to happen he should consult magicians and soothsayers. The responses to the second question also lacked accord. One person said that the emperor needed to place all his trust in administrators, another urged reliance on priests and monks, while others recommended physicians. Still others put their faith in warriors. The third question drew a similar variety of answers. Some said science was the most important pursuit. Others insisted on religion. Yet others claimed the most important thing was military skill. The emperor was not pleased with any of the answers, and no reward was given. After several nights of reflection, the emperor resolved to visit a hermit who lived up on the mountain and was said to be an enlightened man. The emperor wished to find the hermit to ask him the three questions, though he knew the hermit never left the mountains and was known to receive only the poor, refusing to have anything to do with persons of wealth or power. So the emperor disguised himself as a simple peasant and ordered his attendants to wait for him at the foot of the mountain while he climbed the slope alone to seek the hermit. Reaching the holy man’s dwelling place, the emperor found the hermit digging a garden in front of his hut. When the hermit saw the stranger, he nodded his head in greeting and continued to dig. The labor was obviously hard on him. He was an old man, and each time he thrust his spade into the ground to turn the earth, he heaved heavily. The emperor approached him and said, “I have come here to ask your help with three questions: When is the best time to do each thing? Who are the most important people to work with? What is the most important thing to do at all times?” The hermit listened attentively but only patted the emperor on the shoulder and continued digging. The emperor said, “You must be tired. Here, let me give you a hand with that.” The hermit thanked him, handed the emperor the spade, and then sat down on the ground to rest. After he had dug two rows, the emperor stopped and turned to the hermit and repeated his three questions. The hermit still did not answer, but instead stood up and pointed to the spade and said, “Why don’t you rest now? I can take over again.” But the emperor continued to dig. One hour passed, then two. Finally the sun began to set behind the mountain. The emperor put down the spade and said to the hermit, “I came here to ask if you could answer my three questions. But if you can’t give me any answer, please let me know so that I can get on my way home.” The hermit lifted his head and asked the emperor, “Do you hear someone running over there?” The emperor turned his head. They 120

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both saw a man with a long white beard emerge from the woods. He ran wildly, pressing his hands against a bloody wound in his stomach. The man ran toward the emperor before falling unconscious to the ground, where he lay groaning. Opening the man’s clothing, the emperor and hermit saw that the man had received a deep gash. The emperor cleaned the wound thoroughly and then used his own shirt to bandage it, but the blood completely soaked it within minutes. He rinsed the shirt out and bandaged the wound a second time and continued to do so until the flow of blood had stopped. At last the wounded man regained consciousness and asked for a drink of water. The emperor ran down to the stream and brought back a jug of fresh water. Meanwhile, the sun had disappeared and the night air had begun to turn cold. The hermit gave the emperor a hand in carrying the man into the hut where they laid him down on the hermit’s bed. The man closed his eyes and lay quietly. The emperor was worn out from a long day of climbing the mountain and digging the garden. Leaning against the doorway, he fell asleep. When he rose, the sun had already risen over the mountain. For a moment he forgot where he was and what he had come here for. He looked over to the bed and saw the wounded man also looking around himself in confusion. When he saw the emperor, he stared at him intently and then said in a faint whisper, “Please forgive me.” “But what have you done that I should forgive you?” the emperor asked. “You do not know me, your majesty, but I know you. I was your sworn enemy, and I had vowed to take vengeance on you, for during the last war you killed my brother and seized my property. When I learned that you were coming alone to the mountain to meet the hermit, I resolved to surprise you on your way back and kill you. But after waiting a long time there was still no sign of you, and so I left my ambush in order to seek you out. But instead of finding you, I came across your attendants, who recognized me, giving me this wound. Luckily, I escaped and ran here. If I hadn’t met you I would surely be dead by now. I had intended to kill you, but instead you saved my life! I am ashamed and grateful beyond words. If I live, I vow to be your servant for the rest of my life, and I will bid my children and grandchildren to do the same. Please grant me your forgiveness.” The emperor was overjoyed to see that he was so easily reconciled with a former enemy. He not only forgave the man but promised to return all the man’s property and to send his own physician and servants to wait on the man until he was completely healed. After ordering his attendants to take the man home, the emperor returned to see the 121

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hermit. Before returning to the palace the emperor wanted to repeat his three questions one last time. He found the hermit sowing seeds in the earth they had dug the day before. The hermit stood up and looked at the emperor. “But your questions have already been answered.” “How’s that?” the emperor asked, puzzled. “Yesterday, if you had not taken pity on my age and given me a hand with digging these beds, you would have been attacked by that man on your way home. Then you would have deeply regretted not staying with me. Therefore the most important time was the time you were digging in the beds, the most important person was myself and the most important pursuit was to help me. Later, when the wounded man ran up here, the most important time was the time you spent dressing his wound, for if you had not cared for him he would have died and you would have lost the chance to be reconciled with him. Likewise, he was the most important person, and the most important pursuit was taking care of his wound. “Remember that there is only one important time and that is now. The present moment is the only time over which we have dominion. The most important person is always the person you are with, who is right before you, for who knows if you will have dealings with any other person in the future? The most important pursuit is making the person standing at your side happy, for that alone is the pursuit of life.” Tolstoy’s story is like a story out of scripture: it doesn’t fall short of any sacred text. Simply drawing on beliefs and experiences from your past means there is a high probability that your life will be created for you by default, most likely through your own unconscious belief system, reinforced by the thoughts, ideas and beliefs floating around in the mass consciousness, or by picking up and buying into the beliefs of others. Conscious creators cause things to happen in their lives. Being intentional requires a fresh consideration of time by viewing chronological, or real time, from the perspective of imaginary time. Imaginary time holds all the possibilities that the unfolding of might manifest in the future if conditions conspire to support their realization. Einstein said something to the effect that imagination is more important than knowledge. We propose that it is our awareness that awakens the potentials inherent in imaginary time and activates the contingencies required for imagined possibilities to become realized. In other words, it is our awareness that plays a crucial role in the realization of the universe’s creative potential. The story of the birth of Yunus’s microfinance strategy and the subsequent “blessed 122

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conspiracies” that arose from apparently random activities lead us to suspect this to be the case. For example, in “Voltaire, Walpole, and Pasteur: variations on the theme of discovery,” John Murray (2005) shows how Voltaire, Walpole (who coined the word “serendipity”) and Pasteur – illustrious men from greatly differing backgrounds and professional accomplishments – characterized the process of discovery, each placing particular emphasis on various permutations among three fundamentals: keen observation, brilliant deduction, and fortuitous accident. So with intentional awareness we are able to maintain a pure creative vibration aligned precisely to our desire. The universe has been designed to support our decisions and action is a subset of thought, for thought precedes action. When we want something, we usually want it now. However, no matter how skilled or resourceful we are, there is always a time lag between the original conception and the manifestation or achievement of our goal. The creative process takes time, so by being intentional, we allow that which we desire to exist in dynamic tension with our attention to the fact that we don’t yet have it. The result is that we unconsciously orientate ourselves in the right direction and experience serendipitous encounters everywhere we look. Attention energizes, while intention transforms, and by avoiding the temptation to force things into existence, we develop a creative tension that allows it to emerge. By dropping into the void between attention and intention we widen our horizon of awareness to include other possibilities. When our attention, our awareness and our intention are integratively aligned with what we want, we feel relaxed, joyful and lighthearted about our goal. Paradoxically, the more joyful we are, the less effort we require and the more powerful and effective are our actions. In order to understand how this works, it is useful to apply the lens offered by Richardson (2003a). He uses the metaphor of an open-ended hourglass. He says: It’s actually a sphere turned inside out … It could also be an openended infinity sign. The central axis of the hourglass corresponds to the unfolding of real time as experienced by human beings. The fluted sides of the bell below (or behind) and bowl above (or ahead) correspond to the opening to infinity of the potential converging upon human life in the present moment from the past and the opportunity arising in the future. 123

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At the bottle neck of the present moment, the moment where our pure spiritual potential meets the unbounded universal possibilities, we find ourselves reacting with more or less openness and awareness depending on our state of mind. The bottle neck gives us a sense of limitation. So, Richardson (2003a) tells us: If we consider real time as a line that moves straight ahead into our future, imaginary time expands out in all directions to the left and right, up and down. Diagonally this includes the imaginary past that didn’t happen but could have and the imaginary future that probably won’t happen but might if we give it enough attention. The possibilities in imaginary time that are of lower and lower probability are farther out to the left or right, or farther up or down and away from the central tendency of real time’s unfolding. Applying this evolutionary image to real life can be inspired by the following quote from Mitchell’s (1998, p. 68) translation of the Tao Te Ching: All things stand with their backs to the feminine, facing the masculine. When male and female combine all things achieve harmony. We could see ourselves at the center of the open hourglass that is rotated 900 to the horizontal. The bell bottom of the hourglass opens to infinity behind us and the bowl top opens to infinity ahead. The feminine (mother) from which we are perpetually born represents the past that has endowed us with a potential that is probably infinite. Richardson (2008) takes this infinitive view right back beyond generations to embrace other species, farther – the earth, farther – the materials liberated from an exploding star. He says: We are stardust … the masculine (father) represents the future that opens into opportunities for realizations that we are just beginning to glimpse. We may be the universe waking up to itself! Although we stand at the bottle neck, with our backs to the past, facing the future, our awareness can turn and it can expand the bottle neck – opening the gate – and bringing potential into creative contact with opportunity. Consequently, we may be the first species that can awaken to our past. 124

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As well as being products of our mother, we can learn from her. A deep understanding of our mother enlightens and influences our father. We can heed the words of George Santayana (1906): “those who ignore the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them.” As we awaken, we enlighten imaginary time, becoming aware of potentials that may require a lot of awareness in order to be realized. Our awareness can open to it all, as the trillions of words of fiction demonstrate. Einstein supposedly said that imagination is more valuable than knowledge. The conclusion reached by Richardson is that our imagination is awakened imaginary time, and our awareness is awakened opportunity. Richardson (2008) says: In awareness our pure spiritual potential and opportunity are not two separate entities but one reminding us of the adage “what the mind can conceive and the heart can believe the soul can achieve.” Who, other than Leonardo da Vinci, would have believed the wonders of the modern world five hundred years ago, or even two hundred years ago? Thank You Teachers. All human expression arises from the human condition, which arises from life on earth, which arises from the evolution of the universe. Every human who can talk generates a unique mental representation of the reality of their life. Within the more or less awakened virtual space of their consciousness, there exists a remembered and represented expression of reality – an ideality. This ideality is an expression of life’s potential for understanding, appreciating and opening to our active participation in evolution. It more or less accords with the real opportunities that are presenting themselves moment to moment. If our ideality is clear, then our vision of reality is aided by it. If our ideality is distorted, the unpolished lenses may interfere with our seeing clearly. With practice, we can polish our lenses, refining our ideality into clear concordance with the immediately available reality. This requires a diligence in attending to our evolving thoughts, feelings and perceptions, beliefs, attitudes and perspectives, which is not easy. As Richardson (2003b) tells us: It may require exposing ourselves to others, which is sometimes humaniliating [sic]. I believe our species has been gifted with the brain power required to trade-up from our being unconscious instruments of evolution to our becoming conscious participants in the evolutionary 125

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process. The various technologies of our species – practical, scientific, artistic, philosophical and spiritual – are natural expressions of the evolution of life on earth that play a key part in the unfolding of the whole. Through technology, ideality becomes reality. The evolving technologies that serve the transmission and sharing of information, which now includes the World Wide Web, open the evolution of ideality to limitless diversity. It has been said by a number of authors that evolution proceeds through integration and differentiation. How much more differentiated can we get? Our diversity is staggering. There is no sign of a slowing down of the diversification of creative expression. In fact it seems to be accelerating as more and more members of our species participate in the unfolding of shared ideality. With a computer, connected to the Internet, anybody can write anything and distribute it to almost anyone they want. As an open source leader, your challenge is to integrate it. What does it take to integrate so much diversity? How do we reconcile the adversity? I think that the key is to clearly see the source of it all and honor it. In the next chapter, we consider the rule of structure, which is the creative process manifest in physical action and objects. It is the equalizing force that reconciles the two opposing forces of time and space in order to ensure that the integrative interactive processing of our attention, awareness and intention yield emergent products that are greater than the sum of the individual parts.

REFLECTIVE NARRATIVE 1 How will you ground yourself so that you are able to access the silent space between your thoughts to experience awakened possibility? 2 How will you use that space – like a deep lake upon the surface of which you will breathe your intentions into ripples of emergent opportunity? 3 How will you determine out of boundless possibilities the opportunities that best serve your intentions?

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This fourth universal “rule of structure” is the emergent and transformative product of the synergistic interaction of attention, awareness and intention. It is the emergent product of this synergistic interaction between the three rules that enables the manifestation of our dreams into something (some-thing). You will recall our example, in Chapter 6, of the elements existing in the non-table world that synergistically interact to form the emergent table structure. Every element exists everywhere and converges at a point in space and time through synergistic interactions that produce the emergent table structure, which offers you a surface on which to place your vase of flowers or glass of wine. That’s why we find the Bushmen and women of the Kalahari region using the same methods to produce fire that the German engineers at VW use to product heat for a diesel engine to ignite fuel. All the elements exist in the infinite space of the universe but it takes attention, awareness and intention to form a structure fit for its specific purpose. After all, how many of us have refused to use a screwdriver to open a paint can because it is only meant for screwing things? Structures transform our needs and dreams into things and it is through structure that the focus of our attention, awareness and intention takes shape and emerges as real products. Structure is the creative emergence of your dreams through synergistic interactions within and between networks of people with a common sense of purpose. It is the manifestation of all that we have sought to create, through our persistent intention, which matures in the rich soil of pure spiritual potential, the space where all things are possible. From this space of boundless possibility, we have allowed attention and intention to seek out, through the creative guidance of the path of least effort, only those possibilities that are in the service of the attainment of our higher purpose. In other words, our life’s journey is guided by the emergent opportunities brought forth through the synergistic interaction of the three universal rules. Using structure as 127

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a reconciling force, we bring the energy of space and time into elegant alignment with the synergistic interactions necessary to harmonize the tangible and intangible universal resources necessary to manifest our intention. For example, at Google, experimentation is a way of life. It is a cultural artifact and organizational mood embodied in a technology structure that allows people to co-create products and services with the least possible effort. So while the synergistic interaction of attention, awareness and intention operates in imaginary time – the space holding all the possibilities that might manifest in the future – structure operates in the unfolding of real time and is the manifestation of opportunities that conspire to support their realization. As Einstein once said, imagination is more important than knowledge, and we propose that it is our awareness that awakens the potential inherent in imaginary time and activates the contingencies required for imagined opportunities to become realized. Open source leaders design profoundly simple, yet elegantly balanced structures to facilitate synergistic interaction among like-minded people. These structures reflect the values of openness and collaboration and use pervasive collaborative technologies. Structure means using transparent, vertical and horizontal collaborative approaches that allow increasing numbers of people to discover and awaken pure potential in themselves and others. Whether applied to microfinance, participatory media, open source software or cures for disease, structures reflect the systemic nature of our world – with its milieu of people, institutions, supporting structures and synergistic interaction among them. Open source leaders apply structures that build, enhance and sustain the enabling conditions for their endeavors. These structures value the cultivation of positive effects in the lives of people, communities and their scalability among increasing numbers of people and in different contexts. According to Larry Huston (2008), P&G’s former vice-president of knowledge and innovation: You have to get very clear on what your strategic intent is and to be specific about seeking a solution to that which has attracted your attention. Whether this is a car company trying to solve a battery technology problem, or like Procter & Gamble, a company which has declared that the invent-it-yourself innovation model is not sustainable. The challenge is to build a totally new capability by redefining the boundaries of an organization to include people who 128

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are outside of the four walls of your business. So, the very first step is to get very clear about why you’re doing it, and what your strategic intent is. And then begin to really design the network around the strategic intent. Do you need just incremental problem solving? Do I need to build idea nets? Do I need to build solution nets? Do I need cost innovation networks? Am I looking for disruptive innovation? Do I need to reach from one domain into another domain of knowledge outside of my industry where I might find more disruptive innovation? So getting very clear on that and then really creating an structure of participation. Other examples of open source structure can be found at Toyota in Japan, where “supplier days” are held that allow Toyota suppliers to contribute new ideas during a series of briefing sessions. During these sessions, anyone can theoretically knock on the door and come in and pitch an idea for Toyota. Also, at GE in China, events are held where suppliers are invited to offer suggestions to overcome their top problems. In each case, these open source structures allow corporate borders to become permeable, allowing others outside the company to offer innovative suggestions to solve problems and to invent new and innovative futures. For example, Mozilla, a global community working together to make the web a better place for everyone, prides itself on the security record of its web browser Firefox. It attributes its success, as it says, to “being open.” This means anyone around the world can look at its code and find any potential weak spots and when an alert is raised, it is instantly taken care of. Increasingly, businesses are finding themselves challenged to compete with generic strategies based less on low cost and more on innovation and renewal. This requires competence in open source innovation similar to those C3 companies mentioned in Chapter 2. Collaborative partnerships between Microsoft, Linux, IBM, Intel, BP, Benetton, 3M, Oracle, Dell and P&G are setting the new standard of competition, adding value by collaborating inside and across organizational boundaries to create new knowledge to take on and overcome complex business challenges. Over the past two decades, management innovations, enabled by ICT, have given rise to business models that are becoming increasingly “boundaryless”. Their formal reporting structures and detailed work processes have a diminished role in the way work gets done. Instead, informal networks of employees exist alongside the formal organization, as is the case at Google where 129

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20% of an employee’s work is expected to be innovative. Reward and recognition structures are in place to reinforce these values and expectations. The general health and “connectivity” of these groups have a significant impact on their knowledge-creating capability, strategy execution, and organizational effectiveness. While many corporate leaders intuitively understand the benefits of business models that enable open source innovation, few really know how to structure and lead them. The consequence of this ignorance is a lack of adequate resources and management attention. This leads to fragmentation and frustration as people fight against disruptive and inconsistent management practices and organizational structures that are biased in favor of task specialization and individual rather than collaborative reward for efforts. For example, at BP, the company used to be mired in procedures and structures that inhibited its ability to manage its vast range of activities. In each area of business – such as exploration and production of crude oil and natural gas; refining, marketing, supply and transportation; manufacturing and marketing of petrochemicals – the free flow of ideas and innovation became increasingly overburdened with bureaucracy. Today the company has reinvented itself and is structured in ways that foster learning and tie people’s jobs to creating value. It is flat and lean and every individual in the company has the basic capability to communicate, collaborate and share information routinely, without the underlying structure acting as a barrier to information flow and knowledge creation. The rule of structure tells us that by valuing the constructive engagement of people with each other to pursue what they care about most in their lives, we will cause effects at many levels in the universe, from local to global, which advance social progress. For example, MIT’s (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Developmental Entrepreneurs Program aims to help participants craft enduring and economically viable solutions to problems faced by at least 1 billion people worldwide. The aim of this and the hundreds of other projects taking place at the present time is to help found, finance, and build entrepreneurial ventures in developing nations and emerging regions. These microentrepreneurial structures have helped to create a range of small enterprises – from microfinance to microventure capital and microsavings. These extend from business ventures into entrepreneurial NGOs and social projects aimed at addressing basic needs – health, catastrophe mitigation, farming and many others. The solutions also cover 130

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a wide range, from low power refrigeration and solar stoves, to clean water and locomotion. At MIT, the focus of its attention is “global health, wealth and happiness” and its awareness and intention are on “peace, security and freedom; competent and honest civil service; maximization of choice; ailments diagnosed and cured; structure built and clean.” MIT is putting in place structures that are open source, as is its leadership style. For example, in Bangalore, an open collaborative design called ThinkCycle (www.thinkcycle.org) seeks to create a culture of open source design innovation, with ongoing collaboration among individuals, communities and organizations around the world. ThinkCycle provides shared online space for designers to discuss, exchange and construct ideas toward design solutions in critical problem areas. The results from these projects speak for themselves, as each in its own way applies the four universal rules of open source leadership. Skillful application of this rule enables them to go beyond merely forecasting the future needs of society to determining which needs will predominate – long before the members of that society have recognized them for themselves. As Richardson (2008) says: Human awareness creates awakened opportunities where and when the natural environment doesn’t provide it. We humans create environments. This is what makes open source leadership so truly unique. It not only taps into our natural source of spiritual potential but also creates awakened opportunity, rather than forcing us to choose from the limited options available in our real-time world. As a consequence, we are able to use imaginary time to access the limitless possibilities awaiting our discovery. The rule of structure defines the relationship between people and other resources as they are used in the service of specific goals. Because individual reality is the totality of what can be perceived by that individual, open source leaders blend individual perceptions into a common sense of what is needed, what is trusted and what is wanted right here, right now. This is because we can never know the totality of individual perceptions because the aspect of reality is an individual perception. We have no way of knowing what reality looks like for the person next to us. While this may not strike you as unusual, clock logic leaders would be unable to spot this truth because their ideality is influenced by theories from the school of scientific management. 131

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These “old school leaders” are still around today and practice from the belief that reality can be understood by taking one little detail from the completeness of the totality of things. We believe this background of obviousness that permeates the thoughts and actions of many of today’s leaders is highly inappropriate for leading open source programs of the kind we have been describing throughout this book. With few exceptions, these old school clock logic structures are based on values of predictability and control, which is achieved through the imposition of structures of distrust, characterized by levels of authority and divisions of labor. We like to think of them as “structures of distrust” because they are made up of managers managing managers, who manage managers, who manage workers who need managing because they can’t manage themselves. While it would be true to say that such values are cultural, and common in the emerging economies of China, Africa, Eastern Europe, Brazil and India, they are certainly not exclusive to these countries. They can also be found in nearly all modern Western economies and organizational cultures. With the explosion of the Internet and social networks, however, we now have self-forming, self-regulating communities emerging with open source business models that are proving highly effective in more traditional settings like IBM, Boeing, P&G and 3M. Open structures are founded on radically different values, reflecting the unified and interdependent nature of our world. In his book The Ghost in the Machine, Arthur Koestler (1967) called these structures of interdependence “holons” (holon is Greek for “whole” – meaning something that is simultaneously a whole and a part). From a holonic perspective, reality is considered to be both objective and subjective, where our viewpoint actually influences what we value, pay attention to and create. From a holonic perspective, we realize that our world is both determined for us and chosen by us and, as a consequence, predictability and control are mere illusions. Open source leaders are continually seeking out the patterns in events as they unfold over time in order to grasp the deep structures that bring meaning to our lives. So the rule of structure draws attention to the way different aspects come together to form situations, and while these aspects usually refer to physical objects, they also include a host of intangible objects such as drive, ambition, trust and caring. In fact, open source structures contain a rich mix of both tangible and intangible assets, and open source leaders are able to recognize this highly complex and potentially creative dynamic and perform the alchemy of turning this rich 132

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mix into gold. Central to this alchemy is the knowledge that both yourself and those involved with you see reality from their own highly personalized, totally private and uniquely individual point of view. In open source communities, open source leaders understand that it is not our first nature but our second nature that leads us to individualize our experiences and experience ourselves as separate from other people and things. Our first nature is to seek connection and inclusion, to feel part of a community and to contribute to that community’s wellbeing. As we mentioned in the Introduction, Rumi reflects this theme in many of his poems. In his poem entitled “One, One, One,” he tells us that although the lamps, his metaphor for people, are different in appearance, their light is the same. He tells us the light comes from beyond and he warns that if we hold our gaze solely upon the lamps from our second nature, we are lost because all we see is their difference rather than their sameness. He encourages us to engage our first nature awareness and fix our gaze upon the light and allow ourselves to experience the increased awareness that naturally flows from its deep source once we are delivered from the dualism inherent in the finite body … The Faithful are many, but their Faith is one; their bodies are numerous, but their soul is one. (Rumi, quoted in Harvey, 2000, p. 127) Open source leaders distinguish the light from the many different lamps. They intuitively know it is our first or true nature to seek harmony and unity and to seek the reality of oneness rather than be blinded by the illusion of separateness. They know that while our eyes tell us that every object has an independent, individual and isolated identity, our hearts know that this is merely an illusion, a reflection, a representation of presence that is a totality, a unity, a one. This universal rule of oneness is reflected in the proliferation of social networks springing up in our interconnected Web Wide World. The web is revolutionary not because of the great search engines and enormous libraries of interconnected information, but because of its communications technology, which allows 3.5 billion people to synergistically interact and create emergent products that are greater than those that could be produced by the same number of people acting individually. This is a bit of a twist on the old adage: “If you want a job done properly, best do it yourself.” While many web-based relationships might be considered casual, such as searching Yell.com for a dentist or looking at Google 133

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Maps to plan a trip, the vast majority of interactions are specifically intended to overcome deep-seated and often intractable concerns that people share – such as helping to ease the challenges of AIDS sufferers or eradicating smallpox. The rule of structure is based on the principle that the quality of synergistic interactions is a direct consequence not only of ICTs but also of the strength of the commitments that people are prepared to make to each another in order to solve their shared and deeply intractable concerns. As Jeff Huber (New York Times, 2009), Google’s senior vice-president of engineering, says: The web is fundamentally better when it’s social; we’re only just starting to see what’s possible when you bring social information into different contexts on the web. In other words, the synergistic interactions in open source communities are energized and transformed by the strength of the collective commitments of their members, and individual identities or reputations are built and destroyed on the degree to which a person or group of people can be trusted to fulfill their commitments. For example, FedEx and Amazon.com use the Internet to establish legitimacy through conversation-based interactions where they commit to be reliable. They do this by promising to let customers know what’s going on, alerting them if problems occur and offering counterproposals designed to resolve the problem to their customer’s satisfaction (see Figure 7.1). Using customer and inventory databases and well-integrated financial and logistical systems, these companies use the Internet to build legitimacy through core commitment structures based on trust. These are the hallmarks of open source communities because they are held together by nothing more and nothing less than the power of conversation-generated commitments formed by the exchange of words in real and virtual space that bind that community into a network of synergistic interaction. We use the term “cheap talk” when referring to the empty promises people make. In the Internet age, when people don’t care about the quality of their commitments, their cheap talk can be very expensive. This is because in today’s business models, rich internetworks of commitments deliver value by addressing the deep concerns of their members and ultimately those of the people benefitting from the emergent products of the community’s synergistic interactions. 134

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Request/offer

1. Preparation (context setting)

2. Negotiation (assessments of value)

Customer concerns

Commitment

Customer

Provider

Assessment of satisfaction

Provider concerns

3. Performance

4. Assessment

Declaration of completion

FIGURE 7.1 The commitment cycle

So while the essential structure of open source communities is synergistic interaction, the energy to transform attention into awareness, awareness into intention and finally intention into structure is the manifestation of human commitment. When commitments are managed skillfully by open source leaders, the emergent products are always greater than the sum of the individual parts. Open source leaders are passionate about ensuring that requests are clear and commitments to fulfill those requests are made with sincerity and competence. So the foundational structural energy of integrative interactions is commitment, which is a reliance on that most precious and unique of human qualities – our ability to give our word, and for those willing and able to keep their word, an identity as people who can be trusted. For example, the late Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop, said that her personal identity was inextricably linked with her corporate promise. Indeed, richly synergistic open source communities attract people who wish to stand out in the world through their committed action and, as a consequence, make a difference in the world – such that the world is changed as a result of their committed participation. For many, the benefits of being a part of an open source community are the numerous opportunities offered to increase their competence, as their potential meets opportunity, and, ultimately, the ability to 135

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gain an identity through recognition as a participant in a historymaking event. According to the “private-collective” model developed by Eric von Hippel and George von Krogh (2003), newcomers to such communities share with existing developers and derive greater benefits of revealing their innovations than those outside the community. This is possible because their ideas can be reviewed and commented on by other developers and users and, in terms of learning benefits, the group’s feedback can be direct and specific to the newcomer. Such structures of participation include low barriers to entry by newcomers and some mechanism for balancing the need for control with the need for innovation. These structures of participation allow for a free market of ideas where anyone can put forward proposed solutions to problems; it becomes adopted, if at all, by acclamation and the organic spread of its usefulness. Ultimately, the reward for such rich networking is the ability to progress toward levels of knowledge and discovery beyond those achieved by conventional means, especially awareness of one’s own identity through understanding one’s core commitments. In the following example, our open source leaders founded a decentralized, web-based, community-wide effort where scientists from laboratories, universities, institutes and corporations could work together to develop cures for tropical diseases. The idea was developed by our open source leaders who saw the way computing was playing an increasing role in biology and this convergence between computing and biology suggested to them that comparisons might be made with studies of user innovation networks like open source software development. Four individuals shared the same concern, which was attention to the way people in poor nations were underserved by the big pharmaceutical companies. Their awareness of the possibilities inherent in the convergence of computing and biology led them to intentionally select an opportunity to apply these techniques to their own project. Their initial contributions opened the space for dialogue through the creation of a website that allows the tracking, mapping, and combining of commitments based on the power of human speech. The website contains a “wiki” (a website that anyone can edit and contribute to) and discussion forums, which are archived and open to anybody who wants to discuss the project. In Understanding Computers and Cognition, Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores (1986, p. 324) describe a structure for commitment generation that satisfies concerns. Through focusing on concerns and commitments, new domains of assessment emerge. One of these domains is 136

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The identification of the new institutions arising alongside old ones … mapping social institutions in terms of their concern and commitment structures tells us what is genuinely new and what is a new way to accomplish old goals. In the community formed by our open source leaders, they decided to take a radically new approach to drug discovery in a traditional pharmaceutical industry. They saw their community as a new structure arising alongside an old one and possibly a genuinely new way to accomplish old goals. Applying structures to enable synergistic interaction, they were able to focus on changing the concerns and commitments of the respective members of the network. This was essential because, as we have said throughout these chapters, commitments drive action and our open source leaders were skilled at identifying the major concerns and encapsulating them in their statement of mission. This allowed them to clearly articulate their intentions and start the process of enlisting the help of like-minded people who were prepared to commit to eliminating the problem. So in open source leadership, the essential transformational structures involve the organizing of conversational networks, which articulate networks of commitments to deal with concerns – and on the basis of one commitment, many others grow. Our open source leaders paid attention to the gap in the process of drug discovery. The gap was that patent systems often foreclosed new uses or enhancements by outside researchers and there had to be a consumer willing and/or able to pay for the resulting drugs, in order to justify the cost of drug development. Pharmaceutical companies have little incentive to develop treatments for diseases that particularly afflict the poor, for example, since the people who need such treatments most may not be able to afford them. It was in this environment that a number of medical biologists, lawyers, entrepreneurs and healthcare activists sought improvements. They adapted the open source approach because it had proved so successful in software development and in biotechnology. The international effort to sequence the human genome, for example, resembled an open source initiative. It placed all the resulting data into the public domain rather than allowing any of the participants to patent any of the results. Open source also flourishes in bioinformatics, the field in which biology meets information technology, performing biological research using supercomputers rather than test tubes. They found that in the bioinformatics community, software code and databases are often swapped on “you share, I share” terms, for the greater good of all. 137

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For our open source leaders, the question was whether it could work further downstream, closer to the patient, where the development costs are greater and the potential benefits more direct. For example, nonpatentable compounds and drugs whose patents have expired receive little attention from researchers because there is no way to protect and so profit from any discovery that is made about their effectiveness. As one of them said (www.tropicaldisease.org/): If aspirin cured cancer, no company would bother to do the trials to prove it, or go through the regulatory approval, since it could not patent the discovery. In fact, it might be possible to apply for a process patent that covers a new method of treatment, but the broader point still stands. Lots of potentially useful drugs could be sitting under researchers’ noses. The second area of attention for our open source leaders was developing treatments for diseases that afflicted small numbers of people, such as Parkinson’s disease, or are found mainly in poor countries, such as malaria. In both cases, the anomaly was that there simply was not a large enough market of paying customers to justify the enormous expense of developing a new drug. While the American Orphan Drug Act 1983 was intended to provide financial incentives for the development of drugs for small numbers of patients, our open source leaders felt that there was still plenty of room for improvement, which was where the open source approach might have a valuable role to play. Finally, competition from generic drug makers would keep manufacturing prices at or near the cost of production, significantly accelerating drug development for the 500 million people who currently suffer from tropical diseases. Between them, our open source leaders possessed a variety of relevant technical skills sufficient to develop a rudimentary structure to get things rolling. For example, they knew how to navigate their way through legal issues, and also the types of skill required for scientific innovation by making it easier for scientists, universities, and industries to use literature, data, and other scientific intellectual property to share their knowledge with others. Calling their approach “open source drug discovery,” they set out to significantly reduce the cost of discovering, developing and manufacturing cures for tropical diseases. While initial expectations were that the research would be computational, “wet” laboratory research was anticipated later. They were able to draw on work already underway in open source biotechnology through the 138

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BiOS (Biological Innovation for Open Society) Initiative, a nonprofit initiative of CAMBIA, with the support of The Rockefeller Foundation. Our open source leaders intended to achieve their mission by creating a structure giving hundreds of scientists a practical way to donate urgently needed intellectual resources. Also, open source discoveries would not be patented, permitting sponsors to award development contracts to the company that offered the lowest bid. This was critical, as the existing business model for drug development led to high prices and unequal access. For example, in the USA and other countries without a universal public health system, the uninsured simply cannot afford the newest medicines. The structural components making up commitment networks consist of people in action, lets call them actors, drivers of concerns, the concerns themselves, actions to overcome these concerns, and outcomes. In open source communities, we find actors appear at three levels of structure – individual, group and organization. In our example, we find that, at each level, actors participate for different reasons and consequently are affected differently. This distinction between organizational level leads to the creation of different kinds of commitment, namely, improving, integrating and operating (see Figure 7.2).

Drivers Improving network

Environmental Organizational Individual

Integrating network

Outcomes Intended Unintended

Actor Actor concerns/ concerns/ commitments commitments

Actor concerns/ commitments

Actor concerns/ commitments

Operating network Target and lead discovery

Lead optimization

Process development Virtual pharma

Open source community

FIGURE 7.2 Open source supply chain

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Production

Contract Mfg

Core mission values

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Our open source leaders addressed these commitment networks at each level in different ways in order to increase the ability of the network as a whole to produce higher quality results within given time and resource constraints, and to make individual members understand the benefits of the program’s core mission. As one of the founders said (www.tropicaldisease.org/): Generally speaking, I’m interested in the web and emerging technologies, and how these can be applied to the scientific process. Our program is an excellent example of this, and potentially a way to do a lot of good, hence my interest. The open source leaders’ primary locus of control and action occurred at the improving level, where their concern was to sponsor the project by providing the resources for performing the improvement actions. Maintaining uniqueness and direction through monitoring progress and promoting the program’s core mission and values throughout the organization took place at this level. For example, during one conversation, our open source leaders talked about the way the program “fills the current gap in early-stage drug discovery.” It also aims to “tip the economics of developing downstream drugs.” As such, it provides a service to sponsors and the virtual pharmas they have funded to manage development. They also recognized that their customers’ concerns had to be taken into consideration if their program was to be maximally effective. They needed pharmaceutical and biotech companies to commit their scientists to the effort, to provide access to proprietary data and to grant funding. For example, in one conversation (discussion on www.thesynapticleap.org), our open source leaders discussed which types of scientist and areas of science were important. “Do we have specific examples of scientists who will (or ought to) be involved?” They felt the program would need nonscientists as well: Social scientists and law professors will be helpful in designing solutions to governance and IP [intellectual property] policy questions. Lawyers will be helpful if (a) the program’s site decides to adopt Clickwrap licenses restricting what people do with its discoveries and (b) the program negotiates confidentiality agreements in order to obtain access to proprietary data. (www.tropicaldisease.org/) This is a key concept in the commitment network formation, where 140

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different organizations must also be networked into the program. For example, our open source leaders feared that university administrators would be concerned that scientists were contributing information that could be patented by the university. For this reason, each operative level also included external actors working in joint collaboration with groups of university researchers and internal actors within the program. Operating actors were represented by the various scientists, lawyers, administrators, sponsors and other volunteers who made up the network. These program participants managed and implemented planned process improvement actions. It is these projects that ultimately adopted new behavior patterns. Commitment drivers play an important part in structure because the development of commitment is influenced by various drivers. Also the resulting commitment works to strengthen or weaken the drivers. A potential driver is anything affecting the commitment of the actors. Certain drivers, therefore, are more relevant than others. For example, newcomers joining the program’s technical projects had to demonstrate some level of technical expertise as well as an understanding of what the community expected in terms of behavior, in order to make a contribution to technical development. Our open source leaders believed that their program needed to be targeted toward scientists from universities and industries who “should want to join for the reasons that people often join open source projects (enjoyment from doing creative tasks, recognition, altruism and so on).” The open source leaders wanted to attract scientists who were eager to increase the pace of their career development by joining the open source community. They also realized the importance of attracting a range of skills such as social scientists and law professors who would contribute to designing solutions to governance and IP policy questions. In structures, we find four distinct types of commitment driver: 1 The project driver, which reflects the objective features of the program such as costs and benefits. Project drivers indicate the key reasons for the program’s existence. Typical behaviors at this level tend to be high transferability of skills and increasing rates of creative thinking and innovative ideas. 2 The psychological drivers, which involve key individuals in the program. They reflect properties such as the need for identity as an achiever and past historical success. Behaviors emanating from psychological drivers are high levels of work satisfaction and a 141

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feeling of increased breadth and scope of work, high levels of personal fulfillment and competence. 3 The social driver, which originates from group integrative interaction rather than individual action. These drivers are power and politics and identification with the program itself. Behavioral components add up to competencies, both tangible and intangible, which are almost impossible to reciprocate and replicate. 4 The contextual driver, which represents the conditions surrounding the program, in other words, the environment within which the actors integratively interact. Behavioral characteristics include communication systems, fairness of policies and practices, and reward and recognition schemes that reflect the values and operating principles of the program. These tend to be set by our open source leaders and their consistency with the operating principles ensures sustainability throughout the duration of the program. Other key aspects of the constitutive power of structure are concerns and actions that integratively interact to form emergent commitments. It is important to note, however, that action by itself does not necessarily bring about commitment but is often interpreted as a sign. So we might say that an actor in an open source community will demonstrate commitment not by results alone, but by the force and direction of their actions. After all, we might be highly committed to a cause yet unable to deliver the results. That doesn’t mean we are any less committed, but we are simply unable, not unwilling, to overcome the obstacles in our way. So commitment targets should be actions rather than objects, as it is virtually impossible to describe commitment in any terms other than your inclination to act in a given way toward a particular commitment target. In the case of our open source leaders, their program showed high levels of commitments applied to satisfying concerns. For example, early conversations among our open source leaders centered on the improving and integrating levels during the initial program set up. This was especially so in the communications structure where, in an attempt to address concerns for a communications platform, one open source leader volunteered to approach her employer, saying: In principle, GPD Publishing Group may be able to provide a home for the site. I’d need to check this with the right colleagues once we’ve worked out what kind of site we’re talking about. 142

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The whole tenor of her conversation demonstrated a deep psychological need to overcome the concern that communications was a key component of the programs initial success. Behaviors like this demonstrate the importance of commitment among open source leaders in the initial stages of setting up a venture. For example, they expressed their concern that initial conditions were established such that potential joiners would recognize the benefits of membership. As one person said: If the program is able to keep data confidential, joining will cost nothing. Companies will receive benefits in terms of moral satisfaction, keeping employee/scientists happy, and good publicity on a topic that is politically sensitive for them. Benefits should therefore outweigh costs. Other key elements in structure are synergistic interactions and emergent outcomes. They are important because it has been shown that it is on the basis of outcomes that future integrative interactions are planned. For example, if the outcome of an integrative interaction was considered unsatisfactory for the sponsor, resources could easily have been withdrawn and the project canceled. Therefore, an outcome had an influence on its operating environment, in other words on concerns and actions and drivers. In a study on implementing the Lotus Notes groupware tool in an organization, Wanda Orlikowski (1992) made the distinction between intended and unintended outcomes produced by this groupware tool for the organization. Similarly, open source program activities lead to intended and unintended outcomes, which affected their drivers, concerns and future actions. In the program, unintended outcomes usually took the form of things like dissatisfaction with an introduced drug target, which might subsequently lead to difficulties in the cooperation between different operations. Unintended outcomes may also be positive. For example, accidental discoveries may clear the way for a range of new program activities that were not initially intended. The commitment network aspect of structure identifies the main analytical elements used for explaining the commitment processes in our open source case. Concern, as we mentioned previously, is an ongoing generalization of needs, which guides actors’ attention to certain targets. For example, our open source leaders were concerned about incentives to attract members: A key goal will be to satisfy companies that their data will, in fact, be 143

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confidential. Although it is easy to dream up such options, it will be much more practical to have this discussion directly with prospective partners. The program’s tasks were initiated for specific reasons, which we interpreted to be the concerns that had been found to cause problems to civilized society in general and the pharmaceutical industry in particular. Therefore, a task had to embody a concern that directed the actions of those involved in it. If actions are pursued without acknowledging the driving concern, it is likely that the program would face fundamental problems due to its failure to meet the needs of some specific concerns. For example, early on, participants were concerned that the program would be viewed as an attempt to undermine proprietary drug development and therefore to be against their long-term interests. One open source leader responded by saying: I suppose you’d have to ask them. I think the threat to their multibillion dollar enterprise is fairly limited. The main thing we do is take pressure off with respect to LDC [least developed countries] issues. My guess is that we’re a net plus for them. (www.tropicaldisease.org/) Another key concern was the establishment of a communication platform to increase the frequency and effectiveness of idea sharing, theory generation and knowledge dissemination. It was determined that this could be achieved by the formation of a home page. Thus, the focus of program concern was the effectiveness of the communications activity and the means used for achieving the goal was the establishment of a program home page. This concern was then transferred to the operational level of the commitment network for action. In addition, the concern had to be transferred to the improving level of the commitment network in order to ensure the availability of financial and human resources for executing it. The means by which improving and operating commitment networks are changed are the core elements of program itself. These program elements constitute the structure and the means needed to perform program activities through which the different levels of commitment networks change. The program’s commitment processes were concerned with studying how the program’s concerns and subsequent actions came about in an actor’s commitment networks. This is achieved when the changes in 144

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commitment drivers and forms are identified in each program phase along with the resulting outcomes. Applying the rule of structure to our open source leaders, we find some important indicators of the skills required to transform intentional thinking into real products and services. Central to this structure is the skillful formation of networks of commitments to manage the concerns and motivations of its members as they seek identity as the ones who revolutionized the world of drug discovery. Typically, commitment networks operate at three levels – improving, integrating, and operating – and contain actors, drivers, concerns, actions, and outcomes at each level. In our example, we can see that an important motivator for people is the need for inclusion through gaining the status of a valued member of the community. They gained inclusion through continually monitoring and adapting to the perceptions of others. A second element was the belief that the Internet increases the capacity to form and manage networks of commitments and, third, that individual and corporate identity is based on the perceived strength of a commitment to address the specific concerns of the community. Often this does not become clear until expressed by the thankful party following the successful outcome of the committed action. As Søren Kierkegaard (1985) reminded us, our primary access to reality is through our involved action. The way things show up for a detached thinker is a partial and distorted version of the way things show up to a committed individual. Our case reveals that personal identity is ambiguous and has many definitions. For example, it can be used to: ■ ■

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distinguish human beings from other things pick out the collection of features, like fingerprints, that enable the reidentification of people indicate the ego as the source of our intentions describe a person’s public reputation, that is, what the public recognizes as important about a person’s life describe the result of an individual’s commitment to whatever person or cause gives meaning and direction to that person’s life.

So the structural aspects of open source leadership suggest that we should seek to satisfy the need people have for public recognition and to show how that recognition was earned through their commitment to whatever cause gave meaning and direction to their lives. 145

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In open source communities, it is essential that their leaders recognize that people will primarily join for reasons of identity creation through involvement in communal practices in general and on the view of others as they are directed toward them in particular. Our sense of self-identity, so far as it relates to something important beyond mere coping with our environment, requires that we be recognized by others and that we are socialized into norms for right behavior according to which our actions receive positive and negative sanctions by our communities. Self-image is a reflexive process that has continuity by virtue of a person’s ability to maintain an ongoing sense-making narrative, such that its orientation in the past allows anticipation for the future. As Richardson (2008) says, “they know they have a place to hang their hats.”

REFLECTIVE NARRATIVE 1 When it comes to getting things done, which three people in your life do you trust the least? ■

What is the basis for this assessment?

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Is this a personal assessment or a cultural assessment?

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Is your distrust an issue of sincerity, reliability, or competence?

2 Can you recall a time when you asked somebody to do something they were not competent to do? ■ ■

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What did that cost you? How did this affect your assessment of their competence in other areas? How did this affect your perception of this person’s reliability or sincerity?

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Our intention, or directed energy, has been to show the importance of attention, or awakened awareness, to the process of accessing our pure spiritual potential and that of the people we lead. We have made a case for this being the only way humans are able to break free from the narrow confines of cognition and awaken to the unbounded possibilities existing in our universe. We have also made a case for changing leadership values and practice to reflect a more appropriate way of dealing effectively with the challenges presented by today’s digital networked world. We conclude that, contrary to popular opinion, the skills we propose are not so much provoked by leadership education, as they are evoked from a deep emotional feel for leading and leadership that we call “open source leadership.” While leaders have been around for thousands of years, we have attempted to show how the old rules of leadership are no longer helpful in dealing with the new games of the 21st century. From political leaders like Alexander the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte to business leaders like Pierre Omidyar and Steve Jobs, the idea that good leadership is about achieving predictability and control, while being necessary, is no longer sufficient, given the massive changes in the shape of the world economy and their impact on our political systems, our industrial and environmental landscape, our socioeconomic structures, and our personal relationships. In the three types of organization studied – the enterprise, public service and the volunteer community – we discovered patterns of leadership practice that not only yielded remarkable results, but also created a deep sense of meaning and identity for those involved. The practices we observed were neither random nor carefully thought through in advance. They revealed an ability to shape outcomes while having a positive influence on the wholesomeness, preciousness, and freshness of life’s potential for all those involved and impacted by their actions. We have combined these essential patterns into three phenomenal 147

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identities: the entrepreneur, the public servant, and the community leader. It has not been our intention to offer another theory of leadership, nor have we attempted to provide a manual on how to succeed in the three organizational cultures or “disclosive spaces” studied. Instead, we have attempted to present our ideas in ways that will inspire you to embark on a journey of self-discovery aimed at enhancing your skills as an open source leader. We borrowed the concept of “disclosive space” from Heidegger’s (1962[1927]) account of “worldhood” in Being and Time. For Heidegger, a world had three characteristics or interrelated elements designed to perform a specific set of tasks. According to him, these are aligned to a specific purpose and in their performance, the actors acquire an identity and feeling of self-worth. We refer to the worlds, subworlds and local worlds studied as “disclosive” spaces because the people who occupy them engage in narratives that disclose or shape what can and cannot be said and, as a consequence, revealed. Remember the “moonwalking bear”? Or Bill Gates’ famous statement that “640k should be enough memory for anybody”? The “disclosive” space he occupied in 1981 did not allow for the possibility that we could enjoy the awesome computing power of terabytes of memory that we take for granted today. It is the skill required to reveal these new worlds of possibility while balancing predictability and control with openness to multiple sources of creativity and innovation that we describe here as being essential in open source leadership. We invite you to read our book with a critical eye in the hope that you will recognize those moments when our words evoke a deep sense of connection with past experiences as well as moments when you feel provoked by serious disconnects with your strongly held beliefs about the way things are. Above all, it is our wish that our words will compel you to undertake a voyage to discover new worlds of possibility, previously beyond your wildest dreams. We have compared and contrasted our three phenomenal leaders and then shown how each supports four fundamental rules of the universe, which lead to great success and create abundance in their lives and the lives of those who work with them: ■

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Our phenomenal leaders cause discontinuity in a “disclosive” space to reveal new worlds of genuinely new opportunity rather than repeating the patterns of the past. They generate the capacity to open hearts and minds to the universe’s 148

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abundance of possibilities and create the context to narrow these down into a selected few powerful opportunities. They are selective and timely in their pursuit of those opportunities, knowing when to make things happen and when to let things happen. They skillfully structure human and technical processes, structures and systems to make the best use of “disclosive” space and passing time.

The “coherent narratives” they create are enabled by Internet and communications technologies, enabling integrative interactions among and across networks of people. Like ripples on the surface of a lake of deep spiritual potential, these coherent narratives extend out to networks of narratives involving customers, customers’ customers, complementors, partners and suppliers and a host of other interested actors. The coherence of these narratives leads to lower costs, increased quality, provides innovative solutions to intractable problems and shapes the practices of a wider society at national and international levels. We offer compelling evidence to show that remarkable organizations are led by people who intentionally set out to satisfy the concerns of individuals and the communities within which they live. They leverage the creative adaptability of people through committed speaking and acting, and generate interest, caring and willingness among employees, customers, customer’s customers, suppliers, distributors, communities, communities of communities and nations. They continually challenge the taken-for-granted assumptions about the values and customs that shape and define the “narratives of their disclosive spaces.” They initiate changes that improve the quality of life for themselves and those whose lives they touch. Their essential purpose is nothing less than transformational, in that they change the way the world occurs to people. They do this by creating structures of synergistic interaction that produce emergent products that far exceed the sum of the individual parts. We argue that these organizations are not shaped by accident but are intentionally designed. They embody a passion to transform the way the world occurs to people and instill an emotional connection through trusting and compassionate relationships based on the collective and committed words of their members. As business practice changes from pure product differentiation to include new sources of wealth creation based on the connectivity 149

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of our digital networked world, we have shown how contemporary business strategies are changing to reflect this desire to innovatively restructure customer relationships. Open source leaders are skilled at segmenting their customer bases more creatively and delivering value propositions that place customers center stage. Open source leaders think and act like entrepreneurs, using Internet and communications technologies not only to enable their efforts, but also to form new value propositions previously unimagined. They deliver these new propositions through networks of people emotionally committed to satisfying the concerns of stakeholders within and outside the organization and cultivating gratitude, intimacy, and humility. In creating our phenomenal entrepreneur, we have studied the behaviors of people like Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Carlos Ghosn, and many more whose names we are unable to mention. All these people successfully lead transformations as a matter of routine. In the case of Ghosn, who led the successful alliance between Renault and Nissan, so many of the problems encountered could be traced back to misplaced assumptions or “incoherent narratives” about tasks such as capacity management, corporate mission and identity, and the self-esteem of members. All these elements combined to make a “disclosive” space completely out of tune with the challenges of running a viable global automotive business. Like so many of the open source leaders studied, Ghosn’s success was to speak the unspeakable and to disclose a new world of possibility, which, under his leadership, the Renault-Nissan alliance took advantage of and ultimately gained success from. In the public sector, we discovered patterns of leadership practice that promoted a blend of self-organization and command and control, where people freely collaborate toward the successful achievement of shared goals without being oppressively directed. In these organizations, we found numerous examples where everyone who participated shared the decision-making authority. While no one person had all the authority, the resulting shared authority acted like a magnetic force holding them together. By freeing people to self-direct, the open source leaders we met gave powerful examples of how an organization can function naturally, as a complex adaptive system. Starting small and gathering momentum, these leaders focused their energies and connected people with one another in a “disclosive” space that generated powerful synergies. They took advantage of noise and serendipity rather than dampening or eliminating noise and ignoring unanticipated outcomes. 150

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In our world of public service, feedback mechanisms enabled players to listen to noise and incorporate insights that noise provided. They profited by taking advantage of serendipitous events as they occurred and evolved by proximate logic, building on already existing structures and relationships. As we described in the case of our social community leaders, taking on the challenge of providing something the major pharmaceutical companies were neither willing nor able to provide required the synergistic interactive efforts of a whole host of experts who made up a volunteer community containing medical biologists, lawyers, entrepreneurs and healthcare activists who voluntarily and often without reward collaborated on the task of seeking improvements where traditional manufacturer-centric models had failed. Rather than start from a completely clean slate, they adopted an emergent approach and borrowed the open source methods that had been so successful in another area of technology, such as software development. Open source approaches had also been used successfully in biotechnology and international efforts to sequence the human genome as well as bioinformatics – where biology interactively integrates with information technology, carrying out biological research using supercomputers rather than test tubes. Our open source leader in the social community borrowed other ideas when he placed all the resulting data in the public domain rather than making it proprietary through the patenting process. Also within the bioinformatics community, software code and databases were often swapped on “you share, I share” terms, for the greater good of all. The reason these synergistically interacting communities worked so well was their offer of hope to people who collectively did not have sufficient critical mass to justify the enormous expense of developing new drugs. While in the USA the Orphan Drug Act did offer some financial incentive to develop drugs for small numbers of patients, there was still plenty of scope for improvement. We have demonstrated how open source communities and their leaders have a vital role to play in the future when it comes to discovering cures for diseases like malaria, Parkinson’s disease and ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). We have offered a compelling reason to reconsider taken-for-granted assumptions about leadership in these circumstances. We believe that such a reconsideration is timely because it proves that the essence of leadership is not just about coordinating action but also about creatively designing and sustaining a “disclosive” space where action is regarded as worthwhile and the quality of 151

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life highly valued. We have argued that such skills cannot be taught by traditional educational methods but are best achieved through the action and reflection of working itself. By comparing and contrasting the leadership practices across our three organizational groupings – the enterprise, the healthcare system and the user innovation community, we find they are a radical departure from the industrial clock logic methods of the past and we offer compelling evidence that applying these skills will deliver high performance results. We show that such application is reflected in strategies that are the antithesis of reductionist, linear and narrowly disciplined principles that underpin leadership practices. Through our three phenomenal leaders, we show how nuanced and pluralistic practice is reflective of the real world of the open source leaders we studied. We show how it reflects a need to be comfortable with uncertainty, surprise and constant change. We show how being infinitely improvisational helps them to exchange traditional clock logic narratives – based on devaluing and mistrust – with collaborative and coherent narratives that stress the importance of leadership aimed at developing the capacity to engage the innate will and potential of people into highly creative, integrative interactive networks. We argue that these qualities are essential for success in the emerging digital networked economy and that winning will increasingly depend on a leader’s ability to form and reform rich networks of commitments that deliver value by addressing the deep concerns of their members and those they serve. Throughout the book, we have attempted to walk the fine line between reality and spirituality in a way reflective of Rumi’s poem about “two reeds drink from one stream. One is hollow the other is sugar cane” (quoted in Harvey, 2000, p. 145). While not wishing to offend, we offer two reeds for you to sample. We cannot ignore the deeply spiritual nature of the beliefs and practices described by the people we met. Much of what we heard and saw led us to the conclusion that, as Chopra (2008, p. 60) tells us in his book The Third Jesus: pure and sweet spiritual consciousness is the source of all creation and we humans are pure spiritual potential seeking expression from the unmanifest to the manifest. The evidence has deeply influenced the foundational essence of this book and has led us to conclude that our true or first nature is 152

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one of pure spiritual potential and when we align with the power that manifests everything in the universe, the results are nothing short of miraculous. This was evidenced in the dramatic account by Bolte Taylor (2006), in her book My Stroke of Insight, of the stroke that shut down the left hemisphere of her brain. As the damaged left side of her brain – the rational, grounded, detail- and time-oriented side – swung in and out of function, Bolte Taylor alternated between two distinct and opposite realties: the euphoric nirvana of the intuitive and kinesthetic right brain, in which she felt a sense of complete wellbeing and peace; and the logical, sequential left brain, which recognized that she was having a stroke. This “nirvana” experience is similar to what Rumi calls “the light,” which comes from beyond and while it shines through many lamps, or people, it is the same light. He encourages us not to become lost in the lamps, which highlight the difference in people and things rather than the things we share in common or our pure synergistic interactive energy. Rumi’s words offer encouragement to those of us seeking the light of our pure potential and that of others and in so doing attaining what some might call “grace,” or “enlightenment.” Bolte Taylor’s stroke of insight was that the feeling of nirvana is never more than a mere thought away. By stepping into “the gap” of stillness and silence, we can all uncover our deep spiritual potential and the immense creativity that is so often sidelined by our logical left brain’s chatter. Rumi (quoted in Harvey, 2000, p. 284) tells us: O Sun, fill our house once more with light! Make happy all your friends and blind your foes! Rise from behind the hill, transform the stones to rubies and the sour grapes to wine! O Sun, make our vineyard fresh again, and fill the steppes with houris and green cloaks! Physician of the lovers, heaven’s lamp! Rescues the lovers! Help the suffering! Show but your face – the world is filled with light! But if you cover it, it’s the darkest night! We also recounted how this theme is repeated in Hawking’s (2001, p. 5) The Universe in a Nutshell, where he tells us: The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired. Using Wilber’s (1997) integral approach, we were able to reach beyond 153

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the lamps to view the light of convergence across a wide range of disciplines that consciousness is pure, creative potential and that consciousness creates via thought. Consciousness exists independently of physical bodies – it is the eternal, directing and animating principle of the universe. In their book The Vibrational Universe, Kenneth James and Michael MacLean (2005, p. 86) tell us that “it’s possible to become a conscious creator, for the universe is designed to support our decisions.” In similar fashion, Hawkins (2005, p. 83) tells us that “the universe is a field of consciousness.” The implications for open source leadership are enormous for, as Bolte Taylor says, we are in constant communication with the world around us through the synergistic interactive processing of our right brain. The energy we put out into the universe is what we get back from the universe. Is it any wonder that social networking has taken off in such a big way? While setting up structures of synergistic interaction, it is also important to note that open source leaders use time and space creatively because of the time lag between inception and manifestation of an idea. In other words, the creative process takes time and requires belief without evidence. We concluded by comparing and contrasting the different circumstances of our paradigmatic open source leaders to show how, although each is a different lamp operating in very different circumstances, their light is the same. In our case, the light is symbolic of the four universal rules of open source leadership – attention, awareness, intention, and structure. These universal rules reflect, as Hawking tells us, the existence of “a certain underlying order” in the universe. We have discovered that open source leaders follow that order through the application of the four universal trinities and in doing so, awaken a level of consciousness available to us all yet accessed by so few. In other words, because these are universal rules, they are readily available and can be used to bring about positive, creative and lasting change. This means we must awaken our consciousness from within rather than attempting to cram it in from without. Consequently, we have asked you to read these pages with a critical eye, respecting the Buddhist belief that “the finger that points at the moon is not the moon.” In other words, we ask you not to take our word for anything you have read here, but to see for yourself. We offer you our truth about open source leadership in order that you might have a basis on which to reach your own conclusions. We have asked you to do no more than see for yourself. 154

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Accordingly, we ask that as you experience our words from your four bodies – physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual – you allow awareness to emerge from the stillness and oneness of your creative right brain. When you finally give voice to your awareness, we encourage you to consider where there is synergy, to open your mind to the possibilities that this new consciousness makes available. Where there is resistance, we ask you to go deeper into its nature to see if that too could be an awakening presence of a new domain of possibility. In the end, we ask you to seek out those feelings and thoughts that compel you to move in radically new directions, to become intentional about pursuing new opportunities, and to structure your lives differently in order to manifest the new opportunities you pursue. This awakened space presents limitless horizons of possibility, which must be shaped by the time we believe we have available to realize them and which requires great patience. We believe that presence and patience have something to do with recognizing opportunities as they arise and slowing down time to realize them. This we believe is the essence of open source leadership because it allows us to break free from the conditioned patterns of our past to create entirely new worlds of opportunity. A second important element we have encouraged you to consider in open source leadership is its synergistic interactive emergent quality, which challenges the belief that, no matter how independent you may think you are and how isolated your actions may seem, nothing could be further from the truth. Independence is an illusion, a trick of the eye, and you only have to look at incidents like the 1965 power outage in New York City, which resulted in an increase in the birth rate nine months later, to see that we are all in the same soup. If you don’t believe us, try driving your car for one day without using reverse gear. Count the number of times you enter a parking space the wrong way and you can’t reverse out. Then think how many people you will have to ask for help to push it out. The truth is that each of us is an integral part of a complex system of synergistic interaction. As Buddhist monk and philosopher Thich Nhat Hanh (1991, p. 86) tells us in his book The Miracle of Mindfulness, the subject of knowledge cannot exist independently from the object of knowledge: To see is to see something. To hear is to hear something. To be angry is to be angry about something. 155

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When the object of knowledge is not present, there can be no subject of knowledge. As the Buddhist saying goes: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” So as reality is indivisible and cannot be cut into pieces with separate existences of their own, neither can open source leadership. It has an integratively interactive quality, which Koestler (1967) calls “holonic” – in other words, it is totally integrated. This means that the open source leader is a whole that is simultaneously part of some other whole, like a whole atom is part of a whole molecule and a whole molecule is part of a whole cell, and so on. But individual “holons” always exist in communities of similar holons. In fact, the very existence of individual holons in many ways depends on communities of other holons that, if nothing else, provide the background fields in which individual holons can exist. In his book The Self-organizing Universe, Erich Jantsch (1980) points out that every “microevent” or individual holon exists embedded in a corresponding “macroevent” or community or collective of similarly structured holons. This is shown in Figure 8.1.

Open source leader

Open source networks

Networks of networks

FIGURE 8.1 Networks of networks

Based on this holonic principle of integrative interactive emergence, we have stressed the importance of knowing that every open source leader comes from a community that includes family, school, church, society, and this community came from earlier communities and communities of communities, and our physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual makeup is inextricably linked to and shaped by the history of these synergistic interactions. The emergent prod156

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ucts from these interactions shape the world we bring forth with others. This includes the networks the open source leader creates, which attract and become an integral part of even larger networks of networks, each influencing and being influenced by their presence and representations of one another. For example, in Chapter 7, we gave an account of the open source leaders who adopted a computational approach to biology borrowed from an entirely different set of networks concerned with the development of, among other things, free and open software. Once underway, these communities began to synergistically interact, sharing information, knowledge and skills that produced emergent products greater than the sum of their individual parts. The fortunate recipients of these emergent products were people in poor nations gaining access to life-saving drugs. The awareness of network members of the possibilities inherent in the convergence of computing and biology led them to intentionally select opportunities to apply these techniques to their own projects. So it is important to realize that the world we occupy is profoundly interconnected and the consequences of our synergistic interactions – as individuals and as collections of individuals – have a powerful emergent quality, which significantly impacts the lives of others and the environment which supports us. It is important to view the open source leadership model, shown in Figure 8.2, from this holonic perspective, beginning with your own background of integrative interactions and understanding how these have influenced who you are and your perspective on the world, and how the emergent consequences of this chain of integrative interactions have shaped who you are now. And because of the holon effect, who you are further shapes the integrative interactions that you participate in, which in turn shape other networks of integrative interaction – and so on and on it goes. Essentially, it is like dropping a pebble into a lake and watching the ripples radiate out further and further across its surface. The power of these synergistic interactions is a kind of explosion of emergent creativity similar to that depicted mathematically by Leonardo of Pisa (also known as Fibonacci). In his 1202 book Liber Abaci, Fibonacci introduced the sequence, which states that after two starting values, each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers. So the first number of the sequence is 0, the second number is 1, and each subsequent number is equal to the sum of the previous two numbers of the sequence itself, yielding a sequence of 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 … to infinity. The Fibonacci sequence shows how the progressively produc157

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tive process uses what it produces and is a perfect illustration of the way open source leadership can create emergent products that are greater than the sum of the individual parts. In our open source leadership model (see Figure 8.2), we show how the four trinities integrate or incorporate their products into further processing through which they progress. In nature, this sequence occurs in daisies, sunflowers, pine cones, sea shells, mating rabbits, teeth, horns, claws, snail shells, human finger prints, and spiral galaxies. They are, like our universal rules of open source leadership, informed by the Fibonacci sequence.

Organismic potential

Unbounded possibility Space

Opportunity

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FIGURE 8.2 Open source leadership model

Our search yielded a “four-quadrant” model of consciousness and its development (the four quadrants being intention, structure, attention and awareness). Each of these four dimensions was found to unfold in a sequence of nine possible combinations of major stages or levels, and these 36 major levels yielded a theory of leadership that is comprehensive in its nature and scope. This model is used to indicate how this synthesis can inform the practice we call “open source leadership.” The model shows how the four skills of open source leadership – awareness, attention, intention, structure – each form the keystone of trinities that synergistically interact to produce emergent products greater than the sum of the individual parts. If we take the first trinity of pure spiritual potential, space and attention, we find this applied in our account of Barack Obama whose focus of attention has been on the disharmony in the campaigns of his rivals (see Talbot, 2008). This led him to the conclusion that what was missing was a more democratic way of engaging the people of America, many of whom are tired of the same old rhetoric from the same old faces, who are following the same old campaign strategies handed down through generations 158

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of the same old people. Likewise our entrepreneur tells us he is proud of the fact that he is a “fixer and an improver” – never satisfied with anything. “Give me an idea,” he says, “and I will try to improve on it.” His mission in life is to be open and receptive to change, as he puts it, “to trust and be open to the spiritual guidance from within.” As Richardson (2008) says, “your capacity to see what is needed arises from your potential to be what is needed.” Likewise, with our user innovation community, the focus of their attention was on the disharmony caused by their feeling of injustice in the way the needs of poor people with tropical diseases and people whose numbers were considered too small to warrant research by the large pharmaceutical companies were overlooked. In the case of Obama, his attention focused on the disharmony between what he felt people wanted and what they were actually getting from the traditional establishment. This caused an integrative interaction between space, that is, the states, towns, villages and streets of America where his prospective constituents lived, and the pure spiritual potential of his supporters who held similar concerns and were prepared to support him in finding radically new ways of doing old things. This inevitably led to an emergent awareness of new possibilities and to the investigation of the emergent opportunities existing in web-based political and community organizing. In effect, his attention and awareness led directly to an intentional strategy to design his campaign in such a way as to ride a new wave of political democratization. Obama’s actions, along with those of our phenomenal entrepreneur and social activist, illustrate the evolutionary consequences of people and technology interacting synergistically to generate emergent products that are greater than the sum of their contributing parts. Three interact integratively to generate one that is greater than three. As Richardson (2008) tells us: All of the trinities – matter, radiance and spacetime; particles, waves and strings; past, present and future; solid, liquid and gaseous phases of material manifestation; and many others – are representations of this second order presentation of the universe’s presence. The interactive balance between form, field and flow and matter, radiance and spacetime, mind, heart and body that accords with a synergy–entropy ratio of one is optimal for maximal integrative– interactive-emergence – maximal creativity. This naturally results 159

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in the quantum leaps of evolutionary progress. Human awareness can facilitate this balance. In fact the emotional reality of an individual human being is exquisitely attuned to it. Relating to emotion, rather than from it, brings awareness into an optimal position to facilitate creativity. Until we wrote this book, there had been no real definition of open source leadership. The closest we came was in the Oxford English Dictionary, which offers a definition of open, source and leadership, but nowhere could we find a definition of open source leadership. For open we find – “Of a space: not enclosed or confined: not walled, fenced, or otherwise shut in: to which there is free access or passage on all or nearly all sides.” For source, we find – “the upward flight of a hawk. A person who is or thing which is the chief or prime cause of a specified condition, quality or emotion, etc, a place where such a condition originates.” For leadership, we find – “the ability to affect human behavior so as to accomplish a mission – influencing a group of people to move toward its goal setting or goal achievement.” In Wikipedia, we find the following definition of open source: A developmental methodology which offers practical accessibility to a product’s source (goods and knowledge). Some consider open source as one of various possible design approaches, while others consider it a critical strategic element of their operations. Before open source became widely adopted, developers and producers used a variety of phrases to describe the concept; the term “open source” gained popularity with the rise of the Internet, which provided access to diverse production models, communication paths, and interactive communities. So if open source and leadership have yet to be mentioned together, we offer this book as an open source leadership model of operating and decision making, which allows concurrent input of different agendas, approaches and priorities, and differs from the more closed, centralized models of development. We believe the time is right for a new language of leadership, one which describes an evolving consciousness about the importance of a new kind of leader – one who is able to synergistically interact the energies of people to produce emergent creativity that will ultimately save our planet. We believe the challenge is of that magnitude – a transformation in the way we relate to our environment 160

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and its inhabitants. What is of special interest is the way old models of competition and survival of the fittest are being challenged and in some cases replaced altogether by newer models of collaboration characterized by openness and transparency. Such collaboration allows ideas, information and action to flow across an ever widening and inclusive range of people and professions such as biology, technology, commerce and sociology. These open source communities are bringing about alternative ways of thinking and acting, which reflect the natural tendency of our world to be interdependent and emergent. For example, in their paper, “Norms-based intellectual property systems: the case of French chefs,” Eric von Hippel and Emmanuelle Fauchart (2006) tell us about a group of French chefs who use social norms to protect creativity without resorting to intellectual property rights. As you may know, being awarded the famed Michelin stars on a scale from 1 to 5 can transform a regular restaurant into a place of great prestige and profits. Similarly, losing a star can have quite the opposite effect. Since there is so much money riding on the quality of food served in top French restaurants, why aren’t the recipes and food preparation techniques used by great French chefs protected by copyrights, patents or trade secret law? The answer, as these researchers discovered, is “that the social norms of the culinary professionals are a more effective tool for protecting the ‘proprietary’ interests of top-flight chefs.” The three strong social norms that ensure that the culinary sharing works effectively are: 1 A chef must not copy another chef’s recipe innovation exactly ... The community acknowledges the right of a recipe inventor to exclude others from practicing his or her invention, even if all the information required to do so is publicly available. 2 If a chef reveals recipe-related secret information to a colleague, that chef must not pass the information on to others without permission. 3 Colleagues must credit developers of significant recipes (or techniques) as the authors of that information. (von Hippel and Fauchart, 2006, p. 6) Any chef who violates these norms is stigmatized or even ostracized by the community. And everyone else in the community is dutybound to refuse to pass along any further information to those who violate the norms. 161

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Von Hippel and Fauchart (2006, p. 6) tell us: What is fascinating about these stories is that the social norms are rarely written down or explicitly discussed and other chefs who may have no stake in the dispute are socially obliged to punish transgressors in order to maintain their own community standing. It’s also interesting how “selective revealing” of proprietary information builds up a reservoir of trust among members of the community. This in turn encourages participants to share more information, and more valuable information, with each other. A community with strong bonds of social trust thereby becomes an engine of wealthcreation in ways that the market with its money-based relationships can never replicate. The implications are huge for this type of integrative interactive emergent creativity, whether entrepreneurial, philanthropic, not-forprofit or any other number of quickly growing networks. However, it is essential that we are prepared to completely rethink our takenfor-granted assumptions about the way things work. The economies of collaborative action enabled by distributed computing technology have radically shifted the relationship of knowledge to creativity. We have lived for too long in a world of reengineered transaction cost reduction, preferring the more tangible results of our labors to prevail over the less tangible creative power of people. Indeed, this is one of the greatest challenges faced by companies like Google – as they grow larger, they potentially fall victim to their own success. They do a remarkable job in growing from small, private companies to large corporate entities with thousands of people but in doing so they are challenged to maintain that small company feel based on synergistic, interactive emergent creativity. This was a way of life after all, a fundamental part of a startup – like innovation cultures. For Google executives, the big challenge is to know how to maintain their growth and creativity by leveraging the power of their intellectual assets. Google executives realize that because they are hiring out of the same talent pool as their competitors, they must be creative in maintaining financial and other incentives to motivate and retain their highly skilled people. While it is undoubtedly harder to make a difference in a company of Google’s current scale, one way they can enable this is to maintain focus on the quality of their integrative interactions through open source leadership. They can do this by 162

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keeping internal teams nimble, while ensuring they remain relatively small so that clock logic decision making does not slow down entrepreneurial minds. Other open source leadership practices involve the encouragement of their people to start up independent initiatives by providing the time and resources to pursue new ideas. While small teams keep the entrepreneurial culture going, these are usually the first structures to go when revenue growth slows down and companies face pressure from Wall Street. The convergence of open source leadership and the World Wide Web has transformed our lives and our intrapersonal, transpersonal and interpersonal relationships. From the perspective of our phenomenal open source leaders, we find examples of early pioneers like AOL’s Steve Case and eBay’s Pierre Omidyar, who not only demonstrate the skillful synergistic interaction of the trinity of pure spiritual potential, space and attention but also that of awareness, pure spiritual potential and opportunity. Each of these trinities has been driven by their focused intention to synergistically integrate opportunity and time and transform society for the common wealth of all. Indeed, Omidyar eschewed the temptation of billionaire status by taking what he felt was necessary to live a comfortable life and giving the remainder back through his Omidyar Network, based on his belief that every person has the potential to make a difference. Since its foundation, the network has collaborated with its partners to create opportunities for people to tap into their potential, to achieve awakened consciousness and, as a consequence, manifest creative opportunities that have improved their own lives and made powerful, lasting contributions to the lives of others in their communities. This new wave of democratization extends beyond the immediate community to touch other communities on a global scale. Take, for example, the development of workflow platforms software that allows people in India to do tax returns for UK citizens in Manchester. The person who takes your order for a pizza in Missouri is actually 900 miles away in Colorado Springs. This is indeed a new game with new rules as advances in communications technology reshape the integrative interactions of people on a global scale. In Thomas Friedman’s (2005) book The World is Flat, we are offered a lens that informs us of the magnitude of the economic and technological implications of an interconnected world on the geopolitical future. No one owns open source technology but everyone can use it, adapt it, and license the adaptations in what has 163

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now become known as the “commons” – a public space available to all, yet owned by no one. The web-based encyclopedia Wikipedia and our open source leaders in the tropical disease network, mentioned in Chapter 7, are remarkable examples of an open and collaborative approach to knowledge creation. Those who work in technology live in a world where the biggest competitor today may become your strongest ally tomorrow. Take, for example, Google’s Open Handset Alliance, a group of normally competing wireless technology companies including Sprint, T-Mobile, NTT, DoCoMo, Qualcomm and Motorola, which stated its intention to use Google’s software to power cellular phones. This software, called Android, includes a mobile operating system and mobile software applications that are distributed by the company under an open source software license. According to the Open Handset Alliance website (www.openhandsetalliance.com): Android is available under a ‘commercial-friendly’ open source software license that, unlike some open source models, allows handset manufacturers and mobile operators to develop their own proprietary extensions to the software and does not require them to contribute their enhancements back to the open source community. It is beginning to dawn on people that integrative interactive emergent creativity is always more profitable than going it alone. Indeed, for many, such alliances are now a matter of survival in markets requiring continuous innovation. In cases like the LEGO “Mindstorms” robot kits, LEGO finds it is more creative and as a consequence more profitable to give something away rather than to impose legal restrictions on its use. As Søren Lund, Lego’s senior marketing director for product and marketing development, tells us (www.outsideinnovation.blogs.com): What Lego learned quickly when it launched the first version of Mindstorms 10 years ago is that adult hackers wanted to reverse engineer it. Lego’s unusual response was to open up its APIs [application platform interfaces] and to encourage this activity. There was a lot of learning by doing, we had no idea where we were going, we just let the lawyers draw up the papers and leave the rest to us. Then, Lego engaged with four of these ‘lead users’ in the design of its nextgen product, Mindstorms NXT. These lead users have remained actively engaged in the co-development of the next-gen product 164

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features as have their cohorts as the developer community has expanded. We built an ecosystem so that consumers can take and run with it. We went open source with some of the stuff when we could, and it’s the best thing we did. Love and passion are the reasons these people spend time. What to LEGO executives started out to be the totally counterintuitive practice of opening up its designs to its customers turned into an entirely new way of developing innovative new products by extending its R&D community to include users. As a consequence, an ailing business turned into a vibrant and highly profitable enterprise while building its user community. The same challenges apply at P&G, whose Connect + Develop program helped to extend the company’s innovation process to include 1.5 million people outside P&G. In Democratizing Innovation, von Hippel (2003) believes that such innovation networks will cause a major disruption in the way companies transform creative new ideas into profitable products and services. Von Hippel has extended his line of research to include other user-led communities. For example: ■

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In communities devoted to canyoning – a sport combining mountain climbing, abseiling and swimming in canyons – he found they had developed very specialized solutions, such as a way to cut loose a trapped rope by using a chemical etchant. In a community devoted to gliding, he found users developing innovations ranging from a rocket-assisted emergency ejection system to improvements in cockpit ventilation. In a boardercross (a snowboard competition) community, he found an invention to improve boots and bindings. In a community of professional cyclists with various significant handicaps, such as cerebral palsy or an amputated limb, he found that they often designed or made improvements to their equipment to accommodate their particular disabilities.

As von Hippel (2003, p. 24) says: In each case, these users were ahead of the market because they had a need which could not be satisfied by current manufacturers yet once developed were quickly taken up by them and put into mass production. 165

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This is because manufacturers are quickly catching on to the fact that these open source communicators are intellectual assets that they can link up with to solve problems and find ideas. They are beginning to think of these communities as assets to be integratively interactively with their internal organization to create emergent products and services to the marketplace. From a competitive advantage standpoint, these relationships can be potentially disruptive to the competition, and in the future, the companies that identify those assets outside and build relationships with them have a real shot at building a competitive advantage and preferential relationships. For the open source leader, the challenge is to synergistically interact the scale advantages of the big company with the hungry attitude and agility of the small entrepreneur. Boeing did this with the Dreamliner, particularly around building supply networks that solved problems, and Microsoft did it with its “developer ecosystem,” as have IBM and countless others. In our book, we have shown how open source leadership can be applied to any kind of collaborative activity – not necessarily those exclusive to the world of enterprise. We have already mentioned the work of Omidyar in the Omidyar Network, but there are hundreds of other philanthropic and charitable organizations springing up, which are extending their success by integratively interacting the work of their community members to produce emergent products greater than the sum of their individual parts. As we have shown, this is especially the case in areas where there is not sufficient critical mass to justify commercially viable solutions. For example, in the banking sector, Muhammad Yunus’s Grameen Bank and Matt and Jessica Flannery’s Kiva are both nonprofits that help individuals make loans to small businesses in developing countries. While the lamps are different, the light is the same, and when it comes to open source leadership that light is the simple fact that integrative interactions produce emergent products that are greater than the sum of the individual parts. Put another way, the universal rules supporting open source leadership tell us that better resolutions come when different perspectives interact constructively, because they lead to a more collective understanding of a problem and a more creative resolution. It is the way knowledge disclosure points can be structurally designed into the fabric of organizational society, and their success directly determines how effective these open source communities will be. Philanthropy is perhaps the most culturally suited of all organizing 166

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processes to benefit from an open source approach in the achievement of its goals. We have only mentioned a few of the many examples in existence today but in all cases, their strategy is to integratively interact the minds, hearts and bodies of their members in the pursuit of emergent creativity directed toward the resolution of intractable social needs. Some are local and concrete while others are global and expansive, involving whole systems of integrative interaction. In each case, their growing success rate is making them a most popular method of choice. For example, the increasing importance of regional associations of grant makers and the continued growth of community foundations and affinity groups illustrate this growing trend in collaboration within philanthropy, and overall funder networks are proliferating. The 1990s saw the founding of twice as many funder networks as in the 1980s and that trend has continued to accelerate. From an open source perspective, the leaders in this social entrepreneurial arena are exemplified by organizations such as Ashoka, which is a global network of approximately 2,700 members. The real value added of groups like these is the way in which they integratively interact with governments and corporations to achieve their social aims. Their emergent creativity applied to local problems has been taken up and indeed scaled up to cover ever increasing communities of interaction, achieving a national policy impact. Such whole system partnerships build alliances between governments, businesses and civil society in such a way that a wide range of participants are able to commit to long-term efforts – safe in the knowledge that they are backed by these key stakeholders. This allows them to define problems and implement solutions knowing that, and they understand that the solutions will be owned and supported by these stakeholders. For example, at Sustainable Food Lab, goals have been established and working models put in place that promise to completely shift the manufacture and distribution of food to more environmentally sustainable levels and at the same time give small producers more access to world markets. Stakeholders include representatives from eight of the largest agribusinesses, including Cisco Systems and Unilever, NGOs, foundations and government agencies. The one thing these examples share in common is the organizing of a community of people who share the same concern and are led by open source leaders who know how to structure the interactions in such a way that their integrative quality yields emergent products that are greater than the sum of the individual parts. These structures are 167

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sometimes virtual and sometimes blended and they owe their success to open source leaders who know how to find a coherent narrative among all players so that committed and trusting relationships thrive. They also share another characteristic – their structure is fluid, allowing a flowing back and forth of colleagues and stakeholders who share their values and intentions. The structure moves beyond the linear and concrete to get to the source and passion, the inner source of pure spiritual potential that engages the will and spirit of people to become involved. As Bill O’Brian, the former CEO of Hanover Insurance, said, “the success of the intervention is directly dependent on the inner condition of the intervener.” This is the essence of open source leadership, where the quality of motivation influences the nature and success of the intervention whether philanthropic or otherwise. And as we said earlier, because the true nature of our world is integrative and interactive, the presence and presentation of open source leaders will draw others to them like bees to honey. Because each of us knows deep down we have the same qualities, at first many of us only access them through our projections onto open source leaders, but the good leader knows that with skill and timing, they can bring out these qualities in those who trust and follow them. They have the skill to awaken people from what Einstein called the “optical illusion of consciousness.” And as Rumi tells us, “Two reeds drink from one stream. One is hollow the other is sugar cane.” So many are content to suck on the hollow reed without ever knowing there was a much sweeter option. As our composite open source philanthropist told us: When we created our foundation we understood the need to have a rational basis from which to do grant making otherwise we could say yes to every request and no to none. We didn’t have enough money for that. Nobody does. So identifying our core values was important. We started with the belief in the value of political and social stability: wealth disparities between and within nations; mass migration of people because of war, oppression and environmental disasters; and the degradation of the environment with its attendant social dislocation. We chose to focus on the first two of those issues which in part dealt with one of the ramifications of the third. Poverty became our key focus. A society’s toleration of poverty is probably the fundamental threat to stability. In many societies, poverty becomes systematic. In other words it is embedded in the institutional fabric, into the social, cultural, legal and economic patterns of the society. 168

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These sentiments are shared by Omidyar, who believes in choice, sustainable business models and social good (www.omidyar.net): Businesses can be a force for good. I recently rediscovered Adam Smith … If the baker sells bread to the shoemaker, the profit in the transaction is evidence that the quality of life of baker and shoemaker increases. What we really want to do is to enable individuals everywhere to pursue their self interests in an environment, which doesn’t lead to harm … When you unleash people to pursue their self interest, it ultimately leads to a better place. With these values in mind, Omidyar (www.omidyar.net) has three basic rules that determine which projects he will invest money in: 1 Open access, which means a level playing field and transparency – “Anyone can join the club and there is transparency around the rules.” 2 Individuals must be enabled to connect and interact with one another, leveraging collaboration and the wisdom of crowds – “It will inevitably lead to individual self empowerment within a given architecture.” 3 Individuals have to make an investment to participate and be accountable for how they behave – “skin in the game.” Creating a set of rules about the environment can limit choice. Omidyar (www.omidyar.net) says: “You don’t have the choice to behave contrary to the rules … We can’t be all things to all people.” Designing such an environment requires an organic process to avoid the overlord syndrome: When you design a system, it means you start with as little architecture as possible – watch and learn from users and try to limit behavior that contradicts the value of the environment you are trying to create. If you try to legislate for good behavior, you are generally not successful. (www.omidyar.net) So the lives of the paradigmatic open source leaders we studied are instructive because of the choices they made, often in the face of adversity, as they intentionally strove to achieve their goals. Their experiences suggest questions worth considering when assessing our open source leadership potential and that of others: 169

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Do we seek the positive seam when confronted by negative circumstances? How do we cultivate cultures that inspire and empower those around us? How do we emphasize the importance of honesty, especially at times when honesty is not the easiest course to pursue? How do we ensure levels of committed participation such that trust is built through the quality of promises made and kept? How do we ensure that credibility and intimacy remain even when the going gets tough? How do we ensure continued questioning of the status quo while maintaining the uniqueness and direction of the work already underway? Can we see the unseen? Can we hold our attention on disharmony long enough to know what is needed and long enough to enlist the committed participation of others? Are we fast learners and able to make decisions quickly and reverse positions when necessary? How well do we manage risk and uncertainty?

In the end, we suggest that open source leadership comes down to a personal approach to the business of intentionally leading and creatively developing structures that enable synergistic interactions of committed and like-minded people toward the manifestation of their potential, which would not happen without their awakened consciousness. Such effective action is not available to those who are satisfied to do customary things, who withdraw into detached rationality or who seek power for its own sake. We have shown how synergistic interactive emergence creates awakened consciousness, which in turn opens up worlds of opportunity unavailable to those who seek to conserve the status quo. We have also shown how open source leadership first and foremost requires our mindful presence when old patterns from past lives become triggered by people and events. Mindfulness requires vigilance against the temptation to suppress or express emotional energy, seeking, instead, a third way by relating to it. It is only through the third way that we transform emotional energy into awakened presence and experience our pure spiritual potential seeking opportunity. Anyone who engages in entrepreneurial activities, social activism, public service or many more of the increasing number of social networks has opportunities to expand imaginary time in this way, although many lack the 170

CONCLUSIONS

skills to carry this out. Knowing who we are and what we could be capable of are the first steps to expanding these skills. With this realization, we can pursue new types of education dedicated to developing our skills to apply attention, awareness, intention, and structure to achieving truly remarkable things. The essence of this transformation lies in the fact that we have intimate contact with the world outside. When we experience the presence of our bodily form, feelings, perceptions, mental functioning and consciousness, we must accept that we can only do so because of other people and things – if they did not exist, neither would we. As Richardson (2008) said: I became acutely aware that there really is no being outside of an interactive context. Since all interactive contexts are in motion, flowing with the energy of the universe, nothing ever stays put! There is no here that stays here for long. There’s no where that stays there any where any time! If we can live with this universal reality, then we open ourselves up to thoughts, words and actions that reveal whole new worlds of possibility and opportunity for ourselves and others – just as Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, James Dyson, Nelson Mandela and thousands of others have done already. It is the future that drives open source leaders forward. As Yunus said (www.nobelprize.org): I envision a world that will be free of poverty, where the market for my bank will no longer exist. This would be a world we could be proud to live in.

REFLECTIVE NARRATIVE 1 Why did you read our book? 2 What challenges do you face and will Open Source Leadership help? 3 Does our book confirm what you already know? 4 What did you read that caused you to doubt the soundness of our case? 5 What will you do differently as a result of reading Open Source Leadership?

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174

INDEX

A

accepted wisdom, questioning 78 adaptability creative 15–16, 44, 149 v. discipline, case study 30–2 adaptation, closed source 34, 36, 38 advertising 85 Amazon.com 134 Android 29–30, 164 Apple 44–5, 105–6 Ashoka 167 A-Space 12 assessment, domains of 136–7 AT&T 49 attention 75, 80 v. intention 84, 95, 96, 123 rule of 72, 73, 77–93 Auerbach, Red 73 autopoiesis 102 awakened consciousness 68, 114, 170 awakened opportunity 70 awakened possibility 68 awakened presence 102 awakened space 115 awakened time 115 awareness 75, 95 v. consciousness 80 creative 96 emergent product of 70, 75 intentional 123 rule of 72, 73–4, 94–113 test video 95 use of 85

B

badness 66 balance theory 63–4

Barfoot, Chuck 79–80, 83 beginner’s mind 74–5 benefits of new ventures 44, 51 Berners-Lee, Tim 62 Bidcom 3 big bang 61 bioinformatics 137, 151 BIOS (Biological Innovation for Open Society) Initiative 139 blessed conspiracy 119, 122–3 Bogle, Jack 28–9 Bogotá 97–8, 106 boiling frog syndrome 80 Bolte Taylor, Jill 64–5, 115, 153, 154 BP 130 brain left 64–5, 94, 99, 153 options 78 right 56, 94, 99, 153, 154, 155 “right-hemisphere attributes” 64–5 breakouts 28, 105 opportunities for 105 Brilliant, Dr. Larry 14, 109, 115 Brin, Sergey 13 Buddha, Four Noble Truths 65, 104, 107 Buddha nature 60 Burton, Jake 79–80, 83 business environments high complexity 47–50 low complexity 45–7 business models 45–50 velocity-based 3

C

canyoning 165 caring 90 Case, Steve 163

175

INDEX

change business practice 35 meaningful and sustained 4 organizational 7 cheap talk 134 chefs, social norms 161–2 chi 90 choices, making 99 Christensen, Clayton 33–4 Clickwrap licenses 140 clock logic 9, 10–12, 14, 18–19, 30, 111 breaking free from 20 clock logic structures 131–2 closed source adaptation 34, 36, 38 coherent narratives 149, 152 collaboration, participative 36 collaboration hubs 3 collaborative approaches 128 collaborative narratives 152 collaborative partnerships 129 commitment cycle 135 commitment drivers 141 types of 141–2 commitment generation 136–7 commitment networks 34, 137, 139– 40, 140–1, 143, 144 levels of operation 145 commitment targets 142 commons 164 communication 86–9 communication platform 144 compassionate enquiry 91, 92 competition changing basis of 3 cost competition 2 from low-cost economies 5 international 5 competitive advantage, innovation providing 47–9 competitors, staying ahead of 52 complacency, risk of 50 conditioned reactivity 101 conditioned thinking 84 conditioning, reactive 70 conflicting theories 40–1 conscious contemplation 91–2

conscious creation 114 conscious creativity 90 consciousness 60, 64, 67, 73, 74, 90, 103 awakened 68, 114, 170 v. awareness 80 four-quadrant model 21–2, 158 optical illusion of 168 spiritual 113 contemplation, conscious 91–2 contextual drivers 142 cooperation, mass 25, 35 cost competition 2 counterterrorism 12 creation, conscious 114 creative adaptability 15–16, 44, 149 creative awareness 96 creative destruction 26–7, 55, 61 creative potential 55, 154 creative source of people 12–13 creativity 74, 99, 102, 103, 162 conscious 90 emergent 160, 162, 164, 167 skills 18 see also brain customer focus 3 customer loyalty 35 customers, understanding needs of 53 cyclists, with handicaps 165

D

Dell 36, 50 denial 69 destiny, mood and 66–9 destruction, creative 26–7, 55, 61 Developmental Entrepreneurs Program 130–1 Digital Equipment Corporation 33 disasters, natural, early warning system 109 discipline v. adaptability, case study 30–2 disclosive space(s) 15, 148, 150, 151 narratives of 149 discovery 123 disintermediation 35 disk drive industry 33

176

INDEX

disorder, explaining 60 disruptive innovation 33 distrust, structures of 132 diversity 126 integration of 126 dogma 87–8 drug discovery 8, 137–45, 151

E

ecosystems 35 Einstein, Albert 59–60, 89 embodied metaphors 97 emergence, integrative interactive 6, 19 emergent creativity 160, 162, 164, 167 emotion(s) 90, 91 emperor’s three questions 119–23 energy 60–1 emotional/intellectual/spiritual 56 of need 108–9 spiritual 65 transformation 57, 58 enquiry, compassionate 91, 92 Enron 10 enterprise resource planning 2–3 entrepreneurs 86–9, 150, 163 environment disruption 51–2 sociocultural and physical 11 equilibrium, punctuated 62 experimentation 128

F

Facebook 28, 110 Facebook economy 28 facility 43 FAST 51 FedEx 48–9, 134 Fibonacci sequence 26, 28, 157–8 financing sources 53 Flannery, Jessica 118 folksonomies 62 foresight 74 freedom 68, 69–70, 70 funder networks 167

G

gather phase of growth 25 General Electric (GE) 50 generalization 40–1 Ghosn, Carlos 36, 150 GlaxoSmithKline 74 gliding 165 goodness 66 Google 13, 45, 109 advertising search market 49 experimentation 128 growth and creativity 162–3 innovation 129–30 mobile sector strategy 29–30 service provision 44 Google Earth 110 Grameen Bank 117–18, 166 gratitude 90 groups, value added 167 Grove, Andrew 27, 91, 115 growth, four-phase pattern 25–6, 30 growth businesses, critical questions 52–3

H

Hawking, Stephen 57–8, 59–60, 67, 85–6 hierarchy of needs 56, 75 Higgs boson 61 Himalayan Dog Rescue Squad 55 Hockney, David 78 holons 132, 156, 157 humanistic philosophy 65 humanistic psychology movement 56, 57 humility 90 Huston, Larry 34

I

IBM/Intel partnership 22 ideality 18, 19, 94, 125, 126 of clock logic leaders 131 identity creation 140 imagination 125 v. knowledge 128 Imagination Lab Foundation 96 impermanence 65, 66

177

INDEX

improvisation 74–5, 152 inattention blindness 80 incoherent narratives 150 independence 155 individuality 68 inflation 80 inflection points, strategic 27, 36, 38, 91, 115 information and communications technologies (ICTs) 5–6 advanced 34 effect on world economy 25 inner self 56 innovation 53 and company size 33–4 disruptive 33 open source 34, 36, 37, 38, 45–50 providing competitive advantage 47–9 radical 44 strategic 36 Innovative Support to Emergencies, Diseases and Disaster (InSTEDD) 13–14, 109–10 insanity 98 inspiration to others 55–6, 71 integral study 60 integration 53 integrative interaction(s) 15, 20, 22–3, 63, 70, 71, 75 and rule of attention 88, 92 and rule of intention 116, 117, 118 and rule of structure 135, 143 trinities of 64 integrative interactive emergence 6, 19 Intel 27, 115 Intel/IBM partnership 22 intellectual assets 32 intelligence 20 intent, strategic 34 intention 75, 95 v. attention 84, 95, 96, 123 rule of 72, 74, 114–26 use of 85 intentional awareness 123

interaction(s) integrative, see integrative interaction(s) synergistic 116, 118, 134–5, 143, 155, 157 interdependent co-arising 118–19 interest in people 90 Internet 1, 20, 58, 62, 86 intimacy 90 intuition 99 investment 53

J

Jobs, Steve 105–6

K

Kapor, Mitch 1, 6, 9 Khanam, Sabira 38 King, Martin Luther 92, 93 Kiva 77–8, 117–18, 166 knowledge 35, 155–6 v. imagination 128 knowledge creation 23 high need for 46–7 not critical 45–6

L

language, role of 16, 18, 20, 86 Lao Tzu 16 leaders defined 7 v. managers 41 old school 132 phenomenal identities 15, 21, 147–9 role 53 types of 7 vision, skill and capacity 43 leadership accessing spiritual/creative resources 12 behavioral approach 42 conflicting theories of 40–1 contingency theories 40 description 40 integral method 42 literature on 42 new approach to 5–6, 147

178

INDEX

patterns of practice 8 situational approach 42 traditional v. open source 96–7 trait approach 42 see also open source leadership learning 94 LEGO 164–5 life force 90 Lotus Notes groupware 143

M

managers v. leaders 41 networking and 41–2 roles 41 manufacturing resource planning 2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) 130–1 mass cooperation 25, 35 metaphors, embodied 97 Michelangelo 42 microfinancing 116–17 microprocessors 27 Microsoft, Shared Source program 44 mindfulness 57–8, 170 Mindstorms robot kits 164–5 minicomputer industry, collapse of 105 Mockus, Antanas 97–9 mood and destiny 66–9 moods 91 Mozilla 12, 129

N

narratives coherent 149, 152 collaborative 152 of disclosive spaces 149 incoherent 150 natural disasters, early warning system 109 natural selection 67, 108 need, energy of 108–9 needs hierarchy of 56, 75 predicting customers’ 82 satisfied/non-satisfied 65

networking, managers’ role 41–2 network resource planning 3 networks funder networks 167 network of 156 relationship-based 51 social 1 transaction-based 51 value networks 3 see also commitment networks niches, identifying 29 “nirvana” experience 153 Nissan Motor Company 36 noise 150–1 non-table world 119, 127 North, Douglass 98–9

O

Obama, Barack 37, 158–9 Omidyar, Pierre 116, 163, 169 omnipotence, myth of 55–6 oneness 133 open-ended hourglass metaphor 123–4 Open Handset Alliance 29, 164 open source, definition 160 open source innovation 34, 36, 37, 38, 45–50 open source leadership assessment of potential for 169–70 definition 5, 160 model 72–5, 157–8 open to source of inspiration 7–8 skills of 158 open source technologies 14 opportunities breakout 105 threats transformed into 27 opportunity awakened 70 potential–opportunity ratio 112 Oracle Corp. 37 order, human nature and 60 organizations, boundaryless 23 orienting generalization 41 Orphan Drug Act (USA) 138, 151 outcomes, intended/unintended 143 outsourcing 35

179

INDEX

P

Page, Larry 13 paintings 78–9 paradigm shifts 27, 62 participation, structures of 136 participative collaboration 36 partnering strategy, benefits of 51–2 partnerships, collaborative 129 passive resistance 92 path dependency 84 path of least action 100–1 path of least effort 104, 106 patience 102, 115, 155 peace 16 business as force for 53–4 permanence 65 personal identity 145 pharmaceutical companies 8, 55, 137–40, 144, 151, 159 phenomenal leaders 15, 21, 147–9 philanthropy 166–7, 168–9 Plotinus 94 political campaigning 37 possibility, awakened 68 potential creative 55, 154 for open source leadership, assessment of 169–70 spiritual, see spiritual potential potential–opportunity ratio 112 PowerPoint 32 prana 90 presence 102, 115, 155 awakened 102 unconditional 91, 92 principle of least action 100–1 private-collective model 136 Procter & Gamble (P&G) 23, 37, 51, 55, 128–9 Connect + Develop program 23, 165 progress 69 project drivers 141 projection, reactive 69 protection, reactive 69 protest, reactive 69 psychological drivers 141–2

public sector 150–1 punctuated equilibrium 62

Q

quantum mechanics 89 questioning accepted wisdom 78 QWERTY keyboard 84, 102

R

Rasmussen, Dr. Eric 109–10 reactive conditioning 70 reactive projection 69 reactive protection 69 reactive protest 69 reactivity conditioned 101 unconscious 90 reality 67, 68–9, 70, 80–1 an individual perception 131, 133 holonistic perspective 132 objective 101 perception of 94 primary access to 145 realization 80 relationship-based networks 51 repeat phase of growth 26, 30 resistance, passive 92 responsiveness 3 risk(s) of complacency 50 of new ventures 44 Roddick, Anita 135 Rumi, Jelaluddin 17, 20, 133, 152, 153, 168

S

Schultz, Howard 4 Schumpeter, Joseph 26, 55, 61 Schwab, Charles 29 science 10 empirical 10 progress of 62 scurvy 28, 82 self 107 inner self 56 self-actualization 56–7 self-creation 102

180

INDEX

self-esteem 70 self-image 70, 146 self-knowledge 56–7 serendipity 150–1 Shah, Premal 77–8, 117–18 share phase of growth 26, 30 sharing phase of transformation 43–4 snowboarding 79–80, 81–2, 84, 85, 165 social community 151–2 social drivers 142 social networks 1 social norms, chefs 161–2 social technology 37 software developers 12 open source development 36–7 open source technology 111 space(s) awakened 115 disclosive 15, 148, 149, 150, 151 spiritual consciousness 113 spiritual energy 65 spiritual potential 64, 67, 68, 70, 71, 72, 152–3, 168 and rule of attention 81, 83–4, 91 and rule of awareness 94, 100, 101, 110 and rule of structure 127, 131 Starbucks Coffee 4 stock market system 3 storytelling 97 strategic inflection points 27, 36, 38, 91, 115 strategic innovation 36 strategic intent 34 strategy, determining 53 structure 75 constitutive power of 142 emergent outcomes 143 in real time 128 rule of 72, 74–5, 127–46 synergistic interactions 134–5, 143 use of 85 structures of distrust 132 of participation 136

sturdy conclusion 41 subconscious 103 success 71 suffering 107 Sun Microsystems 47–8 supplier days 129 supply chain 139 Survival of the Fittest 108 Sustainable Food Lab 167 synergistic interaction(s) 116, 118, 134–5, 143, 155, 157

T

talents innate 85 use of 67–8 talk 89 cheap talk 134 technologies 126 open source 14 Tefen 54 theories, conflicting 40–1 theory of transformation 63 ThinkCycle 131 thinking, conditioned 84 thoughts 83–4, 93, 101 threats, transformed into opportunities 27 time awakened 115 for creative process 154 Toyota 129 transaction-based networks 51 transformation sharing phase 43–4 theory of 63 unifying theory of 25 transformation phase of growth 26 transformations 150 traumatic experience syndrome (TES) 104 trinities 61, 63, 64, 71, 158, 159–60 Tropical Disease Initiative (TDI) 55 trust 14, 111 truth 105 Tyco 10

181

INDEX

U

unconditional presence 91, 92 unconscious reactivity 90 universal rules 60, 61, 71, 72–6, 154 see also attention; awareness; intention; structure universe 81, 154 infinite potential 112 unknown, aversion to 100

V

value networks 3 values, open source principles 35 value webs 35 Victorinox 27 Virtual Order 48 visualization 82 volunteer community 111, 151

W

Wertheimer, Stef 53–4

Wikipedia 1–2, 6–7, 9, 164 accuracy of 2 contributors to 12 core content policies 2 leadership and 2 threshold for inclusion 2 Wilber, Ken 40–1, 42 willingness 90 Witty, Andrew 74–5 workflow platforms software 163 WorldCom 10 world disclosers 63 worldhood 148 World Wide Web 62–3, 133–4

Y

Yunus, Muhammad 29, 117, 122–3, 171

Z

zero-sum games 32–3

182