Editor's Note: As oil continues to pour into the Gulf of Mexico, BP has come under scathing criticism for the litany of errors and omissions that led to the current crisis. In a classic article, 
"Leading Ethically Through Foresight," Pegasus cofounder and 2010 conference keynote speaker Daniel H. Kim talks about leaders' ethical responsibility to understand the underlying structures within their domain well enough to predict future consequences of current actions. We offer Daniel's timely and provocative article with the hope that his insights might help prevent disasters down the line.
By Daniel H. Kim
Rereading Robert Greenleaf's renowned 1970 essay "The Servant As Leader" is always an exercise in humility for me. His writings are a constant reminder of the high standards leaders must set for themselves if they are to be worthy of people's full commitment. Of all the things that Greenleaf wrote, I have found the following passage to be the most striking and most challenging to live up to:
"The failure (or refusal) of a leader to foresee may be viewed as an ethical failure; because a serious ethical compromise today (when the usual judgement on ethical inadequacy is made) is sometimes the result of a failure to make the effort at an earlier date to foresee today's events and take the right actions when there was freedom for initiative to act. The action which society labels 'unethical' in the present moment is often really one of no choice. By this standard, a lot of guilty people are walking around with an air of innocence that they would not have if society were able always to pin a label 'unethical' on the failure to foresee and the conscious failure to act constructively when there was freedom to act."
I have never heard anybody talk about leadership responsibilities in that way. Others may admonish us for not having exercised better foresight or for incorrectly anticipating the future. They may call it a failure of planning or an error in judgment. But to call such a lapse an ethical failure is such a strong stance that it compelled me to take a deeper look at the issue so that I could come to better understand why Greenleaf used such provocative terminology.
Click here to read the entire article.
This article originally appeared in The Systems Thinker, Vol. 13 N. 7 (September 2002). Click here to receive a free current issue of The Systems Thinker.
Daniel H. Kim is co-founder of Pegasus Communications, founding publisher of The Systems Thinker newsletter, and a consultant, facilitator, teacher, and public speaker committed to helping problem-solving organizations transform into learning organizations.
photo of Brown Pelican by Alan D. Wilson This photo is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
by Robert Fritz
In part I of this post, Robert used the example of a pottery class to make the case that the more you produce, the more mastery you will have in any given realm. Here, he addresses the question, "How does learning take place?"
We begin, as always, with structural tension, a clear vision of an end result and a clear view of the current reality in relationship to that result. This is essential, because without structural tension, you would be limited to a series of spontaneous improvisations.
Quantity without structural tension does not lead to comprehensive learning. Without an end in mind, you are left with a purely statistical approach: make a lot of things, hope that some of them work out. When that is the case, each creative event is random. Each event is an individual episode that does not connect with future creative events. This is like a non-relational database in which the information is isolated and does not connect with other bits of information. Therefore, there is no traction leading to momentum, no sense of development, no foundation upon which to build. No organizing principle that enables learning to lead to mastery.
One thing that the pottery students had was enough of a vision of each piece so that they could establish structural tension. They had their target. The current reality was under their fingers and in their awareness. This was true for both the quality and quantity group. So we can conclude that structural tension is simply a prerequisite. Without it, it would be hard to throw a pot. But if the vision were to produce the highest quality imaginable, the final result would miss the mark. Higher levels of quality come from adequate experience over time.
When I was a high school kid, I studied with the Boston Symphony clarinetist Felix Viscuglia at the New England Conservatory of 
Music. I would bring Phil a coffee (he insisted on everyone calling him Phil) to every weekly lesson, not unlike the proverbial apple to the teacher. He always talked to me as if I were a colleague rather than a student, which was kind of nice for me. He would say of the college students who studied with him, "How can they expect to play like me? I've been playing over 25 years." I would nod as if I knew what he was talking about. But I only realized what he meant after I had been playing for over 25 years.
There is a long-term view of the creative process, which includes experience over expanded periods of time and learning. And there is the short-term view, which tries to rely on inspiration, impulse, and improvisation. And while there is a place for short-term impulsive moments, you can't build and sustain real mastery from that alone.
So, make a lot of creations. Make sure you have structural tension as the framework. Don't get obsessed about how good any creation is, but do make a point of learning from each episode of the creative process. Mastery will come over time, and you will find your ability to create what you want increases dramatically.
©2010 Robert Fritz
What is your experience with the question of quality versus quantity in the creative process? Share your thoughts in the comments section.
Robert Fritz, a composer, filmmaker, and organizational consultant, is founder of Technologies For Creating® and author of the international bestseller The Path of Least Resistance. This post first appeared in his free monthly e-newsletter, Creating. Click here for more information about Robert and his work.
by Robert Fritz
In a now famous story, a pottery teacher divided his class into two groups. He told one group that their grade would be determined by the quality of their work no matter how many pieces they made. 
The second group would be measured not on the quality of their work, but on the quantity. The more pieces, the higher the grade.
At the end of the semester, the results were clear. The group that had made the most pieces also had produced the highest quality work. Ironically, those students who were directly focused on quality were less able to produce quality. How come?
What is the relationship between quantity and quality? Often, the more you produce, the more mastery you will have. Creative mastery comes in many levels. How you make critical decisions along with the ability to be decisive. How your mind understands the creative process as well as a type of visceral understanding that develops over time and experience. How free you are to make mistakes while increasing the sense of the right direction to take.
Learning allows you to move from one level of understanding and competence to a higher level. Usually there are mistakes to make. Usually the more demanding the learning, the more mistakes.
Quantity does not always lead to quality. If there isn't a learning dimension, nothing will change, and quality might even decline. But the most natural pattern when creating anything is a progression of mastery through a progression of learning. How does learning take place?
©2010 Robert Fritz
Click here for part II of Robert's article.
Robert Fritz, a composer, filmmaker, and organizational consultant, is founder of Technologies For Creating® and author of the international bestseller The Path of Least Resistance. This post first appeared in his free monthly e-newsletter, Creating. Click here for more information about Robert and his work.
"Making pottery" photo by Randy Oostdyk; used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.
By Chris Abbey
"Chris you have been selected to receive a 60-Day Warn Notice." In a matter of seconds, my perceptions of the world and myself had been seriously shaken. Everything seemed to close in around me.
Looking for guidance for moving forward, I turned to Meg Wheatley's book Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time. I was struck by her comment, "An organization's identity includes current interpretations of its history, present decisions and activities, and its sense of its future."
With the warn notice, my interpretation of history had narrowed considerably; I could only see myself in my current position. The "present decisions and actions" had severed my feelings of 
stability and my visions of the future. My sense of identity had large gaping holes in it. In the beginning, all I was looking for was what was missing.
Meg goes on to write, "Because identity is the sense-making capacity of an organization, every organizing effort--whether it be a startup of a team, a community project, or a nation--needs to begin by exploring and clarifying the intentions and desires of its members."
Over time, I noticed that my process of making sense of what had happened followed the grieving process. The seven-stage model of grief describes what I've been going through:
- Shock and denial
- Pain and guilt
- Anger and bargaining
- Depression, reflection, and loneliness
- The Upward Turn
- Reconstruction and working through
- Acceptance and hope
Within a short period of time, the wild emotional swings had subsided, and I had moved through to the fifth step. A new sense of identity started to surface--a changed identity, an identity that now incorporated the warn notice. This new self was uncomfortable--it felt as though my skin didn't quite fit--but I began to adjust to it.
At this point, I could commence exploring new activities in earnest, because a new impression of the future had also started to emerge--not a clear impression, just an impression. Before, I had gone through the motions of looking for a job, but really just to avoid dealing with the pain by keeping the mind and body busy. Now, I approached the task with purpose and direction.
My narrow recollection of my history expanded beyond my current employment to include the fullness of my life. I shifted my perspective on my present decisions and activities from what my employer was doing "to me" to what I was doing to find another job. My activities became part of a coherent plan to transition myself into a new future, a future, while still uncertain, in which I am in the driver's seat. Though still cycling through the seven steps of the grief model--you may find me anywhere in the model at any particular time--I am spending more and more time in step seven.
The activities include the usual: updating my resume, preparing for interviews, and searching the job listings. In addition, I'm using systems thinking perspectives to focus on relationships, including taking stock of my "system" or network, creating new network connections, and disturbing the system. I'll reflect on these efforts in part 2.
Chris Abbey is responsible for bringing about the education, engagement, and empowerment of employees in a global information technology organization, enabling them to continuously improve their products and services. His work involves coaching, mentoring, and training in various hard and soft skills, such as High Performance Work Teams, Lean, Systems Thinking, Theory of Constraints, and trust building. One of his current passions is in the use and building of communities of practice as a way to greatly increase sharing and collaboration in complex organizations.
Mirror photo by Ian Britton/freefoto.com
By Janice Molloy
For the past several months, we at Pegasus have been engaged in revisiting our organizational vision, mission, and core values. While we're all up to our eyeballs in tasks, making it challenging to carve out time for reflection, we agreed that going through this process now, together, would actually improve our effectiveness over the long run. By becoming clearer as a group about why we do what we do, what needs Pegasus could serve in the world, and how we're going to get there as a team, we will move forward with a stronger sense of direction and alignment.
We've gotten off to a good start--with a little help from our friends. A few weeks ago, systems change facilitator Tuesday Ryan-Hart led us through a day of visioning (capped off by dinner at our local Spanish restaurant, where we continued the conversation over many plates of tapas and some tasty sangria).
In addition to sparking lots of meaty conversation, both with the group as a whole and in smaller subsets, Tuesday engaged us in a physical modeling activity. In two teams, we used items from our offices--including a stuffed Kermit the frog, a plastic Hoberman 
sphere, a bottle of wine, a small globe, various plants, and assorted electronics--to create representations of Pegasus when it's working at its highest future potential. The two models, while very different visually, ended up with much overlap in themes. Some important "ahas" emerged from each that we're weaving into our vision statement.
One unexpected outcome of the session with Tuesday is that we realized our core values, as written, hold little meaning for those currently with the company. It's been stimulating to evaluate and refresh them, to bring them to life for today's workforce and today's challenges. We also continue to noodle with how we express our company's vision and mission. With changing technologies and major industry shifts for our core businesses, we want to craft something that reflects both immediate and timeless relevance, and that resonates with each member of our team and our other stakeholders.
As part of this process, we'll each articulate our personal purpose statements to feed into the organizational mission. Daniel Pink has an exercise in Drive for creating one sentence that summarizes your life's purpose; for example, "He raised four kids who became happy and healthy adults." Or "She invented a device that made people's lives easier." We're also using as inspiration the "six-word memoir" meme initiated by the online storytelling magazine SMITH.
At the end of the journey, we'll share our outcomes and reflections. In the meantime, here's a video that our president Mark Alpert showed to inspire our efforts. I hope it'll spark new ideas for you, too.
Janice Molloy is content director of Pegasus Communications, managing editor of The Systems Thinker newsletter, and program director of the annual Systems Thinking in Action conference
by Janice Molloy
What separates outstanding leaders from merely good ones? The Work Foundation, a British think tank, recently released a report on the beliefs and practices of exceptional leaders, Exceeding Expectation: The Principles of Outstanding Leadership. Based on a two-year study, authors Penny Tamkin, Gemma Pearson, Wendy Hirsh, and Susannah Constable concluded that the b
est leaders do three things:
1. They Think and Act Systemically. These leaders see things as a whole rather than compartmentalize. They connect the parts based on a guiding sense of purpose. According to the report, "Outstanding leaders achieve through a combination of systemic thinking and acting for the long-term benefit of their organisation. They recognise the interconnected nature of the organisation and therefore act carefully."
2. They See People as the Route to Performance. They are deeply people- and relationship-centered rather than just people-oriented. They not only like and care about people, but have come to understand that people are the key to exceptional performance.
3. They Are Self-Confident Without Being Arrogant. One of the fundamental attributes of outstanding leaders is self-awareness. They understand they cannot create results themselves, but must do so by influencing others.
In the project, a team of eight researchers conducted 262 in-depth interviews with leaders, their managers, and their direct reports in six of the UK's most well-known and stable organizations: BAE Systems, EDF Energy, Guardian Media Group, Serco, Tesco, and Unilever. The investigators found that outstanding leaders see some of their primary roles as creating purpose, maintaining a sense of how the organization's people and systems fit together, and articulating a vision that "extends from the past, through the present, and into the future." The most successful leaders don't simple fall back on "empowering others" to deliver results; they facilitate and nurture empowerment through a conscious philosophy and practice.
The team concluded "that the emphasis on people-centred leadership is particularly critical while the world is still experiencing tough economic conditions." In difficult times, people tend to turn to controlling, target-driven leaders. Yet the research indicates that the opposite approach can be the most effective route to high performance.
The second phase of the research will focus on questions such as: How do organizations identify people with potential to become outstanding leaders? To what extent can the required behavior be developed? And, assuming it can be, what kind of management development will work best? Many of us will be eagerly waiting the next report-out of this fascinating study.
Janice Molloy is content director of Pegasus Communications, managing editor of The Systems Thinker newsletter, and program director of the annual Systems Thinking in Action conference.
Thanks to Sharon Eakes for contributing this story idea, which she found on LeadershipNow's Leading blog.
Photo of winter forest by Böhringer Friedrich.
By Janice Molloy
What words do we use to describe a team that's functioning well? Whether we realize it or not, we often use musical terminology. We say we're "in unison," making a "concerted" effort, "attuned" to each others' concerns, and, at our best, "harmonious." In a sterile office environment, it may seem difficult to draw substantive parallels between our work groups and a professional orchestra. Yet conductor Roger Nierenberg has gleaned lessons about collaboration and leadership for businesses and other organizations from the inner workings of a world-class musical ensemble.
Several years ago, I was lucky enough to take part in an unusual workshop that Nierenberg offers, called "The Music Paradigm." (Nierenberg has recently written a book, Maestro: A Surprising Story About Leading by Listening, based on this work.) When participants enter the room, they encounter an orchestra, its members clad in formal performance garb, waiting to play. Executives are encouraged to sit side-by-side with musicians.
The program begins with a brief concert. It turns out that a symphonic performance serves as an ideal laboratory for studying organizational dynamics: Observers can easily view the entire system; communication is transparent; and the connection between behavior and results happens immediately.
Nierenberg points out that, like a business, an orchestra has an "org chart": Each "division"--such as strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion--is divided into "teams." The strings division consists of five teams: first violins, second violins, violas, cellos, and double basses. The audience compares the results when the orchestra plays normally and when one of the teams is out of sync or missing altogether. This experience dramatizes the interdependence of the group as a whole and the importance of each team to the quality of the final "product."
To illustrate the impact of different leadership approaches on performance, the orchestra plays the same selection in several ways: as they normally would with a conductor, without a conductor, with the conductor carefully controlling every aspect of the performance, and with a "guest conductor"--someone from the audience. Even the untrained ear can perceive variations in the style and tone of the different scenarios.
When asked to perform without a leader, the orchestra plays accurately, but the music lacks emotion and pace. When Nierenberg micromanages the performance, the group sounds stilted and flat. When the inexperienced conductor stands in, the performance is tentative and uneven. But when the maestro confidently wields the baton again, the musicians respond with a lush and expansive rendition.
In describing their experiences under a controlling leadership style, the musicians report that the group may be together in terms of timing, but they give less emotionally and feel less able to make their own unique contributions to the overall effort than in the other scenarios. The leader's dominant style blocks the flow of information, isolates the players from their network of colleagues, and squelches their creativity.
Nierenberg describes the group's performance without a conductor as "business as usual." In the absence of guidance from the podium, the players turn their eyes to the concertmaster and listen to each other with greater intensity. In this way, they manage to work together remarkably well.
That observation raises the question: If an orchestra can function successfully without a leader, then what purpose does a conductor--or general manager, president, or CEO--serve? Nierenberg suggests that the leader's first job is to provide others with a sense of the big picture. From his or her central position, a conductor is able to see and hear the whole, gather information, and convey that information to the group.
Even more important, a skilled conductor infuses the notes of a musical score with meaning, inspiring the orchestra to perform with richness, depth, and emotion. In this way, Nierenberg argues, strategic, visionary leadership can make a qualitative difference in a team's functioning.
Conductors don't make music directly; the people they lead do. A skilled conductor focuses on enabling musicians to execute their jobs well: revealing things about the music to the players, showing them what's important, and lifting them out of their silos. Likewise, in organizations of all kinds, good leaders elevate people's awareness beyond their day-to-day tasks by articulating a unifying vision and sense of new possibilities.
Janice Molloy is content director of Pegasus Communications, managing editor of The Systems Thinker newsletter, and program director of the annual Systems Thinking in Action conference.
photo: European Union Youth Orchestra
By Janice Molloy
"When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid." --Audre Lorde
In his recent blog post, "Setting the Foundations for Leadership," my colleague Mark Alpert talked about the importance of articulating a vision. Unless we know what we really want to create, it's difficult to design a path to get there. But s
ometimes the gap between our current reality and vision can seem more like a yawning chasm than a hairline crack in the pavement. That's when it can be useful to outline the incremental steps we can take in service of our overarching goal.
Edie Farwell, Program Director of the Sustainability Institute's Donella Meadows Leadership Fellows New Initiatives, has designed a visioning activity that can help bridge the gap between short-term initiatives and long-term aspirations. At the start of the program's recent alumni workshop, Edie had participants identify their:
- Big "V" Vision: Your dreams, what you want, how you want to be, how you want to orient yourself for the next three to five years
- Middle "V" Vision: What you want to experiment with in the next few months in service of your big "V" vision
- Little "v" Vision: Something you will do next week to support your big "V" vision
Each participant then shared his or her nested visions with a partner. One Fellow wants to finance and build a 40-megawatt industrial wind farm in Michigan (Big V). In the next several months, he plans to leverage his past work to form relationships with key partners in finance (Middle V). Within the next week, he will approach a specific construction company and get them to help sponsor the project (Little v). Another Fellow envisions sustainable agriculture in her region (Big V). To contribute to this process, she will establish a training program at her farm for young farmers (Middle V). In the short term, she will start taking in more young farmers now (Little v).
Building Momentum in Your Setting
If you want to do this exercise on your own, find a quiet setting where you won't be interrupted by emails and phone calls for at least 30 minutes. Bring a journal with you to record your thoughts. You may also want to arrange to share the outcomes with a learning partner, to build shared accountability. To keep momentum going, revisit your Little "v" Vision weekly, your Middle "V" Vision quarterly, and your Big "V" Vision annually.
In using this activity with a group, schedule about an hour. Edie introduces the process and then has people relax with their eyes closed as they evoke a detailed picture in their minds of each of the three visions. Participants then journal for 15 minutes. At the alumni workshop, people discussed their visions with partners over lunch. Some of them chose to report back to the group as a whole.
What can we create if, in the words of Audre Lorde, we all "dare to be powerful"? Try this exercise, and let's find out!
Janice Molloy is content director of Pegasus Communications, managing editor of The Systems Thinker newsletter, and program director of the annual Systems Thinking in Action conference.
Photo of Grand Canyon: Mike Quinn/National Park Service
By Janice Molloy
Driving through the rolling hills of western Connecticut in early fall, it's impossible not to feel a strong connection to nature's rhythms. The leaves bear just a tint of autumn color, a harbinger of the blast of reds, yellows, oranges, and browns to come. Overgrown cornstalks sprawl along the side of the road, sp
ent but not yet ready to relinquish their hold on the sun. The setting and season recently provided an apt backdrop for a gathering of environmental leaders from around the world, whose training in systems thinking tools has given them new ways to understand, work with, and shift the patterns at play in the systems they care about.
The Donella Meadows Leadership Fellows Program was launched in 2002 to honor and build on the work of Dr. Donella Meadows. The winner of a MacArthur Foundation "genius" award, Meadows is best known as lead author of the influential book The Limits to Growth. The program's mission "is to accelerate the shift to global sustainability by increasing the effectiveness of well-positioned sustainability leaders. Fellows learn to address social, economic, and environmental issues at their root causes while benefiting from a national and international network of talented and supportive colleagues." The Fellows convene for a series of four four-day workshops, with ongoing homework and personal coaching between sessions. The fourth cohort of 20 Fellows will complete the program in 2010, joining 54 current alumni.
Last week at the Trinity Conference Center, nestled along the banks of the Housatonic River in West Cornwall, Connecticut, 15 former Fellows gathered for an annual alumni workshop. They came from seven countries and represented organizations from government, civil society, business, and philanthropy. Their work ranges from battling deforestation in Indonesia to facilitating green building design for one of the major U.S. architecture firms. All share a profound commitment to advancing the sustainability revolution from a place of spirit, compassion, truth telling, love, and integrity.
Over the course of three and a half days, workshop participants presented an overview of their current work, heard from speakers on leading-edge initiatives, and set the stage for collaborative projects. As during the Fellows Program, the three-legged stool of systems thinking, reflective conversation, and visioning served as the core foundation for learning. For this group, nature is not just the object of their life's work; it's also a teacher, model, and guide. One afternoon, artist Jay Mead led alums in creating art installations using materials found in the woods and along the riverbank of a local state park. The activity was designed to help participants experience systems in nature, observe patterns, and connect with their creativity.
Over the next several months, I'll be sharing stories and practices from this accomplished and inspiring group of leaders. Thanks to Edie Farwell and Dominic Stucker from Sustainability Institute for inviting me to help document this important work. I am also most grateful to the alumni who warmly welcomed me into their community.
Janice Molloy is content director of Pegasus Communications and managing editor of The Systems Thinker.
By Mark Alpert
I recently attended a wonderful three-day workshop called "Foundations for Leadership." Our instructors Beth Jandernoa and Peter Senge did a masterful job of leading the program. After more
than two decades of facilitating this workshop, Peter has not lost one iota of interest in the subject matter, the people gathered, or the possibilities for what might emerge.
The diverse group of participants from different parts of the world, different organizations, and different functions also enriched the experience. It didn't take long for our commonality and a sense of caring for each other to develop. That process raises a question: If complete strangers can develop a kind of shared vision within a few hours, why does it take us so long to do so within our own organizations, if it happens at all?
We were given the opportunity and the space to look deep inside ourselves to ponder what each of us really cares about and develop a vision for ourselves, our families, and our work. Likewise, we faced the challenges of being completely honest about our current realities. There is a tension that builds in the gap between vision and reality that creates a powerful call to action. That tension tests our integrity and strength to make choices about which way we will be pulled.
If the desire is strong enough and picture real enough, we will be pulled in the direction of our vision. If we are stuck working on the distracting issues of the moment, chances are good that we will be pulled in the opposite direction, away from achieving our objective. This dynamic brings up another good question: Why do we spend so much time and energy fighting fires, blaming others, and taking knee-jerk reactions to the everyday events happening around us? Wouldn't it be better to use our time and energy to work directly on the things we really want to create, the things that move us toward our vision?
Current reality will always be filled with noise, fires, and tugs for our attention. When we can step back far enough to recognize the one step forward, two steps back pattern we tend to fall into and stop long enough to examine the underlying causes of this oscillation, we can refocus our attention and use the tension in our favor to again pull us forward. It's a never-ending journey of improvement. Those who master this process well--and you probably know a few who have--are able to set a goal, achieve it, create a new vision, reestablish the tension, and use it to pull themselves on to bigger and better things.
It's humbling to realize how much room there is to go deeper inside, how much potential is still waiting to be discovered. I get excited by the conscious effort it takes, and I am thankful for the hundreds of opportunities that present themselves every day to practice.
During our closing exercise, one of the class participants shared a song by John Legend, "If You're Out There," which seemed to nicely sum up our focus for the three days. One particular verse toward the end of the song goes, "If you're ready, we can save the world, believe again, start to mend, we don't have to wait for destiny, we should be the change that we want to see . . ."
It gets you thinking, doesn't it?
Mark Alpert is president of Pegasus Communications.
violin photo: Ian Britton/freefoto.com