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District
Conference
Sept. 9, 2005
LEADERSHIP
It’s not just for “leaders”
anymore
Dr. Tom Keenan, I.S.P., CISSP
Professor, Faculty of Environmental
Design & Dept. of Computer Science
University of Calgary
District
Conference
Sept. 9, 2005
WHY Leadership?
• "We do not believe in ourselves
until someone reveals that deep
inside us something is valuable,
worth listening to, worthy of our
trust, sacred to our touch.
• Once we believe in ourselves we
can risk curiosity, wonder,
spontaneous delight or any
experience that reveals the human
spirit.
• e.e. cummings (1894-1962)
District
Conference
Sept. 9, 2005
Story: Cullen Jennings
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•
•
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Raised on a fishing boat in Duncan, B.C.
Had a wicked sense of humor
Attended Shad Valley in 1986
Went on to earn honours degrees in
Math (B.Sc., M.Sc.) at U of Calgary
• Started PhD program at UBC
• Dropped out of the program
• Sent us a press release in 2000
District
Conference
Sept. 9, 2005
District
Conference
Sept. 9, 2005
I’m not trying to take
credit, but…
• Cullen says what happened to him
at Shad Calgary in 1986 had a lot
to do with this
• He came back in 2004 and “gave
back” to the Shad community
District
Conference
Sept. 9, 2005
Cullen at Shad
District
Conference
Sept. 9, 2005
From The Leader’s Brain
by Bastiaan Heembergen
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•
•
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Doing it without thinking about it (Blink)
Neuroplasticity
Improvisation
In business , creativity and art are most
frequently confined to the advertising
and marketing departments
• Leadership through Art
• Exercise: Play a piece of music and
write down the thoughts that it brings into
your mind.
District
Conference
Sept. 9, 2005
An exercise
• Write down five questions that come to
mind, things that you would love to know
the answers to.
• Write down any common themes that
come to mind.
District
Conference
Characteristics of a Good
Leader
Sept. 9, 2005
• Leaders need to develop intellectual
humility and suspend judgment
• On the surface, it sounds like a tension,
because leaders are expected to “take
charge”
• Journal of Cognitive Science article:
people overestimate their understanding
of a problem
District
Conference
Sept. 9, 2005
Characteristics of a Good
Leader
• Leaders need to increase their capacity
to voluntarialy attend in an age of
continuous partial attention
• Leaders need to diminish their
inattentional blindness and over-reliance
on analytical/logical tools and look at
voluntary attention and unclutter their
mind.
District
Conference
Sept. 9, 2005
Our lives have changed!
• Balance between business time and
leisure time is blurred,
• Many leaders are 24/7 personalities
• Too little attention is left over to
“participate in the world on its own
terms,” to be surprised, to learn new
things, to empathize.
• Giving full attention to a problem is not
the best recipe for providing fresh
perspectives and thoughts.
• Need to create safe external and internal
environments that release voluntary
attention.
District
Conference
Sept. 9, 2005
Mindfulness for Leaders
• Are we mindless? Sometimes
• Mindfulness is “a state of alertness
and lively awareness that is
manifested in active information
processing, characterized by the
creation and refinement of
categories, and distinctions and
the awareness of multiple
perspectives.” –Ellen Langer
District
Conference
Sept. 9, 2005
Story: IDEO
The best ideas are in the
cracks
• “Most influential design firm in the
world”
• “one of the largest and arguably
most innovative product design
firms in the world, with more than
300 employees and annual
revenues of over $50 million“
• "I think the really interesting things
are happening between what we
used to know as the conventional
disciplines,"
– David M. Kelley, IDEO founder
District
Conference
Sept. 9, 2005
Moving from either/or to
both/and thinking”
• Almost everyone has something
good to say, for example good
intentions
• Beware of setting up either/or
choices
• Try to come from abundance, not
scarcity
District
Conference
Sept. 9, 2005
One summary of the
“IDEO method”
• Gather insightful, motivated human
beings, regardless of disciplinary
background;
• Put them under intense deadline
pressure, yet pamper them in ways
that reinforce a sense of community;
• Challenge them to do great, creative
work;
• Stand back as they blow you away
with sideways solutions the likes of
which the world has never seen.
District
Conference
Sept. 9, 2005
From a review of the Art of
Innovation
• A great deal of the book outlines
the emphasis that IDEO puts on
the treatment of their employees
• Quick and frequent prototyping as
a key to success.
• All projects start by assigning a
"hot" team and letting them
brainstorm and prototype their way
into some great ideas. No details
are given on how the teams are
formed or managed
District
Conference
Sept. 9, 2005
A leader is a human in a
sea of VM, IVR, BOTS
• Futurist Raymond Kurzweil predicts
computer power will surpass human
brain around 2025
• “The Point of Singularity”
• “Living” proof why we’re not there yet…
District
Conference
Sept. 9, 2005
District
Conference
Sept. 9, 2005
District
Conference
Sept. 9, 2005
District
Conference
Sept. 9, 2005
District
Conference
Sept. 9, 2005
District
Conference
Sept. 9, 2005
District
Conference
Sept. 9, 2005
A leader says it’s “half full”
District
Conference
Sept. 9, 2005
District
Conference
Sept. 9, 2005
And remember…