Leadership and Management in 2004

Last week's AFR Boss Magazine has two interesting, if not ingenious, articles about leadership and management in the current age.

James Carlopio from AGSM tells us that 'Stepping back and taking in the broader viwe can help you stay ahead of the pack.' in his back page article Reeling from all that Infomation?

Carlopio points us to our natural pattern recognition ability as the key to managing our communication, strategies and personal (business) relationships. As he states, us humans are constantly using pattern recognition, but we need to practise applying cognitive pattern recognition to our business worlds. A common pattern he suggests as an example is convergence. Convergence is an unarguable pattern, so look for where it might happen next around you—and prepare for it. Even better, initiate it.

Carlopio finishes with the great piece of advice:

In fact, the point at which you think you've found something impossible is a good place to startr looking for what might happen next.

 

The other article that caught my eye is by Lauren Keller Johnson originally published in the Harvard Management Update. It is titled Lateral thinking but her primary topic is something she calls Lateral leadership. She discusses the now common phenomenon of being tasked with a project whose success relies on the buy-in and collaboration of people over whom you have no direct authority. She talks about Networking, Constructive persuasion and negotiation, Consultation and Coalition building. Keller Johnson tells us that building the right relationships and other such "investments in lateral-leadership 'capital' can take time and patience—and often the dividends don't come until later."

It's all very good advice, although again not amazingly ingenious. It is very similar to the way I have managed unpaid volunteer teams for some years now. It also sounds a lot like what my old manager Tim McLaughlan used to call Management by wandering around .

 

Of course I can't not mention that the cover feature of the magazine was an interview with Richard Branson entitled Reluctant guru, because you can never read too many interviews with Richard Branson!