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Emergence, the rise of novelty out of interaction between a diverse group of actors, has been my research topic since the last few years. I mentioned emergence in many of my blogs of this website and wrote several articles on the topic. More recently my focus deepened into the relationship between leadership and emergence. My main question is: How can leadership facilitate emergence leading to (radical) innovation? This year, I have published three articles* on the subject, all what you could call ‘rapid reviews’.

It is time now for a more robust research. Today, I had a discussion with a very gifted colleague of mine, Josien Engel, who mentioned my “almost childish curiosity” about how leadership and emergence relate. She is a distinguished researcher on leadership and she told me she shares the interest in emergent leadership, especially in the complex and uncertain times we live in. I am happy to announce that Josien and I agreed to co-create the needed robust research together!!!

* The three articles

Van Kemenade, E.A. (2021), Education and Training in Emergent Leadership, The Journal of Quality in Education 11(18), 149-176

Van Kemenade, E.A. (2021), The Leadership Complexion, Quality Progress, 54 (11), 32-37

Van Kemenade, E.A. (2021), Emergent leadership and the Medusa principles, Journal of Research in Business Studies and Management, 8(2), 1-9

 

Innovation often ’emerges’ without anyone ‘in control’. The outcome, however, can be crucial for the sustainability of an organisation in times of complexity and uncertainty.  What can leadership do to facilitate this emergence? An exploring literature review reveals six factors: Enable, Share values, Dream, Interact, Be Context sensitive and Adapt. Read the article here.

In Dutch the principles sound like:  Mogelijk maken, Eenheid smeden, Dromen, Uitwisselen, de context opSnuiven en Aanpassen. Together these form the word Medusa.

Medusa was a Greek lady that was raped by Poseidon, punished by Athena (in stead of punishing him) and finally beheaded by Perseus. However, the blood that poured out of her head mingled with the water from the sea and these two co-created an innovation: Pegasus, the marvellous flying horse, that became an important helper for Zeus, the supreme god.

Pegasus on the Opera House in Poznan

 

 

In blog #53 I presented an example of improvisation from jazz. The idea was that improvisation is a key instrument to facilitate emergence, to facilitate radical change and lessons can be learned from jazz music. Frank Zappa was an American composer. He composed and played jazz, but also classical music and he might be best known for his rock music as the bandleader of the Mothers of Invention.

Zappa explained in an interview the importance of improvisation for invention. He mentions creating ‘something special’, ‘unique’, ‘one-time only, ‘doing things that are literally impossible to imagine’. It is a performance that never happened before and will never happen again. That is exactly what emergence is about.

But how? Partly, that is related to the people who want to create the emergence. You need to have ‘the basic mechanical knowledge and imagination’. You need ‘spontaneity’. It is ‘me against the laws of nature’. You roughly know what the borders are (e.g. how many time you have to do it) and then you take the chance to go out there and make a mistake…. Interesting also is how you depend on each other (on how intuitive the rhythm section is that is backing you up).

In summary, emergence requires: knowledge; imagination; spontaneity; allowing mistakes and depending on each other!

See the interview here.

Sometimes you encounter by coincidence a pearl, in this case an article worthwhile reading and more than worthwhile applying its recommendations. As you know, I am researching ’emergence’, the phenomenon where out of a network of interacting internal and external elements in the course of time  a coherent new pattern arises, that is unpredictable, unexpected, unplanned and irreducible to the separate parts. Emergence leads to innovation. But how?

I found that one of the antecedents of emergence is improvisation or experimenting. Rik Spann strongly promotes that idea, a.o. refering to Frank J. Barrett and his book Yes to the Mess.

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Looking for more on improvisation in organisations I bumped into -again a Dutch- article on LinkedIn from Remco Bakker (2016) on innovation and improvisation.  And Remco led me to the original source of his article, again the thoughts of Frank J. Barrett, this time  in a 1998 article.

Barrett discerns seven lessons for organisations from jazz:

1. 1. Provocative competence: deliberate efforts to interrupt habit patterns;
   2. Embracing errors as a source of learning;
   3. Shared orientation toward minimal structures that allow maximum flexibility;
   4. Distributed task: Continual  negotiation and dialogue toward dynamic  synchronisation;
   5. Reliance on retrospective sense-making;
   6. “Hanging out”: Membership in a community of practice;
   7. Taking turns soloing and supporting.

One-by-one valuable lessons ……. I suggest: Read Barrett’s article !!!

On his website Ruben van Zelm describes the four quality paradigms of our book in an article with the title “What is Quality?”.   Hardono and I make a distinction between the empirical, reference, reflective and emergence paradigm. Ruben compares the paradigms with a cycle tour, his tour that morning of his first holiday day.  And he asks himself: What is the quality of that cycle tour?

Ruben delivers interesting thoughts and above all a confirmation on how clarifying an example can be. Thanks!!! Here, I follow Ruben’s story line, but give another example (partly real, partly made up). It is about the hurricane Catarina, that developed in the end of 2005 in the Caribbean. How could a government act from the four paradigms?

In the empirical paradigm  quality is defined as conformance to requirements. Quality management is about measuring. Values that fit in this paradigm are accuracy and transparency.

Nowadays, from the beginning of a hurricane its development  is measured.  Catarina became one of the greatest hurricanes in the  2005 season in the Atlantic. She developed from category 1 (some damage will occur) to category 5 (desastrous damage will occur). On the top of her development, we talk about speeds of 278 kilometres an hour and minimal pressure of  902 mbar.  She was wide, 400 kilometres from the centre. A government would measure and inform, warn their citizens. Also after the event the result is measured: Catarina caused  1833 deaths and over  153 billion dollar damage.

 

In the reference paradigm quality is compared to a model or a norm. The definition of quality is fitness for use. Important values are success and continuous improvement.

If the government does not only measure but e.g. does a prospective risk inventory to know what and where the biggest risks are; if the government has a hurricane plan en acts upon it. If the government evaluates the activities to prevent failures from happening again,  in that case we talk about the reference paradigm. In fact governments in the case of Catarina did so on different levels and locations.

 

In the reflection paradigm quality is the  perception of an event you can reflect on. Professional values are important in this paradigm.

In the example of Catarina the government could have installed an Outbreak Management Team that continuously -before, during and after the event- could advise how to act and how to prevent more harm to occur.  Members should be professionals of a great variety of disciplines: doctors and nurses, fire brigade, police, army; psychologists and social workers. And  of course: citizens!

 

In the emergence paradigm quality is considered to be dynamic. Some novelty occurs, mostly as a result of interaction and co-creation of a group of people. Flexibility and willingness to change are important values  in this paradigm.

 

Our world gets more complex and uncertainty grows. It is important that we embrace the uncertainty and complexity.  Maybe then, more quality initiatives can emerge like in 2005 as a result of  the far-for-equilibrium caused by hurricane Catarina.

Curral L, Marques-Quinteiro P, Gomes C, Lind PG (2016) Leadership as an Emergent Feature in Social Organizations: Insights from A Laboratory Simulation Experiment. PLoS ONE 11(12): e0166697. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0166697