How the 7 D’s are Disrupting Leadership-As-Usual

Around the world, in every culture and society, exponential technologies are on a collision course with leadership.

The global business culture that rewards overwork, competition and overachievement is based on a hierarchy that is fast collapsing, through no fault of its own.

In fact, the system's own decline is based on its rampant planetary success.

If you've read 'Zero Marginal Cost Society,' you're familiar with the idea that in a capitalist system, markets improves efficiency. What they also do is drive innovation to create products that reach a zero marginal cost, meaning that they're almost free.

We see a hint of this “almost free” in the way we access digital products and services in the marketplace today, but we’re not at its fullest expression yet.

Rapid technological change is fast creating a society that is going to be vastly different than the one we experience today. This is why leadership is so massively important.

I want to explore just why exponential technologies are disruptive to leaders, because this can be deceptive.

Most of us go wrong here because as leaders, we’re good at using the past to predict the future. We can even be good at using the present to predict the future. But exponential change isn’t based on any of that. It’s very nature is predicated on the fact that it’s completely different than anything that’s come before.

This is why it’s really easy not to see, not to listen to the voices from the edges, the margins, whispering the future that's coming at all of us, fast. 

Managing the Stress Response

Most leaders, if we’re lucky enough to see the speed at which a different future is coming, launch straight into a stress response that can last anywhere from a few moments to, well…if you don’t treat it, it never goes away.

Some leaders get so scared at what's coming that they just quit, pretending to be cynical to hide their feelings of inadequacy when faced with such a planetary shift and existential challenge.

It's a common stress response, wherever you sit on the fight/flight/freeze/fawn pattern. It leads to all kinds of strange behaviors from leaders who are reacting to headlines and pressure.

I don't mean to say that the pressure, both external from managers/donors/boards/etc. and internal, from your responsibilities and commitments, isn't real.

But leaders tend to react to the accelerating pace of change and a future of rapidly advancing exponential technologies with panic and fear.

Most cultures teach us to fear what is uncertain, but that can be unlearned.

We see leaders fight their growing awareness by doubling-down on the status quo, because a retreat to conservatism has always worked before.

We see leaders retreat with their hands in the air, fleeing with the excuse that too much is broken to start fixing it.

We see leaders freeze with indecision, gathering reports, mired in consultations, unable to identify and hear what matters.

We see leaders fawning to others in power, giving up their sacred responsibility to lead the communities that have vested them with trust, all because they feel they can't speak truth to power.

I see myself in each of these reflections, in different ways. Maybe you do too.

Whether it’s holding on too tightly to the status quo or not being able to recognize, adapt to and champion change, the field of leadership is stressful terrain.

Knowing that disruption is probable, what are leaders supposed to do?

How can you resource yourself fast enough and well enough to meet what’s headed our way?

It can help to explore just what properties make exponential technologies (trends like AR and VR, AI, robotics, autonomous vehicles, blockchain, sensors and imaging, medicine, digital biology and biotech, data science, etc.) so threatening to the status quo and our leadership paradigms.

The leadership framework I’m about to share with you is from Peter Diamandis's work, which I know from Singularity University, and work that builds on Peter’s framework by my Code Innovation co-founder, Nathaniel Calhoun.

7 Ways Exponential Technologies are Disruptive to Leaders

It's helpful to think through what leadership is going to ask of us in the future. Doing so can help us forecast different ways to be prepared for what might be ahead.

Here are 7 characteristics of exponential technologies and specifically, how they are disruptive to leaders and our leadership paradigm, demanding that we resource ourselves in new and different ways.

1. Digitized

We used to have face-to-face meetings. Now we have Facebook. Let's be honest. Livestreaming or Zooming a meeting is no replacement for the information we receive from someone’s physical presence. Especially if your job depends upon social trust and long-term relationships forged in the material world, you may struggle as things transition to a world of digital communications and digital presence.

2. Deceptive

Calling a technology exponential means that every 18 months or so, the price to performance ratio doubles. This is as much about computing power as it is about the social change that results. Exponential technologies are not just engineered material or digital entities that exist in a vacuum to power our abundant future. They are also an unpredictable and therefore unwieldy force whose impact on society, culture and communities remains emergent and uncertain.

3. Disruptive

Communities are more fluid and less stable than ever before. Technological unemployment is just one example facing leaders in the next decade that demands strategy and forecasting. For leaders who thrive on set identity and clearly-defined roles, the flux created by transitions and in-between spaces will be a challenge. We need to learn how to navigate increasing complexity and uncertainty with confidence in our own resourcefulness. Leaders must develop their resilience.

4. Demonetized

Financial stability for leaders doing impact work is less certain than ever, and so are jobs, in general. I find the best wealth to be had is in health, happiness, and a sharing community. We need to be conscious of the non-monetary assets that our work represents, and of the irreplaceable contributions we are making that go beyond paychecks and donor funding, especially for those of us building global public goods and working in open-source/the Commons. But also, a lot of things we need in life require fiat money. The leaders living and working on the edge of innovation, systems and culture change must live in both the old economy and the emergent, more beautiful one, and that can be a challenge.

5. Dematerialized

More and more, leadership work is becoming one of connection, one that happens on phones and in digital spaces where global minds meet around shared visions and values. Again, if you're someone who is not used to learning new things, listening to diverse voices or being a bit uncomfortable most of the time, this isn't going to work for you and you'll find the new world both threatening and stressful. Maybe you'll even become a fearful and cynical leader, the kind who makes other people feel the same, but I hope not — it's better to figure out how to tolerate ambiguity, get comfortable being uncomfortable, and journey from there.

6. Democratized

The Dalai Lama said that the next Buddha would be a sangha. I can't say I care for his gender perspective on this one, but I appreciate that he references the wisdom of community. The qualities that make "group mind"  more intelligent than the sum of individuals is something explored by recent research. I like to think about what it means for those of us who already feel the weight of too much responsibility. Sharing power feels like a welcome relief compared to the stoic doggedness of going it alone.

7. Decentralized

Since the 1970's, health systems in poor countries around the world have decentralized and become an example of how distributed networks outperform complex functions in a system. Blockchain and crypto projects are another current example of the power of decentralized networks to create new systems that make the old ones obsolete. There are examples of this from projects across Africa and the Middle East, all early testament to the power of redistributing agency, digitally and otherwise. 

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Maybe you’re just starting to think about what the future means for leaders and how to resource yourself in a world of accelerating technological — and social — change.

If you’re interested in exploring how the 7 D's apply to leadership, sign up for email updates here.

There are going to be some amazing times ahead and leaders will be at the leading edge of it.

I'll see you soon.