I just learned about an interesting discussion happening over on the Harvard Business School blog, How Much of Leadership Is About Control, Delegation, or Theater? The space for entering comments is open for another week, so go take a look.

This comes from some of the wonderful work by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton on evidence-based management. How does leadership effect performance? What evidence is there to support it? I have been interested this for a long time, and especially since I will be teaching a class in the next few weeks on at NYU’s SCPS.

While I am very interested in the evidence that is out there, I also realize that all the evidence in the world won’t make a difference if it is somebody else’s evidence and does not fit within my experience and my own goals and objectives; thus, I plan to take an action-learning perspective to this class (rather than just reading “the book” on the subject, as if there were such a thing out there). After all, can evidence ever really exist only “out there?”

Technorati Tags: Developing Leaders, evidence-based management, Harvard Business School , Jeffrey Pfeffer , NYU, Robert I. Sutton , SCPS

It seems the Anglican Church (Episcopal in the US) is considering the expulsion of rebel provinces that do not tow the party line on gays. According to the Times, there seems to be a lot of discussion about being gay and Anglican, so much so that the group is sounding more and more like the Catholic Church and its treatment of being gay.

I wonder what will happen when the conservative winds blow toward removing the ordination of women and divorce.

Technorati Tags: Anglican, schism

I wanted to attend this paper session, A Conceptual Expansion of Critical HRD: Towards a Progressive Agenda for Workplace Learning and Democracy by Allan Ramdhony, but the session was canceled since he did not attend the conference. I am interested in critical HRD, as I recently presented a paper on it at AERC.

The irony? Critical HRD and critical management studies began here in the UK and is slowly crossing the pond to the US; and this was the only critical HRD paper here at AHRD in Oxford. I wonder what this may be a sign of? Perhaps I should consider this as my topic for next year’s conference in Lille? 

This is a slightly edited slideshowRobin and I presented last week at AERC. I liveblogged the conference when I was not presenting this. Next steps–further develop it for another round of resaerch!

Technorati Tags: aerc2007, critical hrd, critical management studies, aerc

Now back in New York, I again have Internet access and just uploaded the liveblogging entries I wrote while at AERC 2007 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I now have some work to do with interpreting what is there, and expect to write and work extensively on them over the next two weeks. The liveblogging entries remain unedited, exactly as I wrote them while attending the conference.

I will need to consider a way to identify them on my blog as research data, rather than just other posts. This is my next step.

Technorati Tags: AERC2007, Halifax, liveblogging

Craig Newmark, the Craig in Craigslist, spoke to and with us last night at the Social Media Club NY meeting. It was nice to hear him again so soon after hearing him speak on a panel discussion two weeks ago at Personal Democracy Forum. As others have more fully blogged about this
event, including Mark Rose, Howard Greenstein, Allen Stern, and Donna Bogatin, I want to muse on some of the random thoughts and ideas Craig raised as I thought some
of them were useful.

“Death is my exit strategy.”

• I like this quote of Craig. While he used it in the context of when he will leave his work at Craigslist, I suppose in a more postmodern way, this is true for all of us. I wonder how strategic many of us are about this, both for whatever legacy we are interested in leaving as well as how we want to leave our memories once we are gone (like we really have any control over that).

“We need people to speak truth to power.”

• I have never heard this Quaker phrase before, but it seems consistent with Craig’s political views that he shared at the meeting. Here, I thought that was original at the time. Catchy phrase, and when trying to learn a little more about it, I found this on the Quaker site itself:
• To those who hold high places in our national life and bear the terrible responsibility of making decisions for war or peace.
• To the American people who are the final reservoir of power in this country and whose values and expectations set the limits for those who exercise authority.
• To the idea of Power itself, and its impact on Twentieth Century life.
• I keep thinking about Foucault and Weber and Marx (who has some great stuff that is often missed due to the American experience with Communism and the Cold War). Power exists in all human interaction, and I wonder why, given the great amount of American frustration with the course of the war in Iraq, the status quo continues. Perhaps people find it better to complain and shake our heads rather than get up and do anything to change the course of the conflict. I suppose if those in power do not feel pressure
  to change (i.e., power), then why do anything differently? Here, after the Democrats took over in Congress, nothing seems to have changed with the war. Another broken promise, or is that too simple a way of looking at this?
• I wonder, too, about this, in the manner Craig spoke. He was very calm, and while I find him wonderful to listen to, there was little moderation in his tone and speaking manner. His words seemed passionate, but there was little animation as he spoke about this. Interesting disconnect.

Craig’s theme of journalists and the need to have them to tell what is really happening in the world.

• I was glad he did not use the term “tell the truth” about situations in the world. I am becoming inclined to see the concept of “the truth” as being a subjective assessment of the world, as opposed to an objective descritpion of world events. I know, I am not sure how objective anything can be (i.e., can we ever speak about anything outside of our prior experiences?), but journalists have the same pressures (their beliefs, power relationships, personal and organizational political hurdles) we all do, so I find
  it a challenge that they should be held to an other standards than other people. I think about the New York Times and their All the News That’s Fit to Print – who decides what is news and what aspect (i.e., which side or perspective of it) should be presented (i.e., discussed). So, if the “news” does not cover a story, does that mean it is not news?
• Perhaps I need to study some journalism. I wonder if Jay Rosen at Assignment Zero is onto something here?

I like the meetings of Social Media Club. Having been a member for a few months now and having attended a few meetings and listened to some really talented people talk about some really interesting things, I feel stimulated. Isn’t that what social media is all about?

Technorati Tags: Craig Newmark, Social Media Club, smc

I am not sure which I find more interesting; the concerns over the cultural (in)tolerance that Ernie raised in his post about the Mister Wong social bookmark site (with the subtitle complete in English), or the fact that the limited English pages begin with "Welcome, Dude!" It is certainly more engaging (i.e., memorable) than del.icio.us.

With these said, I wonder what target audience they have in mind? Better yet, since almost any depiction of anybody else can be perceived by somebody or another as being insensitive, where does that leave us? Perhaps this is why so many new car models have numbers and letters as their names instead of words? Does using a depiction of an Asian (or Hispanic, African-American, Gay, Republican, Woman, Handicapped individual, etc.) automatically mean something is intolerant? Can only members from that group talk about that group?

It seems the Worldwide Anglican Communion (Episcopal in the US) is becoming more intolerant and traditional by the day. When the invitations from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, went out for their every-ten-year Lambeth Conference, he neglected to invite the two openly gay American bishops, according to the BBC. I suppose Gene Robinson and Martyn Minns are excluded because they are different from the very tradition that the conservative bishops want to "protect." It is a good thing for them that this did not stop Henry VIII from starting the denomination itself, simply because he did not want to hold to the old traditions imposed by formerly Catholic England. Strange, that such power struggles sometimes seems so far away, especially when those who are religious decide who God likes more than others and therefore who has more of a right to having and using his or her voice. Nothing like being silenced by not being invited to participate.

Perhaps what comes around, goes around? More accurately, how soon we forget our history.

Seth Godin spoke at Personal Democracy Forum on Friday, and I have been considering his message since then. I have read a number of his books, and this is the first time I heard / saw him.

Two of the things he said struck me:

1. "Ideas that spread, win."

Wow, he really got it right. I wonder how all the well-intentioned political folks who attended can best harness that message? While I agreed with a number of those who spoke in the "Is Cyberspace Color-Blind" panel, which focused on the issue of privilege and positionality, I wonder how best to use Seth's message to guide next steps? Any time I hear people refer to issues of race or sex or ethnicity, it seems a bit, well, old. I agree with those who feel they need to speak about it, and I as a white male have (in the last year) become very aware of this issue and how it manifests itself, I wonder how this message or question or issue can be spread in a new way for a new audience. I know I need to explore this more as well. If Seth is right, then how can the issue of privilege and all that comes with it be made alive so that it challenges without closing down the conversation as an "oh, that again." From my business communication work, which is one of my roles as an adjunct instructor, I return yet again to the WIIFM. "What's In It For Me? " How can we use Seth's advice to spread an idea when people need to hear it in a different way? How can issues of privilege and those around race and sex be communicated in a way that hits me in a way that I can hear–in the wallet? No, I am not thinking about lawsuits and such, but rather about how more just business practices can positively affect the bottom line.

2. [back in the days when there was] "no email, no voicemail, no web." I "do not know what we did all day."

I also thought technology was supposed to make us more efficient in less time. Why then do I always have technology issues and more to do within that less time. Somebody surely sold us a bill of goods, I am afraid.

More tomorrow about PDF2007.