1. The document discusses leadership and organizational change from the perspective of language and conversation. It describes organizations as complex adaptive systems defined by boundaries created through shared meanings encoded in language. 2. It asserts that while a common language fosters efficiency, it can also limit evolution. Leaders can introduce new languages to allow adaptation to changes by generating new frameworks for conversation. 3. The role of the leader is discussed as incubating and introducing new languages through questions that generate novel conversations and spark new frameworks for structuring decision making.

1. Modeling Leadership
@SemanticWill

2. 1. Problem statement
2. Domain awareness
3. Context of leadership & management
4. Power, Authority, Influence
5. Organizations as systems
6. Modeling conversation
7. Enframed by language
8. The Paine Principle
9. Questions of leadership

5. @SemanticWill | Will Evans

6. Let’s start with a little Frederick Taylor
and management science
@SemanticWill | Will Evans

7. His ideas about management were informed by
the Prussian Military
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8. His ideas of control were also shaped by
the penal system of discipline & punish
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9. Taylor’s ideas about human nature were
informed by Freud…
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10. Who did an epic amount of coke.
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11. But also the more sober ideas of Kurt Lewin –
the founder of social psych....
Who was influenced by Max Weber
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12. Three forms of authority distinguished by
Max Weber
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13. the ability of one agent within a social
relationship to carry out her own will despite
resistance
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14. the probability that a command within a
specific context will be obeyed
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15. legitimate domination
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16. Authority is more enduring than non-
legitimate forms of domination
Authority is related to the belief in legitimacy
• Authority is related to the belief in legitimacy
It may persist even if those obeying have a
• It may persist even if those obeying have a
greater material interest in disobeying
greater material interest in disobeying
• Authority is engendered by powerby power
Authority is engendered
@SemanticWill | Will Evans

17. Foucault and Power
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18. Authority is predicated on power
Power is not a substance.
It is not something you possess
Power is a relation between people
Power is not a substance. It is not something you possess
A set of actions on the actions of others
Power is a relation between people
A set of actions on the actions of others relation is a power relation
Every
Every relation is a power relation
@SemanticWill | Will Evans

19. structuring the field of action of others.
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20. Power and Knowledge
Power and Knowledge are intertwingled
Every field of power creates a body of knowledge
Every body of knowledge creates a field of power
Power/Knowledge is a flow.
Knowledge is encoded in language
@SemanticWill | Will Evans

21. Power is created through 3 axes of
subjectivity
Language (knowledge)
Governance (rules)
Governance (rules)
Ethics (cultural norms)
Ethics (cultural norms)
@SemanticWill | Will Evans

22. Language enframes process;
Process becomes the Panopticon
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23. SO WHAT OF INFLUENCE?
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24. Influence is the ability to affect other’s beliefs and
behavior without power.
Influence requires a defined context.
That context we’ll call a social system.
(which are complex adaptive systems)
@SemanticWill | Will Evans

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27. SOCIAL SYSTEMS ARE SYSTEMS OF
CONVERSATION
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28. We need a model of conversation to understand power
IF ORGANIZATIONS ARE SYSTEMS
dynamics, decision making, and influence
OF CONVERSATION
@SemanticWill | Will Evans

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37. Yeah, but…
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38. Kanban creates a shared context..
Using cards as “social objects”
Which allow teams to have conversations
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39. ORGANIZATIONS ARE CONVERSATION SYSTEMS
A system is defined by boundaries between itself and
its environment
Social Systems are created by selecting what is
meaningful to reproduce itself (Autopoiesis)
An organization creates itself through conversation
with practices encoded in language
@SemanticWill | Will Evans

40. An organization increases its efficiency by creating
An and refining aincreaseslanguage. by
organization shared its efficiency
creating and refining a shared language.
This common language helps the organization arrive
This common language helps the organization
at decisions more efficiently.
arrive at decisions more efficiently.
@SemanticWill | Will Evans

41. Yet while language fosters efficiency, it also
limits thelanguage fostersability to evolve.
Yet while organizations efficiency, it also
limits the organizations ability to evolve.
@SemanticWill | Will Evans

42. The language and grammar of efficiency is
very different from the language of innovation
– yet both are necessary
@SemanticWill | Will Evans

43. Constrained by a one vocabulary, the organization becomes
unable to adapt to exogenous shocks to the system.
@SemanticWill | Will Evans

44. Unable to adapt, the organization
eventually declines and dies.
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45. By continually changing its language, and it's
conversations, an organization may continually
regenerate itself.
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46. The Paine Principle
An outsider introducing new language
may incite radical change
Named after Thomas Paine - an outsider to the American colonies,
who brought a new language of radical freedom, and gave a voice to
the revolution.
(He was, in essence, translating Voltaire into the context and
vernacular of colonial America)
@SemanticWill | Will Evans

47. Like any organization, TLC is a set of conversations among people.
Like many organizations faced with the market conditions it sees
itself, it needed to change to meet new challenges.
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48. TLC couldn’t use its existing language & conversations to
change the way it handled adversity.
So it sought new languages… and a new grammar for
structuring conversations.
@SemanticWill | Will Evans

49. To support an organization's future viability, effective
decision makers actively introduce change into the system.
They may do so by generating new language that teams in
the organization come to understand or embrace.
@SemanticWill | Will Evans

50. Before IBM can reap the benefits of teams using design
thinking to increase collaborative ideation, they first have to
introduce the grammar & language of design thinking
@SemanticWill | Will Evans

51. For organizations to regenerate themselves, they must first
recognize the limitations of their current language. Then they
must seek new language domains, and translate them into
conversations the organization may understand and embrace.
@SemanticWill | Will Evans

52. QUESTIONS OF LEADERSHIP
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53. Leaderships role is…
About the reduction of uncertainty?
About reinforcing shared values?
Creating a framework for conversations?
Introduction of new languages?
Strategic reduction (or introduction) of friction?
@SemanticWill | Will Evans

54. It’s the role of leaders within an organization to
incubate and then introduce new languages
@SemanticWill | Will Evans

55. A thought…
You cannot use the language of the past to
articulate a vision for the future.
Current language can only write a narrative
of futures past.
@SemanticWill | Will Evans

56. The task of discovering the requisite variety of tools
and disciplines is iterative.
The source of new languages is questions – questions
that spark new conversations
@SemanticWill | Will Evans

57. As a leader, ask yourself…
What questions should you be asking?
@SemanticWill | Will Evans

58. As a leader, ask yourself…
What questions should you be asking?
What questions are you not supposed to ask?
@SemanticWill | Will Evans

59. As a leader, ask yourself…
What questions should you be asking?
What questions are you not supposed to ask?
@SemanticWill | Will Evans

60. As a leader, ask yourself…
What questions should you be asking?
What questions are you not supposed to ask?
Ask questions that don't come easy.
@SemanticWill | Will Evans

61. As a leader, ask yourself…
• What questions should you be asking?
What questions should you be asking?
• What questions are you not supposed to
What questions are you not supposed to ask?
ask?
• > Ask those.
• Ask questions thatthat don't come easy.
Ask questions don’t come easy.
• Ask thequestion that are tough, awkward, taboo.
Ask questions that are tough,
awkward, taboo.
@SemanticWill | Will Evans

62. Thanks!
Will Evans | @SemanticWill
tlclabs.co