Moonshots
Summary
Getting all hands on board to energetically and enthusiastically work on fixing what's broken with management today is susceptible to a growing trend, particularly here in the US of A. That is, with the explosion of home entertainment systems (think 52" or larger flat panel televisions), high speed internet connections to those systems, and a tendency to - post evening meal - want to curl up on the couch with a can of Pringles draped in a Snugly, entertainment and instant gratification have come to dominate our personal lives (before or after work hours). This evolving culture of "watch- or wait-and-see," feeds a spectator mindset that supports disengagement and sloth which tend to kill rather than enable Communities of Passion (CoP).
Description
Sedentary Voyeurism is an inclination, preference or tendency to sit idly by with the specific aim to simply watch and observe either in person or remotely, but intentionally not engage in the action while reaping some kind of intrinsic or extrinsic gratification for ones self. The spectator mindset involves intentional moves to be in the audience, and not actively participate in the action one has gathered to view. Further, this mindset leads one to the wrongful conclusion that participation is beyond her/his capacity to engage at any level in the sport/action at hand.
Illustration
How many Facebook or LinkedIn friends/colleagues do you have that sit in the wings, viewing but not engaging in the conversation or on going dialog? How many people watch the mainstream media programs and don't bother to fact-check or dig into primary resources to determine the validity of their reports? When you attend a sporting event, do you grab another eight dollar hotdog and ten dollar beer all the while dismissing your ability to get in the game as it's the "purview of the professionals?"
Generally at work, it's not okay to sit on the sidelines and disengage from the action of production; read, putting together products that upon delivery sustain the organization in some way. In some ways, the day-to-day work of the operation is a distraction to fundamentally reshaping how management accomplishes it's aims. It's always easier to continue doing what you normally do than engage in some kind of Community or Group driven by passion, particularly if it's mission runs counter to the culture or status quo.
My thinking on the concepts of sedentary voyeurism and the spectator mindset is relatively new and raw (in that, I haven't sat with the ideas long enough to prove that this exists in anyway). Even so, as we become comfortable supplanting action with watching and content to simply watch away our personal lives, we can become addicted to the instant or not so instant gratification that voyeurism offers. This may (or may not) lead us to become complacent at work as we become more readily disinclined to place ourselves out side our comfort zones, which inevitably, jumping into communities of passion in work-spaces can be.
In other words, it's much easier to sit on the sidelines, spectate in a sedentary way because jumping into and joining a CoP that aims to disassemble the dominating patterns of behavior and enable new modes of management has a higher risk to reward ratio that prevents people from even stepping into the arena. When it comes to challenging the existing paradigm for management in America, what should we do? Leave it to the Professionals? Hire a team of outside consultants? Or do it yourselves? As people become accustom, perhaps even addicted to sedentary voyeurism, it may trap them in a spectator mindset that keeps people (voluntarily & willfully) out of a game that they really need to engage in. Instead of an "all-hands-in" game plan, the spectator mindset leaves organizations with the classic us v. them operand. This invariably leads to bigger questions about how to defeat this barrier, and I'll be curious to hear what others think about the whole issue.
Generally at work, it's not okay to sit on the sidelines and disengage from the action of production; read, putting together products that upon delivery sustain the organization in some way. In some ways, the day-to-day work of the operation is a distraction to fundamentally reshaping how management accomplishes it's aims. It's always easier to continue doing what you normally do than engage in some kind of Community or Group driven by passion, particularly if it's mission runs counter to the culture or status quo.
My thinking on the concepts of sedentary voyeurism and the spectator mindset is relatively new and raw (in that, I haven't sat with the ideas long enough to prove that this exists in anyway). Even so, as we become comfortable supplanting action with watching and content to simply watch away our personal lives, we can become addicted to the instant or not so instant gratification that voyeurism offers. This may (or may not) lead us to become complacent at work as we become more readily disinclined to place ourselves out side our comfort zones, which inevitably, jumping into communities of passion in work-spaces can be.
In other words, it's much easier to sit on the sidelines, spectate in a sedentary way because jumping into and joining a CoP that aims to disassemble the dominating patterns of behavior and enable new modes of management has a higher risk to reward ratio that prevents people from even stepping into the arena. When it comes to challenging the existing paradigm for management in America, what should we do? Leave it to the Professionals? Hire a team of outside consultants? Or do it yourselves? As people become accustom, perhaps even addicted to sedentary voyeurism, it may trap them in a spectator mindset that keeps people (voluntarily & willfully) out of a game that they really need to engage in. Instead of an "all-hands-in" game plan, the spectator mindset leaves organizations with the classic us v. them operand. This invariably leads to bigger questions about how to defeat this barrier, and I'll be curious to hear what others think about the whole issue.
Root Causes
This barrier has its roots in the fundamental belief that employees - no matter what level they operate in an organization - simply cannot check who they are at the door and they bring their culture and values with them. As the culture of a society goes, so to may the culture of a work place. The roots, then by default, stretch well beyond the organization itself into the very fabric of American society (and I do apologize for the jingoistic focus here, but I'm biased by location here and don't know enough about working abroad just yet in my life to hazard a guess as to if this is a barrier that affects organizations in other parts of the globe).
Solution
- Step 1 - Recognize that you have a problem
- Step 2 - Exercise what ever influence, sway, and leadership capacity you have to encourage a broad circle of involvement
- Step 3 - Provide incentive structures that reward engagement and problem solving rather than status quo, disabling behavior/culture
- Step 4 - Stop rewarding behavior that contributes negatively to capacity building
- Step 5 - Make your mission to reinvent managerial structures public
- Step 6 - Lever high energy personnel to help lift up those disinclined to participate in the discourse
- Step 7 - Embrace your introverts and don't mistake quite, thoughtful people for people who are unwilling or unable to participate
- Step 8 - Empower your introverts by giving them leadership authority and responsibility
- Step 9 - ...and just perhaps; if we defeat sedentary voyeurism in the workspace, we may be able to encourage active participation in society rather than feed a spectator mindset.
Credits
These are relatively fresh ideas from my brain, but wouldn't have happened with out participation in the min-Hackathon trial conducted by a smaller sub-set of the MIX group. Also, Richard Axelrod's work in his book "Terms of Engagement" may be reflected in the solutions.
November 28, 2011 at 6:18pm
Absolutely agree, a fantastic perspective. If you step out of the boundaries of the US, you'll find this permeates places like Australia and New Zealand.
The common approach in those places is to let someone else do it, then copy. Don't react and wait to see if it works elsewhere is a strategy that is considered doubly beneficial. This by not revealing your lack of knowledge, and letting someone else solve the riddle.
In fact it is common knowledge that they actively wait for others to do it, see if it fails, and revise it. The results are: It creates a culture where critical thinking skills are diminished and lateral thinking skills are discouraged. In a way, a uniformity evolves where collectivism thrives,(see: Tall poppy syndrome) and new ideas are not for right now, but in the next lifetime.
This while proclaiming the opposite of being highly individualistic, innovative and open to new approaches. You can see it in many of the networking groups, Linkedin groups, and alumni groups. There are groups with hundreds of members who practice "Sedentary Voyeurism". I have managed one or two myself.
To be fair, when they do make the decision based on evidence, they react with lightning speed compared to the US. This relates to infrastructure, politics, laws, and some business practices.
I do not mean to be condescending, or to submit a barrage of criticism about those countries, but to validate your point Aaron. It is much more apparent in other countries based on my 5 years experience.
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November 29, 2011 at 10:30am
Tony,
Thanks for the comment. No offense taken.
One alternative thought on your line of thinking is that perhaps second mover status is easier and more justifiable to kick up org learning by inventing a better mouse trap. Apple is a good model for this. They weren't the first to invent an MP3 player. They weren't the first to invent the mobile handset, but they have indeed perfected it.
What I'm now thinking about is that this mindset it the organizational equivalent of our natural human stasis of using only a small fraction of our brains at any given time. If we were to activate the energy of those massive numbers of sedentary, spectators with in an operation, much like if we could martial the full capacity of our brains, then our organizational selves would be substantially more healthy and perhaps smarter and more productive.
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