Hack:
"Empower to exert and exert to empower" - with a Freedom Trolling Mindset
While most leaders, agree in principle that, empowerment, is absolutely critical, to create the so called, experimentation culture, when push comes to shove, most of them hesitate, to grant the necessary freedom to their teams (beyond a limit), partly because of their belief that, too much of anything (leave alone freedom), will end up affecting their top and bottom line prospects
While most leaders, agree in principle that, empowerment, is absolutely critical, to create the so called, experimentation culture, when push comes to shove, most of them hesitate, to grant the necessary freedom to their teams (beyond a limit), partly because of their belief that, too much of anything (leave alone freedom), will end up affecting their top and bottom line prospects. Rightfully so, their dilemma, to an extent, is justified in some situations, and, there lies, the crux of this digital freedom challenge as well. That being said, some of the root causes of this dilemma, in our opinion, include, but not limited to are
- With the fact that most companies are being valued today, purely based on "control conducive" equity capital, without paying too much credence to the "freedom facilitating " non equity capitals (i.e. purpose, human, intermediate goods and product capital), their leaders, in most cases, do not have much incentive, to encourage, the so called, "non equity capital enabling, digital 5C freedoms (i.e. connect, contribute, challenge, create and choose).
- There is no standardized, causal/corelational chain mechanism available in the market place, between the "control conducive" equity capital and the "freedom facilitating" non equity capitals (also called as the intangible “expectation building abilities”).
- While it is true that digital freedom has shrunk the control boundaries of organizations, the extent of that shrinkage, however, happens to vary from organization to organization, as one size does not fit all, when it comes to this control/freedom mix. In other words, one of the reasons for such shrinkage variation is the fact that there is no situation based, digitally automated, balancing mechanism available in the market place, for leaders, to create the so called composite leadership traits(with varying weight factor between control and freedom, depending upon the context) — that is efficient but not inflexible, disciplined but not disempowering, if I may echo the essence of this MIX challenge!
The implication is that, organizations end up creating either "control freak" type of leaders, with a myopic focus to drive higher stock prices, or "freedom freak" type of leaders, with an experimental emphasis, to drive empowerment, which perhaps is the worst thing, that can happen to any organization. Sure enough,this inability to strike a fine balance between control and freedom, turns out to be the crux of this digital freedom challenge!
As we further analyze the complications (and the implications) of this challenge, with the "principle of balancing opposites principle" lens, it is all the more clear to us, that the need of the hour is an approach, that not only, transcends the tradeoff between freedom and control, but also, an approach that helps leaders to develop, infinitely more empowering management practices - as echoed by this MIX challenge!
Rightfully so, we have developed one such, next generation approach called "Freedom Troller" with an "empower to exert and exert to empower" mindset, wherein, everyone are encouraged to participate in this 5C freedom journey, by planting their “purpose driven motivational energy seed”, using nature’s profound seedal chain principle. The outcome, as we foresee is that, it will germinate into a five dimensional freedom troller system, that inherently helps leaders, to create composite leadership traits (like the composite trait called "free-troll" proposed in this hack and many more), by balancing opposing traits like freedom and control, using the principle of balancing opposites – yielding new and infinitely more empowering management practices.
Sure enough, we have developed a three part,triune "freedom troller" solution, addressing each of the 3 challenges that are identified in the problem section -
- Reframe our firm's VOS/PDL driven 5C's(confidence, commitment, context, caliber, call to action), as digital 5FC's, to help meet this 5C challenge (connect, contribute, challenge, create and choose).
- Fine tune our firm's big data driven TTM system, to effectively transform non equity type of capitals into financial capitals by treating everyone as a P&L producing entity (BU?) using our firm's VizPity platform i.e. trade every individual using free market principles.
- Enhance our earlier TLQ balancing framework with a principle of balancing opposites, in the form of a new composite leadership trait called "Free-troll" (with 50:50 or 40:60 weight factor between freedom and control depending upon the situation), leveraging our earlier TLQ hack.
1. Augment VOS/PDL's 5C's(confidence, commitment, context, caliber, call to action) with digital 5C's (connect, contribute, challenge, create and choose) and imprint them as digital 5FC's in our 5 fingers
Interestingly enough, these 5 freedoms, align perfectly with the 5 inherent portfolio traits of our firm's, VOS driven Purpose driven leadership (PDL) framework, and so, we suggest to imprint them on the five fingers, as "5FC's" , in the following order ( Thump-Small-Ring-Middle-Index).
1.1 Connect with confidence with a "collaborative" thread, led by the Thump finger, that is known for its asserting power, confidence and collaborative power – and rightfully so, this thread happens to be the foundation, that sets the right tone for the right type of collaborative leadership, where all the other things derive their strength from, as without collaboration, there is no courageous leadership.
1.2. Contribute with commitment with a "rank and file" thread, led by the Small finger that is known for its intuitive learning, energy and empathy, regardless of one's rank within an organization.
1.3. Challenge with context with a "risk taking" thread, led by the Ring finger, that is known for setting the context for welcoming contrarian/experimental ideas.
1.4. Create with caliber with a "TALENT" thread, led by the Middle finger, known for discerning the talent to dissent and deviate so that leaders can stay tuned and adapt to all the changes in the environment.
1.5. Choose with call-to-action with a "TLQ leadership" thread, led by the Index finger that is known for calling the shots with the Triune Leadership Quotient(TLQ ) mindset, by overcoming the traditional pyramidal organizational structures.
2. Transform non equity capitals into financial capital by augmenting our firm's VizPity platform and treat everyone as a P&L producing entity (BU?) by effectively trading them using free market principles
Once the above 5FC's become part and parcel of organization's leadership DNA, as a next step, we suggest that organizations to take a big picture view, and implement an Integrated/automated Triune Talent Management(TTM) solution, to translate their non equity capitals (e.g. human capital) into financial capital, as we had explained in one of the previous TTM hacks. The rationale here is that, organization's value, invariably, starts from human capital, in the form of ideas and insights, and then get transformed into "jobs-to be-done/experience to be enjoyed" products and intermediate goods, before transforming into a financial capital, as explained in our VOS driven cyclical framework. The ancillary question is, how do we keep this VOS cycle self sustaining with a value multiplier effect?. This is where we suggest to treat everyone as a P&L producing entity (BU?) and trade them using free market principles, for reaping the maximum value, with a value multiplier effect, as explained in our VizPity hack.
3. Create a new composite leadership trait called "Free-troll" (with 50:50 or 40:60 or other combination of weight factors between freedom and control, depending upon the context), leveraging our earlier TLQ hack.
Once the VOS cycle is operational with a value multiplier effect (from previous steps 1 & 2), leading with an integrated triune mindset (i.e. in leadership, strategy and Innovation dimensions), is bound to create 18 macro dilemmas (6L+ 6S+6 I), and many more micro dilemmas, which means, leaders must also learn to juggle them all simultaneously, in an integrated manner, as outlined in one of our TLQ hacks.
Turns out, this specific dilemma of "control and empowerment (freedom)", happens at the intersection of one such FC pair i.e. "contribute with commitment" and "choose with call to action", as outlined in the VOS cycle picture, and rightfully so, we have labeled it, with a new composite trait name called "free-troll".
In addition, this type of a generic balancing mindset, not only, helps us to balance this dilemma, but also, many more opposing FC pairs to help create new composite traits with varying weight factors, depending upon the situation(e.g. stability vs. change, consistency vs. variability, maturity vs. Immaturity, short term vs. long term, inside-out motivation vs. outside-in motivation etc), as explained in our earlier TLQ hack..
Conclusion
While there are multiple ways one can solve this digital freedom challenge, we have developed an unique "Dilemma Troller" approach, with a mantra of "empower to exert and exert to empower", that is syndicated at the confluence of freedom and control, by augmenting our firm's VOS driven Purpose Driven Leadership(PDL) framework. Granted, our end goal is to induce these 5 digital FC's across all the rank and files of an organization, however, it is important, to induce this mindset, first at the leadership ranks, so that we can fix the root causes, straight from its root. The implication of, not taking such a holistic/top down approach is that, organizations, will end up producing, either too much of the control freak type of leaders or too much of the freedom freak type leaders, as opposed to leaders with a "doing both" mindset. This is where, our "Freedom troller" approach, with its artistic flavor, that is further augmented with our scientific rigor, definitely has an edge!
TBD
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