Community-based Leadership - Serious learnings from visiting Burning Man

The Burning Man should have started today. Well, it will be a virtual-only event this time. We all know why. The year 2020 is characterized by a global pandemic. Especially in the USA the virus continues to spread strongly. To gather 80,000 people in the Nevada desert is certainly not a good idea under these circumstances. Five years ago I was allowed to witness this unique event for the first time. Of course on behalf of science ;-). I was invited to give a lecture on Agile Leadership and took advantage of the invitation to immerse myself in this spectacle for a few days. Today I would like to share my lecture with you. For me, the Burning Man was not just a festival, it was a lesson in Agile Leadership. But read it yourself…

A short history of the Burning Man

In 1986 the unfortunately now deceased Larry Harvey organized a festival on the beach of San Francisco with about 20 visitors. Highlight of the festival was the burning of a wooden statue - the so-called Burning Man. The festival grew from year to year until finally in 1990 the burning of the statue on the beach was prohibited. So without further ado they moved to the Black-Rock Desert in Nevada, where the festival still takes place today. The Burning Man traditionally lasts seven days and always ends on the first Monday in September - the American Labor Day. On the sixth day the famous statue is burnt down. Since its beginnings in the eighties, the spectacle has grown continuously. In 2019, it finally welcomed almost 80,000 people. 

Outsiders would describe the Burning Man as a big party with an art exhibition connected to it, in which the visitors attract attention through eccentric self-expression. But that is only half the truth. The special flair of the festival is created by the community of the participants. One feels connected to the festival and the other participants. An Armada of volunteers contributes to this by taking care of the organization of the festival and especially by making sure that no garbage is left behind. In fact, two weeks after the end of the festival, one hardly notices that only recently 80,0000 people were celebrating here. They achieve this not so much through rules, but rather through a "community based leadership" approach, which I will explain now. 

How I came to Burning Man, what I expected and what I found

Originally I come from the music business. I produced music, organized events for up to 2000 people and founded several labels and music distributions. In the year 2009 I began to focus on agile management and started to consult and coach in this field. But music was still my great passion and my circle of friends and acquaintances consisted mainly of musicians and people from the music business. And those people told me a lot of times: "Everything you coach, actually happens on the Burning Man.” So when I received the invitation to the lecture, it was clear to make the journey to Nevada. Combining work with vacation - what could be better? 

At that point, I was no longer a festival newcomer, of course. I had already visited festivals of various types in Europe. So I thought that something similar would await me in Nevada: rules and prohibitions to prevent too much garbage from being produced and left behind, and visitors who don't care about these rules and produce a huge pile of garbage including tents and pavilions left standing. Figuratively speaking, I expected this:

This what I had expected. An old picture of another festival where I had been.

But in fact I found an almost clinically clean festival. No ravioli cans, no plastic bags, not even cigarette butts. I was amazed.

Here Michael brings back a chair that the wind has carried away and calls: "Leave No Trace".

The ten principles of Burning Man

Larry Harvey wrote down the ten principles of Burning Man. In fact, they are principles, not rules or prohibitions. What is special about these principles is that the community is actively involved in shaping and developing them. I would like to mention the ten principles here, and then go into more detail about the principle of "Leaving no trace": (Source: burningman.org)

Radical Inclusion

Anyone may be a part of Burning Man. We welcome and respect the stranger. No prerequisites exist for participation in our community.

Gifting

Burning Man is devoted to acts of gift giving. The value of a gift is unconditional. Gifting does not contemplate a return or an exchange for something of equal value.

Decommodification

In order to preserve the spirit of gifting, our community seeks to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising. We stand ready to protect our culture from such exploitation. We resist the substitution of consumption for participatory experience.

Radical Self-reliance

Burning Man encourages the individual to discover, exercise and rely on his or her inner resources.

Radical Self-expression

Radical self-expression arises from the unique gifts of the individual. No one other than the individual or a collaborating group can determine its content. It is offered as a gift to others. In this spirit, the giver should respect the rights and liberties of the recipient.

Communal Effort

Our community values creative cooperation and collaboration. We strive to produce, promote and protect social networks, public spaces, works of art, and methods of communication that support such interaction.

Civic Responsibility

We value civil society. Community members who organize events should assume responsibility for public welfare and endeavor to communicate civic responsibilities to participants. They must also assume responsibility for conducting events in accordance with local, state and federal laws.

Leaving No Trace

Our community respects the environment. We are committed to leaving no physical trace of our activities wherever we gather. We clean up after ourselves and endeavor, whenever possible, to leave such places in a better state than when we found them.

Participation

Our community is committed to a radically participatory ethic. We believe that transformative change, whether in the individual or in society, can occur only through the medium of deeply personal participation. We achieve being through doing. Everyone is invited to work. Everyone is invited to play. We make the world real through actions that open the heart.

Immediacy

Immediate experience is, in many ways, the most important touchstone of value in our culture. We seek to overcome barriers that stand between us and a recognition of our inner selves, the reality of those around us, participation in society, and contact with a natural world exceeding human powers. No idea can substitute for this experience.

How the community implements the principles

I admit that these principles sound relatively pompous and give hardly any recommendations for action. Moreover, a principle like "Leaving no trace" can mean a lot of things. That this even means cigarette butts and - as I unfortunately had to observe - vomit is by no means self-evident... *short field observation: In the evening we went to the "Playa" to celebrate and having a good time. On our way we passed by a very drunk guy who apparently vomit all over the dusty street. Immediately people passing by start to call "Leave No Trace". The guy took his backpack, got down on his knees and shuffles all the vomit into his backpack, got up and screams proudly(!) "Leave No Trace!". This was an extreme example, maybe even too much of living a principle, but the understanding of the responsibility as a community was crystal clear: remind each other leaving no trace.

This is where the community comes into play. The community has developed tips and recommendations for action to ensure that the principles are adhered to, and these are constantly being developed further. Here it is described how you should prepare yourself in advance in order to really leave no trace behind, what you have to pay special attention to on the beach and how to best approach your departure in order to leave your campground clean. These guidelines are never formulated as rules, but rather as recommendations from experienced Burning Man attendees.

Every visitor commits himself to the above mentioned principles when entering the festival area. The community exemplifies these principles and guides every newcomer in dealing with them. 

Which side are you on?

I was fascinated how well this worked. No comparison to the rule-based festivals I knew from Europe. But how does it work exactly? Why does everyone stick to the recommendations for action and addresses others in a friendly manner in case of violations? I found the answer - as I believe - in a book that fell into my hands on the last day of the festival. "Enabling creative Chaos - The Organization behind the Burning Man Event". Katherine K. Chen uses her own longtime experience with the Burning Man as well as numerous interviews with members of the organization. According to this book, groups can basically be classified according to how they organize themselves. Rather bureaucratic or rather collectivist. The whole thing can be presented in a matrix by dividing systems into bureaucratic and collectivist over-, under- or moderately organized.

Graphic Source: Enabling Creative Chaos: The Organization Behind the Burning Man Event | Chen, Katherine K., 2009

"Bureaucratic practices specify expedient ways of reaching predetermined ends; these practices also uphold fair rather than particularistic treatment of individuals. [...[ Rather than privileging expediancy, collectivist practices focused on increasing organizational responsiveness to consituents and cultivating democratic principles of participation.", Chen says. In a bureaucratically overorganized system, with underorganized collectivism, we speak of an oligarchy. When an overorganized bureaucracy meets an overorganized collectivism, we are moving towards totalitarianism. According to Chen, the truth lies, as so often, in the middle. Moderate bureaucracy that is implemented and organized by the collective in a moderate way. And I, too, believe that I have experienced exactly this center at Burning Man. The ten principles set the direction, and the organizers organize everything so the community is able to adhere to these principles. The community learned during the years of the festival's growth that they have to organize themselves in order to keep to the principles and to make the festival an unforgettable experience for everyone, even with the size it has reached. 

Ultimately, it is a matter of deciding which side you want to be on as an individual and as a group. Do we create a framework (including bureaucratic ones) together and then work with these set principles? Or do we not believe that we can set the framework ourselves and prefer to live with rules and prohibitions? In other words: Do we prefer heteronomy to self-determination? The Community of Burning Man has answered this question clearly with a yes.

My three key learnings from visiting Burning Man

When I left the festival for the airport after almost a week, I was so full of impressions that I could hardly put into words what I just had experienced. Weeks after I finally took my notebook and tried to organize all my thoughts. What had I learned there in terms of agile management? How do you get to such a strongly participating community? When I was done, there were three main points on my notebook that I would like to share with you now:

1. M.O.M.O. - It only works moderately

At their extremes, collectivist and bureaucratic systems are basically not an option for running a profitable and philanthropic organization. Employee participation can be one approach to finding the right path for your organization. But beware: some works councils are more bureaucratic and hierarchical than the rest of the organization. No wonder if the works council members come from a highly bureaucratic organization and have learned virtually nothing else. Ultimately, an organization should strive to replace existing rules with principles and leave the design and application of these in the hands of the employees. In this way, you give "community-based leadership" a real chance. Of course, this does not happen overnight, but step by step. You can start with supposedly banal things. "Our organization strives to reduce energy consumption on our premises to a minimum" or "We respect the value of time and strive not to waste it". Maybe the next meetings will finally be held with a clear agenda and without delays."

2. Less is more, but the devil is in the details

It is easy to print beautiful keywords on coffee cups. It is much more difficult to find the right catchy words that describe principles precisely, but still give enough leeway to shape them. The ten principles of Burning Man may sound esoteric, but in reality they are a sophisticated foundation for the incredible spirit of this community. The real work, however, lies in translating the principles into recommendations for action. The more thoughtful the principles, the easier this step is. The community works out how to implement the principles, it determines the daily routine. 

3. Co-Creation! But with everyone!

Many bosses may now think: "With young, motivated employees, this may work, but with my staff..." The temptation is to place the implementation of the principles in the hands of a few, talented employees. But this impulse is wrong. It would exclude employees. The desired sense of unity cannot be achieved in this way. I'm sure that with 80,000 visitors of Burning Man, there are some who would not necessarily be considered trustworthy. But I was witnessing: reason prevails. Everyone wants to experience the best possible festival and feels that the principles show the best way to get there.

Sources:

• Enabling Creative Chaos: The Organization Behind the Burning Man Event | Chen, Katherine K., 2009
• Keynote: Community based Leadership - Serious learnings from visiting Burning Man, Mathis Christian, 2016