"Dare to Un-Lead": a book review
In this book, Céline Schillinger defends that the world of work needs better leadership and that leadership should strive for three values: liberty, equality and fraternity.
???? Também disponível em português em https://kmol.pt/livros/2022/07/20/dare-to-un-lead/
Céline Schillinger is an experienced French professional, with 30+ years working in small and large companies in different continents, and now as a consultant. She is a change agent at heart, an avid reader and a rower. The pages of Dare to Un-Lead reflect all this.
This is a book for you if you believe that “the world of work should be more respectful of people” and that “change does not happen by itself”.
The value and uniqueness of this book comes from: the breadth and depth of Céline Schillinger’s research; the way she makes sense of it all framed by her rich professional and personal experience; the clues she offers to better leadership styles; and her contagious desire to shape a better world of work.
The book starts with a critique of today’s predominant leadership style - how it is harming the organisations we work in, the world we live in, and ultimately each one of us. The conclusion is that we need better leaders.
“When leadership demonstrates its capacity to change, when it builds bridges and encourages change by anyone from anywhere, when it nurtures the solidarity of the human community at work, then it is truly transformative, living up to its revolutionary potential.” (p 274)
The book is divided in three main parts: liberty, equality and fraternity. Each part sketches the contours of what each of those values looks like at work, describes approaches which embody or help shape those values, and offers clues for how leaders should adapt to effectively give life to better work environments.?
Liberty
“Liberty at work is the unconditional possibility given to workers to hold and express independent judgement on matters of their organization, to avoid managerial arbitrariness, and to direct their work so that it not only produces value but contributes to their dignity as human beings.” (p 49)
“Liberty, in the sense of ‘free will’, is a necessary condition of engagement. Liberty creates the conditions in which innovation, collaboration, and accountability flourish.” The current work reality damages this liberty because of the dominant culture of silence, managerial arbitrariness and lack of agency.
In Chapter 4, Céline tells her own story of change. Her personal and professional journey helped her be more aware of three things she now brings into her practice:
Equality
“Liberty without equality is just a privilege that favors the powerful.” (p 116)
“Equality at work welcomes differences and recognizes the contribution of each individual, enabling opportunity for all. It is the foundation from which networks connect people in all their diversity, producing collective intelligence.” (p 120)
Chapter 6 is about equality or the lack of thereof. It is about how organisations try to promote equality but how they fall short - or even make things worse - against the inequality imposed by hierarchical structures. It looks closely at the inequality suffered by women. It is a dark chapter.
Against this backdrop, structural equality is currently unachievable. Two strategies emerge for the creation of symbolic equality: difference nullification and difference compartmentalisation.
Chapter 7 is a hymn to networks with a focus on their role to creating equality.
Networks will not be enough to fight the “organisational immune system”, as John Hagel calls it, but it is possible to create a “dual operating system”, one that leverages the positive effects of structure and the existing networks, to improve agility, speed, innovation and creativity.
“Our work benefits from the density and the diversity of our networks, and also from the quality and meaningfulness of interactions.” (p 154)
Céline highlights the role of digital technology to enable distributed networks. She considers that the chosen technology will be useful “if it enables public and private communities, asynchronous exchanges, language translation, visual communication, easy and mobile access, search, and integration with other tools used by the company.”
Despite the giant opportunity created by the covid-imposed lockdowns, digital social technologies are not delivering on their promise. "Culture (...) is the main reason why the corporate adoption of social networking tools remains so disappointing. The cultural change that they entail seems out of reach for some organizations, unwanted by the leaders of others. The network culture is one of transparency instead of secrecy, trust instead of control, influence instead of authority. It reduces power distances and the advantage of social grouping. It brings traditional, status-driven leaders down from their pedestals, making visible a different kind of leadership exemplified by those who add value to the community, those who are helpful, interesting, interested, and generous. This requires a learning mindset and humility."
Fraternity
“Organizations must learn to create the conditions for fraternity, allowing people to be ‘seen’ by their peers, by the hierarchy, recognized and acknowledged, losing their anonymity. Employees need to be respected in their full humanity, their diversity, and their free will.” (p 203)
“It is neither organizational membership nor communication nor teambuilding that create a sense of fraternity but collective action in service of a cause”, i.e. joint purposeful activism. For it to be successful, community leadership is required.
The section on Fraternity has been the most transformative for me. Maybe because of how it blends the worlds of social and corporate activism.
“Corporate activism as I practice it is a new leadership strategy that places the methods, tools, and practices of social movements in service of the organization’s purpose. This is about creating the conditions that encourage an activist mindset and way of work, maximizing the opportunity provided by the available human potential to boost innovation and business performance, to retain organizational relevance, and to contribute positively to society. It is about crafting an intentional and deliberate work culture while keeping in mind that movements cannot be manufactured, engineered, directed, or controlled. Corporate activism is fraternity through common action.”
The idea of movement is at the core, but movements cannot be mandated. Engagement comes from a “collectively established purpose” and from the “sense of possibility, rather than the necessity of carrying out a given project”.
Building on this idea, the value of fraternity is very visible in communities.
“Communities empower people, broadly and deeply, beyond the immediate proximity of their network of colleagues. Members feel seen and heard by their peers. This validation lowers their vulnerability, increases their agency, and makes people more likely to share their work in progress, opening it up to contribution by other people, creating wider ownership as well as greater relevance.”
Communities of practice (CoPs), specially dear to my own practice, are an example of such communities.
“CoPs make a valuable contribution to organizational speed and agility, to the resolution of unstructured problems (…), to knowledge-sharing beyond traditional structural boundaries, and to the development and maintenance of long-term organizational memory.”
Activism is “passion in action”.
Feeding from her rowing experience, Céline identifies three guideposts for fraternity-inducing leaders to create a better kind of work: collective quest, sensory openness, and self-betterment.
领英推荐
Fraternity-inducing leadership is just one of several types of leadership considered in the book. Besides that one, I particularly liked these other two:
The book ends with 17 questions which I believe represent the much there is to know and the reflection and introspection this book is likely to provoke.
My highlights and takeaways
Communities of intent and impact
I have been working with communities of practice for a long while now, mostly as effective, conscious approaches for knowledge sharing and retention. Céline brings up the idea of fraternity and with it the concept of communities, but a special kind of communities.
“[A] fraternity is a community of intent and impact,” she writes. And extends it to “comrades in intent”: “a group that no longer owes its existence to circumstances but to human will”.
It feels to me, as it does to Céline, that aiming for our organisations to be anchored on fraternity, for them to be communities of intent and impact, can be transformative: for those who work there, for the organisation itself and for the world we live in.
“Communities of intent and impact”: thank you for this, Céline!
Work as democracy of equals
Having democracies run like companies is a worrisome idea. However, Céline believes the reverse is “rich in possibilities”. Can work be a democracy of equals? I absolutely love this idea.
What can we create together?
“Organizational life would be refreshingly different if we were willing to regularly ask one another, ‘What can we create together?’”
Such a simple question, right? And yet... How often do we hear it? How often do we open the conversation like that? How often are we actually open to the answers, to the possibilities?
Growing leadership
Writing about leadership, Céline says “the more you share it the bigger it grows”. It is interesting that the same can be said about knowledge.
Intensely present
In the book, Céline Schillinger quotes this gem by Esko Kilpi: “Knowledge work is about human beings being more intensely present for each other.”
I am not sure of what is more striking and moving: if the beauty of these two words together “intensely present” or the profound meaning of the chosen preposition “for”.
And...
I want to dive into the work of Esko Kilpi, Manuel Castells and Marshall Ganz.
This is Céline Schillinger’s first book. I am in awe of how she reflected on her existing experience, how that triggered her curiosity, how she scavenged for answers, and how she pieced it all together.
Despite the vast number of canvased sources and authors, the book never feels a patchwork: rather a precious silk cloth carefully weaved with a clear thread from beginning to end.
It is very well written and easy to read, but a quick read it is not. There is so much richness, so many pointers, so many thoughts, that one needs time to digest them, look them up, and take extensive notes for future reference.
Dare to Un-Lead should be mandatory reading for all managers and leaders out there. Unfortunately, I suspect few will feel they have the time or the need to read it.
Céline told me she has intentionally omitted the usual chapter summaries. She does not want to contribute to the rapid consumption of superficial ideas, a disease of our contemporary leadership. Besides, no summary can convey the richness and the learning we get from reading the whole text. (No summary she could write and certainly not this summary / review of mine!)
One thing is certain: if current leaders do not read this book, it is up to all of us who read it to become leaders or to embrace our activist-selves to improve equality, liberty and fraternity at work.
Related reading
While reading this book, a few others came to my mind:
Unf*cking Work, by Neil Usher - specially in the parts of liberty and equality and because of the sharp remarks about the world of work (https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/unfcking-work-neil-usher-ana-neves/)
The Social Organization, by Jon Ingham - for being a similar sort of basilar, well-researched and grounded book (https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/social-organization-book-review-ana-neves/)
The Gig Mindset Advantage, by Jane McConnell - as I see many touching points between the idea of change agent, of corporate activists and the gig mindsetters Jane talks about (https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/gig-mindset-advantage-jane-mcconnell-ana-neves/)
Who Really Matters, Art Kleiner - specially when talking about relations at work
Rebooting Democracy, by Manuel Arriaga - on forms of democratic participation and transparency
Partner of Knowman; Author and host of KMOL; Organiser of Social Now
2 年O texto também está disponível em português no KMOL: https://kmol.pt/livros/2022/07/20/dare-to-un-lead/
Transforming Collaboration Across Healthcare and Beyond with Certified Professional Facilitation at Health Data Forum, Health Regions Summit, and Digital Health Portugal.
2 年Congrats Céline Schillinger voices like yours are the most needed.
Transforming Collaboration Across Healthcare and Beyond with Certified Professional Facilitation at Health Data Forum, Health Regions Summit, and Digital Health Portugal.
2 年John Hovell, PMP, CKM