Why now and why Orchestration?

The other day, a new connection that the book gave me - this is so beautiful - provoked me: "Bob, I am not sure your framework of leadership (The Orchestration) will be the one that will prevail or be the next wave. There are so many out there….".?

What a good provocation I thought. And my new friend was super gentle and mature, besides being direct and sincere. Loved it.?

I reflected for a second and told him I was not trying to be the owner of any framework or create any wave or movement. I wrote that Orchestrators are Considerate (Driver #2) and Detached (Driver #3) so I am eating my dog food here: I am not in love with the concept or any framework I have created. I love Peter Drucker's "The best way to predict the future is to create it", and that's what I told my friend: "I want to CO-CREATE the future of leadership!”

But, on the other side, yes, there is a movement. Not created by me or my theories, but a movement for a reboot of leadership created by all the negative effects - the list is not small, from skyrocketing burn-out levels to quiet-quiet quitting - of the current model of inspiring leaders, and two big shifts: the pandemic and AI.?

First, the pandemic effect

I have shouted out loud many times that I believe we are underestimating the tipping point effects of the pandemic - the current downturn has created some flexibility at the workforce but also a lot of hidden frictions - and I believe there is a "new work" still to be invented, created and designed. I truly believe it is inevitable. Most companies are not seeing it, leaders are divided between their responsibilities within the organization and their life balance, and it's probably not even clear for the workforce. I would say we all feel something has changed and that going backwards without important adjustments, just doesn’t sound right.

Second, the AI disruption

I have also been very explicit that AI will hugely change what leadership is. My rationale is based on 2 things:?

1 - We romanticize the present and overestimate human aspects - "There is nothing better than a human connection" is a true statement that, unfortunately, we don't do a lot, nor do we do well.

2 - Leadership has tons of repetitive work that will be better delivered by AI Agents. I have written about this for Fast CO here if you want to dive deeper.

Impossible to believe that leadership won't be radically transformed

Another friend, someone that I knew for a couple of years, reconnected with me because of the Orchestration and we met to try to think and design something around Leadership & Creativity. He has studied computational creativity for years, a long time before the current AI moment, so, along with another friend from the creative industry, we are discussing how the huge disruption in creativity will affect leadership,

In our chat, I had an a-ha moment. Well, not a life-changing a-ha moment, but an interesting connecting dots moment.?

But before I explain it, I wanted to let you all know that there is a new step for my own Orchestration Movement. I am calling it OrchestrationLab, a virtual think-tank-institute-whatever, which will deep dive into specific topics of leadership and will do it collectively with a few "co-builders". We envision to co-create the future of leadership, along with everyone that is doing it globally. If you feel an "invitation" from your heart, reach out to me and we talk.

That said, what was your kind of a-ha moment, Bob??

In our talk, exploring the possibilities about creativity and leadership, it became clear that there will not exist "exclusively human leaders" very soon, that there is not going to exist a single supreme AI agent that will dominate the leadership arena, and, that the hierarchy will be more complex than ever, human leading, AI agents leading, and human+AI leading and, also, more fluid than ever, with the leadership role changing hands and AI-hands too, And my friend said at a moment something that made me think: "there will need to exist a kind of an orchestration between humans, agents and all fluidity of it".? A-ha: there is the Orchestration!

But, before you question me - Bob, are you in fact willing to own the framework for leadership? - I questioned myself: it's not about a framework, a title, drivers, or whatever! It's about a mindset, a vibration, a way of acting, a vibe around orchestration, and choreographing humans and agents in a fluid, flexible and organic way.

And that sounded to me as everything I was intuitively thinking in my endless nights and weekends writing my book.?

It’s not about a name, a framework, or my ego. It’s about recognizing and embracing the orchestration vibe—a crucial mindset for navigating the complexities of our evolving world.

And, it's all about People. That's why I’m so interested and excited about it.?

By the way, I need to let you know that I’ve just released something different from what I’ve done so far. If you go here - On Spotify here - you’ll find me reading my entire book for you with some brief comments in between. It was meant to be organic, and transparent, and the final result was exactly that. I truly hope you enjoy and feel free to share with someone that would benefit from joining the Orchestration movement.

On Spotify here.