Occupy Your Company: Three Leadership Lessons from Zuccotti Park

Via Scoop.it – Postmodern Leadership and Organizations

The Occupy Wall Street protesters have taught us a number of critical lessons about mobilizing movements that leaders — whether business, political, or non-profit — should bear in mind.   Whether you agree with Occupy Wallstreet and their basic ideology or not, it was fascinating to see how dedicated such a self organized movement can be. There are aspects of the movement that are very relevant to our organizations today. While none of these are new (these basics have been part of management trainings for decades) there has seldom been so explicit a sample of what can happen when the principles are applied. Daniel Dworking names 3 in this very worthwhile article:   1. Balance consensus with decree.  When people have had input into a decision, they are much more likely to support it.   2. Inspire through emotion, support through community.  ”There is no “business case” that motivates people to sacrifice and give of themselves so passionately. To mobilize movements, participants have to be emotionally connected to the work at hand. There must be a force bigger than profits or prestige that calls them forward. And to sustain that momentum in the face of the challenges that confront any group, there needs to be a sense of togetherness that binds individuals to one another.”   3. Power off and tune in. Personal, face-to-face interactions are still the best way to create and maintain trusting relationships.   So, when you next consider employee engagement, regardless of how you view their goals, the methods used/invented by Occuppy Wallstreet show the forces that can be activated if done wisely.
Via www.huffingtonpost.com

This entry was posted on January 20, 2012 at 06:38 and is filed under Scoops. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.