I have a friend who works for the government and can't tell me exactly what he does.
It has something to do with artificial intelligence and video cameras.
I begged him one time to give me a hint and he said this:
"When you look at a guy walking down the street and he gets into a car, you know intuitively that the guy is -- suprise!-- now in the car. But a computer doesn't know that intuitively. You have to program rules to tell the computer that what it is tracking is now inside something else. Then you continue to do this for every conceivable situation."
After a while, as you can probably guess, there are a lot of rules. Thousands upon thousands of rules.
This is why for the first 50 years of artificial intelligence they haven't been able to make computers that can operate at the same speed and intuition as the human mind-- unless it's in the highly regimented and specified context of games like Chess.
Another approach to artificial intelligence has emerged over the past 20 years or so and it approaches things very differently. Rather than programing thousands of rules, they program simple machines with 3 or 4 rules. Then they give the machine a goal and then give it memory-- so that it can learn.
A few rules.
A goal.
Memory.
What they've discovered is that when these machines are put into mazes and other complex and even dynamic learning environments they are able to learn, adapt and progress to a goal much better than the rule oriented A.I. They can improvise and even surprise the people who invented the machines as they evolve in unpredictable ways.
Leadership in organizations exist in much the same way.
You can create a long list of things you want people to do. You can create lots of rules in a manual or training binder, etc. Or you can help people embrace a handful of values and then be surprised at their innovation. You can train people to death or you can throw them in the deep end and teach them how to swim.
One of the worst things you can do in an entrepreneurial culture is over train. Mostly because what you teach people by over training is "you can't do this yet." But if you give people a goal and help them embrace your values they will find greatness and ingenuity inside of them that they didn't even know they had.
On the flip side, if you're not getting the output you want from people or teams there are 3 possible reasons. 1. The team doesn't know what the goals are. 2. The team doesn't have the same values. 3. The team isn't learning as it makes mistakes and successes.
So how about your work environment? Do they (or you) over train or do they (or you) struggle with one of the 3 problems above?
And how about the cultures you lead-- friends or family or teams or clubs-- do you lead by creating rules or by instilling values?
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That’s interesting. It’s kind of like what Google employees are supposed to be taught. The CEO and board of directors install a value that they should try to be their own leaders, coming up with their own creative idea instead of building on the ones given to them by the higher-ups.
ReplyDeleteWith that being said, I think that leadership style should be a combination of both installing value and setting at least some guidelines in those that you lead. For example, in an environment such as the military, cadets are installed with value and taught the importance of reaching their own goals, not necessary those set by the leaders. This is why two candidates who entered the same year may have completely different ranks two or four years down the road. The military however, is also known as a place where manuals and guides are essential and one can never be “too over trained.” I think the reason for this is that when you’re dealing with life and death, or bullets and grenades, it is always not the smartest of ideas to let those you lead learn on their own about making mistakes. In situations such as this, heavy rules and guidelines are essential in allowing those that are being led to learn and develop on their own. They can be seen as like crutches, helping to support those being led when they are first learning, but still there like a safety net when those same people grow up to be leaders themselves. Even with the machines that your friend is programming, I do believe that there must be at least some basic set of laws that cannot be broken, no matter how intelligence or self-motivated they eventually become.