by Flemming Funch
This is the text from a few slides of a presentation by Joel Barker called "Leadership Lessons for the 21st Century". It is obviously slides to go along with a speech he gave, which I didn't hear. I did hear him talk about quite similar things a few years ago at the World Future Society's conference. Or, actually, there he was concentrating on the lessons from diversity in ecosystems.
The Verge and Innovation - Where does radical innovation happen in nature?
- Old answer: in the richest part of the ecosystem
- where there's the greatest competition |
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Or the most complex system of collaboration, whichever way you prefer to look at it. The right kind of diversity makes interesting systemic synergies happen.
The New Answer - at the Verge - A verge is where something and something different meet
- It is as far away from the center as you can get!
- In ecosystems it is where two ecosystems intersect
- ocean and seashore
- forest and prairie
- river and desert |
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Actually his slide accidentally said "river and dessert". That would be even more strange, of course. But think about tube worms living in 600 degree sulphuric water by vents on the ocean floor.
The Safety of the Verge - Having a strange environment very near triggers an organism to explore it for possible advantage
- In that exploration, it discovers that novel changes give it advantage, i.e. innovations
- And, most importantly, it is safer to fail because you are not interacting with competitors
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Barker is a management consultant and speaker. So, the point is obviously that we can draw lessons from how nature works, and apply them to our endeavors. Say, to business. Some juicy hints there for fostering innovation. Explore the edges, the boundaries. Hook up with the strangeness out there, and learn something new. And you'll have an edge, because there's no competition there yet. Good stuff.
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