Successful Leadership in the Sharing Economy

1st June 2015
Simon Robinson
Successful Leadership in the Sharing
Economy – The Journey to Authentic Dialogue

© Holonomics Education 2015
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In this book I would like to bring together a number of threads which I have been writing about
recently – principally knotworks (networks with ego) – which will allow me to ﬂesh out more detail
and help you uncover a number of dysfunctional patterns in your organisation, network or
community.
!
The reason is that the journey from where we are now economically, to a more humane and
ecological way of living starts with ourselves and our relationships with those immediately around
us. And if we can comprehend, understand and heal these broken and inauthentic relationships,
then we can start to rediscover trust, values and what it means to genuinely share and co-create,
whatever we are attempting to envision, innovate and bring into this world.

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Credit: Damien Newman

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Knotworks - Networks with Ego

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If we start with the most basic archetype, it is the
dysfunction of much interaction between people
today. Have a think about your daily conversations.
Which ones are truly satisfying? Which ones can
you honestly say that the person you were
speaking with really recognised who you are, what
you could have brought to the conversation, and
where there was full attention and actual listening.
!
Sometimes it can feel that it as if we are having
conversations with our backs to each other. Not all
conversations of course, but take time to look at
which conversations you are having where there is
very little attention from the other person or people.
!
Breaking this archetype is by no means easy, but it
can be done, and this is where the power of much
of the work that Maria and I are doing in
organisations is making a real difference to
programmes of profound organisational change.
You have to change people’s mental model, and
unless you work at this level, with the dynamics of
seeing, then any efforts at change are not likely to
be as successful as you hope.

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If we now move into more specific archetypes,
the first tough one to deal with is predatory
behaviour. This is where a person or persons can
not see, do not want to see, refuse to see a
person as they really are. They do not value that
person, but do see that this person may have
something of value to them. Their mental model
sees the other person as diminished, unimportant
and weak.
!
This is the antithesis of the sharing economy,
where collaboration turns into the abuse of
people volunteering their free time, ideas and
resources, and hence is a reflection on the fact
that a network has at some level a lack of human
values. This archetype can be quite a wolf-in-a-
sheep’s-clothes, and can be found in the
sustainability community, where questions of ego,
vulnerability and insecurity still run rampant.

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Whereas the Predatory archetype is aggressive
and calculated, the blinkered archetype for me is
more tragic, and represents wasted opportunity
and an inability to prosper by recognising those
who are in our immediate circles. Here the mental
model is one of not valuing, not questioning, not
showing interest in another person, and therefore
either assuming, or concluding due to social-
economic paradigms, that the person is not of
value.
!
This is an interesting one, as it is a great
archetype to use when working with leaders. So
often there are treasures right in front of us, but
when we do not see those in front of us, we fail to
maximise opportunities, projects and visions.
!
It is not without reason that the ﬁrst four chapters
of Holonomics is devoted to the dynamics of
seeing, and that we say that to see well is an act
of humility. With humility, a whole new dimension
of the world opens up, it’s a powerful quality for
leaders to develop.

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This next archetype for me is a lot of fun. It is
when you are having extremely close
conversations and you look into someone’s eyes
and you read their body-language and
everything about them reveals so much about
their inner mental life, but trapped in their egos
they are unable, or not mindful of how their being,
how they are acting and what they are saying
and how is revealing their true feelings.
!
As the saying goes, it is only when you have real
success that you ﬁnd out who your real friends
are, and in this instance, if we are going to talk
about the sharing economy, we have to look at
the notion of what success is and how people
share in it. Because right now it seems to me that
one of the most difﬁcult things to share is the
success of someone else, and this is something
that we have to nurture and develop.
!
I have not yet read I believe an article about the
sharing economy which discusses the sharing of
other’s success, and that is because it is one
heck of shadow to shine a light on and discuss.

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There is of course another related angle to ego-trapped which related to the
socially-networked economy we are moving into, and we could perhaps call this
derivation of Ego-trapped “guru syndrome”. Nowadays, there is trend towards
personal branding, but a side-effect that I see more and more is people making
claims for gurudom which are just not supportable.
!
I am talking mindfulness gurus who are not mindful, ethical gurus who are not
ethical, dialogue gurus who can’t dialogue, you name it – people are claiming
expertise where they have either very little, or none at all. I know that for a long time
people have often been economical with the truth on their CVs, but I would like to
suggest that the trend to personal branding is exacerbating this.

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In a previous book (Holonomics - Creativity, Ego and
Transformational Leadership) I looked at how we can
understand transformational leadership as a journey
– a fractal and non-linear – journey through the found
elements. The transformational journey has no start
and no end, it is a lifetime of dedication.
!
But those on certain legs of the journey are able to
comprehend when someone who is ego-trapped,
and suffering from guruitus, has not actually had
either as original or profound insights that they
pretend to have. In order to cope with this, I now
suggest the following archetype for those who have
gone past the threshold of liminality into new levels of
conscious awareness and understandings.

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This next archetype – discernment – is very much
about non-judgement – since otherwise the
person doing the discerning will also fall into the
trap of ego. This is all about taking the plank out
of one’s own eye before trying to remove the
speck of dust out of someone else’s.
!
When we are discerning, we can see with open
eyes when someone is being a bit of an idiot, and
in these instances often it is only a true friend
who has the ability to point this out to someone.
This archetype is all about not seeing someone
as they are now, but who they really are in the
present moment, and also who they can become.
!
I don’t know about you, but at every level of
society I am seeing all sorts of nonsense and
silliness and stuff that is hard to swallow. I am not
Buddha, and I am no yogi or saint, but I do try
and practice discernment, otherwise the
destructive actions of others will eat you up,
diminish your energy levels, and steal your
enthusiasm and vitality which you will need to
really reach your amazing goals and visions.

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So now having taken a journey of personal
transformation, we reach the stage of holonomic
dialogue, wholeness, authenticity, human values
and an expansion of consciousness which allows
us to see and know people as they truly are. The
background represents the Holonomic Operating
System – the four ways of knowing (thinking,
feeling, sensing and intuition) which will need to
understand people, our planet and reality in their
glorious fullness.
!
We have battled our egos, suspended
judgement, and opened ourselves to a new
dynamic way of seeing, allowing us to value
others, nurture authentic conversations full of
emergent creativity, and where previous tensions
dissolve away, allowing us to live more happy
and fulﬁlling lives, at work and socially.

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Ego-nomic Holonomic

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I know I have been dealing with some quite heavy
shadow stuff in this article which I have tried to
lighten a little, but I feel really strongly that if we
run away from these issues, we will just end up
with vacuous platitudes about where we as
humanity are heading.
!
Transformational work needs transformational
leaders, facilitators and people totally committed
to the journey. It is powerful work, and I hope this
article has been of help to those of you who are
changemakers, making a huge difference to our
lives and the life of our planet. I think you all.

Simon Robinson
!
Simon Robinson is the founder of Holonomics Education, a consultancy
which helps organisations to think and innovate differently, allowing the
development of high value customer experiences, the development of
powerful and effective strategies, and of meaningful and sustainable brands.
!
Simon is an international keynote speaker at innumerable conferences
including Sustainable Brands, London and San Diego and TEDx
Florianópolis. He was one of the co-founders of the world’s ﬁrst mobile
internet portal, Genie Internet, which received many media awards for
innovation, and has been a developer of cutting-edge innovations in
technology and new media at BT, O2 and Digital Bridges. He is the editor of
the blog www.transitionconsciousness.org and is a Harvard Business Review
Brasil author.
!
!
Maria Moraes Robinson
!
Maria Moraes Robinson is an internationally recognised expert and keynote
speaker in strategy, change management, sustainability, human values and
the Balanced Scorecard methodology. Recent conferences she has
presented and run workshops at include Sustainable Brands, San Diego and
London, and Harvard Business Review Brasil summits on both Corporate
Education and Leadership, and she is a published author in Harvard
Business Review Brasil.
!
As a business consultant Maria has helped to introduce Kaplan and Norton’s
Balanced Scorecard methodology into Brazil across many sectors including
telecoms, technology, petrochemicals, steel, energy, transportation and
education. Her current work is focused on developing innovative new
business courses which integrate insights from the Indian programme
Human Values in Education and complexity science, with business strategy,
change management, sustainability and organisational redesign.
Contact Information!
!
www.holonomics.co.uk (English)
www.holonomics.com.br (Portuguese)
www.holonomics.org (book)
www.transitionconsiousness.org (blog)
@srerobinson (Twitter)
@DoraMoraesR (Twitter)

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