Old King Canute or Surfer Dude

Every year now we hear about floods and flood defences failing. Man seems to have thrown himself into a battle to control the elements and hold back the tide. And yet the thing about water is that by its very nature it will not be constrained, it flows where it wants, put a block in its way and it will flow around it or head in another direction, water will eventually find its own level. As a child I would build sand castles with moats and defences and victoriously guide the sea around them, but only for a while, the sea always won the battle in the end.I think groups of people are the same.

You can try to enforce your opinion on them and it may seem to you that you do – for a while. But just like the water they were probably just happy to flow that way for a while.

This idea is of course nothing new, organisations have been talking about’ followship’ rather than ‘leadership’ for quite a time now. And of course like any good idea there is always a Ghandi quote to go along with it, and here it is –

 “There they go. I must run and catch up with them, because I am their leader!”

 After all it is the groups group not the leader’s team or group. Like water no one owns the group.

For any one running a team or meeting this raises some interesting issues. 

• How do I know where the group wants to go?
• What if they want to go in different directions?
• What happens when I HAVE to get them to do what I want – I am in charge!
• There’s no time for any of this!

The skills many leaders are looking for today are those that will allow them to see where the water wants to flow and gently guide it rather than being like Old King Canute trying to hold back the tide. This demands an awareness of what is going on around them and the ability to respond nimbly. How can these skills be developed? Maybe it starts with the simple understanding that groups of people are different from individuals. We found that most influencing skills or philosophies were built around our understanding of individuals rather than what happens to people when they become part of a group. After all groups do not behave in the same way as an individual does. We all know this and yet it can still surprise us, especially in corporate settings. How many times have you been in the situation where you have wanted to influence a meeting? Your strategy may have been to talk to the individuals involved before the meeting, to get them all on board. As individuals they all agree with you but, when they are together as a group something else happens! They change. People do behave differently in groups. In the same way if you take two particles of hydrogen and one particle of oxygen and put them together, bang! You no longer have three separate particles you have created something new, something dynamic, water.

 When you put three individuals together you also create something new and dynamic, you create a group. So what do you want to do be like Old King Canute and try and hold back the tide or go with the flow, grab your surf board and ride the waves instead.

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