On Emergence

By Anders Drejer

Nothing really matters, Anyone can see,
Nothing really matters,
Nothing really matters to me
Any way the wind blows…

(Freddie Mercury)

Time waits for nobody

The late and great singer Freddie Mercury once sang “Any way the wind blows” in Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”. He was wrong. Nothing is to happen any way the wind blows. In life, love and management. So, yes, there will be mishaps, there will be accidents, there will be dumb luck and all of that. But can you justify to your boss, your stakeholders or your children to leave things to chance?

NO.

You only live once, and time waits for nobody. Having said that events have a tendency to unfold and influence you behind your back. This is known as emergence.

The emergence of emergence

Many things in life can be predicted as they are cyclical. And other things, as it is, tend to build up over time. Take love. Or the financial crisis of 2008. Same, same. On September 23’rd, traffic over Denmark’s largest bridge fell by 25%. In one day. Mostly due to trucks no longer transporting consumer goods to society. Because people had stopped buying stuff. The so-called financial crisis had arrived in full force.

A few months later, a major Danish politician publicly complained that economical experts had not warned him and others in Government about the emerging financial crisis. And this is now 2009. Being an avid reader of “The Economist” and not a fan of said politician, I had read about the collapse of house prices and so forth since, at least, 2004. So, I got up to write what I thought was a sharp reply on Social Media and did — for once — got my facts straight. See, in Denmark the Government has a council of economics professors to guide them and, as it turned out, said experts has warned about the emerging crisis at least since November 2005. Which was public knowledge for anyone expect a stupid politician.

My feeling of being superior, sadly, was short lived. Exactly one minute and 32 seconds after the politician’s complaint was on social media, a leading Danish newspaper published all of the facts that I was collecting in a very well written piece that obviously had been prepared years in advance.

Some things emerge

Annoyingly, some things just emerge. Yes, house prices do tend to fall by 30% every once in a while. Politicians tend not to be terribly bright. And so on. Things build up and tend “explode”. Predictably so.

You now need to be introduced to the concept of “Emergence” as a leader. The great Henry Mintzberg may have coined the word in management lingo with his concept of emergent strategy. According to Mintzberg, strategy is not often a plan. Sometimes it is rather a pattern of actions that seems to work. A practical advice to you is not to look into the future but look back and consider what worked in the last years and what did not work. Then, stop doing what did not work and do more of what did work. How hard can it be?

Indeed, how hard can it be?

Words are cheap and action speaks loader than words. Human beings need visions and even direction. Descending from the mighty Vikings, the Vikings are still an inspiration to me. The Vikings did not just sail where the wind permitted them. They rowed. This permitted these “primitive” people to go very far indeed. For instance, it is generally accepted today that the Vikings discovered America several centuries before Columbus. And they diden’t even kill most of the original population …

“Leif the Happy” led his men to what is now known as Greenland. The name must be the world’s first marketing lie, Greenland back then being a huge block of ice and snow. At least until Global Warming kicked in. But as long as Leif was happy and lucky, his men (and some women) followed him without question. It is good to have a leader that you respect and is willing to follow. Even as events emerge that no-one could have foreseen.

Emergence emerges. That is how hard it can be.