With these questions in mind and the multiplicity designed by them, we have also outlined the purpose of the rest of the text. Thus far we know that seduction only is an effect of something else, and that something else is what is about to manifest itself qua NNEs transformation initiated at the 10 year anniversary.
value without the co-conducted’s ´co´.”286 The leader can never enforce co-conduction, since that will destroy the symmetry. The relationship between the leader and the co-conducted must be based on passions for the assignment and respect for the other person. The process of leadership constitutes a space of opportunities in which both leader and co-conductor can connect through an ongoing evaluation. There must be asymmetrical relations between the two before that can happen.
Through the connect-ability a rhythm will emerge, such that each wave will be repeated not as the Same, but as the Other. The repetition involves difference such that each wave will move. It is through this relationship that the organization will produce anything and become something more specific, its output.
We might best illustrate the parallels between leadership and rhythm with Massumi’s soccer ball example (an example first presented by Michel Serres). In soccer the rules follow the emergence of the actual game. “They frame the game, retrospectively, describing its form as a set of constant relations between standardized terms.”287 The rules are already immanent in the game; if the game is regulated from the outside it will destroy the game. If we relate soccer to an organization, then the ball is the vision. “The ball is the subject of the play…The ball moves the players. The player is the object of the ball.”288 When the vision/ball moves, the whole game/organization moves with it. The workforce does not play on the ground; they look past it and pass ideas (the ball) to the field of potential. The potential is the space of opportunity, the space at play in which the workforce can unfold. The workforce does not operate within the old dualism of an inside and an outside of the organization; it is a part of an assemblage composed of a heterogeneity of elements. “He plays the field of potential directly.”289 The organization as a space of opportunity becomes an effect of intermingling of various elements. This is to say that the potential already is inside the workforce, or in other words, the space of opportunity is immanent. For it is [the workforce] the contingent effect of that which it conditions and vice versa. According to Massumi it is style which makes the player, it is the style which adds something extra. Style only emerges through its role as a part following along other parts; style is what makes the star meld with the collective, towards its mutual becoming, similar to the time it takes for a new candidate to meld in with the organizations. This, however, does not mean that the candidate must adapt. On the contrary, as a soccer player he can maintain his singularity within the collective. “The ‘individuality’ of the styles is a collective individuation: it is
‘collective’ in its absolute dependence on an intermixing of the multiple and heterogeneous elements of the sport’s unique evolution.”290 When leaders find it difficult to invest in sharing the responsibility, i.e., letting the workforce become autonomous, the leader becomes the referee of the
game. The referee stops the action. The leader must avoid interrupting the movements by inscribing a transcendence in form of a pre-given master plan. The leader should only frame the vision, telling the workforce what it can play with, i.e. the vision is the ball; but the leader should avoid telling the workforce how it should play. The rules of organizing emerge after the game has begun. The leader should avoid reducing the space by homogenizing the organization, but have the courage to let the workforce grow by letting its interest for the vision include new perspectives. The workforce wants to play with the leader (i.e. co-conducted) but that requires a leader who is always playable. That means that the leader too must be a co-conducted. A rigid approach destroys the harmonic relations between the people within the process of organizing. It is important that a leader does not step outside this process because then he will create severe forms of exclusion, exploitation, or any other kind of suffering. A typical scenario for an organization in economical trouble is that it afterwards practices management controlled by fear.
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In the fall 2003 NNE had to let go of approximately 100 people. What is significant in such a terrible situation is that the organization first tries to reduce its cost in order to avoid firing people, which is perfectly normal; however, the problem emerges when the organization continues such behavior afterwards. Therefore, what is even more absurd is that it is not the management alone who is trying to reduce the cost (e.g. less seminars, use of consultancy, education etc.), no it is actually the workforce who finds it difficult to adjust once again. In such situations it is imperative that the management becomes visible based on necessary actions and decisions, making sure that everyone begins believing in the future by revitalizing the habits of spending money. The problem is that much communication in organizations and NNE too, tend to be more like answers on request instead of drawing out a new organizational cartography. An organization needs both creativity from its leader’s and the workforce. The one is never better than the other and vice versa.
Organizations should not only focus on how to reduce cost, but, on the other hand, focus on how to increase economical value. If an organization focuses on cost for too long, it simply forgets how to create value. Similar to sports, the best soccer team is only the best team qua it is always focusing on winning, and never about how to avoid losing. Who would like to work in an organization whose main focus is cost reduction instead of focusing on how to become the best? Similar, an organization should also avoid reducing its expectations towards the future because that too would
only retain those who would rather prefer playing for a small soccer team in Norway, instead of Real Madrid. Many organizations seem to fear themselves, and their own methodology. It is a useless return to Hobbes’ world. The paradox is that this fear creates rigid rules which probably end up destroying the imagination and productivity, the qualities which should have carried the organization ahead.
If leadership is about feeling and expanding the rhythm so that the workforce can join for a jam-session, then the vision must be what initiates it. A leader must facilitate and organize various qualities, e.g. competences and people to make the process of working productive. He must become a messenger. Leaders as messengers are mediators, who are themselves in movement. Only by being in movement can the leaders communicate or carry a message. However, in order to communicate the leader must set some sort of frame, a “what” which enables the communication to take place.
Such form of leadership designates a space of opportunities as an open network of “how”, a network of variation and diversity. The “what” is what organizes the difference together by what agitates the workforce, and what keeps pulling the workforce apart and back. Earlier I mentioned that all relations are external, now we can add that we live only by relations.
The rest of this chapter will deal with the concept of Utopia and vision as a parallel to the concept of conquest, and hereby come closer to understanding the capacity of “what” and “how”.