Crowdsourcing: In Search of Your Leadership

Crowdsourcing is an increasingly well-known method for getting ¨crowds¨ to ¨source¨ solutions to a business problem. It beats top-down strategy hands-down. The question that nobody asks is, Could crowdsourcing serve to generate leaders? 



This week I have been on assignment in the Middle East, working with the management of a high-tech company in a Strategy-In-Action process to align on a shared vision and strategy for the company's two flagship products.

The key words are ¨align¨ and ¨shared.¨ The CEO wanted a focused vision and strategy that all key stakeholders could own and that would lead to decisive action.

Perhaps because I had read an article about crowdsourcing on the plane, it dawned upon me that Strategy-In-Action works just like crowdsourcing, where you tap into the wisdom of crowds.

For examples of how you could use crowdsourcing, from logo design to branding ideas to product feedback, here are 10 kickass crowdsourcing sites for your business. 

Over the last month I had interviewed some 20 key stakeholders from across the company, confidentially and anonymously, to get their unvarnished views of the current situation, what's missing, key blockages, key opportunities, as well as their vision and strategic input for the future.

I talked to the senior managers and board members, engineers and technical managers, marketing people and frontline people, academics and doctors who buy and/or use the technology.

Then, I wrote a whitepaper based on the interviews. The whitepaper was ¨blind,¨ meaning that nobody would know who said what, so that each stakeholder could say the unvarnished truth as they saw it, without fear of being penalized in the well-known corporate pastime of shooting the messenger.

This week, twelve of us met at the company's headquarters. We locked ourselves in the conference room with coffee, water and pastries, locked the doors, and vowed not to come out until we had a shared understanding. The idea was to give everyone a voice, reveal the sacred cows, and cut through unexamined assumptions.

And we did. It took two full days, it was hard work, and people had to stay late on the second day. But once we had confronted one or two elephants on the table, creativity and leadership exploded in the room. The participants brainstormed, designed, and launched 100-day catalytic projects to produce quick wins and jumpstart the future now.

What was most inspiring (and actually gave me goosebumps) was that each participant started behaving like an entrepreneur. Regardless of their position, title or authority, and without stock options, each of them owned the business.

Whether it's Strategy-In-Action or crowdsourcing, co-creation beats top-down strategy every time. Let's face it: No matter how brilliant the people in the boardroom are, they know a very thin slice of reality. And they frankly tend to drive with a rear-view mirror, which is a rather dangerous way to drive.

A colleague of ours even wrote a book using crowdsourcing. It is a gorgeous book with the somewhat uninspiring title ¨Business Model Generation.¨

The cool thing about the book is that it was co-authored by 470 strategy practitioners in 45 countries, so you get to see the topic from all possible vantage points, which can be a good thing in today's complex business environment.

But are all crowds really all that wise? Maybe not. Watch the video below of the flash mob in Chicago that came together to celebrate Oprah Winfrey's 24th season kickoff.



This flash mob was not really spontaneous; rather, it was orchestrated and rehearsed. This brings up a question: What turns people in a crowd into spontaneous leaders?

You are a leader. I invite you to provide leadership in this community. Please tell us what to write about in our next posts. What are you looking for? Where does it hurt? Where in your life or work could you really use a dose of leadership right now?
Take a moment to comment below this post. The leader with the most useful comment gets a free e-book of your choice.

I look forward to hearing from you.

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