In the early phases of an organization, a company’s vision comes directly from its early leaders; it is very much their personal vision. To become great, however, a company must progress past excessive dependence on one or a few key individuals. The vision must become shared as a community, and become identified primarily with the organization, rather than with certain individuals running the organization. The vision must actually transcend the founders.

The best leaders realize that their people are wise, that they do not need to be coerced into alignment through yearly goal setting. These leaders strive instead to bring to life for their people the meaning and purpose of their work, the missions and contributions and methods that truly matter. These leaders know that in a team infused with such meaning, each person will be smart enough and driven enough to set goals voluntarily that manifest that meaning. It is shared meaning that creates alignment, and this alignment is emergent, not coerced. Whereas cascaded goals are a control mechanism, cascaded meaning is a release mechanism.

There will always be plenty to be afraid of, especially when you are doing something new. Trusting others doesn’t mean that they won’t make mistakes. It means that if they do (or if you do), you trust they will act to help solve it. Fear can be created quickly; trust can’t. Leaders must demonstrate their trustworthiness, over time, through their actions - and the best way to do that is by responding well to failure. The Braintrust and various groups within Pixar have gone through difficult times together, solved problems together, and that is how they’ve built up trust in each other. Be patient. Be authentic. And be consistent. The trust will come.

Trust the People

One of the primary principles of emergent strategy is trusting the people. The flip of Lao Tzu’s wisdom is: if you trust the people, they become trustworthy. Trust is a seed that grows with attention and space. The facilitator can be a gardener, or the sun, the water.

For trust to build in a setting, it must be clear that the more powerfully situated are invested in it. It is they who will have the authority to make organizational room for a trust-building connection.

In seeing, each party must accept the importance of making a personal connection with the other— must understand, as Robert Moses did in Mississippi, that they should go talk to each other. They should get a sense of what the others are like; how they see their roles (as teacher or parents, for example); what their intentions, hopes, and concerns are; what conditions and circumstances they are contending with; what their needs are. This getting-to-know-you effort is worth a lot. It conveys respect. And it helps the parties understand each other’s needs— for example, in the parent-teacher conference itself, and in going forward as teacher and mentors. It tells each party what would be helpful to the others and it gives both parties some assurance that they are reasonably well understood.