gianpiero petriglieri

[fontainebleau, france]

intro’d to Gianpiero here (tweeted by Umair):

..instead of being resentful or defeated by no longer having the prospect of stable, long-term employment or career ladders to climb, they’ve actually been able to craft work lives that are more authentic, more expressive of who they really are, and also freer, less tethered to the demands of impersonal, instrumental organization.

I mean, what’s not to like? And in my work, I call these people nomadic professionals. These are people whose careers are very mobile. They often unfold across organizations and factors and cultures. And yet, at the same time, for whom work is actually very self-defining, very important to who they are.

Richard Sennett, who has made a very interesting point about this. And his take is that nomadic professionals are indeed a minority, but it’s a minority who has a profound normative and moral influence about how the larger workforce should evolve.

..nomadic elite is a very new phenomenon. I mean, until relatively recently, just the two words together would have been an oxymoron. 

People who moved around were considered ruthless, and dangerous to society, and possibly morally corrupt. They certainly weren’t the people you would look up to for leadership. And, these days, what we have is a reversal of status. So the status of nomadic professionals has become very high.

And this is where things become a little complicated. Because, in this day and age, we know that if you aspire to become a leader, you need to move around.

yet.. Most of us follow people not because of their resume or their skills or their job title. No, we follow people because we trust them. And we trust them because we feel that they’re one of us, that they understand what we want and what we worry about. That they have a vision for how we can get to where we want to go and of what we are afraid of.

You see, for me to follow you, I need, at some level, to have a sense that I want and I can become like you, that we have something in common.But if leaders have an existence that is unlike mine, that I don’t particularly want to have, and is also inaccessible to me.

Because elites who have this nomadic existence are often perceived and are somewhat impermeable. So leaders have an existence that is undesirable and inaccessible, which is what we see today, what you get is resentment, is not trust.

..flexibility and commitment are relatively strange bedfellows.

..as they are moving, they are moving by really letting themselves be and belong in the places they happen to be at. They’re not visitors. They strive to become citizens wherever they are.

Cultivate those connections. And cultivate three kinds of connections– connections to people, connections to places, and connections to purpose.

And be very clear about whose leader you want to be. Who can claim you. Where you aspire to lead. What you are committed to. See, it’s only bleak if you try to be a leader, rather than someone’s leader or the leader of a group or an organization or a cause. Then you end up being no one else’s leader.

And I’ll go a little bit further and perhaps a little bit against the grain here. I’d say, put people before purpose. 

And not just don’t shy away, but face and accept those losses. Just make sure it’s not just a simple loss, but a sacrifice. And sacrifice is a beautiful term, because it’s a term for a meaningful loss for a bigger purpose, or for someone we love.

It’s not just what we have or what we’ve done that makes us who we are. It’s also what we lose and how.

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oct 2013:

INSEAD’s Global Thought Leaders: Gianpiero Petriglieri

leadership is more than a position/possession.. it’s an activity/relationship..

there’s no such thing as future leaders.. leadership is not like driving, where you need to be of a certain age and get a stamp of approval, what you need to lead is purpose/courage and permission of those who matter most – those you are inviting to follow..

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find/follow Gianpiero:

Gianpiero is a prof of organizational behavior at insead:

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via oct 2015 tweet:

@katemfd Not for the hyperbolic title, but the clear thinking from @gpetriglieri. (@HallyMk1 @melgregg) #bcm311hbr.org/2015/08/is-ove…

In an age where talent, passion, and authenticity are hailed as virtues and antidotes to the uncertainty of the workplace, so-called overwork may well be their dark side.

[..]

Neither, this view suggests, are we helped by the argument that more humane workplaces will make us more productive. That subtly reinforces the already totemic notion that being productive is the purpose of being human, 

[..]

Things will only change when we stop treating passionate overwork as a marker of talent, and companies with extreme work cultures as the main suppliers of it. Until then, we’ll keep hoping that work gives us Stendhal syndrome, and end up suffering the Stockholm one instead.