Principles of Effective Power

Fundamental elements of creating a future that would not happen otherwise

Effective Power has five elements: Contact, Emergence, Cohesion, Boldness, and Agility. Below, each is briefly described and a practical contemplation is offered. These are not a linear chain, but simultaneous aspects that inform each other.

Contact with what’s actually happening

Principle: Circumstances are always changing. Action is most effective when contextualized by the actual circumstances.

Consideration: How could you get greater contact with what is actually happening? How would you know if your metrics and measures were no longer measuring the right thing?

Emergence into a future that would not happen otherwise

Principle: A vision of the future illuminates a path from the present, and so reveals possibilities for action that could not have been thought of in advance.

Consideration: What does the future look like in practical, sensory, and emotional detail?

Cohesion through shared view, shared commitment, and human warmth

Principle: When a team shares view, shares commitment, and has human warmth, they can work toward the same vision while remaining responsive to diverse and evolving local circumstances.

Consideration: Can you explain the future succinctly? Is everyone committed? Is there human warmth?

Boldness through concentration and dispersion of focus and activity

Principle: Concentrating energy anywhere disperses it elsewhere. Some achievements require activation energy: placing substantial focus on a matter to break through stasis and make things happen.

Consideration: Where is your energy and attention, and where is it not? How might you concentrate or disperse differently, knowing that concentrating in one place disperses in others?

Agility through continual evolution of patterns of interaction

Principle: Effective patterns for current circumstances are always slowly losing traction as circumstances change.

Consideration: What patterns have lost effectiveness? What effective patterns could be varied now, both to discover more effective power and to prepare for when they fade?

How these fit together:

Contact is the bottom-up constraint on effective action. Emergence is the top-down direction, constrained by contact. Cohesion sets the limit on total distributed effective action. Boldness determines what portion of that total contributes toward emergence. Agility is the responsive evolution of all these as circumstances change.