How One Individual Can Change The World
He didn’t head up an army or corporation, wasn’t elected to any public office, was not the leader of a foundation, and wasn’t wealthy. In fact, he had none of the trappings most people usually associate with leadership – yet Buckminster Fuller’s leadership surely changed the world during the 20th century, and his impact continues into this century as well.
How did he accomplish this? What were the tools of leadership that he employed? Fuller himself often used the phrase “comprehensive anticipatory design science” to describe the far-reaching scope of his work and research efforts. In this article, we introduce a framework of leadership which we call “comprehensive anticipatory design leadership”. Through a careful study of Fuller’s writings, inventions, and methodologies what emerges is a powerful blueprint for problem-solving leadership in an age of rapid change – a leadership approach that has implications far beyond the field of technological innovation. In fact, we believe that Fuller’s problem-solving leadership skills are not only useful for changing the world – but can also be used when addressing the equally challenging task of changing your own local organization or business.
10 Principles for Comprehensive Anticipatory Design Leadership
So what can Fuller’s approach to life, change, technology, and design teach us about leadership? What do we mean by “comprehensive anticipatory design leadership”? Before exploring the specific principles that we uncovered, it is important to appreciate the rigorous, tenacious, and inspired patterns of thought that led to some of Fuller’s most impressive breakthroughs. As Fuller himself described, “I always say to myself: What is the most important thing we can think about at this extraordinary moment?”
This was no mere platitude – but in many ways summarizes Fuller’s entire leadership philosophy. Fuller was always considering not just important things – but perpetually attempting to discern the most important things and placing them in the context of extraordinary times.
In fact, it would be no exaggeration to say that there were very few other passengers aboard this Spaceship Earth during the 20th century so keenly aware, and deeply appreciative of the extraordinary changes that were unfolding – as if he was waiting on the path of history in an almost childlike state of expectant grace. Forces set in motion eons ago were blossoming all around him, some giving birth to titanic changes and truly astounding inventions, some already in hand – and others just around the corner – yet Bucky Fuller was so absolutely thrilled to be there, helping nudge things along in big and little ways he alone could imagine. It was his values and vision of a perfectible society, along with his razor sharp awareness of current and impending social and technological trends, combined with a relentless dedication to focus – to really focus – on THE most important things – that served as the key foundation for his wide-ranging contributions and impact.
1. Think Comprehensively
“I always start with the Universe.”
Throughout his career, Fuller demonstrated an unwavering dedication to framing problems in their widest possible context. When first encountering his writings, it is difficult to appreciate Fuller’s wide angle view on the world and the Universe. Armed with a vivid imagination, and an exhaustive researched inventory of the entire Universe – he could literally zoom out from a given problem in countless distant directions until he spied the remote fundamental cause that needed to be changed. Not just changed – revolutionized. If these upstream interconnections and causative factors could be addressed in a carefully comprehensive and decisive fashion, then Fuller had confidence that downstream matters would inevitably right themselves with a minimum of stress.
In terms of leadership, this means taking the time, and having the courage, to frame challenges clearly by digging into their root causes or the formative forces that brought them into being— and seeing the opportunities that are always present. Instead of trying to convince people to change their behavior, Fuller sought to change the environment that drove those behaviors. By providing a new or altered environment, Fuller’s leadership provided a new logic that lead to new behaviors and outcomes. At the core of this approach was a respect for the individual and their decisions.
2. Anticipate The Future
Buckminster Fuller was ahead of his times – so much so that many of his insights,
proposals and inventions were literally decades ahead of their era.
Whether it was his 1930’s Dymaxion car that would look at home at the
latest car shows; or his “World Design Science Decade” proposal which
has morphed into today’s UN Millennium Development Goals; or his
geodesic geometry that was discovered as a core design principle at the
molecular level (the aptly named buckminster fullerene carbon atom C60 or “BuckyBall” )— Fuller had a well honed ability to anticipate the future.
Fuller
was exquisitely in touch with trends, especially technological, world
resource, and human need trends – enabling him to not only forecast the
future, but allowing him to anticipate both upcoming problems and their
optimal solutions. Almost like a great waiter is able to service tables
and anticipate guests needs without your even asking, Fuller was able
to anticipate what the world would need at critical junctures, and then
offer up both the philosophical framework and practical tools for
solving those issues.
For
leaders, trend-spotting not only involves a feel for timing, but it
also requires the ability to tune into the relevant topics, tune out
the noise, and to act at the right time. Picking up on so called “weak
signals” long before anyone else is paying attention is a key habit
which leaders must develop if they are to accurately anticipate and
respond to future needs.
3. Respect Gestation Rates
Not
only did Fuller’s trend-spotting make him aware of what types of
progress were likely to occur, but he was also very in tune with the
timing of these changes. He often pointed out that everything has its
own gestation rate. A baby takes 9 months, a new computer chip 18
months, an elephant 22 months, and an automobile three to five years. .
Critical Path, one of his better known books, details
literally hundreds of years of human technological “gestation”. In the
second-half of the 20th century, these gestation rates began to pick up
in speed and frequency as one set of technological breakthroughs would
impact on another. Recently, inventor Ray Kurzweil – very much in the
Fuller tradition – has carefully documented in his book Singularity that even the change in the rate of change itself is accelerating. Fuller referred to this phenomenon, back in the 1960s, as accelerating acceleration.
The implications of accelerated gestation rates on leadership are
profound. Carefully identifying and then synchronizing with the
gestations rates of various changes you are facing helps insure that
your solution, invention, plan, or reorganization arrives at just the
right moment. If you arrive too early either in the actual marketplace
or the marketplace of ideas – your solution runs the risk of being
still born; it will not gain traction. If you are late to market – then
chances are that your solution will be forever playing catch-up to the
established solution.
4. Envision The Best Possible Future
Fuller also used another technique for coming to grips with the future.
This approach did not involve predicting or forecasting where different
technological or resource trends were heading, but envisioning what the
world should
be like. Over the course of his life, Fuller developed a comprehensive
moral vision that told him what the world should look like given our
technological capabilities – a world where everyone’s basic human needs
were met, the environment sustained or regenerated, and a world safe
and secure from the threats of war and social injustice were three of
the linchpins of his vision for how the world should be. Many people
found this “big picture” moral vision to be just as attractive and
inspiring as his technological artifacts.
The
take away for leaders is that not only are vision statements powerful
tools for bringing about change – but that often people respond more
enthusiastically to big and inspiring challenges than safe incremental
change.
5. Be A “Trimtab”
Something
hit me very hard once, thinking about what one little man could do.
Think of the Queen Mary – the whole ship goes by and then comes the
rudder. And there’s a tiny thing at the edge of the rudder called a
trim tab. It’s a miniature rudder. Just moving the little trim tab
builds a low pressure that pulls the rudder around. Takes almost no
effort at all. So I said that the little individual can be a trim tab.
Society thinks it’s going right by you, that it’s left you altogether.
But if you’re doing dynamic things mentally, the fact is that you can
just put your foot out like that and the whole big ship of state is
going to go. So I said, call me Trim Tab.
Fuller’s
effigy “Call Me Trimtab” is rather unique. As described above, a
trimtab is a nautical device that acts as a small rudder used to turn
the larger rudder of giant ships, offering tremendous leverage in terms
of steering and changing the direction of the ship. Fuller, drawing
upon his naval experience, saw the trimtab as a powerful metaphor for
effective individual leadership: small and strategically placed
interventions can cause large-scale and profound change. What makes
this metaphor interesting is that the ship Fuller was referring to
could be the entire planet, or any local system you are desiring to
steer or change direction. To understand the full dimensions of the
metaphor you need a clear understanding of the current direction of
the “ship”, the flow of the currents it is moving through, the
knowledge of where it is heading, and a vision of where the ship ought
to be heading—as well as understanding where and how to apply pressure
on the rudder to bring about change. As we have seen, Fuller had a
strong vision for all these trimtab attributes. What is also
interesting about a trimtab is that it efficiently brings about change
with minimum effort – in other words – doing more with less – another
of Fullers’ key principles.
The
guiding questions for everyday leadership that emerge from a trimtab
approach are easy to list – but much more difficult to execute:
- What ship are you steering?
Are you trying to change the entire world? Or maybe just your own department? What is the system you are seeking to steer or change direction?
- What direction is your ship currently heading?
This often requires careful discernment and reflection. What is the
“big picture” direction and destination?
- What outside currents, winds, tides, or events are impacting your ship?Sometimes these are obvious, and close at hand – but oftentimes theyare remote either geographically, in time, or functionally, and itrequires special instruments and measurements to gauge these outside
factors.
- Where ought your ship be going?
This is often the most critical question of leadership. What is the
goal, the prize, which you need to keep in sight so that your regular
adjustments to the tiller, in response to the changing currents of the
environment, will keep you on target? What is the big picture goal, not
next quarter’s profit margin, share price, or units delivered—but the
overarching social good? How will your efforts help to increase overall
global well-being?
- Where can you most efficiently exert pressure for “moving the rudder”?Answering this question accurately is only possible if you’ve taken thetime to answer the previous questions! In the system you are seeking tosteer, what is the rudder, what is the trimtab? In complex social
systems, it is often instructive to ask, what is the rudder of the
obvious rudder or the trimtab of the trimtab? These “trimtabs of the
trimtab” need to be identified so that the least amount of effort is
needed to change the system.
- How can you most efficiently exert pressure for “moving the rudder”?Once you understand where you are going, and where change needs tohappen in order to move in that new direction – the final step is toenvision and plan how to make the change happen. Fuller had great faith
in the individual’s ability to build artifacts, tools, and creative
responses that would “move the rudder”. Not only that, but he
recognized that each person would make his or her own unique
contributions, based on their skillsets, life-history and available
resources. The point is not for everyone to go out and invent new types
of geodesic domes – rather, each person should be equally inventive in
their own way.
- How do you continue to navigate successfully through changing tides?One of the most remarkable things about Fuller’s life is that he wasable to reinvent himself and his particular area of focus on several
occasions – while keeping his core values constant. Then drawing on the
knowledge and experience from one phase, he was able to realize even
higher levels of creativity and inventive breakthroughs than in the
previous phase. This process of continual learning, creation,
modification, and synthesis culminated in his global lectures during
the 1960s when he spoke on hundreds of college campuses – captivating
the younger generation with literally a lifetime of insight,
observation, and wisdom. In steering by key guiding principles, Fuller
was able to navigate a complex century, making a unique and lasting
contribution.
Not
every leader is destined to be the same sort of “trimtab” that Fuller
was – but every leader can gain valuable insights from his highly
leveraged approach and sea-faring and navigation mindset.
6. Take Individual Initiative
By
honing and honoring individual perspective and initiative, Fuller was
able to take the lead on a variety of issues. Fuller was not seeking to
be a “leader” in any conventional political or economic sense – he saw
what needed to be done to make the world a better place and which no
one else was attending to, and, being true to himself –dared to go off
in directions that the typical crowd-following individual did not ever
dream of going. His approach was an anti-“Big Man” leader, or anti
central supreme authority style of leadership. He felt that everyone
should be and is a leader . . . of at least of their own life.
For leaders, Fuller’s approach demonstrates that you don’t need to have
the job or be the expert or have money to make a difference. Every
individual should feel empowered to make his or her own contribution –
whether or not they’ve received some sort of official blessing or
sanction. Interestingly, even the biggest of corporations now recognize
the need for self-motivated individuals to work on projects and ideas
in the unexplored market areas. This is not just an altruistic act on
their part – rather, these companies recognize that their future market
success depends on creating and capturing entirely new markets, and
that these markets are almost always driven into being by the
dedication and motivation of a just a few individuals.
7. Ask The Obvious And “Naïve” Questions
Sometimes
leadership involves nothing more than simply asking the obvious
questions. “Why do we do things in this way?” “Gee.. I don’t know –
that’s the way we’ve always done it.”
For
Fuller, his basic questions typically took on a big picture view: “With
our expanding technical resources – why can’t we commit to feeding and
clothing everyone on the planet?” “Why can’t we design homes that are
easy and inexpensive to build?” “What is wealth?” “Why shouldn’t wealth
continue to increase as our knowledge of technology grows
exponentially?” “Why don’t we simply look at how nature builds things,
and then build our own structures accordingly?” Part of the power of
these questions lies in the fact that they spring from individual
observation and inspiration, and are not dependent on a committee,
policy, procedure, official edict. or dogma that no company or group
has thought to address because they hadn’t thought to ask the obvious
questions.
For leaders, sometimes the
best way to initiate change is to simply ask the appropriate and
perhaps naïve-sounding questions. The answers can often bring about a
surprising jolt of action!
“Real
wealth is indestructible and without practical limit. It can be
neither created nor lost – and it leaves one system only to join
another – the Law of Conservation of Energy. Real wealth is not gold.
Real wealth is knowing what to do with energy.”
Many
people continue to mistake money for wealth, but capital itself has
become a vast manufactured commodity circling around the Earth in
search of true productive wealth. And what is productive wealth? Knowing how to do more with less.
Any technology or system of technology that can create more output with
less input will rapidly gain influence in today’s hyperlinked global
economy. Whether it is the Toyota hybrid car delivering more miles to
the gallon, or a new computer delivering more computing power per
dollar, or Google delivering broader and faster searches per click, or
Dell sourcing component parts from all across the world in order to
deliver the cheapest and most powerful computers, – wealth today flows
to the organizations and individuals who can use creativity and
initiative to get more done with less. Fuller was impatient with
artificial financial schemes. His view on wealth also made him
pragmatically optimistic regarding humankind’s ability to feed and
cloth the passengers here on Spaceship Earth. Fuller’s equation for
physical success of humanity can be summarized fairly succinctly:
A. True wealth = Resources + Human know-how applied to meet needs
.
B. You can never learn less, you can only learn more, so therefore
wealth is increasing as we increase our understanding of the world,
ourselves and the Universe
Thus – while the supply of raw materials is a zero-sum game, and leads
to a scarcity mentality –the wild card in wealth creation that breaks
the zero-sum standoff is human ingenuity, allowing us to accomplish
more and more with less and less. Fuller was convinced that every
individual could make a contribution to this overall cycle of wealth
creation. For leaders, this means recognizing and encouraging everyone
in the organization to contribute on a consistent and inspired basis.
9. Seek To Reform The Environment, Not Man
The function of what I call design science is to solve problems by
introducing into the environment new artifacts, the availability of
which will induce their spontaneous employment by humans and thus,
coincidentally, cause humans to abandon their previous
problem-producing behaviors and devices. For example, when humans have
a vital need to cross the roaring rapids of a river, as a design
scientist I would design them a bridge, causing them, I am sure, to
abandon spontaneously and forever the risking of their lives by trying
to swim to the other shore. (See bottom of page 2.)
Flowing out of his trimtab philosophy, Fuller came to the conclusion
the most effective leverage can almost always be found not by trying to
change habit ridden men and women – but by reforming the physical
infrastructure in which they live and worked. Thus, many of his
projects focused on large complex systems such as housing, automobiles,
energy, etc. Fuller was convinced that if these large scale systems
could be optimized with a view towards maximizing actual human gain
rather than measured by financial statements, then there would be a
broad impact on human society as whole.
For
leaders interested in “making the world a better place” – the
implication is that reforming the physical environment can often have a
large impact on people’s behavior.
10. Solve Problems Through Action
Man knows so much and does so little.
Fuller
was never one to merely theorize about how things ought to be, and his
creative portfolio, spanning nearly six decades of continuous
leadership and invention is testimony to a hands-on, involved, and
action-centered life. Beginning early in the 20th century, his
creative portfolio documents a truly stunning range of projects (from
shelters to flying cars, bathrooms, floating cities and social policy),
interests (from geometry, to cosmology, architecture, technology, and
humanity’s function in the Universe), writings (27 books, hundreds of
articles and thousands of letters corresponding with people all over
the world), as well as drawings, photographs, videotapes, and
observations,. His Chronofile documents his effort “to see what one
ordinary person could accomplish.” Fuller received 28 US Patents and
circled the globe more than 50 times, lecturing to audiences all over
the world. The scope of his curiosity, and range of technical and
artistic pursuits were united by a common thread of providing humanity
with tools and artifacts for the benefit of all. Another thing to note
is that not only did Fuller choose interesting projects to pursue, but
his metrics for success were often at odds with the prevailing wisdom
and values. The value he put on money reflected his big picture views
on much of society’s other sacred cows. He saw money as a means to
further his explorations in “making the world work for 100% of
humanity” but it had little intrinsic value.
For
leaders looking to solve problems, Fuller example of an action-filled
life should serve as tremendous inspiration. Not only did Fuller’s
actions and projects bring him great satisfaction over the years –
regardless of their immediate impact – but as his portfolio of efforts
grew, they served as inspiration for even greater breakthroughs.
Conclusion
If
humanity does not opt for integrity we are through completely. It is
absolutely touch and go. Each one of us could make the difference.
Here in the early 21st century, the Internet – by offering individuals
almost unlimited access to information – has made Fuller’s
Comprehensive Anticipatory Design Leadership approach even more
powerful than ever:
- Think Comprehensively
- Anticipate The Future
- Respect Gestation Rates
- Envision The Best Possible Future
- Be A Trimtab
- Take Individual Initiative
- Ask The Obvious And Naïve Questions
- Do More With Less
- Seek To Reform The Environment, Not Man
- Solve Problems Through Action
In following these 10 principles, there is no telling what a single ordinary leader will be able to accomplish!
Click here for a PDF version of the article.
About the Authors
Medard Gabel
is the founder of BigPictureSmallWorld.com in Philadelphia, PA , as
well as former president of the World Game Institute. He spent several
years working in conjunction with Buckminster Fuller.
medard@bigpicturesmallworld.com
Jim Walker
is an internet developer and entrepreneur in Philadelphia. Early in
his career he was a workshop facilitator with the World Game Institute.
jim.walker@mindpalace.com
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