Proof of Brain: The Importance of Practicing Conscious Discernment

I'll be the first to admit that ”being in charge” of stuff — or let's call it leadership — has never been a thing that's been high on my list of priorities. It doesn't interest me, and it doesn't excite me, in any way.

That might sound kind of idiosyncratic coming from somebody who graduated from University with a business degree. Isn't business supposed to be all about leadership?

That said, I have found myself thrust into leadership positions a number of times... often by default because I happened to be the one standing there when everybody else left the room... and someone pointed out that I always seemed "very capable."

Thanks... but NO thanks!

With that out of the way, I got to thinking a bit about organizations like Hive and Proof of Brain which operate by a sort of consensus… and yet it seems like somebody has to be in charge to some extent.

And that's often where the problems begin!

A wise person once said:

”Be careful who you let on your ship, because some people will sink the whole ship just because they can't be the captain.”

That, of course, is where we get into the whole area of ”people behaving badly.” In particular, we get into the area of people behaving badly because they have more power or influence, feeling that makes them somehow ”more important,” even if their ideas and plans aren’t particularly good.

One of the reasons I generally steered clear of leadership positions was precisely this tendency of some people to be more concerned with their own self-importance than with whether or not the organization was actually benefiting and thriving under their leadership.

A long time ago I served a couple of terms as president of a condominium homeowner’s association, and it really gave me a lot of insight into how much people tend to ”lead with their ego,” and how important it is to practice a very high level of discernment when it comes to deciding who you are going to let be part of your crew.

Naturally, in a decentralized structure, people are quick to point out that no one person is ”in charge.” But that doesn't mean that some people might not have subtle aspirations to become the ostensible ”captain” of the ship.

Of course, it's a tricky situation. It's very difficult to run an organization of any kind without somebody ”being in charge” to a certain extent. I have been part of projects that tried to operate on a ”leadership by committee” type of structure and I'm sad to say that most of them were giant clusterföcks. The biggest problem seems to be that when everybody has to be consulted and come into consensus, decision making tends to take multiple times longer than when somebody specific is actually in charge of making decisions.

Maybe that would be OK if decision making by committee always resulted in substantially better outcomes… but that doesn't necessarily hold true. As often as not, what tends to happen is that opportunities pass by while everybody is embroiled in studying the pros and cons of every last detail of that opportunity.

”Oops we missed the boat… again!”

Don't get me wrong, I think decentralization is a great idea, but part of the challenge seems to lay in being highly discerning in terms of choosing how decisions are made.

In the past five years of St€€m and then Hive, as well as in some of the Tribes/Communities, we've had first row seats to observing just how challenging it can be to move one of these projects forward in a manner that substantially benefits the overall community. Not saying it can't be done, but it's definitely an ongoing learning process.

Like the ship example... a lot of people have really good ideas but they don't take kindly to not having THEIR idea being front and center... and might even start trying to tear down someone with a different idea.

In the meantime, I do think Proof of Brain is a very interesting experiment, and it'll be very interesting to see how the community’s ”identity” and ”personality” develop over time. I hope POB will be around and thriving for a very long time!

Thanks for reading and have a great remainder of your week!

How about YOU? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

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Created at 20210713 23:21 PDT
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