I first heard of the concept of Convex Leadership during a TEDTalk by R.A. Mashelkar, when he was speaking at TEDIndia in 2009. His talk discussed breakthrough designs for ultra low cost products being developed in India. Borrowing the concept, Gandhian engineering, from Tata Motors, his discussion expanded on the concept of frugality and challenging conventional wisdom in technological innovations, engineering and new product development. Getting more, from less, for more….. meaning Getting more service, from less resources, for more people. Amazing concept for the manufacturing and production world; especially for a world of depleting resources and a population that can’t afford luxurious overpriced designs.

Going back to the concept of convex leadership, the talk by Mashelkar brought up the idea of how leaders can transform the views and perceptions of those around them to focus and act as one; this type of leadership is needed to take advantage of concepts like Gandhian Engineering. Mashelkar further discusses how he came up with the concept:

“Principal Bhave took us out into the sun to demonstrate to us as to how to find the focal length of a convex lens. He had a piece of paper here, a convex lens here and he moved it up and down and there was a point when there was a sharp focus and a bright spot on the paper. He showed the distance between paper and the lens and said that this distance was the focal length. But then the paper started burning. For some reason, he then turned to me, and said, Mashelkar, if you focus your energies like this, you can burn anything in the world.”

If you think carefully about this story, it tells you about the new model for the society and for the nation. What is the experiment? You have the lens. And what does the lens do? It takes the parallel rays of the sun and then lets them converge. And what is the property of parallel lines? Parallel lines never meet. Parallel rays never meet but the lens actually makes them meet. The “convex lens” brings things together to focus and work together – leadership that brings people together.

Lets bring this back to the world of technology for a minute. Many frameworks and methodologies exist on leadership and project management, but when it comes down to leadership, it really comes down to basics – team leadership means focusing the team on obtaining a goal. As a company, the same concept can be applied – focusing the company on common goals; focusing everyones energy on obtaining the same strategic goals is key to obtaining success. Leaders that are able to display the attributes of convex leadership will be able to focus their teams of employees towards achieving the objectives laid out by the company; in some cases this may be in the form of helping employees obtain their own objectives (SMART goals from performance reviews) which thereby result in moving a step forward towards reaching the overall company objectives. In the end, the ability to lead people and converge the parallel lines that represent individual goals, is the true measure of a good leader.

The challenging part is finding those individuals that can lead by using a convex leadership style within a company; these leaders are the ones who understand the true motivators that get people to work in the morning; the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivators, Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory and are able to build the culture and team that have chemistry to work together.

So, the question I pose is, do you have a leader that is able to motivate and focus you? Or are you that leader?

Article source: http://www.robbiemadan.com/2012/01/04/the-art-of-leadership