Devin Singh - Leadership Kinetics

Recently concluded another round of talking “Money, Meaning, and Morality” with MBA students at the The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

💡Session one tackled what money is and how it arose, critiquing the common myth that it emerged from barter and instead recalling the role of debt and authoritative institutions in money’s creation. What if money did not arise simply to make exchanges easier but as a tool of governance? Is monetary exchange purely neutral?

💡Session two examined the role of money in meaning making, comparing/contrasting it with gift exchange and considering its effects on intimate relationships. Should you give money as the best kind of gift? Should a stay at home partner receive a salary and if so from whom? Is a bonus a gift or part of a salary?

💡Session three explored the moral limits of markets, the ways monetary incentives may change motivation, and how money and happiness are related. Should certain public, common goods be priced? Do monetary incentives corrupt? Can you buy friends? Does money make us happy?

All in all a generative and intensive two days of conversation, with great insights, questions, and challenges from the students. My hope is that these reflections will help them become more self-aware leaders and managers concerning the uses and effects of money within their organizations as well as in their relationship networks.

“Look closely at the present you are constructing: it should look like the future you are dreaming.” - Alice Walker

Last week Dartmouth’s Design Initiative held the first gathering of award-winning speculative fiction sci-fi and fantasy authors who met with a small group of faculty.

We faculty shared our research and had intensive conversations and design thinking exercises with these authors. The goal was to provide inspiration for them to write short stories imagining human futures in light of our research. The plan is to disseminate research in a more accessible, engaging way through the power of story and to flesh out possible futures.

💡This has me thinking a lot about how organizations might inspire innovation:

🧐 I can imagine a program where employees (in any industry) read works of fiction, poetry or philosophy, and critique works of visual art. An expert facilitated discussion and a curated process of design based practices could then help them explore the new ideas and insights that emerge from bringing their work (say in tech, medicine, or marketing, for instance) into connection with these works.

So many productive surprises can emerge from the dissonant clash of different fields and genres. I have to believe that organizations who pursue something like this would be at the forefront of innovation, if only because these kinds of sources are so rarely engaged intentionally for insight.

🤨 I’m curious if any of you have seen or experienced focused innovation sessions like this based on employees engaging really different materials for the sake of provoking new ideas and approaches. I’d love to have a conversation with you about it.

These are pics of me presenting on a speculative future “world without debt”.