Governance, leadership and digital transformation in times of AI

Summary

Thas Lindu, a manager of Information Systems, discusses the challenges of public sector digitalization, emphasizing the need for strategic governance to facilitate digital transformation. With a background in design and teaching, Lindu highlights the importance of visionary leadership and the necessity of adapting to AI's complexities. The talk explores the role of universities in this shift, the balance between autonomy and central coordination, and the importance of not compromising academic freedom while embracing digital change.

Takeaways

• 📚 Thas Lindu's background includes design studies, UX and web design, and a shift towards strategy and governance in public sector digitalization.
• 🔑 The public sector has struggled with digital transformation due to a lack of digital infrastructure, strategy, and governance structures.
• 🏫 Universities are central to knowledge creation but are not the primary drivers of digital transformation, particularly in AI, which is often led by companies.
• 🤖 AI's complexity and its rapid development pose challenges for understanding and leadership, making it a timely and relevant topic for discussion.
• 🏛 The federated structure of Swedish universities, with decentralized departments, presents unique governance challenges in the face of digital transformation.
• 🧩 The identity of universities as both knowledge creators and government agencies needs to be balanced, especially when considering the impact of AI on academic freedom.
• 🔄 The necessity for visionary leadership during transformation is highlighted, suggesting that leadership can change more quickly than governance structures.
• 💡 Leadership should foster strategic conversations and focus on the infrastructure of organizational change without infringing on academic freedom.
• 📈 The balance between autonomy and central coordination within universities is crucial, especially when navigating the challenges of digital transformation.
• 📚 Books such as 'Managers Matter' and 'The Nature of Technology' offer insights into leadership during change and the complexities of technological evolution.
• 🔑 The enactment of current governance structures and focusing on leadership, strategy, and vision may be more effective in driving transformation than structural changes alone.

Q & A

What is the main focus of Thas Lindu's research?

Thas Lindu's research primarily focuses on the digitalization of the public sector from a government and strategy perspective, with a background in design-oriented studies and experience in building apps within healthcare.

Why did Thas Lindu transition from a design-oriented role to a strategy and governance-focused approach?

Thas Lindu transitioned because the public sector was unable to utilize the systems and platforms created due to a lack of digital infrastructure, strategy to absorb new ways of thinking, and governance structures to incentivize digital transformation.

What are the key activities Thas Lindu is involved in currently?

Thas Lindu is involved in leading a division, teaching courses related to public sector digitalization, giving keynotes, having meetings, and conducting data collection with agencies, municipalities, and regions.

What is the significance of discussing AI in the context of public sector digitalization?

AI is significant as it represents a transformative technology that is complex and challenging for leadership and organizations to understand, and it raises questions about the need for different leadership and strategies compared to other technologies.

Why is it important to focus on universities in the context of AI and digital transformation?

Universities are important because they are knowledge creators and should be at the forefront of transformative times. However, they are not primarily driving digital transformation around AI, which is mainly done by companies, posing challenges to their role in society and methods of knowledge creation.

How does the federated structure of Swedish public universities impact their approach to digital transformation?

The federated structure, with departments having their own budgets and freedoms, can make central coordination for digital transformation activities challenging, especially considering the varying levels of digital maturity and competence across the organization.

What are the core values that universities need to reflect on in response to the transformation brought by AI?

Universities need to reflect on their core values of education, learning, and examination, and consider how AI and generative technologies might transform teaching, assessment, and academic integrity.

What is the 'donut model' mentioned by Thas Lindu, and how does it relate to university governance?

The 'donut model' refers to a governance structure where there is little at the center and most of the power and resources are at the periphery, or departments. This model is significant in understanding the balance of power and autonomy within universities during digital transformation.

How does Thas Lindu suggest leadership should approach the balance between autonomy and central coordination in universities?

Leadership should foster strategic conversations that do not dictate specific interests or research subjects but rather focus on the overall direction, infrastructure, and organizational change, respecting academic freedom and fostering trust-based leadership.

What are some of the challenges identified in the articles discussed by Thas Lindu regarding IT governance in universities?

The challenges include a lack of strategy leading to a negative spiral of effects, financial structure issues, and the absence of new tools or rules to adapt to digital transformation, characterized by silo thinking, planning mindset, and non-digital leadership.

What is the role of leadership in fostering change and strategic dialogue within universities facing digital transformation?

Leadership plays a crucial role in setting the direction, initiating conversations about the future, and ensuring the infrastructure supports the transformation without conflicting with academic freedom, emphasizing the need for visionary leadership.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Transition to Digital Strategy in Public Sector

Thas Lindu, a manager and researcher in Information Systems, discusses her journey from a design-oriented background in healthcare app development and teaching to focusing on the strategic aspects of public sector digitalization. She emphasizes the challenges and importance of digital infrastructure, strategy, and governance in facilitating digital transformation. Thas also highlights her current role in leading a division, teaching, giving keynotes, and engaging with municipalities to understand their digital needs.

05:01

🤖 The Role of AI in Public Sector Digitalization

The speaker delves into the relevance of AI in governance and strategy, especially in the context of public sector digitalization. She addresses common questions about AI's role, its integration in universities, and the need for different leadership and strategy approaches compared to other technologies. Thas also mentions the timing of AI's rise in relation to the pandemic and how it presents a complex and transformative challenge for organizations, including universities, which are traditionally slow to change but are now facing urgency due to AI's impact.

10:03

🏛️ Universities' Struggle with Digital Transformation

Thas examines the difficulties universities face in the age of AI, particularly concerning their traditional structure and the rapid pace of technological change. She points out the lack of strategy and financial structure leading to a negative spiral within universities, affecting their ability to adapt to digital transformation. The speaker uses case studies to illustrate the challenges, such as silo thinking and a lack of digital leadership, and emphasizes the need for strategic dialogue within these organizations.

15:04

🔄 The Federated Structure of Swedish Universities

The speaker discusses the unique federated structure of Swedish universities, where departments have significant autonomy, leading to a 'donut model' with little centralized power. This structure poses challenges for coordinating digital transformation efforts. Thas also touches on the identity crisis within universities, balancing between being knowledge creators and bureaucratic agencies, especially in the context of AI and its implications for education, research, and examination practices.

20:06

🌟 The Importance of Visionary Leadership in Transformation

Thas argues for the necessity of visionary leadership in driving organizational change, particularly within universities facing digital transformation. She suggests that while governance structures may take time to evolve, leadership can be adapted more swiftly to set direction and initiate strategic conversations. The speaker also addresses the balance between autonomy and central coordination, emphasizing the importance of not letting the digitalization efforts conflict with academic freedom.

25:08

📚 Continuous Learning and Adaptability in Technology

The speaker concludes by emphasizing the importance of continuous learning and adaptability in the face of evolving technology. She discusses the challenges of changing governance structures and the need for leadership to focus on enacting current structures and strategies rather than just redesigning them. Thas also highlights the importance of not mistaking direction and structure for academic freedom and the need for leadership to navigate this balance effectively.

📚 Recommended Reading for Organizational Change

Thas recommends several books for further understanding of leadership and organizational change, including 'Managers Matter' by Nicholas Foss and Peter Klein, which argues for the importance of leadership during times of change, and 'The Nature of Technology' by Brian Arthur, which provides insight into the evolution and complexity of technology. She also promotes her own book on public sector digitalization, suggesting its influence on shaping the thinking of the public sector in Sweden.

Keywords

💡Digital Transformation

Digital transformation refers to the integration of digital technology into all areas of an organization, fundamentally changing how organizations operate and deliver value to customers. In the video, the speaker discusses the challenges and importance of digital transformation in the public sector, emphasizing the need for a strategy and governance structure that can support this change. The script mentions the lack of digital infrastructure and strategy in the public sector as a barrier to adopting new systems and platforms.

💡Public Sector

The public sector encompasses government and government-controlled organizations that provide various services to the public. The video's theme revolves around the digitalization of the public sector, highlighting the need for strategic planning and governance to effectively implement digital technologies within government agencies and public universities.

💡Governance Structure

A governance structure defines the relationships among parties involved in, or affected by, a company's activities, including the distribution of power and responsibilities. The script discusses the inadequacy of current governance structures in universities and public sector agencies to support digital transformation, suggesting a need for a more agile and strategic approach.

💡Digital Infrastructure

Digital infrastructure refers to the foundational components necessary for a digital system to function, such as hardware, software, networks, and data centers. The speaker points out that the absence of a robust digital infrastructure in the public sector has hindered the adoption of new digital systems and platforms.

💡Digital Competence

Digital competence is the ability of individuals and organizations to use digital technologies effectively. The script mentions the varying levels of digital competence as a factor that affects how well organizations can understand and adopt transformative digital technologies like AI.

💡Digital Maturity

Digital maturity is a measure of how well an organization can understand and utilize digital technologies to achieve its goals. The video script discusses the concept in the context of universities and public sector organizations, noting that low digital maturity can impede the adoption of new technologies and the ability to innovate.

💡AI (Artificial Intelligence)

Artificial Intelligence refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think like humans and mimic their actions. The speaker discusses AI's relevance to governance and strategy, noting that it is a transformative technology that requires specific leadership and strategic approaches different from other technologies.

💡Leadership

Leadership involves the ability to guide, direct, and influence the actions of others towards achieving goals. The script emphasizes the importance of visionary leadership in driving digital transformation, particularly in the context of universities and public sector agencies, where strong leadership is needed to set direction and initiate strategic conversations.

💡Academic Freedom

Academic freedom is the right of academics to freely express their ideas and research findings without interference. The video discusses the balance between academic freedom and the need for central coordination in universities, especially in the context of digital transformation and the adoption of AI.

💡Federated Structure

A federated structure is a type of organizational structure where individual units have a high degree of autonomy. The script mentions that Swedish public universities have a federated structure, which presents unique challenges in implementing digital transformation strategies that require coordination and alignment across different units.

💡Identity Shift

Identity shift refers to a change in the way an organization perceives itself or is perceived by others. The speaker discusses the need for an identity shift in universities, particularly in relation to their role as knowledge creators versus their role as government agencies, especially in the context of AI and digital transformation.

Highlights

Thas Lindu's background in design studies and UX, shifting focus to strategy and governance in public sector digitalization.

Challenge of transitioning from design-oriented to strategy and governance-oriented research in digital transformation.

Importance of digital infrastructure, strategy, and governance for public sector to adopt new systems and platforms.

Thas Lindu's current role in leading a division, teaching, and engaging with municipalities on digitalization.

Digital transformation's focus on leadership, strategy, and governance, with AI as a timely and complex topic.

AI's role in public sector and universities, and the need for different leadership and strategy compared to other technologies.

The transformative impact of AI on knowledge creation and the challenges it poses to universities' traditional roles.

How generative AI affects education, teaching methods, examinations, and academic integrity within universities.

The necessity for strategic dialogue within universities to adapt to digital transformation and AI.

Analysis of IT governance in universities and the negative spiral caused by lack of strategy and financial structure.

Characteristics of universities with silo thinking, non-digital leadership, and lack of new tools in the context of AI.

The federated structure of Swedish public universities and its implications for digital transformation initiatives.

The balance between autonomy and central coordination in universities and the role of leadership in fostering strategic conversations.

The importance of not mistaking direction and structure with academic freedom within university settings.

The need for visionary leadership in transformation and the balance between changing governance structures and leadership roles.

The continuity of organizational change and the focus on leadership to navigate between direction and infrastructure.

The significance of enactment over structure in governance and the importance of current actions within the organization.

Rethinking the core values of universities in relation to AI and the necessity for an identity shift in the face of digital transformation.

Recommendations of books for understanding leadership in times of change and the nature of technology's complexity.

Transcripts

hi my name is thas lindu and I'm the

manager of this division of Information

Systems my research focuses on the

public sector digitalization from a

government and um strategy perspective

but I've come from a much more let's

say design oriented perspective

previously so I've done design studies

building stuff uh apps for instance

within healthcare for several years and

I'll also been teaching within ux and

action design web design uh way back in

time but the last five to six years I've

been focused on the strategy aspects of

the public sector because everything

that we created during uh the last 10

years ago for instance uh the public

sector weren't able to start using those

systems and platform that we built

because they didn't have the digital

infrastructure that there that was

needed they didn't have the strategy to

kind of absorb these ways of new ways of

thinking and they didn't have a

governance structure that kind of

incentivized this type of digital

transformation so in order to kind of

have an effect and an impact I had to

move from this quite design oriented

into a much more strategy and governance

oriented way of research and that

transition has been really challenging

ing but also very interesting to see how

to have an impact within an organization

an ecosystem and whole sector so I spend

my time uh leading this division um

teaching in courses like this but also

other courses in relation to public

sector

digitalization but also giving out there

and giving U Keynotes having meetings

and doing data collection with together

with agencies municipalities and regions

so we have a quite good finger toop uh

sensitivity to and where these

organizations are the need they have and

what type of help they

need so this presentation and this

module is about digital transformation

in the public sector it's about

leadership strategy and governance but

the two articles is not really about

what I'm going to talk about in this

presentation this is more of a meta

analysis uh but I think you'll if you

read the articles you'll recognize what

I'm talking about so in this talk I will

talk a bit about AI in the beginning and

why is AI relevant for this governance

and strategy talk and so on well uh when

we are out and talking to the public

sector which we are a lot then we get

questions on where are the where are AI

in the public sector how far have we

come um what are the universities doing

in Rel relation to Ai and so on do we

need a different leadership different

strategy in relation to AI than other

type of uh Technologies and so on right

so this is a very of course you know

very timely topic so it's interest

interesting to related this to the

public discourse and in relation to our

research and

articles so why so these articles do not

mention AI at all they are the data is

collect Ed and are written during and

after the pandemic but just prior to the

exposion of generative AI in a

sense so what I will try to say here is

something about digal transformation in

your

universities uh and while the first

article is based in one University uh

and it looks at the it governance

structure basically uh the other article

is about two three different agencies

but I will focus on the on the case b

which is about University as well so

I'll try to kind of take bits and pieces

from both of the Articles and say

something in

general so the focus of AI is really

about this transformative technology and

it could have been anything it's ra it's

more about the timing on this right but

what is a bit particular about AI or or

digital technology in general is that

it's quite complex it's hard to

understand for leadership but also for

people working in universities or in any

other company right so this is a central

argument that this technology is hard to

understand it's a bit of pack blackbox

and so on So based on that or or with

that as a baseline people react in

different ways and we can talk about

this as digital competence or an

organization we can talk about this as

digital maturity how well do I'm as an

individual digital competence how and

how do the organization digital maturity

understand this digital material that is

that we are talking about when we're

talking about AI so why is it

interesting to focus on universities and

of course universities are interesting

in several different ways right we're

doing research we are supposed to create

new knowledge uh and in transformative

times of course this type of knowledge

creation becomes extremely important

right but it's not primarily

universities that drive the digital

transformation and especially not around

AI That's done by companies so this is

not only challenging to the University's

role in society but it's also

challenging to the methods and the role

we take in kind of how do we create new

knowledge when the knowledge GR ation

happening outside of the University this

is not an entirely new thing definitely

not but it's interesting to see how this

is pushing methods and the way we think

about

universities of course it's also

interesting to talk about how do we

educate in times of AI uh how does gener

generative AI transform the way we teach

the way we exam and uh the way we kind

of correct writing for instance I mean

now you can use these chatbots to

produce text with a very high quality of

grammarly U of grammar and so on right

but the content is rather useless at

times but of course this comes down to

prompting and blah blah blah so how

should the university respond uh and

reflect around their core values of

education and learning and so on and

examination in relation to this

transformation so of course for for the

university the

transformation of the core things that

we do

is happening and this we need to adapt

to right so there needs to be some of

some strategic dialogue within the

organizations that are

within a transformation of any sort and

in relation to the Dig digital here U

this becomes especially interesting for

us as researches but also connected to

the type of pace a pace uh that uh that

that is quite much faster than other

forms of transformation that haven't

been

digital so it is interesting to look at

universities because they haven't

changed as much as some other

institutions in the in the world just

yet but this AI push is like the trigger

and it increases the sense of urgency

for people within the

university so looking into the Articles

a little bit more uh the medical

thinking article is focusing on a

university and the IT governance there

but on a very overarching perspective

you can see that the lack of strategy

creates a chain reaction and this

negative spiral that has a lot of

different effects but it's not just the

lack of strategy it's also the lack on a

financial structure and so on what

happens is that you get this negative

spiral that affects

whole work around the

digital this means that you get this

very traditional kind of conclusions

that we have seen so many times within

organizational science that when you try

to do changes and the governance

structure is not tailored to that type

of transformation you get apathy you get

cism you get everything of this negative

connotation to

change and and when you do that over and

over again and ask for different results

that's kind of both the definition of

stupidity but it's also you mag you you

you expect something magical to happen

that that's in very short one of the

cases right the other case if we pick

out case b and look at that and the this

this illustration that you see to the

right here you see that what's kind of

characterizing the univers

it's now I'm looking at the picture Silo

thinking uh planning mindset instead of

an experiment mindset uh non digital

leadership compared to digital

leadership and no new tools basically no

new rules so the lead the the university

is at like at the worst side in this uh

balancing act right especially compared

to the two other agencies so if you take

this together you see that this

particular University in a is a in a

quite bad

situation so we have talked a lot about

this uh when we are out speaking to

different public organizations in news

articles and so on what is really the

how can we build a new type of

governance that takes and kind of solves

this because it's easy to point to the

literature that is 50 years old told

with a basic basically the same type of

answer as that strong leadership an

agile type of governance structure and

strategies that points forward so and

kind of leads and set the

direction and still we are here

discussing these exact exact same

topics well what should we do

well first of all we need to say

something about public universities in

Sweden

uh they have a rather feder you can say

that they have a Federated structure so

the different departments or uh insun as

we would say in Swedish institutions

right they are basically on their own

they have their own budget and they are

free to do whatever they want so we have

this academic freedom and uh we

sometimes talks about this as the donut

model that it's empty in the middle and

all the power and the juicy stuff is in

the French

uh and this is important to understand

with this governance structure with this

kind of Federated struct structure you

have to weigh that in when you look at

different what type of um governance

structure would actually

work but in times of AI as we said we

need to coordinate we need Central

coordination for some type of activities

but since the lack of uh there is a lack

of of digital maturity and digital

competence not only at the center but

also in the at the fringes of this

organization we kind of tend to mix

things

up in this discussion about what is a

university and what is specific about it

um it's also important to remember that

a university is a government agency as

we've said but that doesn't go very well

with the idea of a University

universities should create uh new

knowledge should be a spearhead into

what's coming but also covering and

creating new knowledge of what has been

right but it's not driven by bureaucracy

normally I would say but it kind of have

mix that we mixed the identity of the

agency with this idea of the knowledge

creating University and I think there is

also an balance between these two

identities for me it's clear that

University is Prim primarily University

a con a knowledge Creator and that

should question and have a critical

attitude to the

world but for others it's the

bureaucracy the transparency the work

for equality that is more important and

I'm not saying that these values are

unimportant I think you understand that

but we're primarily a university and the

organizational form is yeah that we have

that we could have been an Institute or

we could have been something else but

now when we are an agency and I think

that has balanced so the agency

perspective have become more important

in lot in a lot of different parts of

the University so I think there is at

least for me uh maybe not an identity

crisis but I see the need for an

identity shift and this is tightly

connected to the uh digital

transformation and especially generative

AI because now when um Bots can generate

and it's so easy to cheat as some seems

to see it the question of what the

university is how do we examine students

and so on right becomes a really

important issue so we need to kind of go

back to the core values of our

profession and what universities do to

kind of maybe not NE renegotiate but

rethink this in a

relationship to Ai and this becomes

problematic in a sense if we do these as

individual departments and not together

uh in this Federated

structure and this becomes even more

problematic then with the low type of

digital maturity that this type of

organization

have

so okay so let's look a bit at the

necessity of visionary leadership and

the transformation

because yeah we can change the

governance structures and that takes

some time it's quite hard and it's a

long transition to find the new

structures of governance but leadership

on the other hand that can be changed

quite easily and take a leader

leadership role and now I mean

leadership like quite classic standing

on a scene and speaking and looking

straight into the camera and setting a

direction for an organization that is

much

quicker

uh but I don't mean that that should be

more authorative necessarily of course

we should still think about this

Federation right and value the type of

values that goes into

University uh that means that of course

we should have

this trust-based leadership we should

have psychological safety we should work

in this modern type with his modern

versions of leadership that doesn't

counteract a strong leadership role that

sets a direction and initiates different

type of conversations within the

organizations and and kind of ask for

feedback on about which direction should

we go where are we where should we go

tomorrow and what could we be tomorrow

like classical design questions actually

what ought to be that's what I mean what

we should discuss if we're discussing

transformation so then we come into this

quite classic question at the university

the balance between autonomy and Central

coordination and here there are a few

things that we need to guide

into so the role of leadership in

fostering these strategic conversations

is that we shouldn't at the University

it becomes extremely important that we

don't say that this particular topic is

of Interest or this specific research

subject right that's not what we're

talking about but there is a conflict

here since digital transformation and

digitalization is both something that we

need to do in order to transform the

university but it's also a research

topic and uh uh at our University we

have an IT faculty and and a department

of applied it where I work for instance

right so in people's head at the

different parts of the University there

is like conflict why should we do this

digitalization part shouldn't we put

money into my research subject as an

infrastructure at the University well

well I think all research subjects need

digital transformation need to rethink

how they create knowledge um in relation

to the digital material right

so that's why I think it's this type of

dialogue about so we don't make this

mismatch becomes really

important but I also think it's

important that we take this discussion

about the professional values so what is

it that universities do what is it that

I do as a teacher and as a researcher

and how

will digital Technologies like AI change

change my profession and what are the

ethics and what are the moral that we

should adhere to in these

design path that we are entering into

when we starting to negotiate where we

were going right so that the type of

dialogue and the type of structure that

the leadership should

initiate but also these structures on

compute for instance or gpus so it's

important that the leadership focus on

the

infrastructures of organizational change

and not what we ought to do in a very

more specific detailed manner right so

this navigation between the balance

between Direction

infrastructure so it does not get

conflicted with this academic freedom

that oh but the central universities are

telling us what to do no they're

building infrastructure to help you so

you can do it even better that type of

conversation Becomes of yeah huge

importance and in relation to these two

articles then I think this is what we're

talking

about so I mean we're not really talking

about structures for AI we're TR we're

trying we we'll building and we talking

about strategy and Leadership and so on

for organizational change Contin is

organizational change it today we talk

about AI tomorrow we talk about

something else a couple years ago we

talked about uh blockchain now we talk

about AI

so it's this continuous learning and

flexibility in relation to

technology that is what these articles

is about even though the articles is

much more about the problems and the

challenges in this conversation I've

tried to talk about I mean to make it

more specific about the universities and

relationships that has to do with these

specific questions that we don't never

get to fit into the article so to

speak

so yeah one of the also the final things

then

um so when we talk about these

governance structures and to design new

ones and change from the old to

something new we will always have the

old governance structures

partly left it takes years and years and

years for the to make the organizations

forget about the old so there is a

definite contingency path or

a or an Heritage from old governance

structures so it becomes really really

important to focus

on enactment of the current structure

how we act within the current structure

and the strategies and visions rather

than the structure itself we've seen

this quite many times that and and the

best example here is that a new leader

enters an organizations and do

reorganizations no we don't we know that

that does not work but change in the

governance structure is maybe sometimes

easier but harder in the long run right

so maybe a change of leadership and

Leadership Direction strategy and vision

is actually not only e easier but better

because because that can also set

structures in

motion uh that is more easily affected

in both the short and the long

run

and so it's easier also to change so the

second thing here it's easier to change

the Frameworks that might seem outdated

and so on right through their enactment

rather than their actual design I think

this is a an important point to think a

bit about so don't change I mean of

course we should change the governance

structures no question about that but

maybe we should start with leadership

and focus a lot more about that

initially this is also an old conclusion

right that without leadership it's no

idea there's no reason to start the

actual transformation but it's

pinpointed here

again and don't mistake uh Direction

and structure with academic freedom

within the university setting this

becomes Essential

Knowledge but I also want so so this

quote from a and Rowan from 1977 kind of

put its finger on this and I'll read it

and then we can think of bit together

around this it should not be assumed

that the creation of microscopic

rationalities in the daily activities of

workers affect social ends more

efficiently than the commitment to

larger institutional claims and purposes

and this quote uh when we use this we

try to catch just this

that it's not like the to control the

every day doings of people through

structures organizations and so on might

actually be

less important than setting the overall

goals and having the big

conversations but in this particular

article I think they are not saying the

way it is and like it is this way but

they're asking a a set of pretty good

questions and that opens up a debate

that maybe we shouldn't Focus so much on

the particular and more on the bigger

things and then we need to find out what

works best but I also want to end with a

couple of

books U so in times of organizational

change

uh managers matters so in this book by

Nicholas fos and Peter

Klein uh one of their takes is that this

leadership this uh leaderless

organizations that have been quite um a

popular topic for the last couple

years actually it might not work in

times of change because in times of

change you need more leadership not less

you don't need the traditional top- down

hard uh controlling leadership ship you

need trust based but you need a

leadership that sets Direction because

if you're moving fast forward of course

you need somebody that steers the boast

more actively that is an important part

to take with you so in D in in times of

change you need more not less leadership

the next book I want to point to is a

bit of self-promotion and this is in

Swedish so for you who don't read

Swedish um yeah sorry this is the book

of offend the sector digitaling is

written by un minus onom me and this is

kind of covers a lot of the stuff that

we say the thing with this book is that

a big part of the public sector in

Sweden reads it so this will have like

transformative effects on how they are

thinking so if you're interested in the

public sector read it and see how they

would think about the future

directions and I also want

to point out this gem the nature of

Technology by by Brian author so I

talked a bit about digital complexity on

the complexity of Technology right and

he has a take on I mean what is

technology and how does it evolve and it

becomes increasingly complex and one of

the takes in this book is that now you

shouldn't look at a bicycle and that's

development from a bicycle with big

wheels and how it transformed into what

bicycle is today because we tend to look

at digital development in that uh

technical development in that sense we

look at the species uh bicycle and look

at how that invol evolve right to

understand how EV Evolution within

technology happens that's the wrong

perspective there is only one

technological species and it's

technology that's one species in a whole

and Technology borrows from different

parts of the tech technological Spectrum

so you take a GPS combine it with a

Wi-Fi combine it with a radar and you

get central Parts in a mo modern mobile

phone

right so to try to to to understand the

complexities and the fastpaced

development you should read this book

because it says a lot about the

nature of technology and you also I

think it's important to

understand why Tech a bit of

technological understanding is so

important for today's leadership

okay so let's wrap up so with all this

then we have two articles that talk

about governance structures and really

about the problems in modern

universities and other type of agencies

I focused particularly on kind of

address this in the current conversation

around AI to point out that leadership

is really really important we knew that

from before but even with AI and so on

it still a it's still a truth we also

need to recognize the structure of the

University that is Federated and that

comes with typic with uh questions that

are important and also the low digital

maturity and digital competence within

this

organization makes it hard for the or

organization to understand that well

don't mix building of new structures

that help you do re better research with

uh with and create the false conflict

that that kind of affects your academic

freedom I don't think it's true you can

counter argue against that if you want

to so I try to argument and do a meta

analysis around what I think about when

I read these articles rather than the

topic of each article in itself thank

you and see the see you in the

discussion forums and so on