The Nirbhaya movement across the country following the gang rape of a girl in Delhi has certainly foxed the authorities. They are wondering how so many people could come out and protest, there must be someone organising all this, trying to foment trouble. The authorities do not know how to respond and the public anger justifiably is just growing.

As an observer of organisations some other interesting things stand out, there is no leader for this movement, there is no common ideology shared by all the protestors, yes there is outrage but there is no ideology nor concrete solutions and yet the protests are gaining more strength. This is very different from the Anna Hazare movement where there was a leader, an organisation, yet this movement is very similar to the Occupy Movement which happened in Sep 2011 with Occupy Wall Street.

So how can this happen? How can leaderless, organization less masses still bring the government to such a hopeless situation?

I was wondering about this when I came across this wonderful talk by Malcolm Gladwell, where he talks about a fundamental shift that is happening in society, he calls it the Generational Paradigm Shift. He compares the Occupy Movement with Martin Luther King’s movement and contrasts the two in terms leaders and organisation.

Malcolm Gladwell makes the argument that there is a strong shift happening from the notions of a social organisation based on hierarchy and expertise, to a social organisation around the network. And a shift from individuality to being connected to a community and a need to participate with the community.

This shift that we are seeing will certainly impact how we govern and are governed but has its implications on how we build businesses and create brands. Recommend the video below. Lot to think and chew on about changing society.

Certainly more such movements will happen- the times are changing.