I had a great day this week working with a group of clients at which I introduced some radically different ways of thinking about organisational structure and culture. They were based around a philosophy that I’ve seen implemented over the last few years and which genuinely create a newer, fresher and more effective kind of business.
But they are VERY different from the corporate norm!
Afterwards two people asked me separately “So if this stuff is so great, why isn’t everyone doing it?”
It’s an excellent question and I think the answer is twofold.
Firstly, many larger companies structure themselves for order and compliance. It feels safe and solid and, after all, if it’s worked well for years, why fix something that isn’t broken, right?
But it is broken. Very broken.
Employee engagement in these organisations is often catastrophically low. And no matter how “passionate” people appear to be on LinkedIn, they really aren’t. The vast majority are turning up for the paycheck and longing for something better.
Companies like this fight tooth and nail with one another in a finite game to beat the competition. They try to make out that they are somehow different from the others, but they very rarely are.
But, radical cultural change in a big organisation is incredibly hard. It really is like trying to turn around an oil tanker. And so they don’t bother, continuing to try and deliver safe, predictable performance while being unable to respond to the rapidly changing world around them.
Secondly, those of us who set up our own small businesses have often worked in organisations like this. And so we carry the paradigms and working practices from them into our new ventures. Again, if order, structure, procedures and rules worked there, then surely we just need to do the same?
This represents a huge opportunity lost. Innovative and agile small businesses really can respond quickly to the shifting sands of fortune, but only if they set themselves up to do so. If every decision has to go up to the managing director to be considered, diluted and approved then they become little more than smaller representations of bigger, corporate behemoths.
I think that people generally feel safer with what they know. But the truly transformational businesses of the future, the ones who really make a difference and succeed with be those that take a different path.
Fear holds us back and we anchor ourselves to the supposed certainly of our old ways of working.
In his famous poem “The Road Not Taken”, Robert Frost wrote:
“I took the road less travelled by, and that has made all the difference.”
It’s this path that the best organisations of the future will take as well. Shaking off the shackles of their past and seeking to work in newer and more innovative ways. Setting the agenda rather than following the crowd.Finding out what really is up there in that big, blue sky.
They will trust people to make the right decisions and accept that this means mistakes will be made. They will genuinely allow their teams to show up as they truly are and not as another version of the corporate norm. And they will build all of this on the foundation of a deep understanding or the organisation’s deeper purpose. These are the behaviours that will mark out the greatest organisations in the future.
So for you, your life or your organisation. What’s holding you back? Are you stuck in old ways of working and relating to the world? Or could you take a different, wilder and scarier path into something altogether better?
Comments