Most of us agree that organizations are “living” systems. Don’t we? Often, in my consulting experience, I come across just the opposites. The living system is actually living on a prayer. Reminds me of this beautiful song by Bon Jovi by the same name, the lyrics go like this…
Once upon a time not so long ago
Tommy used to work on the docks
Union’s been on strike
He’s down on his luck…
It’s tough, so tough
What I really mean by living on a prayer is living “by chance” and not taken chances to thrive and unleash the potential. The system is acting by default with little thought on “Are we working on what really matters?” Getting choked by issues often as a reaction and not pro-action leads the organization to despair, much after the symptoms first appeared. Just like Gina in the song, everyone strums
She says, “We’ve gotta hold on to what we’ve got.
It doesn’t make a difference if we make it or not.
We’ve got each other and that’s a lot.
For love we’ll give it a shot.”
If the story sounds familiar or repetitive, the irony is, it’s true. The question to ask is,
How do we work on the #change and make our organization really “living”, wherein every element is pulsating with life of its own, yet living in harmony with all others?
Sounds utopic, I can hear some noises. Yet I firmly believe it is possible. The pudding lies in the journey and not the destination.
Here are 3 steps to start this journey:
1. Leaders as drivers
Using the metaphor of the train, the train engine driven by the motormen is responsible for chugging the train on the designed journey. Let me emphasise #designed.
Question to ask, reflect and act upon “What is the designed journey of my organization? Is it moving on the trajectory of the designed journey? If not, what is course correction needed?
2. Employees as passengers
Continuing the metaphor of the train, I have nowhere in the world seen a train wherein the train engine and the passenger cubes attached thereto travel in different directions. We all know of such trains only as images of any incident that may have occur. In the same spirit, all the employees in the organization take the form of such passengers who need to #trust the direction in which the train is being driven. Employees waste too much time in gossip rather than following the directions, which in turn result in wasted energy.
Question to ask, reflect and act upon “Are all employees running in the same direction? If not, what is the course correction the organization needs to make? Another powerful question to ask is “How can the trust quotient (T.Q) be improved?
3. Regular and relevant Communication
In the world of technology, we have experienced a mobile breakdown or network disruption. Life is a chaos momentarily. However, what is more worse is that the same paradigm seems to play out in organizations in various forms. Gossip and slandering and EGO take top TRP ratings universally.
The Question to ask, reflect and act upon “In what ways can we improve our communications across all stakeholders? How can we raise our awareness about our own awareness?
To summarize, though it sounds like a cliché, we have to get back to asking questions that make us uncomfortable. It is in the “un-comfort” wherein lies the organization growth story.