REINVENTING ORGANISATIONS
- Zeynep Yalcin Parks
- Jan 15, 2020
- 5 min read
Updated: Apr 9
TODAY'S ORGANISATIONS ARE BROKEN, BUT THEY CAN BE REINVENTED. Zeynep reviews the book "Reinventing Organizations" by Frederic Laloux to find out the future of the way we run our businesses.
The way we run organisations no longer works for us. According to management consultancy company Gallup's study done in 142 countries in 2013, only 13% of employees worldwide are engaged at work. In other words, about one in eight workers. 63% are "not engaged," meaning they lack motivation and are less likely to invest discretionary effort in organisational goals or outcomes. And 24% are "actively disengaged," indicating they are unhappy and unproductive at work and liable to spread negativity to coworkers.
Leaders in large organisations seem powerful, they want to look like they are successful and their life is in control. But anyone who has had a chance to have intimate conversations with organisational leaders knows that almost all of those leaders are tired of the rat race and the pressure, never ending emails, meetings and PowerPoint documents, motivating employees and achieving results. Trust and loyalty of customers to the organisations are also at an all-time low. Even more importantly organisations are participating in a system that is polluting the atmosphere, water and land; exhausting raw materials and destroying invaluable ecosystems and species.
And it is not only corporate world that is broken. Non-profit organisations and the government agencies have also similar breakdowns.
Today's management practices are dominantly achievement oriented where organisations are thought as machines. Leaders and consultants design the organisations, humans are resources, process and changes are planned and carefully implemented. Inputs, outputs, efficiency, flow, bottlenecks, innovating, optimising, objectives, yearly budgets, scorecards, performance appraisals, profits and market share matter. These organisations strive to create new projects, teams and cross-functional initiatives to compete with other organisations. Most organisations and most MBA programs are based on these foundations. Global brands are most likely to have this kind of organisation structure.
Even if our basic needs are satisfied, such businesses increasingly try to create needs, feeding the illusion that we will be happy and whole with more stuff. This approach unfortunately promotes consumption and depletes world's natural resources. Also in such organisations, and therefore in today's world, success is measured in terms of money and recognition. People run the rat race, play the game of success, reach the top. But many still experience a sense of emptiness. Some of us realise we won't make it to the top or the top is not as we expected and look for a meaning behind all the targets, milestones and deadlines. Those who are more aware of the materialist obsession, social inequality, loss of community and harm to the planet make a move to the values and culture driven organisations that empower their employees, consider others and the planet. However making decisions and the empowerment work in a large scale is not easy so such organisations still retain the hierarchical structure. These organisations can be paralysed mainly because of consensus seeking in order to make decisions. To get things moving power games continue behind closed doors.
This might sound all negative and demotivating but we have good reasons to be hopeful about the future; we are on the verge of a change in organisational management and a new organisational model is emerging right now.
The change in organisations is mainly driven by the change in the world view of individuals. People shift their perspective and start to see the world as a place where we discover and journey towards our true self to unfold our unique potential. In the new world view we realise how our ego shapes our fears, ambitions, desires and runs our lives. We work to tame our ego and build increasing trust to ourselves and others. We make decisions informed by our inner self instead of external factors. We stop thinking what others think but seek to understand what is true to ourselves. We have deep realisation that we are interconnected.
With this shift in the people's perspective organisations are shifting too. Some organisations already started to do things differently. They operate on principles of self management, wholeness and purpose .
Instead of hierarchical management they adopt principles and practices of self management. People have high autonomy and are accountable for coordinating with others. They take a positive view of the nature of humans. They trust their employees, believe them to have good intensions and be responsible adults. They promote diversity and invite people to reclaim their wholeness. They create an environment wherein people feel free to fully express themselves, bringing unprecedented levels of energy, passion, and creativity to work.They are driven by the purpose they serve that goes beyond the profit and market share.
As a result they have delighted customers and clients, happy employees with lower turnover, absence and sickness leave, better financial results, better profit margins and better resilience in times of crisis. And they achieve all these while paying more to their staff and helping their “competitors”.
So what do they do differently?
They operate without traditional hierarchies but on a team basis where all decisions are made at frontline level. Any person can make any decision, yet they must consult all of those who are impacted by the decision. The bigger the decision, the more people need to be asked for advice.
They don’t have managers, superiors or bosses. Team members are responsible to each other and transparency is used instead of the authority.
They try as much as possible to take central functions such as finance, HR and marketing into the teams to work alongside their normal delivery work. And if there is a need for specialist support they can advise but have no budget or other authority over the team.
In these organisation information flows freely, all employees are trusted with access to finance and other information.
Individual performance is evaluated by the team continuously. Issues are addressed as they arise not saved up for formal feedback sessions. Thus some organisations don’t have
any formal feedback sessions anymore.
Where to start?
No matter how big or small your organisation is, you can apply the principles mentioned above to your organisation. There is no recipe. If you are serious about transformation of your organisation you will find a way. It certainly can be done as there are examples already and each journey is truly unique.
Many organisations chose to experiment and test new methods in a smaller scale, within one unit to start with. Some organisations built a small new unit next to the existing one managed with those principles and let the new unit grow while the old one dies out. Some organisations kick start the transformation by encouraging everyone in the organisation to experiment, to question how things are done and to push the boundaries. Some others prefer to introduce or upgrade a certain practice for the entire organisation at once.
All these approaches can also be mixed. What is important is to know that there is no perfect plan and in same cases the old system will be replaced much faster and joyfully while in some others there will be disappointments from which the organisation can learn from.
If you want to continue the discussion email or follow me on LinkedIn.
Zeynep Yalcin Parks is lead consultant at Derin Consulting. She helps organisations become better at achieving their purpose. She can help you to reinvent your organisation by sharing her own experience and insights.
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