Engendering & Embedding Engagement for a High-Performance Culture
It often seems that people stand in the way of their own success. They get so focused on whatever they are trying to achieve that … Read more
business
Human Governance: Golden Rule or Platinum?
Last week I wrote about The Golden and Platinum Rules in the context of Customer Experience. Today I want to discuss them in the broader … Read more
Meeting the Most Pressing Organisational Challenges
Having written about “the defining issue of our time” last week, it seemed like remarkably good timing that this week PWC’s 19th Annual Global CEO … Read more
The Paradox of Change
“It takes a lot of learning to keep something stuck.” That was what Nora Bateson said at a recent development session I attended. Only a … Read more
Good versus Bad Bosses – Why Retention is the Wrong Measure
You might be surprised. I was. I had come to accept the idea that people quit their jobs primarily because of bad bosses. Yet, according … Read more
Transform Your Business Through More Effective Personal Reviews
There is an increasing tendency to do away with annual performance reviews. That is as it should be, for performance assessment should be an ongoing activity. It is also one that is most honestly done by the employee when the pressures of measurement and its consequences are removed. Career development, however, is not something the person can address unilaterally: it calls for a conversation. Managers still need to sit down with employees and ascertain to what extent they are growing and developing as people, how their work is contributing to that, and what needs to be done to provide and sustain that self-development.
The Paradox of Management and How to Remedy It
Nor is valuing people as difficult as history would have you believe. In fact it is the core of the ‘Every Individual Matters’ model. Valuing people as assets is the first step in the model and the foundation for building a culture that ensures optimal individual and organisational performance. After all, as Simon Sinek also says, “It is not the genius at the top that makes people great. It is great people that make the guy at the top look like a genius.”
Why you, unwittingly, may be just going through the motions
If you want to change this and turn things around to fully engage employees and optimise their effectiveness you have to find a way of changing the employee’s relation to their work. This essentially means that you have to create an environment where your employee is not working to “make someone else’s goals come true.” The only way you can do that is to create an environment of shared goals, where your goals and the employee’s correspond. That is the necessity. You have to ‘make your business their business’ – there simply is no other way to resolve this fundamental problem.
How You Overcome That Great Fear
Most “disruptive” ideas – like the examples rejected by IBM – were first mooted internally. Their originators, however, had the conviction, determination and drive to pursue them and see them through to success, with the ultimate financial rewards that followed. We call that entrepreneurial spirit, but there is no reason why it has to occur outside the organisation. Supporting their development and offering the originator a royalty in return, creates the best of both worlds. It taps into the creative capabilities of your most important assets whilst simultaneously ensuring that results remain “in-house.” That, surely, is the ultimate win-win.
How the Learning Cycle Fits into Organisational Development
This is key: while you intuitively understand that your organisation is the aggregate of the people who work in it, you must consciously recognise that every person is an individual. Maximising your organisational learning means maximising individual employee learning. Thus creating a learning organisation, with an effective continuous improvement programme that secures your organisational development, necessitates ensuring you introduce mechanisms that will identify and circumvent the limiting effects of these filters. Your business demands nothing less.