Developing an organization that allows itself to adapt to the changing world around it is not an easy thing to do. We need to develop a culture that has a mindset that allows it to solve the world’s most entrenched problems. Unfortunately, what happens is people end up getting in their own way, they develop patterns in their business’ that are resistant to change, or the focus of the world around them changes yet their internal focus does not.
Developing a problem-solving mentality that is able to keep up with all that is happening within the world requires a foundational system that will allow it to consistently change in step with everything around it. The organizational design needed for this requires a mindset built on transformational change with two other components – strategic planning competency and tactical planning agility. Primarily the current status quo is that on a cultural and implementation level we seem to settle for mediocrity and everything that goes with it. We really need to start thinking about our organizations and companies in a multidimensional way and have been built on a business model that supports this design.
We can change the world that we live in through some simple approaches and a foundational methodology design. To change the world we need to change those within it and one of the easiest places to start this is within our corporations. Developing an effective organizations is the job of a smart leader because the success of their company is the success of themselves. This is where learning to develop a strategic plan as well as being able to execute on a tactical plan is critical. An organization is the middle ground between humanity and the world around it. Whether that organization is just a group of people, a nonprofit, a company, or even a whole nation – it doesn’t matter. From where I stand all those things are the same and the foundational methodology you create can be applied to each of them. So what is this foundational methodology I talk about?
The first step is to develop a culture that lives and breathes innovation. Today especially in the technology arena the mantra seems to be for people to focus only on disruptive innovation. That is find and good for the larger evolution of our species and world economy, but taking the disruption too far can actually hurt us. We need to remember that when you disrupt a large organization all the employees and everything that it provided will come falling down. Just like the proverbial Humpty Dumpty, we could actually break things to the point that all the King’s men couldn’t put us back together again. The innovation that we should be developing is one that is based on nature’s law – more life to all. The technology that we create should be disruptive in its nature but have the forethought and design to support the actual evolution of all that it is supposed to change.
Our second foundational level to the smart organization is that it focuses it’s time on solving problems that are at the human level first. You could say any product out there is designed to solve some human problem, but what I’m talking about is something that’s more of a global level. Humanity really needs to come to terms with itself and act in a way that isn’t destructive but empowering. It’s pretty ironic when you look at how mature we can be in some ways yet there are so many childish actions that we take against our neighbors, brothers, sisters, or even ourselves. In so many ways we act like a little kid on the beach who has just built an absolutely beautiful and breathtaking sandcastle, but gets more joy from destroying it versus sitting and appreciating the wonders of their creation. We all live on this planet and we need to start acting in a way that gets everybody ahead instead of one group of people over another. A true leader knows that when you empower everybody within a team the feats they accomplish can be fantastic.
The last level to our foundation is that you must be willing to experiment and fail. Failure doesn’t mean that you throw out everything you worked on and create a whole new product. Instead, it means that you understand where you are out of alignment with your customer and you make adjustments and try again. A true leader, though, is willing to look at the failure in two different dimensions. The first being how are you out of alignment with your customer and the second being is this even the right customer. All too often people see failure as a resistance force that they need to overcome or one that means they should just give up. It is critical to develop a mindset allows you to be balanced between these two different outcomes. This can really only be done by learning to be fully present and aware of the messages that life is giving you.
What the ultimate leader will really understand about an organization is that it’s a living and breathing organism comprised of all the people within it, their behaviors and beliefs, as well as their fears. Just like the human grows and evolves as they age, the organization changes itself and can become as spoiled or getting as the people within it allowed to. If you’re going to take a step back, you will start to see that our country is a living entity as well; as is our society and the whole world. When you were really willing to come to terms with this you will finally understand why it is important that we develop innovation that empowers everybody and not just disrupt things, that we solve all of the worlds problems together, and that we as a species must have the fortitude to be willing to experiment and get back up after we fail.