What makes for a successful organisation has changed significantly over the past 20 years, and will certainly change even more in the next 20 years. We just don’t know (yet) what successful organisations will be like in 2042!
Nor exactly what successful performers will be doing to drive organisational performance.
What we do know is that the best organisations already have their star performers. And a few of these are centred in the needs of tomorrow; already doing today what your future success will require from all.
Forward thinking leaders recognise that transferring the performance of these future-centred stars throughout the workforce as vital to the future health of the business.
This works if the organisation’s operating system supports both new ways of performing, and supports the learning journey towards applying new ways of performing. To make sure everything we bring to our clients is road-tested, we innovate internally as well as in our performance transfer consulting.
Central to internally innovating how we work is in one of our core principles, collaboration. We believe that organisations best able to collaborate and adapt to their environment are best able to survive. (This is what Darwin actually said; he said nothing about the strongest surviving.) Everything we do in tetraLD is structured around collaboration and adaptation. With clients, so that they get what they uniquely need. With strategic partners, so that clients, partners and we collectively and individually get what we need; and internally, so that each of us internally is best enabled to contribute to our clients.
We all know from the writings of Peter Drucker, the Gallup research and Strengths Finder book; and much more; that putting individual strengths to work is at the heart of the future organisation. But that is easier said than done, as people need the right processes around them to feel enabled and empowered to use their strengths.
So we’ve been putting internal systems into place to foster collaboration, and open up space for each individual to contribute at the highest level. I was chuffed to see much of what we are doing clearly described in this TEDxKoeln talk by Heiko Fischer. Well worth watching: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BqLQW06vi4 (Thanks Leander for the link!)
Some of the things we’re building into our organisation, that I’ll blog about later in the year, include:
- Have a meaningful organisation purpose aligned with each individual’s purpose. (For me, our purpose, contributing to the sustainability of the world’s organisations, personally very meaningful. Especially given that today’s challenges are so complex and large that they can only be addressed by working together; i.e., in an organisation.)
- Peers evaluate each other’s contribution, using a type of points system, our internal “currency”
- A Holon, or cell structure, where each holon is truly accountable for itself and its results. This gives just enough structure and management to hold ourselves together.
Stay tuned to this blog to follow us as we road-test new ways of working!