I'm a massive fan of Reinventing Organizations. I can't get my head around how when I work with a room full of professionals and ask, "Please raise your hand if you felt excited to come to work this Monday morning? Or if you felt fulfilled last Friday afternoon?" only two people put their hands up. There is a big problem here for me.
Fundamentally I believe that we are here on this planet in this form only once. Most of us don't know for how long. The opportunity is to contribute to others while we're here and enjoy the overall experience.
Do many organizations need reinventing? Absolutely -- many have forgotten that people are human beings. They are not respecting core things that are important to who we are and how we work well. My organization utilizes research from neuroscience and other scientific disciplines to help organizations release more potential from people. Let' s look at a really basic example.
Last week I was speaking to a friend whose wife has decided to leave the law firm they work for. They used to be really committed to this organization, and still are, but no longer feel the organization is responding to that fairly. What happened? What seems to be strategically acceptable in many professional service firms. One person was promoted over another. The decision was not in alignment with KPI results or feedback. Instead it was understood that they needed to promote the other person to keep them.
Would these organizations say that fairness is important to them? Most of them would. Yet some people are struggling to see that played out in how decisions are made.
Fairness is just one of the core drivers we see from neuroscientific and behavioral studies. Understanding them can be hugely shaping for organizations. Game changing insights are not uncommon from leaders.
When I was discussing the topic of reinventing organizations with a fascinating OD leader in China this morning he suggested that we need to go further -- and consider reinventing life. I've been pondering on that.
If people were more congruent and connected with who they really are, for example whether behaving fairly was something that was important to them, then would both life and organizations be transformed? We believe that some of the major challenges in organizations are as a result of incongruence... and this is the very same case for individuals.