strategy

Organizations are built, maintained and nurtured to meet the business purpose(s) visualized by promoters. This is true for those with or without profit motives. It is also true that the vision and mission of the organization keeps changing/evolving as and when new puzzle pieces are found and assembled.

Performance of an organization is attributed to its structure – an ordered set of leaders, functions, responsibilities & accountabilities; a system – of people organized by a characteristic pattern of relationships!

Incidentally, structure is an organic part of the system – one that grows – in complexity with growth of the Organization! But its identity is always internal. Design is always inside-out & people-centric!

End users/customers of the Organization generally do not give too much of prominence to this structure. They neither relate to nor appreciate any part of the organization that does not directly add value to their experiences. What matters to them is – the brand, the promoter and of course – the product/service the organization offers – for which they pay!

That may be the reason why CEOs (or Promoters) are required to close the deal – even though there are brightest possible sales heads/team; propose a winning solution – though there are a lot of people working to make it happen; be awarded/rewarded for their visionary leadership, etc….

Their name comes before that of their Organization while all others have to put their organization’s name & gifted business title, behind them to get identified!

But most of organizational politics stems around sticking to positions, titles, span of control… etc.! This guarantees – stressed employees, customers and leaders through continuous clarification / claims of boundary, relative importance of the role, issues/escalations and meeeeetings! – Purpose of enabling performance turns to that of disabling! What a paradox?

User Experience Centric Organization Structure, Leaders without titles and Self Healing Business Models will change the dynamics of how organizations are built, maintained and modified to meet ever changing needs of business performance! Hopefully this will clear some of the paradoxes too…

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Every organization has people. In companies that started early in their businesses will have a lot of people who are as old as the company itself. It is a great feeling to see so many of them standing the test of time, change and dynamics. Incidentally we associate loyalty with it.

Loyalty is rewarded all the time. Especially for those who were part of both war and peace times. Wars would have created a set of heroes who had turned around a big/critical project, built a service line from scratch, or those who came up with a great new business idea and moved ahead, etc. Peace times would have created some role models – “ministers” who thrive on operational efficiency, just-in-time hiring, best cost operations, lowest attrition, etc.

Interestingly, there many not be too many individuals who would have performed very well in both war and peace times! This makes the system take over and form opinions and hence there will be those who move up in the hierarchy and those who swim through constant change. Incidentally, both will get counted, rewarded and respected when their time comes!

Such times come when someone powerful will push a need for a transformation! or the real leader /head of the organization is no more available! This is when the group think starts loyal rallying around the need, method and madness around holding fort! Generally, the remaining leaders come up with a grounded strategy and start designing the new organization!

This is where loyalty hits the ground! Every individual in the game is taken for granted for their loyalty! So, distribution of portfolio happens based on the people to be taken care than implementing the design!

New strategy most of the time requires new people or people in new roles! That’s the change! Not easy for many to accept and move on with the change. But the loyal ones are great! They fair well here too! They get back to their normal trait of being with the change and defining the change – for their advantage!

They will soon ensure that they follow all their normal routine in the same way they did all these years! Result remains the same within no time, the organization is functioning in the same way as it used to be before in the new avatar! Loyalty rules! System comes back to normal performance levels and so the business! That is standing the test of time!

This is the beauty of loyalty and the power of taking it for granted – works very well always with the same result.

We have seen this many a times local, global and across industry segments in small/family owned companies to big/large enterprises. Happens in any kind of business and geographies.

So what’s wrong with this?

Power of Loyalty to self, taking over the System! Loyalty should be managed, monitored and driven!

The power of new will fade away with no notice as everyone in new is taken for granted as they are believed to fail several times before becoming successful = loyal!

Whoever can’t stand this dynamism will soon get into their own shells if they are too heavy to fly! But their ideas, enthusiasm and eagerness to win over will surely fly away, far beyond their own reach!

So, if you are loyal, remember – you are taken for granted  to make it work! Check out who you are loyal to – self or the team! Never be a big banyan tree – it lasts longer, but nothing grows under it!

If you are new, remember – you will be taken for granted to fail! Prove it wrong for the good of you and the ones who hired you! – not necessarily the ones who are already loyal! Look out for a war situation and master the art of being a hero or choose to be an exceptional minister. Soldiers will perish – today or tomorrow!

This world is only for – (situational) leaders! – everyone else is taken for granted!

Standup and be Counted!