So How - Part 1

A lot are asking ‘why’ and how it all starts! 

It all starts with YOU, and changing how we(you) think about how we work and how we view management. We need to move beyond focussing on targets and measures of effectiveness, move away from performance management and instead focus on values and boundaries that really matter for organisational sustainability which is people focused, more so individually maintained. Values and boundaries that inspire innovativeness, creativity and support natural human-system. We need to change our thinking and then our behaviour will change.

The starting point of all this is ‘managers’, ‘CEO’s’ and anyone who will block the removal of power from the top and disperse throughout the organisation.

The change is taking managers to this place called leadership (but not in the conventional sense). Leadership for me revolves around ‘individual values’, ideas, direction, and has more to do with inspiring and influencing people as to direction and values than with day-to-day implementation, which is best left to the experts – the frontline staff. The ‘democratic leaders’ in my theory, are capable of influencing other people to do things without actually sitting on top of them with a checklist. But all this requires trust, openness, risk and creativity, which are founded on the leaders being from within the social network of the organisation. Leaders in my companies are within and throughout the organisation and resultant democratic processes as inspiring confidence in others and ourselves and as a result, we become more relaxed, communicative and successful.

My dislike for ‘management’ is nothing personal bytheway. It is about how we think about what management and managers are, and about how we act and behave in our role as manager. Managers cause so much unhappiness in organisations through a focus on targets and measurement, control, organising others with an absence of critical thinking skills, and not people. This is in part due to the growing standardisation in MBA programs and the trend toward measurement, regulation and command in vain attempts to avoid uncertainty. There are exceptions, but these managers(leaders) are rare and usually eventually ‘conform’ to the world of mechanics, cogs, targets and measurement. This destroys the natural fabric of human creativity, innovativeness, trust, openness, ownership, inspiration and leadership. We are simply different, each one of us are individuals with our own ways of thinking and doing. I attempt to realise this in my work and the development of an organisational architecture that accepts direction is needed in the organisation without causing harm to the people within.

We start with CEO’s and senior management. To change the organisation we need to start at the very top and inspire the view that there is a better way to ‘manage’ for all of us. To inspire democratic leadership and to empower a workforce, you need management to be 100% involved and champions of change as the biggest impact will be on them, otherwise it could result in sabotage of change, resulting in further worker frustration. So management first for sure. 

Then it’s about changing the mindset of the workforce. From one of subservience to ownership; from a blaming culture to one of responsibility; from the individual to the networked. For employees to take increased ownership and personal responsibility for moving the organisation forward, employees require support, respect, trust, open communication, and opportunities. They have to network and communicate far more than is currently realised. However with change, comes risk and uncertainty and the biggest challenge is the acceptance that uncertainty is a natural part of the process.

WARNING - If the architecture of Complexity is introduced without full understanding and support, it will result in confusion, frustration and chaos. It is about starting with small changes. For example, inspiring frontline staff to choose their staff uniforms, or arrange shift-patterns, or order equipment, gradually increasing responsibility. Naturally, self-organisation and self-management will start to unfold as other questions will begin to be raised. Questions such as, ‘why can’t they see the income and expenditure sheets’? However, this will also lead to questions about the value of management,  ‘what do you add to their role as managers’! 

Once set upon this path, it cannot be undone. To do so will cause increased frustration (normally seen in organisations as absenteeism or rule breaking). So it requires long-term commitment and trust of those within the organisation.