This conversation follows on from an earlier conversation: Mazism 1: There Is Always A Price, It Is Always Paid.
What lies at the source of organisational effectiveness? Is is strategic planning in the guise of strategy? Is it process standardisation / reengineering in its many disguises? Is it restructuring the business, offshoring and outsourcing? Is it about embracing and making good use of the latest information technology? Is it about embracing the latest management fashion: customer-centricity, customer experience, digital business? Is it leadership? Or organisational learning?
After 25+ years spent engaged in the challenge of improving organisational effectiveness and business performance, I am clear that the access to organisational effectiveness and superior performance does not lie in any of these domains. Why? Because they do not get to the heart of the matter: of what is actually so about organisational life and the game of business. What is so?
I am clear that organisational effectiveness (team, function, business unit, corporate) comes down to the people and their relationships with one another. By ‘relationships’ I mean the communicating-relating that has occurred and is occurring between people. The job of ‘leaders’ is to cultivate organisational effectiveness then it occurs to me that leadership involves-requires a focus on people and relationships. I invite you to read-consider the following passage (bolding is my work):
The lone warrior myth of leadership is a sure route to heroic suicide. Though you may feel alone at times with either creative ideas or the burden of final decision-making authority, psychological attachments to operating solo will get you into trouble. You need partners. Nobody is smart enough or fast enough to engage alone with the political complexity of an organisation or community when it is facing and reacting to an adaptive challenge.
Relating to people is central to leading and staying alive. If are you are not naturally a political person, then find partners who have that ability to be intensely conscious of the importance of relationships in getting challenging work done. Let them help you develop allies. Then, beyond developing your base of support, let them help you relate to your opposition, those people who feel that they have the most to lose with your initiative. You need to stay close to them to know what they are thinking and feeling, and to demonstrate that you are aware of their difficulty. Moreover, your efforts to gain trust must extend beyond your allies and opposition, to those folks who are uncommitted. You will have to find appropriate ways to own your piece of the mess and acknowledge the risks and losses people may have to sustain. Sometimes you can demonstrate your awareness by modeling the risk or the loss itself…..
– Ronald A. Heifetz and Marty Linksy, Leadership On The Line
Time after time I have witnessed promising ‘strategies’ and plans come to nothing during the implementation phase because those leading change have been blind to the importance of people and relationships – during the strategy development phase, the implementation phase, and/or the post implementation phase.
I say look at any effective organisation (team department, business unit, corporate, society) and you will find healthy communicating-relating occurring between the people who collectively constitute that organisation. And healthy communicating-relating occurring between members of that organisation and the people who they interact with in the broader environment in which that organisation organises and executes its work.
I continue to be amazed that some Tops and Middles want to work on improving customer relationships and the Customer Experience. Why? Because they and their organisations have little appreciation-consideration-feeling for the quality of communicating-relating that is occurring in the organisation. And no lived experience nor appreciation of the Employee Experience: whether on the front line or the back office.
Image via flickr
Original Post: http://thecustomerblog.co.uk/2014/07/15/mazism-2-it-comes-down-to-people-and-relationships/
