Guidance from within, service from above.
Given Human Organisations require a much more bottom-up approach, where does that leave the Senior Leadership? There remains a place for Senior Leadership to articulate direction and boundaries. But, ...
If we want freedom we must purchase it with accountability, responsibility, insecurity, vulnerability and, ultimately, a promise. It doesn’t come for free. Which is one reason why not everybody wants ...
We balance autonomy with teamwork by allowing individuals to make commitment bound recommendations as to their role. Those recommendations and commitments are then discussed and agreed as a group. Onc...
Measurement is key to the belief in status quo organisations (see: What is the status quo organisation?) that we can not only predict outcomes but that we can reliably control and analyse them. So wha...
What we choose to measure is a belief statement: it says “this matters, and this is success”. It is loaded with meaning - even the decision ‘to measure or not to measure’ says something about us. As s...
To become a purpose-led organisation we must accept that we can’t motivate people to become enthusiastic about the things we choose on their behalf (see: What is wrong with the normal approach to moti...
Surfacing Assumptions As leaders, we must first surface and address the hidden assumptions we hold about the nature of management and the capacity of “lower ranking” employees to deliver. Leaders ofte...
Motivation in the status quo misses the point. It strives to get the most out of people through a stick and carrot approach: incentives as a reward and punishments as a deterrent. Unfortunately, scien...
In C21st orgs, there is no standard approach to measurement. Each team and structure is unique and measurement should reflect that. We need to think differently about the concept of measurement and se...
What are we assuming with manager/employee feedback discussions? We’re assuming that the manager’s view is more from an objective perspective and the employees' is more of a subjective one. Why do we ...