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Articles on performance, culture, and employee satisfaction have been significantly helpful to many leaders of complex organizations. These organizational dimensions have great impact on the sustainability and scalability of any business success. Recent articles include: Today's Culture "If everyone is thinking alike, then someone isn't thinking." (George Patton, World War II General) This quote by George Patton makes several significant points about the workforce of the 2000s. Whereas people are currently recognized as an organization's most valued asset, they are not yet effectively integrated into organizational life. A recent BusinessWeek (Sept. 4, 2006) article on the Dark Days at Dell quotes Geoffrey A. Moore: "Dell's culture is not inspirational or aspirational.....This is when they need to be imaginative, but [Dell's] culture only wants to talk about execution." Richard Snyder, a Dell alum, further states, "They (disaffected workers) don't feel they're a part of something at Dell, and they generally leave because they feel frustrated." Organizational leaders have many unique challenges in the 21st century. These include some significant changes to the business environment, such as the vast availability of information and communication capabilities, the prevailing rate and constancy of change, and the independent thinking and decision-making capabilities of today's emerging workforce. The workforce is key to this discussion since people are the critical factor in sustaining an organization. Further, if one thinks of these challenges as catalysts for change and innovation, they can be maximized to create a sustainable environment for the organization. It makes sense for the leaders of an organization to recognize them for that potential value and expect the workforce to do the same. Read more.... Will the Real Customer Please Stand? The Problem A new subgroup within the Sales Department of a mid-sized company had been formed to partner with a new market of vendors who resell the company software to the vendors' customers. The vendors are large with huge customer bases, and significantly more software was being sold through these partnerships. Customers, however, were unhappy with their overall experience, and the customer satisfaction level plummeted to 5%. Contributing Factors Customer Service Personnel - The new partnerships, although good for revenue generation, required support from the other departments of the company. Customer Service employees did not understand the new requirements for supporting customers who were now using software that had been integrated through one of these new vendor partnerships. Read more.... The Readiness Factor Since it is currently understood that people are the most important asset of any organization, considering them primary customers would seem reasonable. When employees feel engaged, valued, and satisfied, they are more likely to meet or even exceed end-user needs, which should then satisfy owners' needs for performance. With that straightforward approach, how can an organization not succeed to meet its goals? There are not-so-small matters of responsibility and accountability that can unfortunately misalign this logical flow. Senior managers are responsible for performance, usually, even when the delivery of that performance is beyond their sphere of influence and control. They are often forced to solve this dilemma with command and control techniques, which further exacerbate the situation since they eliminate employee thinking and subsequent satisfaction. When employees are not engaged and satisfied, they are not empowered to satisfy the end-users. Read more.... Five-Part Series: Maximizing Employee Effectiveness through Systems Thinking, Archetypal Analysis, and Organizational Development Part 1: Empowered Employees: An Organizational Learning Model Empowered employees are most effective at managing for success. They understand their industry, its current environment, trends, and competitive situation. They also understand their own strengths and weaknesses and the needs of customers and owners. This understanding empowers them to plan realistic objectives and goals, as well as, the supporting work to achieve them. They are expected to make decisions, be responsible for the result of those decisions, and to be accountable to others for achieving common goals. Empowered employees collaborate with each other and then integrate their thinking for best results. Part 2: Elements of a Learning Organization: Organizational Dynamics, Systems Thinking, and Archetypes A learning organization is one in which the organization as a total system learns, strategizes, and implements new initiatives based on that learning. Its elements include recognition of organizational dynamics, consideration of these dynamics with the help of the five systems thinking concepts, and application of archetypal analysis of actions and reactions. Organizational members collaborate and integrate their thinking using these elements to make effective decisions for organizational success. Part 3: Learning Environment: Create and Enable the Empowered Employee Creating and sustaining a learning environment for an organization's employees is critical to enabling empowered behaviors. This learning environment is created by embracing Systems Thinking concepts. Setting expectations, defining rules of engagement, and identifying required tasks, information and skills needed to complete these tasks leverages the value of the learning environment. Part 4: Developing a Training Program to Support the Learning Environment Training programs and initiatives must support, as well as be responsive, to the needs of the learning organization.. This happens when employees are empowered to be responsible for the success of their organizations, including the identification of own their needs when striving for success. Part 5: Taking Control of Your Career; Taking Control of Your Enterprise; A Partnership Empowered employees can ensure satisfied customers and owners. They do this by partnering with each other, their customers, and their owners to balance all needs when planning for the future sustainability of the organization. |