Doing things differently isn’t always easy, but it’s so much more rewarding. At Vantage, we’re loving the breath of fresh air that comes with empowering professionals instead of controlling them!
Leia knew the need for agile organizations even a long time ago in a galaxy far away. Leia’s line to Tarkin (a perfect stand in for a crochety executive), “The more you tighten your grip, the more that will slip through your fingers,” echoes true for companies that focus on rigid control rather than fostering human potential. If you've worked in a healthcare organization that leans increasingly on policies, endless spreadsheets, and punitive performance improvement plans, you've likely seen how ineffective this approach can be. McKinsey & Company’s 2018 article “Leading Agile Transformations” explains this response as an outdated, industrial style of leadership—one that struggles to cope with today’s complexity by clamping down on control. This industrial approach, where leadership aims to control predictable factors to eke out marginal gains, worked well on the factory floor. If our jobs can be replaced by robots, spreadsheets, automation, or processes that respond precisely to managerial instructions, they should be. **We should not be pushing our greatest assets, smart and energetic humans, into roles that are highly automated. Humans are capable of much more, and that is where companies can develop real value.?** To truly harness people’s potential, we need a genuinely agile framework: one that empowers rather than constrains, that sees people not as resources to control but as knowledge workers capable of innovative, transformative work. In this system, individuals and small teams have the autonomy to experiment, grow, and drive new ideas forward. Unfortunately, many organizations, especially those driven by private equity, aren’t equipped to make this shift. A significant part of the problem lies with today’s leadership selection. Leaders are often chosen based on easily measurable performance metrics (i.e., dollars), rather than their ability to coach, innovate, or genuinely develop others. While there’s now more attention on mentoring and coaching as effective tools for meaningful growth, we’re still catching up after decades of top-down management styles. If you find your company increasingly focused on the numbers rather than on you, it might be a sign they’re not ready to evolve. But, just as the Rebels found a way, so can we—there are organizations out there that recognize and invest in real human potential. **Let’s choose to be part of companies that see people as their greatest asset, not simply as cogs in a machine.** #rebellife #sorryfortherant