The danger of having "background noise" and "surface silence".

What prevents some organisations from focusing on the essentials in order to evolve or, in other words, what holds them captive to processes and practices that generate entropy and castrate evolution, unable to project themselves beyond what is reasonable and beyond normal results?

I tend to believe now that the "easiest thing", in the midst of the many challenges we are faced with, is the access to technologies, the democratisation of markets, the acquisition of specific skills to navigate in a volatile world; the most difficult thing is perhaps the cultural transformation of the people who make up organisations, whether private or public, large, medium or small, profit or non-profit driven.

By habit we say that people are the most important asset of organisations. And I believe that they are – I do! However, it's a different thing to know whether they are all valuable, unique, indispensable, necessary assets to be retained. Some can even be toxic actives. Nobody wants these within the organisations they work for, or lead. But people can be challenged to evolve and should be provided with tools that can be used by them for that change.

In the life of organisations there can be background noise, that throbbing insanity that leads people to focus on the accessory, to discuss form more than essence, to waste their time in gossips more than the intrinsic content of corporate policies and how to better deliver on results, to fall into the temptation to talk about other people's lives with meanness?rather than prioritising how to raise the bar regarding their contribution to the success of operations.

This is what background noise is all about.

Its reverse side is the rotten peace, the cowering silence, the playing dead, always being "on the fence", without ever defining the side where we want to be: if on the side of the essential and necessary, or on the side of the accessory and futile.

As dangerous and unnecessary as the "background noise" is the "surface silence".

This is why I believe that the great challenge we still have to overcome is cultural and wears a double dressing: individual behaviour and collective, corporate identity.

The stronger the Mission, Vision, Values and Purpose and the fairer the performance evaluation and merit award system, together with inspiring leadership that promotes the “walk the talk”, the less background noise and surface silence there tends to be.

How to go from theory to practice? That is another conversation. But I believe in the possibility of success if we know how to do it by doing it.