Position Your Initiative Strategically

A. was a staffing and recruitment start-up founded in 1983.

It began with a modest team focused on providing technical personnel to the aerospace and defence industries. Forty years later, it has grown into a 19,000-employee organisation, with a global presence and is a leader in its industry.

A. has a strong sales orientation - 70% of its workforce are sales professionals. The leadership prides itself on crafting a well-thought-out and highly effective reward structure: bonuses, promotions, perks, and recognition have consistently placed them on a growth trajectory.

And it has worked.

Over four decades, A. has acquired multiple companies and expanded into over 300 locations worldwide. As you walk through the ground floor, the energy is high - from gongs ringing to celebrate deals, to sales charts, to breakout rooms with ping-pong tables, fitness initiatives, and wellbeing programmes. It’s quite an experience.

Why it works

The platinum standard for organisational effectiveness is vitality. People want to be there. They do a job they enjoy because it plays to their strengths, and they don’t mind being held accountable. They don’t avoid responsibility out of fear of consequences, they are ok with it because they want to play a bigger game (with some exceptions, of course). It is a ‘towards strategy’ rather than an ‘away strategy’.

But as you move to the other floors the energy shifts and it gets really quiet. You’d hear the servers’ back door squeak. It is almost as if it’s a different company altogether. Yet, as you talk to managers and employees across departments, it’s clear they too are doing extremely well. Morale is high, turnover within a healthy range, and engagement is strong. They just don’t vocalise it as much.

The Important Truth

Vitality means different things to different people. The key to unlocking it within a company is in understanding both the similarities and differences in human motivation.

A. intuitively designed office spaces to reflect these distinctions and, accidentally, it has engaged its people powerfully. However many companies are completely oblivious. They roll out strategic initiatives without appropriate audience analysis, nor reverse engineering the actual experiences of the people who are supposed to be onboard. As a result, they exacerbate conflict, encounter resistance, endure costly delays and reputational damage.

The highest standard you can uphold as a sponsor is to equip your team with the competences, processes, and tools to meet people where they are. That way they can position your initiative strategically and present a united front. It works wonders for the credibility of your team.

James Timpson (image), was the former CEO of Timpson Group, the British company that introduced the concept of Upside-Down Management. It intrigues me because it flips the traditional motivation formula, starting with trust and autonomy, then applying control, and repeatability. Not the other way around. And they are doing really well.

#LeadershipDevelopment #StrategicLeadership #FutureOfWork #OrganizationalCulture #CultureTransformation #WorkplaceInnovation #Intrapreneurship

Are you sponsoring a company-wide initiative? Would you like your department to be positioned strategically, break the mould of going through the motions, and breathe vitality into your organisation?

Let’s connect. There is more than one way to help.

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