Transformational Leadership (TLP) meets Launching Entrepreneurial Avenues of Possibilities, (LEAP7)

On Friday I stepped outside of my home and took a ride for the first time since March 8, 2020. After riding and seeing the destruction of new businesses and construction sights boarded up due to lack of business or what I would imagine a stop in the project caused by funding or another challenges surrounding the current situation. It reminded me of my Organization Development Fable I started last year and finished this past weekend. What I witnessed lead me to share this with my you, “Let’s Talk Career” community. Our discussions over the last month spoke about the individual as an organization. Here is a video to get you started. https://youtu.be/cbiynqwldpY

In a time that may be now, in the kingdom of a place I shall call the Companies and Entrepreneurs of Somewhere, leadership practices had come to a sorry state. Employees, once so confident and diligent in their efforts, no longer felt engaged. Not that they wanted to be disengaged. Far from it! But something had happened to sap their creativity and energy. Covid-19? Racial Inequality? What could be done?

Ah, those were the dark days. All anyone knew for certain was that change, unexpected and devastating, had swept across the landscape like a tsunami. Innovation could not keep up. Goals and objectives, once so confidently set and met, languished, mocking workers and managers and threatening all with dire consequences of failure. Sadly, it could not be denied that the kingdom suffered stagnation, a creeping malaise that petrified seemingly everyone and everything it touched. Yes, a low, ominous sky overshadowed the once prosperous kingdom of the Companies and Entrepreneurs of Somewhere.

Yet, just as despair reached frightening levels and many even began to forget the high salad days of earlier organizational projects and ringing successes, a new influencer suffused with equanimity and inspiration appeared on the horizon like a ray of light that powered from on high into the heart of the kingdom. There she turned on lights, opened windows and doors, and began at once to illustrate the resonant meaning of her name: TLP.

Transformational Leadership Practices defined who she was and embodied what she offered to beleaguered employees and managers. As they gazed at her, the put-upon felt a twinge of hope, even tremors of joy; some were quicker than others in grasping the truth—that they had found a positive leader. Her own resiliency, hope, optimism and confidence shone through the gloom, shattering its barriers with the promise of probing, uplifting psychology and positive practices. As TLP swept through the blighted landscape, with her came structure, resources, process, research, experts and technology.

What TLP brought to the kingdom was the right perspective. First and foremost, she brought with her the knowledge and understanding that organizations are indeed systems. She empowered those around her and encouraged inclusive, diverse participation. She urged on team building, job enrichment and appreciative inquiry. TLP modeled for one and all the health of holistic solutions and articulated the four mythic trends of organizational development. Specifically, she reminded everyone that all the data they would need to sift through and evaluate was already present in the very fabric of their own minds and therefore in the kingdom, too. With confidence, skill and empathy, TLP proceeded to open a great gift, unwrapping and assembling the pillars of the kingdom’s rebirth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOsJuwdgpSQ&t=41s

PLATFORMS OVER PRODUCTS

She began by describing the first essential organizational trend: a shift to platforms over products. The spirit of this trend, she explained, was a dynamic shift in design. The new designs reflected that borders of companies and kingdoms that were no longer so obvious or clear. She promised no quick fix. Many brick and mortar companies in the kingdom, she explained, would continue to struggle and lag behind companies with more up-to-date, sophisticated technologies. New companies, she noted, were already adopting an adaptive service approach. These efforts represented a fundamental change in the way people conceptualized work, how they operated and how they interacted with their customers. TLP cited eBay, Facebook, LinkedIn, Uber, Amazon, and Twitter as model platform organizations the emulation of which would rapidly revitalize organizations throughout their own reawakening kingdom.

These model organizations were unique and future-leaning because they combined a central headquarters with a huge, fluid network where transactions on the platform were provided by the company. Within these two-in-one organizations, if you will, tremendous flexibility was available to managers, staff and customers. These relationships were defined and developed as commerce flowed.

DIGITAL OVER MECHANICAL PERFORMANCE

The massive crowd was with her and so she swiftly segued to her next point. “The second organizational trend that will resurrect the kingdom,” said TLP, “is a shift to digital over mechanical performance.”

Some in the audience shifted uneasily in their seats; a few even groaned, fearing perhaps a phasing out of their efforts. Would they and their talents be judged obsolete? If so, what form would their elimination take? Would they be destroyed? TLP swiftly reassured them.

“From this time forward, there will never be less technology in our lives,” she began, and proceeded to describe lives in which new technology would be increasingly integrated. “From the womb to each being’s dimensional transition,” she said, “technology will be as essential to every human being as the air we breathe and the water we drink.” In fact, she explained, a digital mindset will be essential as organizations respond to information demands with ever increasing agility and speed.

At the same time, TLP warned against initiating the obvious first steps and stopping there. Yes, she nodded, organizations will swiftly want to appoint a chief digital officer. They will move quickly to organize an e-Commerce group and a digital marketing function. Yet, she also urged transformation of the entire organization to reflect the company’s integrated digital technology. Also, it would become necessary to oversee the creation of even more additional infrastructure to support new capabilities.

In this new digital world, TLP forecasted, the journey of data through organizations would zoom from one end to the other and back again at higher and higher velocities and achieve even greater reciprocities between sub-systems within regenerative organizations. Organizations featuring such full digital capacity will generate, collect, evaluate and process information that allows for greater flexibility and the ability to adjust delivery models.

“This highway out of darkness will at times be fraught with unforeseen challenges and difficulties,” cautioned TLP, “but take heart! Do not forsake systems thinking. Combine that tried and true process with new, evergreen technology. Together, these will build our kingdom’s new skills and capabilities in a blossoming, magical digital marketplace medium.”

Hearing these words and beginning to grasp the possibilities and new directions inherent in them, most in the kingdom experienced relief that the oppressive clouds of a widely perceived End Time would soon break open and renewing golden light would pour down over them. Yet, many were still beleaguered because they were set in the old ways in which old-time numbers and their interpretations too easily ruled their thoughts and performance. TLP wisely perceived this danger and lost no time in unveiling the third new trend that would guide them all.

PARADIGM SHIFT FROM DATA TO INSIGHTS

“We must be fluid,” she intoned, “as we embrace a paradigm shift from data to insights. Data is like our bread and butter,” she reminded everyone. She demonstrated how with new digital platforms there would be more data than ever before, but the collecting and processing of it, as in the past, would no longer be sufficient to ensure success. “In our new kingdom,” she declared, “our success will largely be predicated on how well we are able to generate insights from the data we collect. Our insights will govern the decisions we make, motivate our actions and assist us in setting future goals for our business endeavors.” TLP explained that the new technology infrastructure of the kingdom would organize the greater volume, variety and speed of new data and all would be guided by systemic, meaningful insights. This magical, fluid and renewing place, TLP asserted, is where the science of analytics meets planning in the workforce, statistical modeling and business strategy.

As her words of wisdom and inspiration sunk in, the collective mood in the kingdom swelled, which TLP noted with satisfaction, for she had deliberately saved the fourth trend for that special moment when the hopes of the kingdom had swung upward. The three organizational trends she had outlined established necessary parameters for the resurgence of their kingdom. All they lacked now was one final component, albeit a potentially explosive one. Still, TLP was confident of her audience, her kingdom, and so unveiled the fourth organizational trend.

“As we implement the first three trends, we shall also define, organize and launch a fourth,” she announced, her voice ringing with clarity and self-assurance as it soared. “We will also successfully shift to a process of talent over employees!”

The approving murmur of the crowd snagged as if it were burbling creek water suddenly backing up, having hit a rock barrier. Crowd sound that had been approving, even hopeful, perceptibly quieted. At that moment, a gray cloud swiftly blocked the sun, turning the air chill. Did TLP’s fourth trend not suggest a situation in which certain employees would be favored over others? In fact, no, it did not, but who was in that moment sure of that?

ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND HUMAN RESOURCES

Among the listeners, uneasy furtive glances were exchanged. TLP had anticipated even this moment of uncertainty. As swiftly as the sun and its life-giving warmth had been blocked, the cloud shot on and sunlight returned, pouring its golden warmth on the multitudes below. It was as if TLP commanded the heavens and the elements as well as their own hearts and organizational futures.

At that moment, TLP explained that her new fourth trend had everything to do with better managing fiscal resources for the improvement and advancement of every employee. The fact is, she explained, this fourth organizational trend more than any others emanated from the integrated nexus of organizational development and human resources. It was well known and remembered that the dot-com boom 1995-2000 created a wildfire search for talent among organizations. That search for talent had evolved over the later landscape into a search for talent management. In large companies especially, the focus had become one of developing methods that facilitated the way funds and resources were allocated to identify, classify and direct people into decision-making categories that signified high-potential and non-high-potential groups.

Why should the organizations and businesses of the kingdom pursue this route? It was the right direction, TLP posited, because it ensured that limited resources would be available to the right groups in the leadership pipeline. TLP offered as an example the well-known fact that millennials love feedback. Millennials love to know up front if they can be expected to have a successful career in their current company. In short, millennials love transparency! It works for them, TLP explained, as long as feedback is delivered in a supportive way. They also insist that what is measured is valid and appropriate when applied to decision-making. Millennials expect data to be used in the right way at the right time; they also expect the process to be transparent and clearly communicated to all those involved. “In the revised, successful kingdom,” TLP advised, “everyone needs to gather at the table communicating, asking questions, matching leadership to strengths, addressing skill gaps and taking advantage of all opportunities as they arise in the fluid dynamics of our focused, shared endeavors.”

TLP and her citizens believed that positive leadership promotes positive employee resilience. Practice must be transformational and unafraid of evidence-based management procedures. Scientific evidence to support the decisions of management is now and the future in the revitalized and newly prosperous kingdom. Once they were all on the same page regarding the four organizational trends they knew they needed to restore the kingdom to prosperity and health, they knew that a trustworthy, potent catalyst would be necessary. Especially in periods of new beginnings of organizational development, backsliding, stasis and fractures caused by fragmenting sub-groups could threaten not only immediate progress, but the great goal of ultimate kingdom rebirth. Almost everyone in the kingdom understood this when TLP had concluded her four-stage proposal. Success or failure literally hung in the balance as kingdom leaders and employees contemplated and debated best practices and necessary steps.

Looking with lonely, hungry hearts and eyes to TLP, the people waited. If they anticipated a simple bromide from her that would make them feel all right, she was bound to disappoint them. She understood that in any true fable in which the story ends well, the late intercession of a game-changing influencer takes place. She had, in fact, given this matter great thought and performed groundbreaking research, and she was ready to guide them one step beyond where she had taken them thus far.

“Leap Seven,” she said to them at last, “will be the good dragon that we and all the kingdom shall ride!” A startling moment of silence was followed by a swelling crescendo of huzzahs and cheers. “Leap Seven leadership,” said TLP, “saw the system and the ways it did not work and vowed to embrace a new way of being, of leading with a revolutionary integration of data science and decision science to meet new goals and objectives!”

It was here that TLP decided to offer a quick lesson, for those who never knew and those who may have forgotten, about the pros and cons of an analytic project that aims to create value. An analytic team must ask smart questions, TLP pointed out, sift through the relevant data and reveal insights previously shrouded in mystery. Yet, it is not enough to do only this. The successful analytic team that leads must interpret and communicate what the insights actually mean for the organization. This seems obvious when it is stated so clearly, TLP speculated to her audience who still avidly listened to all she had to say, yet it is rare, she pointed out, that an analytic team can successfully perform both of these tasks. Many a business has sagged into moribund performance because an analytic team could achieve success in only one of these two endeavors. Leap Seven insisted that an advanced, superior organization development professional be added to every analytic team. This was no suggestion, but rather a necessity. TLP heartily endorsed this view and the raucous cheers of the crowd confirmed that her listeners did, too.

“If you doubt the truth of these insights,” warned TLP as afternoon shadows lengthened throughout the kingdom, “simply recall the great darkening that was the devastating financial crisis of the aughts in which global financial institutions essentially collapsed but for unprecedented government bailouts and interventions. As a result, it became incumbent on financial organizations to discover fluidity in a new way to become resilient and nimble in order to survive systemic collapse. Leap Seven found that espousing positive leadership behaviors vastly improved employee resilience and performance. Leap Seven brings this beautiful model to our kingdom at the exact moment it is needed most!”

BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER

To sum up in the kingdom’s new dawn, TLP reiterated that all would focus on the human aspects of organizations. Empowerment and participative management programs would be the order of the new day, not mere exceptions or poorly thought out reactions to events. Always the holistic well-being and needs of the many would be at the forefront of thought, planning and action. Job enrichment for all and imaginative team building are part of the Leap Seven DNA; so is diversity and appreciative inquiry. “Always,” concluded TLP as beautiful lights switched on, illuminating the amphitheater with warmth and a golden sensation of optimism, “we will strive to keep the right perspective in mind. Organizations, when they become magical in design and achievement are, after all, systems, and those systems are human beings like us. All of us contribute our wisdom, inspiration, insight, charisma, competitiveness and willingness to discover and embrace new technology in this inevitable Leap Seven rebirth of our kingdom!”

From every corner of the kingdom, the sounds of appreciation and eagerness to begin anew could be heard. Systems were starting up, driven by new technology platforms and new combinations among then ranks of managers and employees. In time, who would doubt the return to prominence of a kingdom based on such organizational development? Yes, the positive path lay before them. Collectively, they began. THE END 

I hope that you enjoyed the fable and its characters TLP and LEAP7. This was a fun project however, one that I hope that you gain a lot from. I would love your feedback. My creative and innovative side wanted to try something new.

Dr. Marilyn Carroll is a professor, entrepreneur, researcher, writer and speaker. She lives in Dallas, Texas.