Transforming Organisations: What Should We Do?

I’ve been working for about 16 years now and have been in a myriad of organisations – corporate, government, SME, MNC and family-owned. One thing is clear – none of them are perfect but they are each clearly a product of management.

This is clearest in the family-owned business where the organisation takes on the personal characteristics of the owners.

In the larger corporates, sometimes this is moderated by policies, and sometimes by corporate culture.

HOW AND WHY DO WE NEED TO TRANSFORM?

The question I often ask myself is “how can any organisation transform themselves to something other than what is the product of their management?”

After all, any organisation should be bigger than their management and since, no management team will last forever – not even the family-owned one, then to be able to transform an organisation into something other than the product of their management would go some way in strengthening their brand, their legacy and their staying power/resilience.

In today’s difficult economic outlook, it is all the more essential for organisations to look at this broadly and not just fix issues in silo.

SO…. WHAT SHOULD WE DO?

The solution is simple although the implementation can be tricky. The solution is to look at every aspect of the organisation and define what the ideal state should be.

Here is a good way to get started:

Purpose/Mission
If this is done right, the goals should follow and so will the tactical plans. If this is already done, relook them to check for relevance and worded so that it is easily relatable to employees.

Policies/Processes
This should focus on enabling the organisation to scale and not to control or micromanage employees. Policies and processes, ideally, should aid the creation of a company culture, brand or philosophy.

People
Define what the non-negotiables are in the values or behaviour expected in employees working in the organisation. Yes, including and especially, management staff. When defining company values, ensure that they resonate with all staff and hiring them based on values or observable behaviours will aid this objective.

Vision
Everyone needs an ideal state to aspire to. A greater larger goal or good to connect into. This gives employees with a more visionary way of thinking a greater connection with the company.

Communications
Ideally, this should take on a 360-degree perspective – top-down, bottom-up, lateral, inside-out and outside-in. How do we do that? Ask ourselves if the words and methods we use be appealing to all our customers – internal and external.

+++

Transforming an organisation can take time and may be tricky, but over time, it can be very rewarding as you see a company being truly driven from the bottom-up and not just top-down. That the lowest ranking employee has as much ownership as the bosses do.

The best way to achieve this is to take a holistic approach which covers all aspects of a company and appeals to a wider array of employees, stakeholders and customers.

This article was originally published on InterWEave.

For more articles, please visit the Emergenetics Blog.