Use PATS to enable sustained growth in your organization

The key ingredients of organizational growth are not found in the balance sheets, they reside in the hearts and minds of the workforce. Many of our capital creation and growth ideas are carried over from the past century. In this modern world, the founders of Alphabet, Dell, and Meta started their companies in their college dormitory. Instead of cash flow on their balance sheets, they possessed an innovative spirit. In the beginning, this creative spirit inspires and brings forth a unity of effort in the workforce. If nurtured and managed well, it generates the human capital that stimulates financial and social success. Otherwise, it becomes a hollow shell of failed moral scrap that declines over time. Most organizations that build substantial financial wealth do so because they are passionate about their innovation and their service to their customers.

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This article is about a framework for analyzing a company’s internal strategy of culture and capabilities. Let’s explore the various elements of an organizational system that help in the creation and sustenance of consistent growth.

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PURPOSE

Any leader who believes that only processes, skills, and financial capital are required for business success is thinking much like the racing team that spends a million dollars for the latest racecar but then hires a driver who doesn’t care about winning. For a business to succeed, purpose matters the most. An organization that enables the pursuit of a worthy purpose possesses the primary means of achieving focused energy within its workforce.

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The degree to which there is a commitment to a worthy purpose, members of the organization will engage in the discretionary effort of thinking and exercising their brain on a problem or opportunity. Many creative ideas occur outside the official work time when a member of your team is choosing, either consciously or even unconsciously, to think about a problem at work or to address a customer’s needs. This is a discretionary effort that cannot be forced nor made mandatory. It only occurs when employees genuinely care about the success of the organization.

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AUTONOMY

As a leader, providing flexibility to your team members so they can decide how they want to do their work is crucial to making them feel that you believe in their potential. Giving them contextual authority - the power to make decisions based on the predetermined criteria, is how you empower your workforce in using their discretion to evaluate the options and wisely choose what to do. If a small group within the team is going to make decisions, specify when others can offer input and have the team agree on what criteria they must use to make decisions on behalf of the entire team.

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You need to empower people to make decisions connected to their roles. At the same time, it is important to balance the individual autonomy of team members with a team’s shared interests. To work together productively, an individual needs to feel ownership and pride in collaborating with others and yet they also need the autonomy to perform their tasks as they see fit. The crux of talent optimization lies in providing autonomy and expecting accountability for results.

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TRUST

Shared values are the basis for creating trustworthy relationships. A common set of values is the lubricant of associations in a thriving organization. The degree of trust you initiate in others will determine the likelihood of being hired, clients purchasing your products & services, and employees striving for your company. Entrepreneurs often begin their business within a small circle of trust and gradually expand the radius of trust, increasing the scope of their network and their business.

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Trust operates both horizontally and vertically within the organization and is critical to the ability to solve problems, innovate, and satisfy clients. The small act of walking down the hall to an associate’s office and sharing a problem, casually brainstorming without regard to who gets credit, or who bears what responsibility, is the most frequent, and probably the most effective way to solve problems. This is an utmost act of trust that demonstrates the building of social capital for the organization.

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SKILLS

It is the sum of all the competencies and motivations of people within the organization. These two key ingredients of human capital are vital components for the performance of any business. The keys to motivation are relatively simple viz. work that is interesting, sincere recognition for work performed, opportunities for career advancement, constructive feedback, supportive interaction by the team, and financial rewards. Optimizing all of these forms of motivation is the most important role of organizational leaders.

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The modern-day parallel to production technology of the past century is human competence! In this age, production most often occurs in the mind, or the collective mind of small work groups. If you have highly trained marketing professionals, skilled salespeople, great engineers, and brilliant financial managers, you have an important form of capital. Investment in these assets is likely to pay off in the creation of a flywheel for sustained progress and revenue growth.

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Leaders need to step up to the plate to build alignment among their teams and truncate undercutting and undermining. Upper management needs to guide the company’s managers to positively influence the attitudes and behaviors of the workforce to enable consistent success and improvements. The innovative spirit, creation of competence, ability to build relationships, and pursuit of worthy goals define the long-term success and growth of an organization.