What kind of corporate culture would you like to see?
Mark Wiggins
Generative AI, Advanced Analytics & AI Sales | Retail/CPG Market Analyst | AI Industry Commentator | Public Speaker | Writer
Even the usually pro-Business 'Economist' has previously described the corporate culture of most of the Fortune 500 as 'Sociopathic'. I believe that leading companies will, within 25 years, exhibit the following characteristics:
THE TEAM LEADS - real and lasting positive change occurs when it is driven from the grass roots of the organisation and not 'cascaded' down from the top;
THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS TOO MUCH AUTONOMY - If you trust people to do a good job then they won’t let you or, more importantly, themselves down;
THE CEO IS A FACILITATOR - who cares if it's a one-person show or all the board are on side? The CEO has to be big enough to not stifle individuals at all levels of the organisation from using their initiative and to allow them to drive positive change - even to fail occasionally;
WHO NEEDS MANAGERS? - left to their own devices in dark rooms or with the lights on, employees will relish the opportunity to draw upon their resourcefulness, improvisation and initiative to think outside the box - particularly if there is no light in the box;
DELEGATION: MANAGEMENT IS GETTING THINGS DONE THROUGH OTHERS - Managers should move from giving 'orders' to asking 'questions'. Managers should see their role as 'helping' (ie., supporting those who've identified the problem to work out the solution) rather than 'enforcing', 'hurting' or, worse, 'doing nothing'.
EVERYONE CAN BE THE CEO - Rather than confining a passion for shareholder value and championing customer needs in one individual, the CEO, smart companies will move to a culture where every employee thinks (and acts) like a CEO (ie., they are in a conscious proactive mindset of considering the company's best interests at every decision-point);
WINNING COMPANIES ARE LOOSE-TIGHT PROPERTIES - if you create responsibility-space in the organisation for employees to take ownership of, then, by golly, they will;
STOP MICRO-MANAGING PEOPLE AND LET THEM GET ON WITH THEIR JOB - let employees think and they will out-think the line above them that has always had less direct interface with the real issues to inform their judgement calls ie., the company gets better quality experienced decision-making.
Which of these corporate culture attributes would you accept or reject based upon your experience? Is this vision unrealistic or is it already happening in some companies?
Generative AI, Advanced Analytics & AI Sales | Retail/CPG Market Analyst | AI Industry Commentator | Public Speaker | Writer
6 年Further support for this line of thinking here -?https://www.forbes.com/sites/adp/2018/06/11/how-hiring-with-diversity-in-mind-leads-to-a-smarter-team/#6eda33259d3f
Generative AI, Advanced Analytics & AI Sales | Retail/CPG Market Analyst | AI Industry Commentator | Public Speaker | Writer
6 年Hi Rina - Probably the smaller the organisation the greater is the readiness to embrace this ethos....many SMEs do already because the "job descriptions" are fluid and employees are expected to take a wide view of the business and multi-task and multi-train to handle requirements outside of their "core" responsibilities. The bigger the enterprise, the more there are structured P&L silos that partition, separate (and duplicate) tasks and there is tremendous resistance to change once a business division (be it vertical or horizontal) structure is put in place. Ironically, the arrival of a HR Function in organisations seems to carry the unintended consequence of locking in the standard direct and matrix management structures inside enterprises. Public companies (which have a market capitalisation based upon the inherited business model) are more likely to remain homogenous than privately held ones (where there is greater flexibility to change management and working practices). On the Government side, the most conservative and traditional department (the military) is in the vanguard of the revolution. The turf war currently hangs in the balance between old-fashioned homogenous 'Command and Control' structures/practices versus the heterogenous fluidity of 'Special Forces' operations. This all suggests to me that 'Technology' combined with 'Training' will be the key medicines for treating today's dysfunctional sociopathic coterie-nurturing corporate cultures. As a believer in evolutionary gradualism over revolution, we may see progress sooner rather than later...especially if the link between an empowered employee culture / Servant Leadership can be made with corporate performance....in the same way as it now clearly is between diversity (demolishes Group-Think for example) and better-than-average company performance (then pressure will come from the Top...shareholders...as well as from below...employees). I hope you find this response useful. Thanks. Best Regards, Mark
Converting blind spots into business opportunities with Equity, Diversity & Inclusion #inclusiveleadership #mindsetshift #behaviourchange #unconsciousbias #diversity, #inclusion #EDI strategy
6 年Do you still it'll take 25 years?
Founder | Axia is the Amazon of Personalized Healthcare
10 年My guess is that some specific cultures would only change if that was the last resort before losing profits.