Where is evolution leading you and your organization?

Finally, the New Year is here! Yes, it’s February, and with it comes the promise of what 2023 has to offer. I know, I sound a month and a week late - but I’ve evolved to seeing the start of a new year align more with the sun and my own energy levels rather than something which just doesn’t feel natural. Still not convinced? Try Ireland in January sometime. (Big thanks to my colleague Jessica L?wenhielm for the inspiration in creative calendar interpretation.)??

In all seriousness though, I did spend a good chunk of the last month reflecting on our past 6 years in business (wow!), what 2023 may have to offer, and what Caselden Consulting's own evolution looks like. It’s been astounding and beautiful to see the impact of our work with leaders, teams, and entire organizations to empower their people and unleash incredible potential. Some of those “client” engagements?have even become lasting friendships. Yet the past 9 months have also been an exceptionally challenging time. Economic uncertainty and other mitigating factors have meant cutbacks, layoffs for many friends and former clients, and sadly, even created doubts for us at times. As a coach working with individuals in high performance orgs, you can sometimes feel as if you help to grow leaders into a “medic” of sorts who patches others up to get them back into the action of the same “system” which is ironically the very often the source of the trauma - the organization itself. It can feel so dissonant that in building the future, we're so stuck in the unproductive ways of the past.? So let’s open the new year with a big bold statement: organizations must rapidly evolve to meet the evolution of humanity, or face their own extinction. This is the axis along which we see our own business evolving as we look ahead. ?

In his book “Reinventing Organizations”, Frederic Laloux states that “with every new stage in human consciousness also came a breakthrough in our ability to collaborate, bringing about a new organizational model. Organizations as we know them today are simply the expression of our current worldview, our current stage of development.”

So where are we today? The story in many organizations is far from great. Gallup suggests that only 21% of the workforce report feel engaged in their work, while another 19% feel actively disengaged. They suggest disengaged employees cost the world $7.8 trillion a year in lost productivity, or roughly 11% of global GDP. At a time where humanity faces enormous challenges, a massive amount of human ingenuity which we need more than ever goes unused and lies dormant in most organizations today!

But how can that be? Surely the digital transformations that many businesses undertook in the past 20 years have meant better access to data & info to empower decisions? And education, literacy, and the internet have converged to have more humans than ever before in history operating from a worldview that would seem alien to the average person 100 years ago. Amidst all that positive change, have our organizations truly changed to rise up to meet us where we are as humanity? Here, I’m reminded of a quote from the Founder & CEO Emeritus of VISA, Dee Hock: “Where behavior is educed, there lies leadership.? Where behavior is induced, there lies manipulation.? Where behavior is compelled, there lies tyranny.” The signal coming back from many organizational systems suggests we’re too often falling along the undesirable end of the spectrum which Mr Hock describes. In other words, the challenges we face in many organizations today are a direct result of the system and leadership mindsets themselves being from another time and?no longer fit for purpose in the world of today.?

We aim to be at the forefront of a movement to evolve what the future of work looks like. One which asks bold questions of how we can transform to orgs not where there’s equal power, but where everyone can be powerful. To build organizations that can be more adaptive and responsive, just like in nature, and less like the machine metaphor and command hierarchies that still prevail today as relics from an era past. Ones that amplify the tremendously positive impacts we can all have working together, yet which are also more conscious of how we are interconnected with the world around us.?

To that end, this year we invite you to join our new Strategic Renewal program which supports this transformation through two paths - first bringing inner alignment to the organization, followed with the “installation of a new operating system” to support your org’s continued evolution.? Now to be clear, we’re not talking about redesigning your org structure or “moving to Teal”, but about transforming the flow of information, communication, decision making, and accountability to lift everyone. If you could move that needle on discretionary effort or engagement by 10%, 20%, or even more - what could that mean? What greatness then might emerge? And what will this require from your leaders to hold this amazing space? This radical shift might also sound super scary and like a leap that’s too large to make, but all change starts with even the smallest of steps. So where can you take the first steps along that journey??

If you’ve been nodding your head while reading this, or the simple thought that we can and must do better resonates with you, let’s talk today about where your own evolution might be leading and how we can partner together on that journey to the future of work today.? It costs nothing to reflect and dream; it could cost everything not to.?