Is your organisation developing Diamonds or Coal?
Philip Holt
Business Transformation Leader and COO | MBA | Leadership | Business Transformation | Operational Excellence | C-suite Level Engagement | Lean Thinking | Organisational & Value Stream Design
Despite the familiar Kissinger quote: "A diamond is a chunk of coal that did well under pressure", it is actually a fallacy that Diamonds are produced from Coal being put under additional pressure.
It's not just about making people more resilient to pressure, or creating a 'hunger games' where only the best do well; it's about creating the conditions for people to develop into the metaphorical diamonds that is good for them, the organisation, and their families.
Coal differs from Diamonds in a number of ways, but one of the fundamental differences is the impurities that mean that it could never become a diamond. Whilst it is primarily a carbon-based mineral substance, it also consists of organic plant matter that never underwent the process of biodegradation. In other words, coal is essentially a combination of dead vegetation and carbon. Diamonds are pure phases, or polymorphs, of carbon. They consist purely of carbon minerals that were subjected to high temperatures and pressures. Since coal is a combination of plant matter and carbon, it cannot be considered a pure phase.
Far too many organisations try to form Diamond performance with Coal forming conditions, by which I mean that they don't remove the 'impurities' in the organisation that prevent their people from being able to perform at the diamond standard.
These impurities are:
Unless these impurities are removed, it's impossible to create the conditions by which people can perform at their very best, and unfortunately many organisations take the 'Kissinger approach' of simply putting more and more pressure on their people to perform. This might work for a short period of time, but ultimately will result in a number of cultural symptoms, such as a rising unwanted attrition rate, increasing absenteeism, lowering engagement rates, and one that I hear many people observe, which is a lack of 'Ownership'.
This lack of ownership is a natural behaviour for people under high levels of pressure causing them stress, and is a withdrawal from activities, hiding from being assigned responsibility as the risk vs reward equation does not make sense for them. This behaviour can become endemic in an organisation, and morph into its culture, when a sufficient number of its people start to behave in that way.
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It's therefore crucial that an organisation focusses on developing an operating model that removes the impurities, focussing on putting in place both the People Engagement and Process Improvement systems that will help to develop our people to be able to perform at a high level and develop into being the best that they can be.
This doesn't mean that they don't work under 'high temperature and pressure', as the organisation will be striving for excellence and high performance, which will naturally cause those factors. However, because the organisational impurities have been removed, the team members will work collaboratively, with the know-how, skills and leadership to deal with the challenges, and without it inducing high levels of stress.
The organisation that does this will thrive, and will form Diamonds throughout its organisation, not by pressurising its people but by creating the right conditions for their formation.
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Continuous Improvement Manager
10 个月Catching title and content is refreshing as ever. Thanks for sharing.