Find Your Organization’s Rudder

Reactionary responses to turbulence – the global marketplace, competition, internal strife – can easily set organizations off course. Organizations need the capacities to be resilient, adaptive, and have confidence in the face of uncertainty. But those qualities often come from developing a solid identity, and having a clear vision of the group’s goals. I spoke with the founding chair of the Society for Organizational Learning, Peter Senge, in my Leadership: A Master Class about ways organizations can find their rudder.

“System sciences use the term resilience to characterize ecosystems and living systems that have adaptive capabilities. What does that look and feel like in most organizations?

Share the power of knowledge

First, there would be a fairly level distribution of power and authority, because successful adaptations can emerge from anywhere in the organization. If you're trying to drive things from the top down, you're making a bet that these players are the only source of ideas and solutions. But in a more adaptive system, something important may develop at any level. Without a fairly even distribution of power and authority, you may miss an opportunity.

Open communication

Secondly, there has to be a culture of mutual respect and appreciation so that knowledge can transfer. Competitive coworkers can squash an idea before it even gets off the ground. Something really adaptive can take shape, yet somebody else is busy trying to kill or deny it. In a more respectful atmosphere, other team members may say, ‘Wow! That's really interesting. How do you do that? Well, we have a problem, would you be able to help us?’

Make the mission meaningful

And lastly, people have to think they're doing something that matters. That's easy to say, and every company has mission and vision statements. But if your team hasn’t internalized these statements, it’s not real. It’s just jargon. If you view your role as a ‘cog in a wheel,’ you are less motivated to care about the organization’s path to success. Encourage people to think about and share ways to make the organization a truly worthwhile place to work. You may just discover a valuable solution you didn’t expect to find.”

Additional resources:

Leadership: A Master Class: The eight-part video collection includes more than eight hours of research findings, case studies and valuable industry expertise through in-depth interviews with respected leaders in executive management, organizational research, workplace psychology, negotiation and senior hiring. Corporate and educational licensing available.

What Makes a Leader: Why Emotional Intelligence Matters: A compilation of my Harvard Business Review articles and other business journal writings in one volume. This often-cited, proven-effective material has become essential reading for leaders, coaches and educators committed to fostering stellar management, increasing performance, and driving innovation.

The HR and EI Collection: The combination of books and audio tools offers actionable findings on how leaders can foster group flow to maximize innovation, drive, and motivation to deliver bottom-line results.

Resonant Leadership: Inspiring Others Through Emotional Intelligence: This master class by Richard Boyatzis (co-author of Primal Leadership and Chair of Organizational Development at the Weatherhead School of Management) offers you the tools to become the leader you want to be—including exercises to reassess valuable and effective techniques.

Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence: Focus uncovers the science of attention in all its varieties – presenting a groundbreaking look at this overlooked and underrated asset, and why it matters enormously for how we feel, and succeed, in life.

Leading the Necessary Revolution: Building Alignment in Your Business for Sustainability: Sustainability is the biggest business opportunity in 50 years. Some managers clearly see their chance to be ahead of this curve. The single biggest challenge facing them now is creating alignment – explaining their vision in a compelling, motivational way – to get from the conceptual stage to critical action. Peter Senge has been helping organizations learn for decades – and he’s found that no matter where you are in your firm, you can drive the shift to sustainability – if you have the right approach, tools, and vision.

Additional reading:

Forging Good Work into a Rewarding Career

How to Overcome a Survival Mode Culture

How Leaders Can Overcome Obstacles for Change

The Active Ingredients for Innovation

Photo: d13 / shutterstock