We need everybody
“We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them”
Albert Einstein
I had breakfast with an organizational development expert the other day where I heard about an enterprise that was struggling because there was a disconnect between their leadership and their employees. As I drove home I thought about a retired CEO that told me he had heard complaints from recent college graduates that the older generation would not get out of their way, as if they did not feel that they had to earn their leadership roles. On the other side of the coin I have seen many organization struggle these days as leaders sought to solve todays problems with yesterday’s solutions. Things are moving too fast to expect what worked yesterday will work tomorrow.
In my view the only solution lies in building a workplace environment that allows full participation in the problem solving effort. We need to combine the wisdom of the seasoned with the knowledge of the current generation. Here is a slightly edited article that I feel holds the answer for many of today’s struggling organizations.
You Can’t Solve Today’s Problems with Yesterday’s Solutions
by Ron Thomas
If you think of how change has come to our lives, especially with the advent of social media, everything is different. The organization and its people, however, are struggling as to how to keep pace. If leaders use the model of being at the center of the web, or if your organization puts its people first, these are innovations that would be unheard of in years past.
The old org chart is a thing of the past. The Scottish-American engineer Daniel McCallum is credited for creating the first organizational charts of American business around 1854. Based on that calculation, the org chart is approximately 158 years old. With project-based work, team approaches and virtual work, it almost makes the org chart obsolete.
Helping someone to get what they want
On the other hand, if you look at the concept of Employees First, Customers Second it notes that ”[EFCS] … turned the traditional management hierarchy upside down. The aim of EFCS was to create trust, to make managers as accountable to employees as employees were to their bosses, to transfer the responsibility for change and value creation to front-line employees working in the what they describe as the ‘value zone’ where HCL and its customers interact. Systems and processes were put in place designed to achieve these goals.”
Starbucks is another company that works with this concept. Even part-time employees get health insurance. Costco’s CEO recently said he was an advocate of the raising of the minimum wage. Both these organizations pay above average wages and have other initiatives that mirror the employee first philosophy. If you think of any organization that makes employer of choice or best places to work lists, you can see leadership from the web. You can also see the inverted pyramid.
In order to get what you want you have to help someone get what they want. That means that organizations must do whatever they can to help their collective group of employees get or achieve what they want. This model has a host of benefits — increased productivity, increased employee engagement, innovation and creativity. The derivative of this is the bottom line looks a lot stronger.
We are all in this together
Organizations of the future are going to need to adapt a new model of doing business. This is the era of “talent,” and that talent as a whole will not be mistreated in any way. They walk out every day and are not tied to anyone. Everyone within the organization has to buy into the concept of helping each other. It is not just leadership at the top; it is leadership from every corner of the organization. Team leader, project lead, VP or C-level — all must adhere to that new mindset.
No organization will survive, talent-wise, unless adjustments are made. There will always be adjustments made going forward; there is no one size fits all. You can’t duplicate another company’s culture no matter how hard you try. But, what you can do is pay close attention to your organizational culture, experiment, and make adjustments.
Whether you are leading from the web or putting your employees first, remember this: today’s issues cannot be solved with an Industrial Age mindset.
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People who work together will win, whether it be against complex football defenses, or the problems of modern society.
Vince Lombardi
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She said:
If you write in the dust, please don’t date it!
I would cook dinner but I can’t find the can opener!
My house was clean last week, too bad you missed it!
A clean kitchen is the sign of a wasted life.
COOK CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!
I came, I saw, I decided to order take out.
If you don’t like my standards of cooking…lower your standards.
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The 50-50-90 Rule: Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there’s a 90% probability you’ll get it wrong.
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In the world of physics, we’ve all heard of the “Doppler Effect” which causes train whistles to sound higher in pitch as the train approaches and then sound lower in pitch as the train recedes. There is, however, a lesser-known effect called the “Dopeler Effect.” The Dopeler Effect is the tendency of stupid ideas to sound much smarter when they came at you quickly
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If at first you don’t succeed, you’ve failed again
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A pastor went out one Saturday to visit his church members. At one house it was obvious that someone was home, but nobody came to the door even though the pastor had knocked several times. Finally, the pastor took out his card and wrote “Revelations 3:20” on the back of it, and stuck it in the door.
{Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him and him with me.}
The next day, the card turned up in the collection plate. Below the pastor’s message was the notation “Genesis 3:10”.
{I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.}
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I plead contemporary insanity.
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“My uncle in Detroit tried to make a new kind of car. He took the engine from a Ford, the transmission from an Oldsmobile, the tires from a Cadillac, and the exhaust system from a Plymouth.”
“Really? What did he get?”
“Fifteen years.”
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“Sometimes I get the feeling that the whole world is against me, but deep down I know that’s not true. Some of the smaller countries are neutral.”
Robert Orben
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“Leaders are problem solvers by talent and temperament, and by choice. For them, the new information environment—undermining old means of control, opening up old closets of secrecy, reducing the relevance of ownership, early arrival, and location—should seem less a litany of problems than an agenda for action. Reaching for a way to describe the entrepreneurial energy of his fabled editor Harold Ross, James Thurber said: ‘He was always leaning forward, pushing something invisible ahead of him.’ That’s the appropriate posture for a knowledge executive.”
Harlan Cleveland
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Stay well, do good work, and have fun.
Ray Mitchell
Indianapolis, Indiana
Management is not responsible for duplicates from previous dailies. The editor is somewhat senile.
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