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Culture change

The Needs of Employees: What’s at Stake for Businesses

February 25, 2024
Actionable Insights, Antimatter principle, Article, Business, Community, Culture change
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The Needs of Employees: What’s at Stake for Businesses

Employees are the backbone of any successful business. Their performance and satisfaction directly impacts a company’s bottom line. This means businesses have a vested interest in attending to the needs of their workforce. However, doing so requires commitment and resources. What exactly is at stake when it comes to meeting employee needs? Let’s explore the potential risks and rewards underpinning the Antimatter Principle.

What Businesses Stand to Lose

Ignoring employee needs can be costly for companies in many ways:

  • Reduced productivity and performance: Employees who feel their needs aren’t being met are less motivated, engaged, and productive at work. This negatively impacts the quality and efficiency of their output.
  • Higher turnover: Dissatisfied workers are more likely to leave their jobs in search of better opportunities. High turnover disrupts operations and incurs substantial replacement costs.
  • Damaged employer brand: News of poor working conditions and unmet needs spreads quickly. This damages a company’s reputation as an employer, making it harder to attract and retain top talent.
  • Litigation risks: Disgruntled employees may take legal action over issues like discrimination, harassment, unsafe working conditions, privacy, or wage violations. Lawsuits are both expensive and damaging PR-wise.
  • Toxic culture: Ignoring needs can breed negativity, resentment, and low morale among staff. This creates a stressful, unmotivated culture that further reduces productivity.

What Businesses Stand to Gain

On the flip side, making employee needs a priority and attending to them a intrinsic part of BAU can pay off tremendously:

  • Improved recruitment and retention: Employees are drawn to supportive companies with great benefits, culture, and working conditions. Catering to needs helps attract and retain top talent.
  • Higher productivity: Employees who feel their needs are met work more effectively and deliver better results. A happy, healthy workforce is a productive workforce.
  • Enhanced loyalty and engagement: When companies show they care, employees respond with greater commitment, passion, and loyalty. This directly fuels performance.
  • Better customer service: Needs like training and empowerment equip staff to deliver exceptional service that keeps customers happy and loyal.
  • Reduced risks: Addressing needs like safety and wellness protects staff while minimising potential injuries, lawsuits, and PR crises.
  • Employer brand building: Exceptional benefits, culture, and practices earn rave reviews from staff. This builds a company’s reputation as a premier employer.

The Takeaway

While it requires investment, making employee needs a priority provides significant upside for businesses. On the other hand, ignoring needs exposes companies to major risks and hidden costs. The message is clear: by taking care of the needs of employees, businesses also take care of their own interests. The potential rewards of meeting needs make it a win-win proposition.

Time Yet for Organisational Psychotherapy?

February 24, 2024
Article, Business, Capability development, Community, Culture change, Learning, Organisational Therapy, Quintessence
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Time Yet for Organisational Psychotherapy?

The Software Crisis is but a Symptom

The “software crisis” plaguing the tech industry for more that 50 years reflects a broader crisis spanning business, society, and our species. At its core is our inability as a species to fully grasp and manage rapidly change and wicked problems, both. But this crisis manifests in different ways across multiple levels of human endeavours.

The Business Crisis Begets the Software Crisis

In business, intense competition, shifting customer demands, changing social expectations, and disruption make consistent success an elusive goal. In society, we face polarisation, inequality, and loss of social cohesion. As a species, our advanced civilisation has exceeded our innate cognitive capacities. We are overwhelmed by the world we’ve created.

The Societal Crisis Begets the Business Crisis

The software crisis is just a symptom of crises in business, society, and our human systems as a whole. To truly address it, solutions are needed at each level. Organisational psychotherapy can help provide a framework for shared reflection and treatment.

Business operates within a broader social context beset by polarisation, inequality, and eroding social cohesion. Society’s challenges become business’s challenges.

When society tacitly promotes individual gain over collective well-being, so does business. When civil discourse and trust decline, companies struggle to collaborate. When opportunity is not distributed broadly, markets suffer.

Business could help lead society forward. But first, society must create conditions where ethics and human dignity come before efficiency and profits. By reflecting society’s imbalances, business contributes to the social crisis.

Organisational Psychotherapy Offers a Way Forward

Just as individual psychotherapy helps people gain self-understanding to heal, organisational psychotherapy facilitates collective self-reflection to foster change in groups, companies, systems, societies and the species. It surfaces the dysfunctional patterns that maintain the status quo.

Applications

Applied to the software crisis, organisational psychotherapy invites examination of the beliefs, behaviors, and power dynamics across the tech industry that contribute to the many and perrenial chronic failures. It enables new understandings and behaviors to emerge.

Similarly, organisational psychotherapy addresses dysfunctional aspects of business culture and society that exacerbate our challenges and frustrates our needs. It helps groups align around shared purpose, and adapt.

Ultimately, organisational psychotherapy a.k.a. collective psychotherapy is about creating the conditions for species learning. As we confront crises across business, society, and our species, we might benefit from the capacity for honest inquiry, collective problem-solving, and continuous learning. Organisational psychotherapy can guide that evolutionary process. The software crisis and beyond provide an opportunity for our organisations, businesses, societies, and species to increase our enlightenment. But we must be willing to courageously examine ourselves along the way.

Outdated Beliefs Get in the Way

February 23, 2024
Actionable Insights, Article, Culture change, Memeology, Organisational effectiveness, Organisational Therapy, Quintessence
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Outdated Beliefs Get in the Way

Many organisations today seem stuck in a pattern of missed opportunities and mediocrity. They work hard, but never achieve their potential for dignity, joy, and shared prosperity.

The key reason is that most organisations cling to outdated assumptions and beliefs about the world of work – assumptions and beliefs that hold them back. Their mental models of how business works are based on premises that were, maybe, relevant decades ago but have long since become obsolete.

For example, a common outdated belief is that decision quality is higher when decisions flow through strict organisational hierarchies, when flatter structures often foster faster innovation and improved decison quality, both.

Another toxic belief is that loyal, long-term employees are an organisation’s greatest asset. But in the modern workplace, it’s the relationships between employees that promotes prosperity and fresh thinking.

The world moves fast today. What made an organisation dominant 10 or even 5 years ago no longer guarantees success. The leaders and companies that dump outdated assumptions and beliefs about how things work are positioned to achieve their aspirations.

By continually questioning their premises and mental models, organisations can recognise where staus quo wisdom no longer applies. They can pivot rapidly rather than being mired in he past. And they can pursue innovative opportunities for atteding to folks’ needs, instead of sticking to familiar but lame and dysfuntional practices.

Shedding outdated beliefs at all levels is the only reliable way for an organisation to keep achieving extraordinary results in a world of accelerating change. The companies that realise this will be poised for progress in the years ahead.

Management Shortchanges Employees At Every Turn

February 21, 2024
Actionable Insights, Antimatter principle, Article, Business, Culture change, Management, Quintessence
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Management Shortchanges Employees At Every Turn

In many companies, management imposes policies and practices that end up costing employees in major ways. Despite no clear business benefits, executives and middle management, both, make decisions and pursue approaches that hurt workers’ wallets, productivity and well-being.

Can we ever expect a healty, productive and mutually beneficial community of relationships to emerge from a foundation of naked exploitation?

Example: RTO

One example is Return to Office mandates after COVID, but this is just a symptom of a broader issue – management making decisions without considering employees’ needs and blythe ignorance of the consequences. (Or is it mendacity? For example, Wage Theft – estimates suggest wage theft costs U.S. workers $15-50 billion per year, more than is lost to robbery and theft combined.).

Shall We Count the Ways?

“How do I love thee?
Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.”

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Other common ways managers financially and personally cost staff include:

  • Stagnant wages and lack of raises, even despite rising costs of living
  • Minimal spending on employee training and career development
  • Avoiding the costs of effective health and safety and wellness programmes
  • Mandating outdated tools, working practices, organisational structures, and systems, that hinder productivity vs new approaches
  • All talk, no action on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives – “DEI Theatre”
  • Ever rising C-suite salaries, bonuses and perks while rank and file see ever-shrinking benefits
  • Lack of flexibility for work-life balance, leading to workers’ lives and earnings being disrupted by having to change jobs

Many companies view workers as nothing more than a cost to be minimised. Executives are disconnected from the employee experience. They pursue shareholder value at the expense of the workforce.

But organisations suffer when employees are not valued. Disengagement, burnout and high turnover follow. Customer satisfaction dips as unhappy employees deliver poor service. Innovation and performance decline.

Conclusion

The poor treatment of employees by management seems deeply ingrained in corporate structures and business school teachings. But are there solutions, or is management simply an irredeemable concept?

Some argue that these problems can be addressed through better laws and regulations, such as higher minimum wages, stronger health and safety protections, limits on executive compensation, and empowering workers’ rights to organise. Management training programs could also be reformed to prioritise employee wellbeing over short-term profits.

However, others contend that management by its very nature is exploitative. The hierarchical structure gives disproportionate power to executives and shareholders beholden to capitalism’s pursuit of power-holders’ wellbeing, efficiency, and profit maximization. Workers will always be squeezed under the management yoke

Radical solutions propose democratising the workplace through cooperatives, employee representation and ownership, worker representation on boards, and decentralised decision-making. But can these ideas scale successfully?

Perhaps the answer lies in a mixed approach. Pragmatic reforms to improve life for workers within current corporate models, paired with incubating alternative organisational structures that give workers an equal voice, or even the whip hand (Cf. servant leadership).

There are no easy solutions, but can we continue to accept the status quo of management blatantly and egregiously exploiting employees? Can we find a system that upholds dignity, justice and shared prosperity? Workers are assets to invest in, not costs to cut. Might we have faith that through insight, integrity and innovation, business can empower rather than extract from the workforce? The path will not be quick or easy, but progress remains possible through partnership across sectors and persistence despite setbacks.

For a model of how such an oganisation might look like – and feel like from both the workers’, managers’, and customers’ perspectives – you might like to read my latest book “Quintessence“.

Afterword

What practices have you seen, good or bad, that reveal how a company truly views its employees? Share your thoughts on when management’s decisions cost or benefit workers.

The Why of FlowChain: Deliberate Continuous Improvement

February 19, 2024
Actionable Insights, Article, Business, Capability development, Culture change, Deming, Doctrine, Flow, Flow•gnosis, Flowchain, Improvement, Learning, Memeology, Metaflow, Organisational effectiveness, Prod•gnosis, Product development, Quintessence, Rightshifting, Software Delivery, Software development, Systems thinking, Value streams
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The Why of FlowChain: Deliberate Continuous Improvement

In my career, working with hundreds of companies, I’ve almost never seen organisations* take a truly deliberate approach to continuous improvement. It’s nearly always treated as an afterthought or add-on to business-as-usual (BAU). But real transformation requires making continuous improvement an integral and core part of daily work. This is the “why” behind FlowChain – enabling deliberate, in-band continuous improvement.

In other words, applying the same disciplines from product development, delivery, etc. to the business (sic) of delivering continuous improvements  – continuously improving the way the work works.

What Is FlowChain?

So what is FlowChain? At its core, it is a system for managing flow – both the flow of outputs and the flow of improvements to the way the work works, concurrently and by the same means. And by “flow”, I mean the steady progress of work from request to completion through all steps in a process. Flow is optimised when the right work is happening at the right time by the right people. Roadblocks, delays, and waste are minimised or eliminated.

Flow

Optimising flow delivers the following benefits:

  • Increased productivity – less time wasted, more work completed
  • Improved quality – fewer defects, rework minimised
  • Better customer service – faster response times, reliability
  • Higher employee engagement – less frustration, more joy

But achieving flow requires continuous improvement. Problems must be made visible. Waste must be reduced iteratively. Roadblocks must be cleared continuously.

This is why FlowChain incorporates improvement into its regular rhythm. Each cycle follows a deliberate sequence:

  • Plan – Select and sequence the upcoming work.
  • Execute – Complete the work while tackling issues.
  • Review – Analyse completed work and identify improvements.
  • Adjust – Make changes to improve flow.

Unlike most continuous improvement efforts – that are separate from BAU – FlowChain makes improvement an integral in-band activity. The rapid cycles provide frequent opportunities to reflect, gain insights, and act.

Compounding Benefits

Over time, the compounding benefits are immense. Teams develop a “flow habit”, where improving flow becomes second nature. Powerful capabilities like root cause analysis, A3 problem-solving, improvement katas, and change management are honed.

In my experience, this deliberate approach is transformative. Teams gain tremendous agency to systematically improve their own flow. The organisation as a whole cultivates a culture of continuous improvement. And customers experience ever-better service and responsiveness.

The “why” of FlowChain is simple – create focus, visibility, accountability, and agency to drive continuous improvement. The results – ever better flow, reduced waste, and sustainable transformation. Deliberate, in-band continuous improvement stops being an aspiration and becomes a reality.

*Ask me about the exception.

Should We Adopt Agile?

February 18, 2024
Actionable Insights, Agile, Agility at Scale, AI, Article, Business, Capability development, Culture change, Organisational effectiveness, Organisational Therapy, Prompt Engineering, Quintessence
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Should We Adopt Agile?

Following on from my previous post concerning surfacing and reflecting on shared assumptions and beliefs about work, here are ten reflective questions for an executive considering flexible software development approaches:

  1. What are our priorities – speed, adaptability, innovation, quality, predictability? How should our processes align*?
  2. Do our teams thrive with more autonomy, or require structure from leadership?
  3. Are staff skills best leveraged through specialisation or multi-skilling and cross-functional collaboration?
  4. How much do we value rapid delivery versus long-term planning and building of long-term capabilities?
  5. Can our culture accept constant change versus needing firm commitments to e.g. delivery dates, feature sets, etc?
  6. Is our leadership comfortable ceding some control over how work gets done?
  7. Do our metrics reflect outcomes, outputs, value delivered, or needs met? Should we measure differently?
  8. Is transparency into work progress more valuable than formal milestones?
  9. Do we believe in Minimal Viable Products over Big Design Up Front?
  10. Are we open to new ideas or convinced our current ways of working work best? How much research have we done?

*I.E. What approach will best ensure our organisation’s processes, systems and structures are optimally configured to support our priorities and goals, around both software development and our wider business?

 

Note: Many more than these ten questions could be relevant to the headline topic. I encourage and invite you to try asking your favourite chatbot for more questions to consider.

Also note: Given the preponderance of proselytisation for the Agile approach currently found on the Internet, I would not recommend asking your chatbot “Should we adopt Agile?” directly. Unbiased and considered advice will NOT be forthcoming.

The Urge to Keep People Busy (And Why It Doesn’t Work)

February 16, 2024
Actionable Insights, Antimatter principle, Article, Busyness, Culture change, Learning, Organisational effectiveness, Organisational Therapy, Quintessence
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The Urge to Keep People Busy (And Why It Doesn’t Work)

In many workplaces, there is an underlying pressure to keep employees constantly busy. The thinking goes that if people have any downtime at work, that time is wasted and money is being left on the table. This leads managers and leaders to pile more and more work onto employees’ plates in an effort to extract maximum productivity. However, this approach is actually counterproductive.

Software companies tend to be prime examples of this misguided busywork culture. There is often intense pressure to continually release new features and upgrades to products. The development team is expected to churn out a steady stream of product increments to show that they are adding value. However, much of this activity becomes useless busywork after a certain point.

Queueing Theory 101

This phenomenon can be explained by queueing theory – the mathematical study of waiting in lines. As Tom DeMarco wrote in “Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency”, workers and tasks in a company form a queueing system. If all workers are 100% utilised, queues grow infinitely long and lead times stretch without bound. Companies need slack resources to absorb variation. Trying to keep everyone 100% busy all the time is thus self-defeating.

The Human Dimension

Studies have also shown that human cognitive resources are finite. We all have a limited capacity for productive focus and good decision making each day. Piling on more and more tasks leaves less mental energy for each task. Workers become ineffective at judging what activities are truly important versus those just designed to fill time. The quality of output suffers even as teams scramble to check more boxes.

Additionally, constant busyness leads to burnout over the long run. Workers never get the chance to recharge because they jump from one urgent task to the next. The resultant stress and exhaustion eventually sap motivation and creativity.

Alternative: Focus

Instead of keeping people busy for the sake of looking productive, organisations might choose to create focus. When clear priorities are set, teams have the space to deeply engage with tasks that really further core goals and objectives. Quality output that moves the needle earns more than quantity of output or hours logged.

Rather than endlessly generating and implementing new product features, software teams can choose to carefully consider business objectives and what features will have the biggest impact. Saying “no” to nonessential work is often healthier than taking it on just to keep programmers coding around the clock. Less can truly be more when it comes to productive and innovative software teams.

The Benefits of Downtime

In knowledge economy workplaces, ongoing learning uplifts both individual and organisational success. However, prioritising constant busyness leaves little room for employees to actively absorb new information or develop additional skills. Building protected time for learning into work schedules is thus hugely beneficial compared to attempting to eliminate all downtime.

Sufficient breathing room between intensive assignments provides cognitive space for individuals to deeply internalize and contextualise what they have already worked on. Lessons sink in better when folks have moments to pause and reflect on how the dots connect. Such periodic integration of experiences builds flexible knowledge that better transfers to future contexts.

Dedicated downtime also makes room for individuals to proactively seek out cutting edge knowledge in their domain. Workers use the time to read journals, take online courses, attend conferences, engage mentors and collaborate with peers in the field. Through these networks, they rapidly update understanding and hone best practices awareness. Organisations thrive when individuals return to apply these learnings to internal initiatives.

Importantly,downtime allows employees to pursue self-directed skill building aligned to their own person al and career needs, not just immediate organisational requirements. When individuals direct their own learning, intrinsic motivations energise mastery far beyond what imposed trainings can deliver. Carving space for self-improvement helps attract and retain top talent as well.

Of course, workers also benefit from downtime that simply allows their brains to recharge after intense problem solving. Neural networks expend significant energy forming new connections demanded by complex tasks. Regular periods of low external stimuli are crucial for restoring the actual physical infrastructure enabling learning in the first place.

Rather than something to eliminate through added busywork, downtime facilitates ongoing renewal that powers future performance. Knowledge workers’ most precious asset is the human capacity for rapidly acquiring and applying new understanding. Protecting time and space for learning may thus provide the highest organizational return on investment of any activity, busy or not.

Finally, downtime provides the space to surface and reflect on both personal and shared assumptions and beliefs about the way the work works (i.e. the opportunity for organisational psychotherapy, whether facilitated or self-directed).

Summary

The impulse to minimise any workspace downtime is understandable but misplaced. Workers and companies both thrive when space is made for deliberate thinking, creative ideation, restoration, reflection, and collaboration. The busiest person in the office is rarely the most productive or effective. Organisations migh better choose to create focus for employees rather than frenetic stimulation. Whether explained through queueing theory or basic human psychology, purposeful work will always trump mindless busyness.

What is Rigour?

February 7, 2024
Actionable Insights, Article, Capability development, Caring, Culture change, Engineering, Fellowship, Organisational effectiveness, Product development, Quintessence, Rightshifting, Self-organisation, Software development, Standard work, Teambuilding
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What is Rigour?

Rigour refers to the strict precision and accuracy with which work is executed in fields like software engineering and collaborative knowledge work (CKW). It entails adherence to standards and best practices for needed outcomes.

The Importance of Getting it Right

Attentive rigour matters because carelessness breeds mistakes. Flaws in logic or bugs in code stem from a lack of rigour. This introduces unwanted surprises, and failures down the line. Rigour is an attitude of mind that zeroes in on getting things right the first time Cf. Crosby, ZeeDee.

The Perils of Getting it Wrong

However, the quest for rigour can go awry when imposed hastily or mindlessly. Establishing rigorous frameworks like requirements analysis, peer review etc. does carry overhead. Teams can get so bogged down chasing perfection that creativity, productivity and morale suffer. Or so much time is spent eliminating small defects that bigger picture progress slows. Like most things, balance is warranted.

The Laissez-Faire Extreme

At the other end of the spectrum from rigour lies the laissez-faire attitude. This French phrase meaning “let it be” encapsulates a laid-back approach where participants have broad freedom to work in whatever manner they choose.

In software and knowledge work contexts, laissez-faire environments feature very few enforced policies, protocols, or mechanisms for ensuring quality. Creativity and unhindered workflow takes priority over rigour. Peer reviews, quality assurance, and documentation are optional. Teams self-organise organically without work standards.

This spontaneity can spark innovation but has pitfalls. Lack of rigour tacitly permits cut corners, gaps in logic, unfinished ideas and sloppy execution. With an easy-going approach, easily preventable flaws accumulate and undermine end results.

In applied contexts like commercial software development, laissez-faire practices practically guarantee shoddy work products riddled with defects. User needs demand rigour not as an obstacle, but as an enabler of excellence. Finding the right balance is key.

The absence of rigour embodied in laissez-faire philosophies may promote freedom. But the ensuing chaos leaves the fruits of hard work easily compromised. Some structure and rigour ultimately serves applied collaborative knowledge work better in the long run.

While cutting corners is not an option, forced rigour without context can mean marginal gains at disproportionate cost. Rigour must enable, not encumber, the pursuit of excellence. Teams that foster a culture where rigour flows from all participants, intrinsically and voluntarily, tend to find the sweet spot. Getting there requires clarity of purpose, patience, and care. Do that and rigour lifts the quality of collaborative knowledge work substantially over time.

What does rigour mean to you and your team?

Individual Mindsets vs. Collective Mindsets

February 2, 2024
Actionable Insights, Article, Capability development, Culture change, Innovation, Organisational effectiveness, Organisational Therapy, Paradigm shifts, Quintessence, Systems thinking
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Individual Mindsets vs. Collective Mindsets

We often talk about the need for individuals to change their mindsets – their assumptions, beliefs, and attitudes – in order to create positive change. But as human beings, we don’t exist in isolation. As the saying goes, we are social animals, shaped by the groups and cultures we are part of. So perhaps we might choose rather to shift more of our focus to addressing collective mindsets rather than just individual ones.

Schein On

Organisational psychologist and author Edgar Schein argues that culture stems from a group’s shared basic assumptions and beliefs. These collective ways of thinking and being manifest in organisational policies, processes and behaviors. If the culture has dysfunctional aspects, it perpetuates dysfunction. Merely helping individials adopt more productive mindsets without addressing the surrounding culture is an uphill battle.

For Example

Take a common example – trying to promote more innovative thinking in a risk-averse bureaucratic workplace. Telling individuals to “be more innovative” often backfires. When people attempt new ways of doing things, they get pushback for not following protocols. and Interesting ideas get shut down quickly by naysayers. There are no systems or incentives to support innovation. So you end up with frustrated employees, not actual innovation.

Organisational Psychotherapy To The Rescue

In contrast, #OrganisationalPsychotherapy seeks to invite folks into uncovering and transforming collective assumptions and beliefs – the mental models that shape systems and culture. By facilitating more awareness of existing culture and defining desired culture, interventions get better traction. Collective mindsets shift to be more supportive of stated goals, like innovation, making it easier for individuals to adopt those productive mindsets as well.

Summary

The key insight is that individual mindsets are downstream of collective mindsets. Without addressing dysfunctional aspects of culture and systems, individual change efforts face resistence from the surrounding ecosystem. This highlights the need to focus on group mindset factors first and foremost. Of course, individuals still have agency in driving any kind of change. But we’d do well to spend more time examining and evolving the shared beliefs and assumptions on which any organisation is built. For cultural transformation, that’s likely the most high-leverage point of intervention.

Postscript – Donalla Meadows’ Twelve Points of Leverage

In her influential article “Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System,” systems thinker Donella Meadows articulated 12 places within complex systems where a small shift can lead to fundamental changes in the system as a whole. Her framework offers guidance on how to approach system-level transformation, whether in organizations, societies, or beyond.

Meadows proposes 12 leverage points ranked in order of effectiveness, with the most high-leverage interventions at the top. The higher the leverage point, the easier it is to make major improvements to the system with minimal effort. Her list starts with more superficial leverage points around details like subsidies and incentives, then moves deeper into the fundamental goals, paradigms, and transcending purpose that underpin why a system exists in the first place.

The most powerful leverage points require a deeper, more courageous transformation. But they allow us to redefine the very reason a given system exists, enabling revolutionary redesign rather than incremental improvements. Meadows urges change agents to have the wisdom and patience to address the deeper paradigms, values, and purpose driving systemic behavior. As she concludes, “People who have managed to intervene in systems at the level of paradigm have hit a leverage point that totally transforms systems.”

In examining Meadows’ hierarchy of leverage points, we gain an appreciation for the depth of change required for true systems transformation. It inspires a more radical reimagining of what’s possible. The framework continues to provide guidance to sustainability leaders and organizational change agents seeking to effect large-scale improvements in business, government, technology, education and beyond. In this critical era facing many complex, planetary-scale challenges, Meadows’ words ring truer than ever as we work to create fundamental shifts towards more just, resilient and life-affirming systems.

The Era of Collaborative Knowledge Work

January 30, 2024
Actionable Insights, Antimatter principle, Article, Business, Collaboration, Culture change, Fellowship, Improvement, Management, Organisational effectiveness, Quintessence
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The Era of Collaborative Knowledge Work

Work dynamics have been evolving rapidly in recent decades. Back in 1959, management expert Peter Drucker coined the term “knowledge work” – jobs focused more on expertise application versus manual tasks. Today, many observe the economy shifting from industrial production to innovation through agile collaboration.

Fundamentally Different

The nature of work has fundamentally changed. We have shifted from an industrial economy largely based on manual labour to a knowledge economy increasingly based on intellectual collaboration. This transition invites a new way of looking at work, focused on both recognising and facilitating collaborative knowledge work (CKW).

In this model, cross-disciplinary teams come together to brainstorm and refine breakthroughs iteratively. Silos give way to fluid circles of contribution. Motivation stems intrinsically from the shared mission, not extrinsic rewards. Experimenting with unconventional ideas bears lower risk when paired with constructive peer feedback.

But embracing the CKW paradigm depends on adopting a distinctly different approach to work. How can groups establish norms where everyone feels comfortable contributing without fear of judgement or rejection?

Autonomy, Mastery and Shared Purpose

Part of the solution links back to aligning clearly around higher purpose. When autonomy coexists with shared accountability, inspiration untaps. Structuring reciprocal mentorship allows members to develop emotionally and motivationally while exchanging honest developmental guidance.

This differs drastically from the hierarchical command-and-control management style of the past century that was well-suited for manual labour but proves limiting for knowledge work. Managers can no longer simply dictate tasks and expect compliance. For collaborative efforts to thrive, managers must nurture a culture that empowers teams with autonomy while providing direction, support, and facilitation.

What About Management?

Those in the know recognise the incompatibility of CKW and the traditonal management paradigm. Yet, organistions intent on making the best of CKW are faced with transitioning away from the concept of management towards e.g. sefl-managing teams and fellowship. In essence, we’re talking about culture change. Here’s some guidance in that regard:

Guidance for Old-Guard Managers

For managers used to traditional modes of top-down management, adopting a collaborative approach invites a paradigm shift. Here are key ways to enable more participatory and productive knowledge work:

  • Provide transparent context and clarity around broader goals while giving teams discretion in determining how goals are achieved.
  • Cultivate constructive exchanges where all team members feel comfortable contributing ideas without fear of judgement.
  • Ask probing questions, identify gaps, and point to resources, not dictate solutions.
  • Focus on facilitating the collaborative process through conflict resolution, dialogue around communication norms, and adaptive coordination.
  • Champion new ideas that arise from the team and rally support across the organisation.
  • Evaluate performance based on the effectiveness of collaborative processes and quality of outputs.

Advice for New Managers

For those assuming their first management role, the collaborative approach may feel more intuitive. Still, translating intent into impact invites concerted learning. Here are some areas for new managers to consider:

  • Foster emotional intelligence to nurture relationships, understand different working styles and motivations, and resolve interpersonal friction.
  • Hone facilitative teambuilding techniques like liberating structures, engagement through powerful questions, and conversation mapping.
  • Promote inclusion by valuing diverse voices, ensuring equal opportunity for contribution, and mitigating dominant perspectives.
  • Develop fluency in digital collaboration tools and appropriate applications for remote and hybrid work settings.
  • Elevate and practice orchestrating for collaborative work.
  • Pay attendtion to the quality of interpersonal relationships and the overall social dynamic.
  • Attend to folks’ needs.

The CKW paradigm brings substantial promise and possibility but requires managers themselves to transform. By embracing this challenge, leaders can unlock unprecedented potential from today’s knowledge workers.

The future lies in fully unleashing human potential by connecting talent to shared missions. But practical change management matters. How might we reinvent team rituals and processes to make this vision an everyday reality? The answers will come collaboratively, through commitment to the journey of learning together.

The Fourth Quinlan Rule

January 24, 2024
Actionable Insights, Antimatter principle, Article, Attendants, Culture change
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The Fourth Quinlan Rule

The Bobiverse sci-fi novels (book 4 – Heaven’s River) introduce an alien race known as the Quinlans. The Quinlans teach their young three moral principles using metal analogies: the Iron Rule, the Silver Rule, and the Gold Rule.

  • Iron Rule: If you have more power than someone, you can treat them how you like. (Might makes right.)
  • Silver Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. (The so-called Golden Rule of human ethics – treat others how you want to be treated.)
  • Golden Rule: Do unto others as they would have you do unto them. (Treat people how they want to be treated, not just how you want to be treated – the platinum rule in human ethics).

So in order from basic/selfish to ethical/selfless:

  • Iron – Exercise power however you wish.
  • Silver – Treat others how you want to be treated.
  • Gold – Treat others how they want to be treated.

I strikes me that the Quinlans, and Theresa in particular, might have been interested in a fourth rule: the Antimatter Rule:

“Attend to folks’ needs.”

Like antimatter, the most explosive substance in the universe, this principle channels huge motivational power by focusing attention on understanding people’s needs.

Attending to Needs

By “folks,” the principle refers to all stakeholders affected – team members, users, customers, and more. And by “needs,” it addresses the spectrum of human requirements and motivations.

Rather than make assumptions, the Antimatter Principle asks us to clearly understand what really drives those we work with before taking action.

Honoring Needs Unlocks Passion

Attending to human needs taps into the fuel that ignites passionate human endeavor – our universal desire to feel heard, seen, valued. This empathy and understanding can transform collaborations.

In just four words, the Antimatter Principle captures a profoundly human-centric ethos. Understanding what inspires people provides a key to unlocking cooperation, innovation, and positive change.

What do you think about this principle? Could attending to folks’ needs power more constructive collaboration in your experiences?

The Hidden Hand of Shared Assumptions

January 24, 2024
Article, Business, Culture change, Memeology, Organisational effectiveness, Organisational Therapy, Paradigm shifts, Quintessence
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The Hidden Hand of Shared Assumptions

Behind many business failures and underperformance lies a common root cause – the unseen influence of collective assumptions and beliefs (and Cf. Rightshifting). Across organisations and even entire industries, leadership often clusters around shared perspectives, biases, and mental models. Over time, these become entrenched as accepted wisdom rarely challenged or revisited. This phenomenon profoundly shapes decision-making, typically outside conscious awareness. And flawed underlying assumptions can lead organisations astray, even unto the graveyard.

A prime example is the financial crisis. The model of endless housing price growth and low-risk securitized assets became so ingrained across banks that it created systemic fragility. The possibility of declines or instability was dismissed out of hand. Groupthink prevailed and warning signs were ignored. Until the flawed assumptions catastrophically collided with reality.

Every sector holds similar tales. In automotive, the assumption of an enduring petrol car dominance slowed electric investments. In medical science, the belief that ulcers resulted from stress delayed recognition of bacterial drivers. The corporate world is littered with shifting paradigms disrupting those clinging to outdated assumptions.

Why does this happen? Humans are sensitive to social signals and prefer perspectives validated by their peer group. This shapes unconscious biases and mental models. And perceived wisdom calcifies even where contrary evidence emerges. We must therefore consciously re-evaluate the collective assumptions within which we operate.

This is particularly crucial given rapid technological and social change. Assumptions rooted in fading reality misguide strategy. Herein lies opportunity for those recognising seismic shifts early. And grave risks for those dismissing disruptive forces based on yesterday’s truths. Separating enduring assumptions from emerging realities is key.

So let us examine just four detrimental assumptions embedded across businesses:

  • The concept of management is treated as an inherent good when in fact it can severely hamper organisations. Managers micromanaging and scrutinising employees’ every move often harms efficiency, stifles innovation, and breeds resentment amongst staff. The relentless oversight creates a tense working environment where workers have no autonomy or control. The reams of paperwork and interminable meetings generated by managers frequently add little value. Clearly, the assumption that more managers and more top-down control is always better fails to acknowledge the reality and the downsides.
  • The notion of concentrated leadership seems ill-founded. Centralising decision-making and strategy in a narrow elite risks disempowering the wider workforce. When employees cannot influence choices impacting their work, motivation and dedication suffers. Likewise, executives profiting lavishly from company successes while workers gain only stagnant wages breeds discord and weakens productivity down the chain. The contributions of a chief executive on a £10 million salary rarely outweighs that of a thousand dedicated employees. Concentrated power often produces conflict and fragility rather than thriving organisations.
  • The belief that exhaustive software testing is imperative leads projects astray. Developers waste huge sums of time and effort running code through endless minor variations with diminishing returns. There is little value testing every trivial feature adjustment to death. And users grow frustrated with delays and restrictions as programmers obsess over comprehensive testing. Pursuing flawless software typically proves counterproductive as no system is ever perfect – the goal should be usable products that can be iteratively improved.
  • The assumption that employees should be worked to exhaustion is clearly unsound. People do not enjoy unsustainable workloads and unreasonable deadlines. Pushing human resources to the brink often backfires rather than driving engagement and satisfaction. There are better ways to attract and retain talent than by running staff into the ground. And tired, overwhelmed personnel tend to see plunges in output and quality. Straining human endurance typically fuels turnover rather than powering success.

Many more detrimental assumptions can be found detailed in my book “Quintessence“.

The lesson is clear – we might choose to constantly surface and reflect upon ingrained assumptions before they lead us off a cliff. Momentum can quietly build behind outdated modes of thought right until environmental shifts expose systemic brittleness. As markets transform, so too must the underlying mindsets guiding business decisions.

Every Organisation Rules Out a Host of Beneficial Choices

January 24, 2024
Article, Business, Culture change, Memeology, Organisational effectiveness, Organisational Therapy, Quintessence
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Every Organisation Rules Out a Host of Beneficial Choices

Every organisation rules out choices that would markedly improve their bottom line  – due to entrenched assumptions.

All organisations have deeply rooted beliefs and assumptions that influence their decision making, often without people even realising it. These unquestioned ways of thinking can lead organisations to dismiss ideas, policies and practices that could significantly benefit them.

Many proven best choices around areas like compensation, flexibility, hierarchy, remote work, and sustainability get ruled out quickly in most corporate cultures. Not because the ideas lack merit, but because they don’t align with legacy notions of how business should operate. The prevailing managerial ideology acts as mental blinders, narrowing the overview of what’s possible.

For example, decades of belief in the primacy of shareholder value has prevented many companies from prioritising sustainability, even when a greener approach would bolster the bottom line. The assumption that purpose erodes profits still permeates boardroom thinking.

Similarly, the standard 9 to 5 office-dependent schedule gets virtually no pushback in some contexts due to deep-seated assumptions about productivity and supervision needs. Even when the growth of knowledge work makes location and set hours irrelevant. Assumptions lead organisations to miss a host of opportunities.

Key is bringing awareness to the unexamined collective beliefs that close organisations off to progress and performance-enhancing innovations. Progress depends on leaders willing to question legacy orthodoxies that no longer serve. A company’s entrenched perspectives ultimately impact hard business metrics. Routinely reexamining operating paradigms is essential to ensuring beliefs enable rather than obstruct impact and financial returns.

Organisational psychotherpy makes this possible in a low-risk fashion.

The next breakthrough idea could be waiting, if only long-held assumptions would get out of the way.

The Humanity at the Heart of Organisational Psychotherapy

January 24, 2024
Article, Compassion, Culture change, Organisational Therapy, Quintessence
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The Humanity at the Heart of Organisational Psychotherapy

Organisations are made up of people – complex human beings with emotions, dreams, fears, and relationships. Yet somehow, when we walk through the office doors each morning, we are expected to check our humanity at the door. The ostensible focus becomes targets, metrics, shareholder value – losing sight of the humans behind it all. (But also see: Your REAL Job).

Organisational Psychotherapy seeks to rebalance this by putting the person back at the centre of the workplace. Through simple techniques grounded in psychotherapeutic theory, it aims to create more humane organisational dynamics where staff can bring their whole selves to work.

Key Principles

Some of the key principles include:

  • Attending to folks’ needs (the Antimatter Principle)
  • Containment – providing a safe space for employees to process difficult emotions so they do not spill out destructively. Managers should offer non-judgemental listening and support.
  • Reflexivity – encouraging individuals and teams to reflect on their own behaviours and dynamics before making changes. This avoids knee-jerk reactions and promotes sustainability.
  • Role clarity – clearly defining responsibilities so no one feels asked to fulfil impossible expectations. This reduces anxiety and burnout.
  • The “good enough” organisation – perfection is impossible with human beings. Organisational Psychotherapy advocates aiming for “good enough” -and clearly stated – standards that make space for people to be fallible. This means focusing less on rigid metrics and idealised goals, and more on sustainable ways of working that protect staff health and wellbeing in an imperfect world. There is recognition that some days we can give 100%, while on others our energy and focus may falter – and both scenarios can be met with compassion rather than criticism.

Heart

At the heart of all of this is compassion – for ourselves and each other. Workplace stress often stems from a lack of self-compassion, driving harsh inner critics and causing us to lose touch with out humanity and the humanity of those around us. Creating work cultures built on mutual understanding and caring allows our organisations to more ethically support both staff and customers.

Organisational Psychotherapy Memes

The power of Organisational Psychotherapy memes speaks volumes about how desperately many organisations need more humane dynamics centred on understanding people. No matter how slick our processes, how smart our tech – an organisation relies on its people. Workers and managers alike deserve compassionate spaces where they can bring their authentic, complex, perfectly-imperfect selves to the table every day.

Further Reading

Trzeciak, S., & Mazzarelli, A. (2019). Compassionomics: The revolutionary scientific evidence that caring makes a difference. Studer Group LLC.

Marshall, R.W. (2021, December). Quintessence: An acme for software development organisations.

Slow on the Uptake: Why Society is Often Slow to Adopt Major Innovations

January 23, 2024
Alien tech, Article, Culture change, Innovation
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Slow on the Uptake: Why Society is Often Slow to Adopt Major Innovations

Human progress seems to advance in fits and starts. Many of history’s most important inventions and ideas took centuries or even millennia to be widely adopted by societies across the globe.

Writing systems, germ theory, vaccines, evolution – these revolutionary developments changed the arc of civilisation. Yet they struggled for acceptance despite ample evidence and the persistence of brilliant minds who championed them. Why is society so slow on the uptake for innovations that later prove to be game-changers?

Dominant Worldviews

As historian Thomas Kuhn explored in his seminal book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,” established scientific paradigms are notoriously resistant to evidence that contradicts their foundational assumptions and conventional wisdom. Findings that don’t neatly fit the dominant worldview face an uphill battle toward acceptance. Scientists and scholars may actively suppress or ignore discoveries that undermine existing consensus due to cognitive biases. Revolutionary concepts thus lie dormant for ages.

Enablers

Technological limitations also stall adoption until complementary advancements accumulate that allow applications at scale. The printing press enabled modern vaccination campaigns. Electric lighting powered factories adopting steam engines. Progress builds gradually across spheres.

Dogmas

Cultural and religious convictions add yet another barrier. Entrenched dogmas about humanity’s place in the cosmos delayed recognition of heliocentrism for almost two millennia. Evolution continues to meet public scepticism given its clash with ancient belief systems.

Modern global connectivity accelerates recognition and validation of emerging innovations. But inertia remains strong; it may still take generations for the path-breaking ideas of today – artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency, commercial space travel – to permeate societies around the world.

As organisational psychotherapy teaches us, even institutions and companies struggle to adapt to new paradigms that challenge traditional ways of operating. Stagnant bureaucracies are often buoyed by conformity and risk-aversion.

Human brilliance endows our species with ceaseless creativity. But receptiveness continues to lag the tempo of human invention. Kuhn and other historians help explain society’s chronic slowness to process paradigm-shattering developments. Open and equitable access to knowledge can perhaps narrow the stubborn gap between discovery and its widespread adoption.

US and THEM

January 23, 2024
Actionable Insights, Article, Collaboration, Community, Conversations, Culture change, Organisational effectiveness, Organisational Therapy, Quintessence
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US and THEM

In any human organisation, natural subgroups emerge from shared interests, backgrounds and experiences. While we might expect some clustering, problems arise when – as is common in tech organisations – an “us vs them” mentality takes hold between ingroups and outgroups.

Some common divides in tech companies include:

Ingroups

  • Engineers
  • Product Managers
  • Executives
  • Long-Serving Employees

Outgroups

  • Non-Technical Roles
  • Contractors/Consultants
  • Recent Hires
  • Remote Employees

Impacts

Divides often lead to biased decisions, limited information sharing, poor collaboration, feelings of disrespect, high turnover, groupthink and tokenism. Organisations fragmented by subgroups usually suffer as a result.

We’re All In This Together?

Rather than expecting executives and HR to fix these issues, employees at all levels have significant power to act.

Actions for Individual Contributors

  • Look into the basic phenomenon of ingroups and outgroups
  • Build relationships beyond your immediate team
  • Model inclusive language and behaviour
  • Call out subtle exclusion when you see it
  • Learn more about internal groups you don’t interact with often

Tactics for Teams

  • Set expectations for mutual understanding between groups (charters can help)
  • Invite rotation of cross-functional team staffing
  • Discuss observations about silo behaviour in retrospectives
  • Provide onboarding mentorships to new hires across the company
  • Avoid protecting the team (instead, seek mutual dialogues and benefits)

Folks who own the way the work works also play a crucial role too by implementing structural changes to connectivity. But culture shifts come largely from how rank-and-file employees relate, day-to-day. Each person can choose to reflect upon their language, decisions and behaviours that might be isolating colleagues and subgroups, and solidifying ingroup and outgroup divisions.

The end goal is a culture where people bring their whole, authentic selves to work (often risky), uniqueness stands out more than fitting in, and outsiders get welcomed rather than excluded.

What tactics have you found most effective for strengthening connections between workgroups? What benefits have you seen? Let’s exchange ideas in the comments!

Management Violence: The Last Refuge of the Incompetent

January 15, 2024
Article, Business, Culture change, Nonviolence
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Management Violence: The Last Refuge of the Incompetent

“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” This insightful quote from sci-fi legend Isaac Asimov succinctly captures a disturbing truth – that those in positions of power often resort to bullying, threats, and aggression when their own abilities fall short. Unfortunately, such “management violence” remains an all-too-common occurrence in workplaces today. In case your wondering just what I mean by violence, here’s my definition: What Is Violence?

Note the four horsemen of violence in the workplace: Fear, Obligation, Guilt and Shame.

Tools

From shouting matches in the boardroom to abusive emails sent in the dead of night, many managers still wield violence and aggression in the belief that these actions are a legimate and expected part of thier jobs.. They berated subordinates to divert attention from poor decision-making, hurl staplers in a desperate grab at authority, or issue unjustified threats of dismissal to paper over their lack of managerial competence. Given the near ubiquity of such violence, we can see how few managers are anything but hugely incompetent.

Inspiration Not Intimidation

Such behaviours undoubtedly emerge from a position of weakness, not strength. Truly effective managers (is that an oxymoron?) succeed through inspiration, not intimidation. They encourage excellence through positive engagement and earned respect – not fear. If violence is your management style, you’ve already failed. And marked yourself as amongst the truly incompetent majority.

Ubiquitous

In today’s workplaces, management violence can become seen as ubiquitous and even normalised. We expect that bosses will shout and threaten, rather than mentor and support. But we can choose to challenge these assumptions. Let’s never accept aggression as simply “part of the job”.

Behind every angry, desperate ahole of a boss, there lies a fundamental incompetence awaiting exposure. Their posturing attempts to conceal a shortfall in interpersonal, analytical and interpersonal abilities. Their bluster and manipulations ring hollow, unable to disguise their fundamental inadequacies as managers.

The lingering ubiquity of management violence therefore reflects the persistence of mediocre management in too many organisations. Companies can choose to take a stand by instituting clear anti-violence policies and programmes focused on ethical, compassionate management. Employees might choose to unite to call out unacceptable behaviours whenever they witness it.

Together, we can make violence the very last resort of the flailing, incompetent manager. The strengths of positive leadership, teamwork and progress must prevail.

Footnote

Given the near ubiquity of management and management violence, and its signposting of incompetence, is the real problem not individual managers, but the whole idea of “management”?

Further Reading

Hamel, G. (2011). First, let’s fire all the managers. Harvard Business Review, 89(12), 48-60. https://hbr.org/2011/12/first-lets-fire-all-the-managers

The Unconventional Success of W.L. Gore & Associates

January 14, 2024
Article, Culture change
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The Unconventional Success of W.L. Gore & Associates

Unconventional FTW

W.L. Gore & Associates, manufacturers of Gore-Tex fabrics and other innovative products, is a remarkably successful company that takes an unconventional approach to business. Founded in 1958 by Bill and Vieve Gore in Newark, Delaware, Gore has grown into a multinational corporation with over £2.5 billion in annual sales. However, what makes Gore stand out is its unique organisational structure and culture.

#NoManagement For Reals

Gore does not have traditional corporate hierarchies or chains of command. There are no assigned job titles or positions like president, manager, or supervisor. Instead, associates (as employees are called) become “sponsors” of new ideas and projects that align with Gore’s overall values. Interested associates join these product teams and small task groups. Leaders emerge based on knowledge and skill, not title or seniority. Every associate has the freedom to share ideas and participate in decision making. Compensation and advancement are based on teamwork and personal contribution.

Empowerment

This lack of formal structure, known as a “lattice organisation,” promotes creativity, flexibility, and collaboration at Gore. Without bosses hovering over them, associates feel empowered to develop new products that could become Gore’s next big innovations. The lattice fosters talent growth from within, as associates get chances to demonstrate leadership. With small task teams, issues can be solved quickly. Direct communication between all levels leads to better ideas and decisions.

Remarkably, this organisational model works very well for a £2.5 billion company. Gore has a talent retention rate of over 97 per cent and regularly ranks among Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For. Their products are very successful—Gore-Tex, for example, is one of the best-known waterproof fabric brands globally.

While unconventional, Gore’s lattice structure and egalitarian culture clearly cultivate high employee engagement, innovation, quality, and bottom-line results. The successes of this unique organisation serve as an inspiration that could change how more companies think about “standard” management practices. Perhaps some of Gore’s approaches are worth adopting elsewhere, and with outstanding results.

Ennui

January 13, 2024
Article, Culture change, Software development
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Ennui

Definition

Ennui is a feeling of boredom, dissatisfaction, and weariness stemming from a lack of excitement or meaningful activity. It’s a listless, apathetic state that can sap motivation and passion.

Timeline

Twenty, fifteen, even ten years ago there was tremendous enthusiasm amongst developers for fixing the world’s approach to software development. Conferences abounded. There was a palpable buzz in the air. New methodologies like Agile promised to revolutionise how software was built, moving away from rigid, documentation-heavy and micromanaged waterfall development. Open source software held the promise of democratising coding and enabling worldwide collaboration. There was electic excitement to leverage technology to improve lives and transform industries.

A Realisation

But nowadays, that enthusiasm has largely dissipated, replaced with ennui. The promises of improved productivity and quality have failed to materialise. Open source has become corporatised and lost its indie spirit. The realisation has set in that while software can improve things, technology alone can’t resolve systemic societal and commercial issues. And factors like offshoring, automation and “now, now, now!” cultures have decreased satisfaction levels across the industry.

Disillusion

This ennui manifests in high employee turnover, burnout from overwork, and developers questioning if they want to remain in the field. The passion that initially attracted many to software – the idea you could change the world through code – has been replaced with disillusionment. New approaches now feel gimmicky rather than groundbreaking. Technologies feel incremental rather than innovative. Opportunities feel constricted by business realities rather than inspirational. And quiet quiiting is everywhere.

Morale

The Covid pandemic has only heightened this ennui. Subsequent massive layoffs have left many talented developers unemployed or fearful for their jobs, hardly the climate to inspire passion. And trying to create and collaborate solely over video chats lacks the human connection and excitement that once flourished in dynamic office environments. People’s basic safety and stability needs have been imperilled, making it difficult to reach higher goals of self-actualisation and purpose.

Deeper Cultural Issues

It’s an open question whether the current ennui plaguing developers is just a phase or indicative of deeper cultural issues in tech needing to change (my money’s on the presence of deeper cultural issues). But rediscovering the excitement, freedom and purpose that once attracted people to software may be one way to counter the creeping cynicism and revitalise the industry. Tapping into that earlier enthusiasm is critical for retaining talent and enabling developers to create their best work. The alternative is the passionless status quo – something that benefits no one.

The Assumptions Underpinning Business Beliefs

January 12, 2024
Actionable Insights, Article, Culture change, Improvement, Organisational effectiveness, Organisational Therapy, Quintessence
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The Assumptions Underpinning Business Beliefs

“Have you ever asked yourself, what are the deepest principles upon which my management beliefs are based? Probably not. Few executives, in my experience, have given much thought to the foundational principles that underlie their views on how to organise and manage. In that sense, they are as unaware of their managerial DNA as they are of their biological DNA.”

~ Prof Gary Hamel

Professor Gary Hamel’s insight points to a common blind spot – the assumptions upon which we build our businesses rarely get examined. We take our beliefs for granted rather than questioning where they came from or evaluating their current relevance. Over time, unquestioned principles shape our strategic decisions, workplace culture and collective potential – and thus effectiveness – without our awareness.

Organisational psychotherapy offers one route to excavating the hidden shared assumptions that become ingrained in a company’s DNA. Through techniques like group reflection and dialogue sessions, teams can gradually bring unspoken belief systems to the surface. Often these are “stories we live by” – the narrative frames determining priorities, norms, success measures and more. Shining light allows us to reconsider if these beliefs still serve the organisation or if they hinder.

Just as individual leaders have inner beliefs steering their choices, so too do groups and organisations. The shared assumptions get passed down over years through habits, policies, legends and corporate mantras. They solidify into the “way things are done around here” until nobody bothers asking why anymore (if they ever did). And yet today’s business realities may require questioning everything we take for granted about how to operate, adapt and succeed.

I invite leaders to view organisational psychotherapy as an opportunity to unearth the stories we live by. Let’s open up today’s prevailing assumptions to inspection in the cold light of day. Do they still nourish the collective potential or constrain it? This work of examining our beliefs benefits from neutral, experienced facilitation rather than internal politics. Thereby we can evolve the organisational DNA to better thrive in tomorrow’s complex business ecosystems.

The principles we build our organisations upon end up building our organisational lives. What beliefs inform your company’s inner DNA right now? And are you willing to question their ongoing relevance with courage?