Exponential Organizations: CULTURE - Part 2
**Note: If you haven’t read Part 1 of this post please find it here:
In the words of Benjamin Franklin, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
In Part 1 I suggested “the need for a connective mesh to align and synchronize the left and right sides of the brain.” I shared the question we hear most often which is “how do we connect IDEAS to SCALE” while still running our business? This mesh is embodied by the acronym CULTURE and provides a blueprint to prepare your organization for this paradigm shift. Â
The CULTURE framework introduced below, will ensure that your board, your executive team, your employees and even your customers and shareholders are aligned and, at some level, taking responsibility for the success of this work. Take the time to allocate the appropriate budget and personnel to your ExO implementation project. Evolve your CULTURE, adopt the appropriate attributes of SCALE and IDEAS and become 10x more productive than your peers. Â
The disruptive nature of an ExO implementation will often trigger the “organizational immune system.” Consider the acronym CULTURE as the groundwork that will help to alleviate this attack. Culture is a widely discussed concept in organizational and communications theory. Few would argue that it is the culture of an organization that will impact its willingness to adopt new ideas, to evolve and to perform at the level required to foster innovation.
“Findings also suggest strong correlations between the success of change programs and whether culture was leveraged in the change process — pointing to the need for a more culture-oriented approach to change.”1.
The people, process and technology that are the lifeblood of an organization must be simultaneously nurtured, empowered and inspired. The attributes defined below provide a plan to engineer the DNA of your organization and prepare it for the transformative potential of ExO.
C - Communication Framework U - Unified Vision L - Life/Work Balance T - Training + Mentoring U - Utility Players R - Reading + Writing E - Expectations
Communication Framework: Good communication is undoubtedly the single most important aspect of any collaborative endeavor. From marriage and friendship to sports to online gaming to the business world and beyond, if communication isn’t effective and efficient, chances of success are severely limited. There are volumes upon volumes of research, discussion and practical plans for enhancing organizational communications. That said, here are a few key tenets to consider when developing a practicalÂ
Communications Framework: 1. Transparency - no back-office, closed-door communications. Get it out in the open and seek consensus. Even if, in the end, you need to make an executive decision, people will feel validated that they’ve had input and been considered as a valuable part of the process. 2. Democracy - Everyone should have the opportunity to present their suggestions for resolving problems within the organization. This is not an invitation to complain but rather and opportunity to present a problem and a suggested solution, and/or ask for help/feedback/insight from the larger group on how that problem could be addressed. 3. Processing - Ideally, this should be a core process in a regularly scheduled, formalized meeting. The problem will not be solved in the meeting; it will be “processed.” A problem, or “tension” in the terminology of Holacracy, is considered processed when the person who brought it up feels they have the necessary information, resources and/or path to resolution at some point in the future. 4. Efficiency - Don’t try to solve every problem in every meeting, instead ensure the problem is understood and use the support and insight of the team to turn the problem into a project. Ask for a volunteer (doesn’t necessarily need to be the person who raised the issue) to take responsibility and ensure they have the resources necessary and understand the level of priority the project has as part of their other responsibilities. 5. Accountability - Accountability in a democracy is vital. A person who brings up a problem and has it “processed” takes on the responsibility and accountability to ensure that the problem, which should be treated as a Project, continues moving toward resolution. “Project Check-in” should therefore also be a core tenant of your meetings.
Unified Vision: For any change to be effective and have the capacity to transform your organization is it imperative that it grow from a Unified Vision and Mission. This concept speaks to strong leadership and the alignment of the executive team to support change initiatives. Ideally, this will grow from the communication of your Massive Transformative Purpose. Other collaborative ways to ensure this cultural shift are to request feedback and insight at every level of your organization. It can be overwhelming but there are many ways to achieve this, ask me how.
Life/Work Balance: The first things people think when they hear “change” are 1. I’m going to lose my job and 2. This is going to make more work on top of my currently responsibilities. The key to gaining support and buy-in is to ensure communication is clear. Share a transparent view of how changes will impact workload and current responsibilities. If there will be a short term increase in work followed by significantly increased capacity and efficiency, well then, that is a story worth telling. The important piece is to be able to stay “on plan” and actually achieve the goals that you set out to achieve. We can help.
Training + Mentoring: Training and mentoring will allow you to create knowledge and technical redundancy (especially in key areas) and also to motivate and empower existing staff. Teaching and sharing the specifics of a job function is a compelling reason to evaluate and document the roles and responsibilities of each position in your organization. This is a fantastic way to uncover processes (and people) that are both hugely valuable as well as those that are inefficient and redundant. From the standpoint of the trainee, this is a chance for career advancement and self-actualization. Maslow2 would be proud.
Utility Players: Many recent studies have shown that the millennial workforce (as well as the generations behind them) will not remain with a single job or company for very long3. This also relates directly to the notion of Autonomy in the IDEAS acronym. In combination with Training and Mentoring the ExO, and Holacracy, agree that the availability of various roles, responsibilities and projects will mitigate the “wanderlust” of many employees by offering them challenging and varied problems to solve within their own organization. Include an element of gamification to promote competition, enhance employee social capital and even tie it to compensation to watch the innovation bloom.
Reading and Writing: Your organization has a deep knowledge base, create your own army of Evangelists. Facilitate the knowledge economy from the top down. Create a real or virtual library of books, blogs and other content specific to industry practices, general business, leadership, organizational change and more. Gamify by offering points for employees who write commentary, blog posts or articles or create their own videos. This will drive value for your sales and marketing teams as well as positioning your organization as a thought leader. Not just the CEO or the well-paid Evangelist, but each and every employee, contributing, learning and finding both direct and indirect reward from participating.
Expectations: Manage them. People perform when they know what is expected. What does success look like at every level, for every project and every role? When people understand success the entire community becomes aware and generally intolerant of non-performance, inefficiency and lack of integrity. Again there are many ways to encode this into the DNA of the organization and we can help.
Exponential Organizations was named the 2014 Growth, Innovation and Leadership (GIL)Book of the Year4 by the prominent research firm Frost and Sullivan. The work is elegant in its simplicity, transformational in practice and potentially complex in its application. We hope the framework above, in combination with the ExO book will provide a path to allow you to keep up with the pace of technological and organizational change. The Massive Transformative Purpose of ExO Advisors is to “Empower the Evolution of Organizations and People”. We look forward to hearing from you.  Josh Camire @jscamire Managing Director ExO Advisors www.exoadvisors.com @exoadvisors
Resources and references: 1. http://www.strategyand.pwc.com/reports/cultures-role-organizational-change 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs 3. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/06/millennials-job-search-career-boomers/395663/ 4. http://www.exponentialorgs.com/news/exponential-organizations-wins-business-book-of-the-year-2014-award-4659
