Becoming ‘Future Fit’ Enough to Co-create Today’s Workplace

Brooke Erol Uncategorized

By Dawna Jones

“I am a human cyborg!” declared a manager to a colleague of mine. Though the statement was meant to confirm that there was no place for emotion in the managers’ world, at least in that company’s culture, in today’s world it means you are easily replaced by a robot. The assumption that the brain rules and emotions aren’t a part of decision-making or leadership is facing redundancy as fresh awareness embraces emotions as the platform for engagement and performance. But traditionally managed workplaces are designed on the assumption that emotional control (or is it repression?) supports logical rational reasoning. That is an illusion and not the only one blurring a clear view of reality. For leaders and companies facing uncertainty and an unpredictable future, fear of fear itself will mark the weakest link. So what is involved in becoming fit as new technologies or conditions demand immediate response?

On the path before you and every company is not a mere tweak in thinking. It is a mind-expanding journey that walks you through the badlands, as business forecaster Nancy O’Hara -Devereux so aptly described it in her 2004 book Navigating the Badlands. The ‘badlands’ are here and they lead to ‘good-lands’ providing growth and expansion is selected over fear and contraction. If you’ve ever overcome adversity or invested in your spiritual development you are better prepared than many.

Two qualities distinguish those who would see themselves as conscious aware sentient leaders distinct from the cyborg variety of human in business workplaces:

1) They bring more than their brain to work, engaging foresight, intuition and their creative spirit and,

2) They are insatiably curious with an open mind to learning and a persistent determination to break through stiff and fixed thoughts constraining flexibility and limiting knowledge.

A practical guide to the changing context of business and what it means to you is Future Fit , a workbook providing managers, emerging leaders and decision makers context and steps plus countless examples of companies embarking on the murky zone of transformation. Author Giles Hutchins has synthesized the work inside developing leadership consciousness, providing an arc of transformation both individuals and organizations can follow. No matter what lens you use to filter or interpret reality, you’ll find your lens wider after reading the book, even if you only read some of it.

Future Fit bridges yesterday’s worn out logic to a broader perception with the effect that you’ll have a much better chance of seeing what lies ahead. That’s a good thing since functioning successful in today’s world of complexity means using disruption to advantage to innovate and co-create the why, what, and how of work. The author articulately and successfully brings together a practical overview of the steps to attain a more responsible and higher level of leadership acumen. By advancing your consciousness and mindset you, collectively with others, gain the power to transform the company mission to a higher purpose that benefits all.

Sustainable businesses recognize they are part of an inter-related ecosystem and so put people before process knowing both agility and performance power is found in people. Decisions are made accordingly.

Would your company thrive if it considered the health of society in all decisions?

The touchstones for fitness cover seven modules:

Module 1: Metamorphosis in the Midst– “Flourishing future-fit business requires us to go beyond the surface and symptomatic into transforming mind-sets at deep and partly unconscious levels.”

Module 2: Firm of the Future –“…firms of the future apply living-systems logic to thrive in the volatile times ahead.”

Module 3: Shifting Logic– “Shifting our ingrained acculturated logic both personally and organizationally is no mean feat. The good news is that this shift is nothing more and nothing less than an opening up to who we truly are, resulting in more alive, creative, convivial, compassionate enterprises.”

Module 4: Personal Gnosis – “Transforming our organizations and improving our world starts with each of us taking personal responsibility for how we are relating with reality, the intention and attention we hold, and the way in which we relate with, lead and inspire others. This is the front-line in forming our firms of the future.”

Module 5: Organizational Gnosis – “Our prevalent corporate culture is inured in yesterday’s logic, enslaving ourselves, our teams and organizations in ways that undermine our humanity. The good news is that in opening up to a regenerative logic, our workplaces, relationships and cultures become purposeful, passionate, compassionate and creative places, enhancing our natural potential.”

Module 6: Leading Across the Threshold – “Amid increasing complexity, the journey toward a firm of the future requires multiple thresholds to be crossed, asking each of us to be conscious, courageous and compassionate leaders, leading from our heart while using our head.”

Module 7: Alchemy – Alchemy refers to the integration of the masculine and feminine essence that resides in each person regardless of gender and is expressed through organizational focus and interaction. It is the integration that replaces the separation observable in traditional workplaces. Siloes are made of separation; integration is the foundation to co-create, innovate collectively and across disciplines.

The underlying intent of Future Fit is about regenerative business referring to the idea that companies actually “creating the conditions conducive for life to flourish.” This is the opposite of traditional thinking where companies follow self-interest and singular benefit to, for instance, a return to shareholders at the expense of societal and environmental health.

Do regenerative companies exist? Indeed they do or at least those that are in a league by themselves aspire to achieve that goal. These companies left CSR behind a long time ago along with anything else that isn’t an integral part of how they think and make decisions. Nothing is bolted on for appearances sake. Regenerative business works with the entire system – the living system- as Joseph Bragdon describes in Companies That Mimic Life. Regenerative business also fits nicely within the circular economy resulting in boosted profit for companies savvy to the value of bringing input costs down to zero. It is just smart business. Recognition of the company as an ecosystem and living system is woven throughout the pages of Future Fit ultimately leading directly back to the evolution of human consciousness. The source and heart of leadership and a company’s future are rooted in the evolution of leadership consciousness. And that starts with you. Each person embarks on a personal journey of self-realization leading to fulfillment.

The road ahead is an exciting process of reinventing yourself in order to redesign the company to be fit for today’s challenges. Oddly enough, the solutions to the future lie in fundamentally simple principles. Grow yourself and everything else can then grow with you and through you. Exciting times we are in! Are you ready?

Dawna Jones is an organizational designer, speaker and workshop leader delivering insights, developing leadership consciousness (mindset) and decision-making skills fit for uncertainty. She sees the entire system and so supports internal change initiatives by observing the deep dynamics directing success. Her knowledge of complex system dynamics enables application of fresh and sticky approaches to transforming business workplaces and decision-making. Contact Dawna through LinkedIn or directly at www.FromInsightToAction.com

It’s Time to Stop Managing People!

Brooke Erol Uncategorized

by Bill Sanders, Principal and Sr. Consultant with Roebling Strauss

Have you ever felt “managed?” How would you describe the feeling? When I ask clients and their employees this, I usually get words like ‘manipulated,’ ‘controlled,’ ‘coerced’ and ‘sold.’ I can’t recall ever receiving a positive synonym as a response.

And yet we wonder why we have 68% of the U.S. workforce disengaged. The better question, based on prevailing management mindsets, is how did we end up with 32% of the workforce engaged at all?

After all, if employees are being manipulated, controlled, coerced and sold for 40-50 hours or more each week of their lives, how to they manage to engage in anything other than gossip, depression, boredom and stress?

Networks are Surpassing Hierarchies

We’ve had both hierarchy and networks within companies since the first three-person firm. The network has primarily served to grease the gears of the hierarchy. The network is no longer an end run around the communication system; it is the communication system. The network is no longer about getting a one-off favor from another department; it is getting work done with that department every day. (For and in-depth look at where this is leading, see my GWC colleague Rod Collins’ book Wiki Management.)

If we want to maximize our employees’ potential, and thus our department and company’s potential, we are going to have to adapt to this new reality. One of the first things that needs to change is our mindsets.

Lead People, Manage Things

One of the first mindsets we’ll need to change is about what it means to be a manager. I firmly believe that you can only manage things, not people. Things have no agency, no agenda, no independent will. You can push things, replace things, and force things to serve in ways that were not intended and the result is either it worked, or it didn’t.

People do have agency, agendas, and free wills; along with goals, dreams, worries, responsibilities, hopes, and emotions. You can push, replace and force them as well, but even when you reach your goals, the result is damage. Damage to the relationship, to morale, to trust.

A Different View of Management

I believe our responsibility as managers is to manage the work, not the workers. We are there to prioritize the work, remove obstacles, obtain necessary resources, provide air-cover, and increase the capacity, knowledge, and experience of the individuals on the team. We are there to help design the most effective processes and deploy the most effective tools.

The two-way street that was the Employer/Employee social contract is over. The vast majority of people working in private industry are not going to work 40 years for the same company and retire with a reasonable pension.

The next generation is due for even more uncertainty and turbulence in the job market. Employees entering the workforce today are going to change industries multiple times, not just jobs. If we want to stay competitive, relevant, and attract and retain the best talent, it’s high time that we as owners, executives and managers begin creating a new two-way street. We need a new contract focused on the overall health of the organization, not just the bottom line.

Responding to the Trends

We are going to have to stop treating people as fungible. We are going to have to stop promoting people into management positions with no training because that’s the only way we can justify giving them a raise. We are going to have to stop treating people as objects.

We are going to have to develop new tools and processes to drive real performance. We are going to have to develop new mental models of what it means to be a manager, to be a leader, to be a team member. We are going to have to reprogram our processes, rewards, and culture to adapt to the new reality.

Or, one day soon we are going to find ourselves wandering down the street with our proverbial white file box of personal desktop items and our red Swingline stapler wondering what happened.

Bill Sanders is Principal and Sr. Consultant with Roebling Strauss, a operational strategy consultancy that specializes in delivering dramatic improvements in organizational effectiveness, and Lead Link of the Finance Circle for Great Work Cultures, a community dedicated to creating a new norm for work cultures that optimize worker effectiveness and human happiness. Connect with Bill on twitter at @technacea.

Everyday Courage in Organizations

Brooke Erol Uncategorized

 

When you think about courage at work, what comes to mind? Maybe it is fire fighters going into a crumbling, burning building to rescue people. Or our armed services deployed overseas, facing the threat of injury or death every day. Or even a pilot safely landing a plane on the Hudson River in critical conditions.

For me, the first image that comes to mind is taking one of the first flights back from New York to home in San Francisco after 9/11/2001. For a few days, no flights had taken off from New York as experts raced to understand and adapt to a new threat of items in our day to day experiences being weaponized. Throughout the flight, all passengers were told to stay in their seats. This wasn’t a recommendation, as it sometimes feels today. We were being closely watched by the multiple air marshals on the flight. After the plane safely landed, the flight crew hugged each other, the tension and relief evident on their faces.

These are examples of physical courage. Although most of us do not have working conditions that place us in harm’s way on a daily basis, we can recognize and appreciate the courage of those who do.

A simple working definition of courage is “the ability to do something that frightens one”. If we are being honest (or self-aware), what scares us goes well beyond the threat of physical harm. Indeed, psychological fear is probably much more prevalent for most of us than fear for our physical safety. Let’s call managing this fear and moving ahead anyway “Everyday Courage”.

One of the ways that we have the opportunity to experience and enact Everyday Courage is in standing up for our values. Bullying is all too prevalent in our organizations, as it is too in other parts of our society. In fact, 20 years of studies by Christine Porath and others suggest that 99% of people have either experienced or witnessed incivility in the workplace. Taking a stand against toxic behaviors – whether toward ourselves or others – is an important and inspiring form of Everyday Courage.

We also express Everyday Courage in what we stand for, not just what we stand against. When we take action to create change without authority, we can often be entering into psychologically threatening territory. It is likely that all of us have experienced being excited about an idea we have had, that we think will really help a colleague, our team or organization, or other stakeholders. It is equally likely that we have experienced our idea being rejected. In some cases, we may also have had our wrists slapped for making the effort. Stepping on invisible landmines in organizational politics can be treacherous!

It is not pleasant to experience these mini (and sometimes not-so-mini) electric shocks from the organizational system. It is tempting to internalize them as a message to stop trying to make a difference. After all, as any parent or leader knows, we humans respond to pleasure and pain as we learn behaviors. We learn to do what earns us pleasure (or praise, or a bonus, or intrinsic satisfaction), and we learn to avoid what brings us pain (or criticism, or rejection). I believe that this cycle is a significant contributor to so many people checking out at work. Sure, they show up, but they stop trying to make a difference. Or, worse still, they ally with those knocking down the folks who are still trying. Because it is so much easier (i.e. Requires much less psychological courage) to be a Monday morning quarterback than the guy (or girl) on the field trying make plays.

So what can you do to bolster Everyday Courage in your organization?

1. Give yourself – and others who try to make a positive difference – credit for your efforts. This is an act of Everyday Courage. By giving this behavior this label you are narrating a positive identity for yourself and others. In doing so you are bolstering the resilience needed to keep going even when you run into resistance.

2. Prepare yourself psychologically for the interaction. The father-son team of Robert and Ryan Quinn suggest asking yourself four questions to help enter the “fundamental state of leadership”. What is the result you want to create? What do other people think about this? Who would I be in this situation if I lived up to the standards I expect of others? What are 3-5 strategies I could employ here?

3. Build your skills at creating change without authority. When plotting how to advance your idea, my co-author Jerry Davis and I recommend you consider four factors: When to move ahead? Who are the allies I need on board? Why is this a good idea for the people (and organization) affected? How should we organize around this?

Thank you for everyday courage in making a positive difference in your organization and the world. You inspire me!

Chris White (@leadpositively, leadpositively.com) is managing director of the Center for Positive Organizations (@PositiveOrg) at the University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business.

Resolve to Lead Differently

Brooke Erol Culture, Future of Work, Leadership, Management, Uncategorized

By Michael Edgley, Business Consultant and Facilitator, HPWP Consulting

At this time of year, many of us make New Year’s resolutions to live a healthier lifestyle, break bad habits or to develop better relationships. These are important changes to be sure, but with one third (or more) of our time invested at the office, what about resolving to be a better leader?

As Baby Boomers retire and Millennials become major contributors in the workforce, leaders must adapt. Successful leaders will need to create a culture where employees feel respected and valued and where they can contribute their best work every day.

Looking ahead to the new year, here are 5 ways leaders can take action to lead differently.

1. Redefine your role as a leader: In my work as a coach and trainer of a unique leadership approach, I find that leaders at all levels are spending the majority of their time on administrative and technical tasks and very little time leading. This reveals a focus on check-the-box activities and it’s an epidemic in leadership ranks. If you want to lead in a more meaningful way, start with establishing a new role for leadership.

Leaders should be focused on how to train, develop, coach, motivate and inspire team members to perform at their very best. Eighty percent of what a company does can be done equally as well by the competition, therefore your competitive advantage is the other 20% which is your people. Yet we don’t spend enough time developing them. We get so caught-up running the business that we overlook our most valuable asset, our people. When we focus on developing people, the result is improvement in every metric. Invest in your team and they will invest in you.

2. Engage and involve team members: Do you ever think or say things like “I wish the team were more engaged”, “If they would only do more” or “They only do enough to get by”? The question high performance leaders ask is “How can I involve the team to make our business better”?

I don’t know why, but as soon as you put a leadership title on someone they think they must control everything or have all the answers. The majority of the workforce is smart, trustworthy people who actually know the job better than their leader. The vast majority want to be successful and want the company to perform. When problems arise, it makes sense to turn to the team to find the solution.

Recently, I was helping a client achieve their goal of creating a high performance culture. Some initiatives were going well, but they were having trouble in two important areas—communication and team morale. The remedy was to create employee action teams with a specific and measurable charter to address these problems. Once the employee teams completed their assignments, not only did they come up with better solutions than what management would have, but they also wanted the next assignment they could work on.

Think of it like this: participation breeds commitment and commitment breeds success. When you involve people they are more likely to be committed to the success of the project versus just being compliant.

3. Communicate openly: In nearly every company where my team and I work, we ask what areas need to be improved. Communication is always in the top three. If you want to be a better leader, start with how you communicate and share information.

Traditional leaders tend to keep the team informed on a “need to know basis”, but this only keeps them guessing or making assumptions about what is really going on. In contrast, be open and direct with the real challenges and issues in the business—don’t keep secrets. When the team sees that you are open and honest with them, they will be more open and honest with you. Share information freely and as a result you will find that people will step up to help solve problems.

Several years ago, I was challenged with leading an operation that was struggling to be profitable. As I started to understand why, I noticed that there was no discipline around the dollars being spent compared to budget. As I met with the team, I found that no one was aware of the financial state of the organization. By having open and honest communication about the financial information with them, it changed the behavior of leaders and team members alike. As a result we took a struggling, non-profitable location to being profitable in less than a year.

4. Show you believe in people by setting high expectations: At one time or another, most of us have been guilty of saying, “Just do the best you can”. When a project fails or a deadline is missed the response is “Well, I did the best I could”, which is exactly what we asked them to do. The reality is, people are capable of far more and when challenged, will do more. Far too often we expect the minimum performance or status quo. However, when you challenge people and convey your heartfelt belief in their abilities, they will rise to the occasion.

I was guilty of saying “Just do the best you can” not only to my team, but to my kids. I didn’t realize that my words were contradicting my true belief in their potential to be successful. As I began to challenge them and convey my belief in them, not only did they start to do better—they excelled. As they became successful, they had the desire to continue and were motivated by their accomplishments. It was a tough lesson to learn as a parent and a leader.

When you focus on your true purpose as a leader—to train, develop, coach, motivate and inspire—your expectations are far more than “Do the best you can” and your team will appreciate you for it.

5. Get to know your team: Every day we ask people to do remarkable things to make our organizations successful. We ask them to work extra hours, increase productivity, and meet daily goals while short-staffed. Too often, we do all this without really knowing them as a person. There is nothing that devalues a person more than feeling like they are just a number.

The people who work for us have real things going on in their lives outside of work. They have families, financial challenges, illness, and crises from time-to-time. If you want to be a more impactful leader and create a positive environment where people want to come to work, invest in getting to know your team. Find out who they are, what drives and motivates them, what goals they have and what things they enjoy doing outside of work. When people see that you care, they are willing to go to great lengths to support the company.

You can start this by having one-on-one meetings where team members talk about what is on their mind. It is not a meeting where leaders talk about what they want. This is an opportunity to listen and ask questions to get to know people on a deeper level, creating bonds of trust.

Being a leader is hard work. There are many different hats we wear on a daily basis while continually looking ahead at the things we can be doing to be better. You’re going to lead anyway, so why not lead in a way that brings you satisfaction, is more effective and builds up people around you? You can. So why not resolve to make the coming year great?

About the Author: Michael Edgley, Business Consultant and Facilitator at HPWP Consulting, has effectively lead teams for over 30 years with a focus on operational performance and workplace culture. He’s deeply committed to helping leaders achieve results by engaging team members.

What is a leader to do? Find the right questions.

GWC Editor Leadership

by Patricia Lustig

If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.
~Albert Einstein

It’s a big mess out there. In fact, it is probably several messes, all inextricably linked. How does a leader make sense of it all? How do you find a way to navigate through the mess and make reasonable, robust decisions?

We are in the UK, yet the world is so interconnected that things like Brexit and President-Elect Trump affect everyone, no matter where we live. I was with the Board of a social enterprise (a regional housing association) during the two days pre-and post the US election, working on their strategy for the future. With the realization that Trump had been elected, the team surfaced on the post U.S. election morning looking like an animal caught in the headlights. The unthinkable had happened. What do we do now? What does it mean?

They looked at the work we had done on the previous day with a different perspective and considered what all this might mean to their stakeholders. What did the results of Brexit and the U.S. election mean to their current environment? In the first minutes of the morning after Trump’s win was announced, they touched on helplessness in the face of the unthinkable. Then their brand-new leader asked a question: “How might we find opportunities in this space? How might we do things differently? What if we weren’t JUST a housing association – what could we do that might be win/win?”

Continue…

Sustainable Motivation for New Year Resolutions

GWC Editor Goal Setting

by Chris White

As this year winds down and the new year approaches, many of us are reflecting and setting new goals. Maybe we want to get a new job, or form closer relationships with partners, colleagues, or friends. Maybe we want to get more involved in helping our communities. Maybe we want to get fitter or healthier (this is mine, by the way… again…).

Our underlying motivation for these goals is crucially important in determining whether we will be stick with the pursuit of a goal or not. So often when setting goals, we focus on what we want to do and do not dig into why we want to do it. Yet it is this deeper self-reflection that drives sustained commitment to a new habit or behavior. Michelle Segar, a faculty associate at the University of Michigan’s Center for Positive Organizations, has called this process “finding the right why.”

So what is the right why? “People are more motivated by immediate rewards than they are by ones they have to wait to experience,” says Segar. In other words: when debating whether to lace up your running shoes, thinking about the endorphin rush coming your way in 30 minutes is often a more sustainable motivator than living a little longer in thirty years. This translates to organizational goals too. If you are considering organizing a team-building activity, focusing on how fun it will be may encourage better attendance than emphasizing that the group might experience less turnover or burnout next year.

Segar suggests four action steps to begin applying the Right Why to changes you want to make in 2017:

Continue…

5 Ways to Expand Leadership Consciousness for Great Workplace Cultures

Annie Snowbarger Culture

By Dawna Jones

Monday, August 8th, 2016 we used up all the resources generated by Earth in a year. Humanity’s annual demand for what nature can generate for our existence has been exceeded. Out of what Earth generates, according to the “World Resources Institute (WRI), roughly one-third of all food produced worldwide, worth around US$1 trillion, gets lost or wasted in food production and consumption systems.” Reliance on a linear model of production has resulted in an estimated $70 billion worth of rare earth minerals in landfill from discarded electronics. In the U.S. 58% of energy produced is wasted. Concurrently, as if hypnotized, companies strive to make quarterly revenue targets wasting even more energy: Nature’s and human potential. Expanding leadership consciousness to create workplaces where people can contribute full throttle is the highest leverage for business to do better for society, the economy and for all of life. Business leadership and commitment could do much to create prosperity and abundance.

In Seizing the Executive Imperative to Expand Consciousness I described the leadership consciousness gap as a chasm between an old view of the world, where linear and analytical thinking worked to make sense, and today’s reality, where business faces bigger, more complex issues. Decisions are still being made using habits and beliefs that resist innovation and constricted by fear. Yet in forward thinking companies of all ages, a higher order of thinking and caring is being activated.

Humungous planetary and social issues are propelling business smack into a collision course where seeing systems is a requirement, not optional. What skills do leaders at every level need to redefine company value and contribution as a measure of its capacity to sustain life on the planet as a whole?

Read the rest of the article here…

About the Author:  Dawna Jones sees the underlying forces impacting what you see on the surface. She works with leaders and decision-makers to update skills and expand access to their wider intelligence. Working with individuals, teams, companies or at a global level gives Dawna insights into scaling mindset, innovation and transformation through leadership and decision-making. Contact Dawna on her website or follow her on Twitter.

Seizing the Executive Imperative To Expand Consciousness

Annie Snowbarger Culture

By Dawna Jones

Are company decision makers setting executives up to fail?
Or is something else going on?

Fifty to seventy-five percent of newly hired executives fail in the first eighteen months. Apart from predictable reasons such as inadequate formal development, absence of coaching during the adjustment combined with insufficient understanding of the role, executives, experienced or not, are no longer standing on anything resembling familiar territory. The entire context is changing fast. So fast that you cannot assume anything from the past, apart from your ingenuity, applies. Increasing complexity makes mockery of past practices or best practices particularly when dealing with surprises such as tech innovations obliterating business models overnight. It’s the fork in the road separating old paradigm leadership consciousness with the choice to dive deeper into expanding consciousness and leadership built for complexity.

An Overview of the Consciousness Levels – Leadership Mindset

Richard Barrett defines consciousness as ‘awareness with a purpose’. From my personal experience awareness is the driver of decisions and all actions, whether you are aware of it or not. When you are not aware, it is hard to achieve personal and professional fulfillment. Instead, you wind up doing the same things over and over again until a new and scary experience interrupts all assumptions about how the world works. Marital meltdowns or loss of financial security are two of the many ways offering a chance to rethink and refresh perception of your world.

Bill Torbert’s model, ably described by MetaIntegral Associates, complements earlier work done by Richard Barrett mapping consciousness developmentally (and fairly predictable organizationally). Vlatka Hlupic’s recent research on leaders mindset builds on a similar foundation, not surprisingly since being human is the common thread. The conclusions in Torbert’s work point to U.S. adults and refer to what people actually do when confronted with issues of power and timing, which are equally relevant in personal and professional working relationships.

Roughly speaking the levels break down into what decisions are focused on. (See HBR for the full article or MetaIntegral.)

Read the rest of the article here…

About the Author:  Dawna Jones sees the underlying forces impacting what you see on the surface. She works with leaders and decision-makers to update skills and expand access to their wider intelligence. Working with individuals, teams, companies or at a global level gives Dawna insights into scaling mindset, innovation and transformation through leadership and decision-making. Contact Dawna on her website or follow her on Twitter.

 

Pivoting Decisions to Avoid Sabotaging Business Profitability

Annie Snowbarger Culture

By Dawna Jones

Making money in business isn’t what it used to be. Exponential entrepreneurs move an idea from startup to billion-dollar company in short order. Business models are easily rendered irrelevant. Why are so many companies sticking to routine business making decisions as if nothing has changed, as if complexity has no impact? What do upstart startups, select mid-sized companies and agile business units of large companies see others don’t?

Is Profit the Result or the Means for our Business to Achieve Bigger Goals?

On every executive decision maker’s list of priorities you will find three priorities: increase revenue, mitigate risk and cut costs. Yet, hidden decision-making habits sabotage achievement of those same goals.

That is exactly what is happening when decisions are based on one glaring and flawed assumption: profit is the purpose of a business. A narrow focus is too narrow a frame in the context of complexity, where relevant data exists beyond view. Companies restrict and limit growth, leaving employees disengaged, but busy. Without a wider lens to see the big picture, the default is to solving problems and putting fires out. Instead, converting problems into business opportunities inspires engagement.

Assumptions are beliefs, sometimes rigidly held, assumed to be true but they might not be. While useful to compensate for insufficient information, left unexplored or unnoticed, assumptions increase risk and obscure clarity. In the traditional way of thinking, profit is the result of a company’s endeavour. In the contemporary mind, profit is the support a company needs to achieve something bigger. Fulfill a vision. Contribute something significant to the world.

If making grand assumptions is one risky routine habit, what else sabotages profitability?

Read the rest of the article here…

About the Author:  Dawna Jones sees the underlying forces impacting what you see on the surface. She works with leaders and decision-makers to update skills and expand access to their wider intelligence. Working with individuals, teams, companies or at a global level gives Dawna insights into scaling mindset, innovation and transformation through leadership and decision-making. Contact Dawna on her website or follow her on Twitter.