Still thinking about 'smart growth,' and implications in my own world. I've been working on an organizational development initiative lately, developing and implementing a professional growth program with business unit managers. The curriculum offers no operational or technical competencies; instead it addresses the professional skills required for top-level management and executive leadership. The company is making an investment in their growth, which is, I admit to them, completely portable. They are free to take the skills they acquire into any aspect of their lives, and into a career with another company if they choose. The managers have to make an investment too -- the largest of which is letting go those beliefs we all treasure about ourselves, which ultimately hold us back in self-delusion. They have to take risks and be willing to become a perpetual student. Despite being asked to engage in a very challenging process, every manager has responded not only positively but enthusiastically. In their responses there is, perhaps, a hint of wonder as to why the company is doing this.
Obviously, companies invest in organizational development because they hope to attract qualified candidates, retain high performers, and increase the effectiveness of employees. Not a lot of mystery there. And yet.... the op/ed pages are filled these days with heated debate on the stratospheric bonuses on Wall Street. Certainly, investment firms have believed something quite opposite: you can only attract the best talent if you throw obscene amounts of money at the best and the brightest; extreme compensation is necessary to compensate staff for giving over their lives to the job; talent will leave unless you handcuff them with money. Inside the persistent Wall St worldview, I suppose this rationalization all makes sense. Yet, most other businesses realized long ago that money is not a motivator, and they routinely attract talented staff who give their all to jobs in which growth is measured not only financially but also personally and professionally. The proof of course is in the result, and I guess we can all now see that these Wall St beliefs have outlasted their results. They are still hanging on to definitions of growth that have ceased to function. "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it" (Upton Sinclair).
So, can we find a paradigm with organizational development that's extensible outside the company, that could transform the entire supply chain? It would be transformative to progress beyond a transaction-based relationship between the retailer & customer, or supplier & retailer (and maybe even contemplate the retailer enabling a supplier-customer relationship, without fear of disintermediation). If the measurement is not how much money one party has made off the other, but where both parties have gained, what could be different? Instead of being frustrated with suppliers who lack technological sophistication, perhaps we invest in helping them gain it -- more for both of us, and we'll risk the supplier using this to advantage with our competitors. Rather than a vendor scorecard that flags every failure, perhaps we should document the vendor's contribution to our growth, and spend more of our time understanding how that happens. Imagine a root cause analysis of exceeding plan: potentially, there's much more to be learned with this than with fault analysis, yet how often do we (ever?) interrogate successes?
Rethinking how the business connects with the consumer is more of a challenge - how many customers does any business really have, and how varied are their needs and goals? This will take some time, but we don't have to start from scratch. Most businesses have a lofty, socially-conscious mission statement. From it, they create the business plans and objectives, and the business becomes focused on achieving those measurements. The mission statement becomes a slide in the corporate Powerpoint deck. Chances are, if you go back and read that mission statement, your opportunities for smart growth are embedded in it.
Monday, February 2, 2009
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This is one of the most concise and cogent statements about growing a better, rather just bigger, business I've ever read:
"Most businesses have a lofty, socially-conscious mission statement. From it, they create the business plans and objectives, and the business becomes focused on achieving those measurements. The mission statement becomes a slide in the corporate Powerpoint deck. Chances are, if you go back and read that mission statement, your opportunities for smart growth are embedded in it."
But too, I wonder how we go about creating a smarter growth environment in an economic ecosystem that has been so poisoned by the irresponsible behaviors of so many economic actors? From Wall Street mortgage derivative traders to customers who abuse staff and then demand discounts or free merchandise for the trouble, we seem to have defined ourselves down to the lowest common denominator on a very large scale. I gather that what you suggest is in part investing the business process with a kind of educational/aspirational sensibility that might spill over, business to business, business to customer, etc. In thinking about it that way, it's clear that if ever there was a time for such an approach to the business process to succeed, it would be now. It very much is the time to dust off those mission statements. Responsible business models do succeed and do in fact allow people to make money. The problem lies in those times when, as in the last few decades, the sharks in the water are allowed to set the rules for the rest of us.
Regards,
Theo
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