ARTICLE
TEXT:
NO
RULES,rule
Traditions,
established mores and long-held beliefs and practices should
not be forgotten. However, in many instances, they should
be discarded.
Technology,
innovations and creativity represent the future. Significantly,
the future has arrived.
The
past should be recalled, reviewed, refined and yes, in some
instances, revered. Then it should be put to bed, retired
or archived.
GROUND-BREAKING,
GROUND-SETTING
The
current charge, charter and challenge for all management
teams are to establish, foster and provide support for a
host of small, open, flexible and motivated teams to explore,
discover, improve and introduce new products, services and
processes.
Necessarily,
the most appropriate team-members will be the individuals
who do not seek or are bound by rules, structures and strictures.
By
nature, they will need to be leaders (if not by title, certainly
by character) who are prepared to set, implement and maintain
new flexible rules. A healthy tolerance of risk and possible
failure will be imperative. So too with a willingness to
learn, as well as a predisposition to sharing, to celebrating
and acknowledging the contributions of others. That is,
a hive of activity in which everyone is contributing, being
committed and understanding their roles to create...wealth,
sales, satisfaction and development.
NO
BOUNDARIES
Cabals,
in-groups and concepts like being in the tent rather than
outside the tent have no place in the dynamic nature of
the optimal fast-evolving entities. Job descriptions will
be malleable and “territorialism” will rightly be deemed
to be a thing of the past.
RESPOND,
NOW
Hierarchal
structures and centralised decision making cannot respond
or make decisions fast enough to match the current rate
of change in the needs and expectations of consumers and
clients. As a consequence many businesses lag, become exposed,
vulnerable and typically falter.
The
nature and speed of change within the marketplace is typified
by the transformation of “word-of-mouth” to “word-of-mouse”.
The latter is an instant, comprehensive process which is
difficult to measure, monitor, influence or control, let
alone respond to.
Responses
that are required to negotiate layers of an organisation,
filters, blockages and egos are left in a shadow. That can
be a dark lonely place to find oneself.
STRUCTURES
The
good news is that now that the future has arrived bureaucracies
will only be the subject of interest to business archaeologists.
These quaint fossils and those who inhabit them will doubtless
fight for their retention and will revel in the rules and
inertia. Such entities and people will be the subject of
rightful distain and will confront the removal of funding.
We
will all be witness to “Take Two” of the concept of horizontal
organizations, in which everyone is a manager, responsible
for performance, client and customer satisfaction, continuous
learning and constant evolution.
Image.
“I am responsible for this and I will see it through to
your satisfaction” will be the only utterance that external
and internal customers will ever experience. Phrases like
“It's not my department” and “I don't have the authority”
will be disposed of, along with those incompetents and individuals
who are reluctant to take on personal responsibility.
NO
PLACE TO HIDE
The
new dynamic organisation will by nature be lean and definitely
not mean. There will be no fat. Nor will there be space
for the uncommitted to hide. Transparency and real-time
accountability will provide the feedback necessary to motivate
and to provide clarion-clear assessments of performance
and sub-optimal performance levels.
“A
designer knows he has achieved perfection
not
when there is nothing left to add, but when
there
is nothing left to take away”
-Antoine
De Saint-Exupery
WAKE
UP
No,
one is not dreaming, experiencing an out-of-body phenomena
or withdrawing from an encounter with some hallucinates.
This is a wake-up call. It's a brand new day, possibly the
birth of a new generation of businesses.
Support
infrastructures will be psychological rather than physical
or documented in countless procedure manuals, job descriptions
and policy statements.
TRUE
UNION
Business
owners, managers and teammembers will be in a true union
of endeavours, visions, beliefs, goals and action.
Refreshingly,
there will be no explicit or implicit threats for the team-members
to slow down and to work-to-rules. There will be no rules.
