WYT— Worth your time October edition
Fall is upon us — that means warm tea, thick socks and Halloween decorations, at least in our part of the world. But it also means we are in the busy part of the financial year, with ways to go til Christmas and that summer feeling past for good.
A lot of our recent time has been spent exploring the core of evolutionary organizations. Places and communities that continuously change, morph and transform to fit the context and stay relevant. It’s led us down the path of purpose-driven organizations that are steered by clear guiding principles. While the benefits are clearly studied (and here, oh and in audio here), it’s a lot harder to find exemplary organizations that are really putting the theories to the test.
We call this column “worth your time” for a reason — so we went ahead and dug up exactly that — organizations that are truly living and obeying their guiding principles in every day practices and behaviours. Having spoken with many of them, it is clear that the road towards their purpose is full of bumps, side tracking and dead ends, but the ultimate devotion to not let corporate theater or unnecessary bureaucracy creep in, has kept them not only at the forefront of magazines, but also ahead of their competition.
- Koch Industries — Eight Principles that also guide principled acquisitions
2) W.L. Gore & Associates — 3 fundamental beliefs and 4 guiding principles are acted out in a lattice organizational set-up
3) Patagonia — clear “raison d’etre” keeps employee and customer loyalty high
4) Haier — Rendanheyi Model with a clear vision of thousands of microenterprises
5) Handelsbanken — Clear principles that give autonomy back to the branch
It might feel almost a little too trivial to talk about purpose and principles. Believe me when I say that it is the fundamental challenge worth taking. If you get completely honest and open with yourself and your employees around you, how would you do on the following tests:
- Grandmother test: Can you explain the purpose of your company or organization to your grandmother? Try it, for real. See if she gets it. If she doesn’t, chances are you’re full of corporate lingo and phrases that are too abstract for real life.
- Walking through the door test: Imagine you walked through the door of your office for the first time. Or you are a customer that has bought one of your products or services for the first time. Ask yourself this: Those principles that you proclaim to have and live by, how are they noticeable to those outsiders? Would an outsider actually be able to differentiate you from a competitor, not just by different logos and interior color palettes, but by behaviour and interaction?
- Bullshit Bingo: One of these mornings, take a piece of paper to work and each time you are involved in non-value-adding behaviour, a.k.a. corporate theater, make a little mark. Examples of corporate theater include, but aren’t limited, to:
- infomercial meetings where each function tries to push their KPIs and walks through endless presentation you could have read before
- a conversation where you or the counterpart doesn’t really listen, but just jumps in to make a point
- a project that isn’t solving any real customer pain anymore but due to sunk cost fallacy you’re still trying to get off the ground
- every time the answer to your question “did you get feedback from client/customer/consumer” is no
Changes are you quickly go over a handful of marks on your paper. How much is too much — you decide? But it’s an eye-opening activity to share with others, if you dare.
The conversation in business needs to take a turn away from commercial grandeur and hero leaders to reconnect with the larger purpose that can be lived and fulfilled through principles that aren’t dependent on a single, visionary CEO. Some of the examples above are on a good path to becoming continuously self-transforming organizations, evolutionary organization if you will.
What are you doing to catch up?
