Most organisations subscribe to the hero approach. They believe that making better organisations means ‘fixing the people’.
There is a billion dollar training and development industry out there that is predicated on the need to ‘fix’ leaders. Leaders are sent on endless leadership development programs. They are taught to understand themselves. They are taught emotional intelligence. They are taught conflict resolution skills.
And when something goes wrong in their organisation, they are blamed.
What if there was nothing wrong with our leaders?
What if there is something wrong with our organisations?
Maybe if we designed our organisations better we could create environments where people really could be the best that they can be. Every employee comes to work to do their best. Most employees do their best – in spite of the organisational impediments put in their way.
Building an organisation that is highly productive and functional is like building a house. During the process of laying our wooden floor boards, we get friction if we lay one on top of each other. If we leave gaps then things will ‘fall through the cracks’. If we laid the boards evenly then there would be no friction and nothing would fall through the cracks. Inside the organisation, there is conflict when two people both think that it is there job to do a task. Inside their organisation, there is conflict and blame when a task that needed doing was not done.
If we were clear on accountabilities – who is doing what – inside an organisation then we wouldn’t have to send people to conflict resolution training – we simply design out the conflict.
For a functional organisation there is a requirement for quality people to be working inside a well-designed organisational infrastructure.
If neither the organisation is well designed and the people are unskilled – we have dysfunction.
If we have a poorly designed organisation but well trained people we have a ‘hero’ culture. It is like asking a Formula 1 racing car driver to drive a bomb of a car. You can put the best people in the wrong role in a badly designed organisation and they will fail – with massive cost to the organisation and personal cost to the confidence and prospects of the employee.
A well designed organisation may leave people feeling a bit like they are a cog in a machine. It’s like having a poor driver try to drive a Formula 1 racing car.
We get high performance when we develop our people within a well-designed organisation. This is very much likely what happens when we put a Formula 1 driver in a Formula 1 car.
Most organisational development initiatives today are based on developing the people. Very little is done on building quality organisational infrastructure.
Well designed organisations have clear accountabilities and functional systems and processes that do not force people to ‘work around them’ to get their job done. Well-designed organisations have clear and practical structures.
There is no better model for the design and implementation of high performing organisations than the ‘Requisite Organisation’ model described by the famous sociologist, Dr Elliott Jacques. If you want an introduction to the philosophy of Requisite Organisation, I invite you to read and download the article entitled ‘Culture as an Epiphenomenon’ by clicking on this link. This article argues that there are much better ways to achieve high performing organisations than training people to ‘change the culture’.
