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Fundamentals of Power to transform

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Fundamentals of Power to Transform:

Look around you.

Are you on the brink of a brand new organisation, or can you rely on a rich history, a tried and tested philosophy and extended competences? Many times, we start from an organisational culture with strong and weaker qualities. How flexible is your organisation to navigate through external changes? How do the various teams operate? How are your employees driven by change? A structured culture survey, a pragmatical team test and a project susceptibility test aid you in answering these questions. Management is the first to encourage “looking outside”.

Lead your vision

Do you know the story of the stone cutters? Are you cutting stones or are you building a cathedral? Strategical dialog is the most important instrument to create a coherent and supported vision, from which your values and your organisational culture sprout. Change is continuous, it is a journey you undertake together with your employees, to explore new horizons. How do the changes in your organisation fit into a consistent and motivating story?

Empower

In flexible organisations, the communication lines are short, often informal. Employees are encouraged to, within the canvas, make and devise their own decisions. Management highlights the propagation of values, the creation of a framework in which self-determination is possible. Rather than making own decisions, the focus is on the follow up of results of decisions and the adjustment thereof. Just think about the design teams at Zara : 2-3 people decide what the next designs will be, 2 weeks later, small batches are being sold. What doesn’t sell well, is ruthlessly discontinued. Issues are escalated only when they can’t be solved at the level at which they occurred (‘escalate as high as needed, but not higher’).

Panta Rei

“Change is no disruption, but the only constant”. That’s the way employees in a flexible organisation look at change. By taking away its threat, experienced employees see change as an opportunity, a chance to improve. This requires a clear communication and management style, where it’s clear what initiatives are implemented with which objective. The testing is encouraged, and making mistakes is not an issue, providing lessons are learned, once again contributing to a next step of change.