Strategy, Leadership and the Soul

* Book: Jennifer Sertl & Koby Huberman. Leadership, Strategy and the Soul: Resilience, Responsiveness and Reflection for a Global Economy

Chapter 1 at http://agility3r.com/Book/Chapter-1.html

Interview

Interview by Zane Safrit:

* Why is a peer-to-peer, CEO roundtable, participation so important?

2 reasons.

First in our culture, the fear of shame is so great. For those in their mid-40s to 60’s it is really a lot to to ask of them to be vulnerable . The level of ambiguity in our business today because things have changed so quickly creates a lot of fear for those not comfortable experiencing and processing that fear and uncertainty. If they can deal with their peers they will be more receptive to hearing potential points of view. Their receptor cells are going to be more available to hear and learn.

The 2nd is the acceleration of learning and knowledge. 10% of our knowledge came before the 19th century and 90% of it came after. So, how do you get ahold of all that information...The only way you can is to connect with other people giving you slices of reality and you can aggregate them.

In your book you describe 4 evolutionary stages of the corporate organizational structure. What are they? We try not to be trite with this. We have corporate organizational structure eras.

We have the F-Organization organization from 1850 to 1940 Farmers, Families, Fortunes . Patriarchy as management style and lifetime employment were the dominant themes.

Then we have in 1940 to 1970 the shift to the era of the S Organiztion. We call it the S era because it had Structure and Security. The goal was stability. The structure became hierarchical. Seniority was valued. The Drucker Method and a lot of different lean technologies came out of that.

Then we move to 1970 - 1995 where we call this era the P-Organization. Products, performance and profits. This is where the rise of the MBA came together. Systems became more important than people. There were a lot of policies and procedures.

Then came the E organization from 1995 - 2002. It’s the E organization simply because of electronic evolution. Ebusiness, ecommerce and my favorite E word: Everbody can play.

What I hope is that people in the audience are asking themselves how are they designing their world in these areas. A lot of people are still playing the product performance profit game.

It really is a changed game. We talk a lot about the I-organization and transorganizations. I can’t tell you the details on that because we are in it right now.

* We, here in the US, and likely to a greater extent everyone around the world face a turbulent future, marked by ever-increasing rates of change. And a new organizational structure has emerged you call the Transorganization. What is the significant difference in this structure? Why is it necessary? How will it help its members ride the wave of all these changes?

The transorganization is really more of a biological structure, If you think of a single cell, a single cell can replicate and clone me in my entirety. Yet it will live inside my body and decide whether it’s going to be a lung or an artery. It has a destiny.

If I burn my hand, my endocrine system will slow down, my digetive system will slow down...to make sure I have the resources to address my burn.

If we think of a transorganization it’s an organization that has a central nervous system which is very clear on the operating design system of the business. but has these informed capillaries that have the ability to exchange information and bring information back.

* What is the the third way or third quality that transorganizations look for in an individual?

When you look at this model, there’s functions and distinct roles they play but how they communicate is very different. The soul of a business is the collective knowledge of the employee base. There’s a decentralization of power with a centralization of communication.

You hear a lot about the voice of the customer. You want to know everything my customer is doing when they’re not with me. Every interaction is a research opportunity sounds very sterile. But if you’re paying attention, and observing and caring deeply then what you bring back and transform is deeper and richer.

We talk about focus and flexibility. How do you design in a way that allows you to be adaptable and spontaneous?

What we want to do is to say the more self-aware that leader can be then the more they can understand how they see reality and the more they can make choices that represent their slice of reality and therefor align themselves with employees who share that..." (http://zanesafrit.typepad.com/zane_safrit/2010/09/highlights-from-my-conversation-with-jennifer-sertl-co-author-of-leadership-strategy-the-soul.html)