CHAPTER 30 SUMMARY

As we come to the end of this book, we trust that you have found it enjoyable, thought provoking and a helpful read… and will continue to revisit various chapters from time to time.

“The only thing that is constant is change.”

Heraclitus¹

The key context for organizations is that the pace of change has never been faster and continues to accelerate. This situation is fuelled by our ability to communicate information at lightning speed to millions of people. We have a voracious appetite for new knowledge and live in a world of unprecedented complexity. Collaboration and outsourcing has created more and more virtual organizations.

But against this dynamic landscape blurred by speed and change, we remain, at our core, human beings with some basic and simple characteristics. We are emotional beings in need of a sense of purpose and a sense of belonging. These base needs are very powerful.

The traditional role of the organization was to bring order, direction and control. But as the world becomes more dynamic, this approach is less and less relevant. It is more appropriate to have flexibility of objectives, action and reaction; to be able to adapt, to be agile. It takes too long for the traditional command and control approach to respond. Decentralized decision making is needed but within a constancy of “way” or core personality. As organizations are judged on the behaviour of the people representing them, authenticity is the new Holy Grail for organizations. We have been aware of the potential repercussions of failing to be authentic since as long ago as the Enron scandal and before, but in our more dynamic environment, this can now happen more often, more quickly and on a larger scale.

Of course, values alignment is no mean feat to achieve: connecting organizations from the boardroom to the front line, aligning the hearts, minds and bodies of perhaps thousands of individuals to come together to represent a common “way”; overcoming the barriers of individual interests, functions, different companies, geographies, and cultural differences; and doing this consistently, where any failure or shortfall may be communicated to millions in a flash. No mean feat indeed – but if it was easy to do, everybody would be doing it already.

While it may not be easy to achieve in practice, we believe that it is nonetheless very straightforward and consists of a number of key steps:

1. Establish a clear sense of purpose that engages hearts and minds.

2. Identify a set of values and be clear about what the words mean.

3. Establish the “way things work around here”, constantly nourish and cultivate this and do not allow anything to contaminate it.

4. Use the 31Practices tool (or similar approaches) to make the values part of the daily conversation and embed them into the fabric of the organization. Use them as a reference for decision making.

5. Make it an organization-wide agenda, not owned by a function like Human Resources or Communications.

6. Have the mindset of taking a journey rather than delivering a project.

7. Lead by example: the more senior the individual, the more magnified their behaviour is (both positively and negatively).

8. Recognize the behaviours that represent the values to positively reinforce them throughout the organization and create the organization “heritage”.

9. Assess the impact of the way people are behaving at a quantitative level but recognize the limitations of measurement. Also, pay attention at a more granular “cause and effect”, qualitative level.

10. Refine the approach, strengthening what is working well.

11. Involve employees across hierarchies and functions throughout the process.

12. Be aware of the underpinning psychological, sociological and philosophical principles that are at play: the Heart Principles, focused on being; the Mind Principles, focused on knowing; and the Body Principles, focused on doing. We can’t actually separate with hard lines what is heart, mind and body; all are part of each other – just like a holograph.

13. Recognize that we do not operate in a vacuum and that there is a broader system and context that leaders and organizations find themselves in.

14. Learn from the experience of others but always apply these learnings to your own particular circumstances which are unique to you.

Make it your own – don’t just put someone else’s version into your organization.

As we say, very straightforward. You may wonder which of these steps is the most important but we believe that chance of success is optimized only by doing ALL of the above. The challenge is in the relentless pursuit and obsession with authentic delivery: every action, every person, every day… and practice makes more perfect!

As the song we quoted at the beginning of Chapter 2, Values says: “It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it, that’s what gets results.”²