The paradox of organisation building
I have recently started using the following line in my marketing:
“Great results come from great organisations.”
Like most reasonable marketing claims, it makes a useful point even if it is not rigorously true in a scientific sense. Because yes, you do get great results from average organisations. But for an organisation to reliably function as ‘more than the sum of its parts’, it needs to work well as an organisation.
In fact that’s a bit of a tautology. Because what I mean by ‘as an organisation’ is not ‘as the legal entity that can own property and employ people etc’. I’m talking instead about the systems that bring everyone’s effort together and turn it into results. Sometimes people call this the ‘operating system’.
So when I say ‘for it to be more than sum of its parts it needs to work as an organisation’ I’m saying ‘for it to be more than the sum of its parts it needs to work well as the thing that brings everyone’s efforts together’. Which is obvious. How else would you get to be ‘more than the sum of your parts’ than by having something that ‘brings your efforts together’?1
I was talking to a client about this, an experienced charity CEO, and they said:
“Creating better organisation is the leadership role - and delegating it to someone else is a mistake many CEOs make. Thinking that the culture piece belongs to HR is a real stumbling block.”
So, one way of looking at things is that ‘building an organisation’ is the most important part of a CEO’s job. But if you look at a CEO’s diary, you won’t see a timeslot for “organisation building”. If you asked about this absence, they might say something like “well that’s because it’s part of everything that I do”.
This leads to a delightful set of paradoxes:
It’s the most important part of the job
it’s never something that you ‘do’
Everything you do is part of it2
Hmm….
Odd as it sounds, if you have ever had ‘organisation building’ responsibilities, this contradictory mix probably feels about right. It is a responsibility that’s hard to get hold of, hard to break down. So how then can we orient ourselves to it? How can we do it deliberately? How can we get better at it?
I think what ‘squares the circle’ here is: having a vision.
Since organisation building happens in and through everything else you do, you need a way of shaping your behaviour. Having a vision for the kind of organisation you want to build helps you do this. Occasionally that vision directly generates work to do, actions that need to be taken primarily in order to advance progress towards it. But most of the time a vision acts as a lens with which to evaluate options, and consider the consequences of your decisions. A vision is something that creates a way of seeing, which in turn creates a way of acting.
I have found the only way that works for me to build the kind of vision - and to keep the fire alight, as a vital creative force - is to have conversations about it.3 Dialogue and interaction is where visions live. And you need to be having them frequently enough that the vision is always within touching distance. If it isn’t, then it ceases to shape your behaviour.
So if you accept the importance of organisation building as part of your job, my question for you is:
Where is that space for vision conversations in your schedule? Who are you having them with and how often? Is it enough for you to feel in touch with it all the time?
It’s no surprise to regular readers that I think a COO makes a great partner in crime for this kind of work. But so does an external coach - and so do trustees/board members. Whatever resources you have, the important thing is to find something that works for you.
Some of which might be explicit and visible - some might be more implicit, and under the surface. What made Lennon and McCartney such a successful writing partnership? Some of it was more in the hard-to-define realms of ‘chemistry’ and ‘talent’; some of it was their explicit, visible commitment to meet and write a song together every afternoon.
This is not the only paradoxical part of leadership roles. I hate to be that guy, but I’m going to quote Lao Tzu: “A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say, we did it ourselves”. I don’t take that to mean “a good leader manipulates invisibly”; but rather “a good leader creates the conditions in which other people excel”.
I recently read and enjoyed Alex M H Smith’s “No Bullsh*t Strategy”. His advice is that the best tool for working with a strategy is ‘the chat’.