Organisations are for teaching
How do organisations become sustainable engines of value (and impact) for the long term?
My answer is: it begins with a shift in mindset about what organisations are for.
There is a first step, which is to see that an organisation exists to solve customer problems - that is, to do things that customers care about, as measured by whether they (or someone else - for many non-profits) will pay for them. I think this is already a valuable framing, but we can actually take it further.
The second step is to say, no, actually the organisation isn’t there to solve customer problems - the people working at the organisation are there to do that. The organisation is there to teach people how to solve customer problems more effectively.
If you are interested in playing the game of long term value - not the start up game of hyper growth to rapid exit - then you have to ask yourself:
“How can my organisation be successful not just tomorrow, not just next year, but for decades to come?”
The multi-decade timescale is helpful, even if only as a thought experiment. Given typical role tenures, you can approximate to zero the percentage of your current workforce who will still be working at your organisation in 10 years’ time (and actually even in the shorter term people leave roles - it’s normal). So how do you make sure your Ship of Theseus stays seaworthy, even after all the parts have been changed? This orientation towards teaching problem solving is key.
If you can figure out how to do this - that is if you can learn how to teach the things you have learned - then the skills, knowledge and mindsets that got you where you are now can be transmitted to future generations of employees.
There is also the added advantage that an orientation towards teaching and learning sets the organisation up well to deal with situations as yet unknown that will emerge in the future. Change, after all, is unavoidable. But if it becomes second nature for us to take on new problems and experiment to find solutions, we stand a better chance of reacting successfully to change.
