Harnessing the Collective Insight of Your Organisation

Reading an article from Chris Nichols at Ashridge on the 'Creative Brilliance of Crowds', I was struck by this analysis

When a crisis strikes, large groups of people can become dependent, looking for a ‘superior’ to sort the problem out for them. In organisations this takes the form of groups standing around the coffee machine or gossiping in the lunchroom, discussing what ‘they’ – the senior management – are going to do.

Top management often plays into the game by taking a parental stance. The critical, controlling parent says: “We have to raise our game, put in the extra effort. We must all do more and better”. The gentle, nurturing parent reassures: “Stick with us and we will find our way through. We are a strong firm.” The management team then lock themselves away and try to navigate their way through the storm. What this game guarantees is that the management team reinforce dependency. The game strips the organisation of its most crucial resource, the adult energies and abilities of its whole workforce, who are pushed into a position of dependent compliance. It also puts the management team into the position of having to ‘sell’ their solution to the staff: “We need to get buy-in” is a common call. It is, after all, not uncommon for ‘dependent’ employees to rebel against their parental bosses.

There is a better way. In these difficult times, something more creative and more engaging is required. (At the same time..) participation is not democracy. Top managers must decide and everyone knows this. But if top managers make their decisions based on the widest and best information they can, so much the better. The decisions, the energy and the will to act on them will emerge stronger as a result of a more engaging process.

The idea of moving beyond this 'organisational dependence' and unleashing the talent of the many, is something that sits at the heart of our work at FranklinCovey. Achieving this with large groups is challenging and, in our experience, requires both a robust process and a discipline in applying it. The 'Disciplines of Execution' process which FranklinCovey has developed and refined over the past 5 years now has a Manager Certification process, so that team leaders and managers are guided in a step by step process over a period of 6-8 weeks. This process enables clarity and focus on key team outcomes and then introduces a way of working where it is the team members who become responsible for translating these higher level goals into personal targets, with the manager focused on 'clearing the path' on behalf of their team.