Higher Performance with a Higher Purpose …

           Higher Performance with a Higher Purpose




           Creationstep Inc.




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Introduction                                        organizations alike. The study of individuals
Organizations who choose to emphasize               and groups in organizations has therefore be-
co-alignment with its employees at a higher         come interesting and valuable to corporations
purpose and identity level will gain emotional      and business leaders who face the reality of
engagement that drives higher performance           changing or dying. Studies in organizational
with social and environmental responsibility.       behavior have played an important role by
                                                    helping leaders and managers realize that
High performance and co-alignment                   people are an organizations most important
Organizations exist to benefit greater society      asset. Terms like intellectual/emotional capi-
while giving people the opportunity of dig-         tal, and long-term sustainability have become
nified work. Throughout the ages however,           common and are slowly becoming aligned
many organizations lost their wider mission         with financial capital goals within organiza-
and became self-serving machines that ig-           tions. This emerging holistic perspective is
nored the long term sustainability of the en-       making room for employees to have a voice
vironment. The mechanistic nature of these          and a shaping influence within their industry.
ventures in turn required people to function in
highly controlled environments and reduced          As employees of all rank have gained influ-
their contribution to machine like activity.        ence in organizations, a new paradigm of re-
These organizations relied heavily upon pre-        lating to the organization as an organism has
dicting the future through analyzing trends         surfaced. This organizational metaphor has
and learning ways to condition the responses        begun to lead organizations away from the
of employees. Eventually many people lost the       mechanistic domination of the modern era
pleasure and dignity of work and the modern         and towards the possibility of thinking, learn-
dream lost its momentum. New innovations            ing and changing together. This has become
emerged and a highly unpredictable environ-         a utopian dream of the new economy. Orga-
ment came into play forcing corporations to         nizations have become recognized as entities
rethink why they exist and how they motivate        within themselves with the capacity to be-
people.                                             come more than just the sum of their parts.
                                                    These organizational entities are organisms
According to Tom Peters (2003) many of the          seeking to adapt and survive in a changing
new challenges facing business and corpo-           environment. Similar to any living system, the
rations are similar to current military chal-       DNA of every organizational organism even-
lenges, and in the words of General Shinseki,       tually manifests itself into a unique identity
"If you don't like change, you're going to like     of the interconnected systems that sustain
irrelevance even less." Flexibility and adapt-      it with a purpose to contribute to the wider
ability have become essential attributes to         system. According to Gareth Morgan (1998),
survival and growth for people, groups, and         this organizational metaphor "suggests that

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different environments favor different species       ers. Organizations intentionally designed to
or organizations based on different methods          bring out the best in people and create ex-
or organizing and that congruence with the           traordinary organizational capability have
environment is key to success." This sug-            been defined by Schermerhorn et al (2003)
gests that the success of an organization            as high performance organizations (HPO's).
transcends goals, structures and efficiency.         It makes sense then, if emotionally engaged
In this paradigm, the responsibility of a leader     employees are committed and motivated or-
is to appreciate the identity and responsibility     ganizational members, that learning to gain
of the organization while ensuring its behav-        and sustain this attribute must become high
ior is aligned and congruent with its people         on the responsibilities of a leader.
and the environment.
                                                     Assisting team members to discover their
If we choose to perceive the whole organiza-         unique commitments and become emotion-
tion as a system then we can recognize that          ally engaged goes beyond standard financial
it is comprised of subsystems within subsys-         reward systems which tend to focus on the
tems. Just as any organism is made up of             bottom layers of Abraham Maslow's theory
smaller entities, an organization does not exist     of motivation. Organizations need to be able
without the people. The process of nurturing         to help their employees discover creative
synergy between the various systems (people,         and effective ways to align their identity and
groups, and the organization) is the challenge       purpose with that of the organization. This in
of organizational leadership. Without this ef-       turn can bring a corporate congruency where
fort the organization can become incongruent         high performance is realized. Discovering
or introspected, missing the dynamism of a           processes to bring this level of organizational
self-learning and self-managing environment.         alignment has become a significant challenge
According to Coffman and Gonzalez-Molina's           to organizational leaders. The effort to inte-
compilation of Gallup research (2002), the           grate the needs and contributions of individu-
hope of sustained growth and real profit in-         als and organizations has a significant chal-
crease for business is found in developing           lenge due to the continuous change of both.
emotionally engaged employees. In addition
to this, Harvard Business Review's work on           By serving the needs of people and removing
the customer service profit chain has revealed       the prescriptive and directive measures that
that companies who focus on the satisfaction         have been prevalent in most management
and motivation of their staff are demonstrat-        theories based on predictable futures, organi-
ing long term gain and exponential business          zations can become dynamic enough to capi-
growth. Emotionally engaged employees                talize on the unpredictable and turn it to their
demonstrate higher energy, deeper commit-            advantage. This is what Margaret Wheatley
ment, and a greater retention with custom-           (1999), refers to as working with the forces

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of change. This stands in contrast of at-            level it would in turn influence change on the
tempts to manage or control them. This level         levels below.
of adaptability and co-evolvement is what will
separate HPO's from its competitors.                 While the emphasis throughout modernity
                                                     was on the lower levels the emphasis in the
As organizations face this transition the role       postmodern era needs to be on the higher
of the change agent is to help employees             levels if organizational leaders desire co-
consider issues like, diversity, power, leader-      alignment and innovative environments. A
ship, empowerment, ethics, beliefs, boundar-         common struggle for organizational leaders
ies, vision, values, culture, communication,         dealing with this suggestion is the process
and innovation. Many consultants and leaders         of how they can state and direct the organi-
have chosen to focus their attention primarily       zational goals down the hierarchy to ensure
on structures, strategies and goals. This has        execution. This perception misses the point of
brought limited results but in many cases has        the shift to higher levels and lacks the frame-
not been able to lead the organization beyond        work to understand how the job will get done
its current boundaries. This begs the ques-          without managing the goals and objectives.
tion: if it is approached at a higher level will     Gareth Morgan (1998) introduces the image
the response be more favorable?                      of organizations as information processing
                                                     brains. He highlights that the intelligence of
Higher levels in this context can be defined         the human brain is not predetermined or pre-
as vision, identity, and beliefs. The anthro-        planned but rather evolves through the expe-
pologist Gregory Bateson (1972), identified          riences of its environment. This challenges
several fundamental levels of learning and           the top-down approach to management and
change, each being more abstract yet having          encourages better feedback and learning
a greater degree of influence on the system.         systems that allow for the emergence of ef-
Robert Dilts (1996) interpreted these into the       fective behaviors and actions.
following list:
                                                     William Ouchi, in his book Theory Z (1981),
1.      Spiritual                                    compares and contrasts how American and
2.      Identity                                     Japanese managers view the issue of goals
3.      Beliefs                                      differently. It appears that American managers
4.      Capabilities                                 have a strong macro perception of goals and
5.      Behaviors                                    the need to define them, whereas Japanese
6.      Environment                                  managers tend towards a meta perspective of
                                                     how their organization and behavior relates to
The thinking behind these neurological levels        the wider system and therefore shapes their
is that if one changes something on an upper         decisions and allows objectives to emerge.

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The latter relies more on the presence of limitations and boundaries instead specified goals and
directives. This in turn can give rise to a more creative, intelligent and innovative environment.

Dilts (1996), connected the various neurological levels to organizational leadership and change.
This framework can be used to help organizations, groups and individuals answer the funda-
mental questions necessary for co-alignment:

 Spiritual                       Vision and Purpose                  Who Else

Identity                         Role and Mission                    Who

 Beliefs                         Motivation and Permissions          Why

 Capabilities                    Perception and Direction            How

 Behaviors                       Actions and Reactions               What

 Environment                     Constraints and Opportunities       Where


By focusing on the two upper levels, a leader         According to Schermerhorn et al (2003),
or change agent can emphasize the commit-             the total power within the organization can
ments and contributions of the multiple entities      increase in this process as the concept of
involved in order to gain synergy. Alignment at       power is reframed to get things done instead
this level can allow people to respond from the       of being used to rule over one another. The
core of their being. The energy that can sur-         need for limitation becomes more impor-
face in this process can influence and shape          tant than objectives as restrain is more of
all the other levels without the need for direc-      an issue than motivation. The emphasis of
tive leadership or management by objectives.          ethical decision making is elevated as team
Employees aligned with the organization at            members choose the most effective way for-
this level quickly become emotionally engaged         ward within their own paradigms or maps of
stake-holders who demonstrate team spirit.            the world. Self-directed education begins
                                                      to replace organizational training as indi-
Leaders of organizations like this in turn be-        viduals can evaluate what they need most
come service providers and facilitators for           for any given situation more than the CEO.
their employees. As emotionally engaged
team members begin to work, the need for              This style of organization aligns itself to
new tools and resources quickly replace the           Douglas McGregor's Theory Y assumptions
prior requirement of direction and control.           that people like work, are naturally creative

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and accept responsibility. This stands in con-       main influencers from various departments
trast to his Theory X assumptions reflected in       and teams.
many classical management styles, that peo-
ple basically dislike work, need direction, and      The latter approach seems effective for many
avoid responsibility. HPO's like this function       organizations because of the systemic na-
on high levels of empowerment and trust by           ture of an organization. When key influenc-
delegating authority and well as responsibil-        ers change and discover the co-commitment
ity. They decentralize control and emphasize         of their personal mission and that of the or-
involvement and participation at all levels.         ganization they can assist those within their
The Decision making process recognizes the           sphere of influence to experience the same.
limitations of the classical approach where          The discovery and articulation of the organi-
bounded rationality and cognitive limitations        zational vision and mission needs to coincide
of human beings are unappreciated. Alterna-          with the process of personal discovery with
tive methods like that of the Vroom and Jago         employees in order for them to have some-
decision process flowchart make more sense           thing to negotiate against or they could easily
as they make room for intelligence at all levels     begin to believe that the organization exists
of the organization. According to Schermer-          only to serve them instead of it being a ve-
horn et al (2003) this process helps people          hicle for them to express themselves within.
analyze the situation for themselves while as-
sisting them with options to choose the most           According to Fradette & Michaud (1998),
appropriate decision-making method.                    the five key tasks of leaders in a transi-
                                                       tion like this are:
The process of transition for organizations that
want to move in this direction is usually slow         1. Set the companies strategic purpose.
and expensive. This of course depends on the
current size and nature of the organization.           2. Establish boundaries within which
Surveys and analysis assist the change agent              that purpose may be pursued.
in the process but involvement at all levels is
necessary for co-alignment. The more people            3. Provide mechanisms whereby work-
who find themselves aligned with the vision               ers can challenge those boundaries.
and mission of the organization will define the
level of corporate congruency and power. The           4. Champion market and customer
strategy towards a transition of this style will          events.
be dependant on the size and spread of the
organization. Some begin this transition by            5. Make decisions in real time.
modeling it within a sub-group while others
initiate it by gathering representation by the

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Google (according to Business 2.0, June                engineers to spend 20 percent of their time
2004), established its strategic purpose to            working on personal projects that may or may
become an internet search engine or gateway            not benefit the organization. This process al-
into the boundless world of the web. It was            lows their staff to be creative and in return it
clear about what it would be from the out-             has benefited Google through new discover-
set. Instead of defining clear goals and ob-           ies of employees that developed ideas within
jectives it established clear boundaries such          the boundaries suggested by the founders.
as it should never be "evil". In other words, it       Google, with astounding revenue growth of
defined what it would not do from the outset.          437,115% since 1999, tops the list of innova-
This simplicity enabled it to stay focused in          tive companies. It reported revenue of nearly
comparison to competitors like Yahoo, Alta             $1 billion in 2004 and has now become the
Vista, and Excite who branched out beyond              world's biggest search engine. It would appear
technology and lost market share. In addition          that they have discovered something impor-
to this the founders invested a great amount           tant about innovation and high performance
of trust in their staff by fostering a risk-taking     that other organizations can learn from.
environment. They encouraged a context for



    Conclusion:

    The opportunity for organizations to rediscover their true purpose while giving people
    the opportunity to express their identity and creativity for societal benefit is more real
    than ever. As more leaders and managers recognize the true potential of people in their
    organizations the possibility of a new era of innovation and invention will be birthed
    giving more dignity to people at work. The impact of this on our society is worth con-
    sidering. As more people find fulfillment in what they do the negative forces of our
    culture will subside allowing new generations to dream of a compelling and sustainable
    future.




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Together. New York, NY: Doubleday




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About Creationstep

Creationstep is a company committed to drawing out the best of people and
the world around us.




We are a collaborative group of professionals who        given boundaries. We have a strong emphasis on
enjoy working together and supporting companies          the development and emotional engagement of our
through chaotic and unpredictable times. We come         employees. It is our ambition to help each person
from diverse cultural and experiential backgrounds       be connected in a role that best suits their gifts and
bringing a unique perspective and creative view          plans for their future. We draw out the best in our
on the projects we accept. We have a team of             people through hands on experience and by investing
experienced project managers who can lead a task         in their education and life skills. It is our intention to
force efficiently within each of the industries we       connect the right people in the right places for the
service. We take the time to listen to our client's      right reasons. Then everyone is happy and the job
needs and requirements and then build the team           gets done.
necessary to deliver the results on time within the




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