LEADERSHIP: the heart to inspire…MANAGEMENT: the courage to discipline
“Those choosing to lead in the post industrial age must make a 180° shift from a mindset of knowing, to an attitude of not knowing…replacing trust in knowledge and experience with processes for finding out and taking action faster than the competition.”
Transitioning your company from a dependence on personal authority (power, knowledge, and experience) to managing by process-discipline will be challenging because industrial age thinkers typically know—so they will have less compulsion to learn. Without continuous improvement, what your team knows will eventually start holding you back. To grow and prosper in the shift age, a company must let go of outdated assumptions, attitudes, and behavioral patterns. Three formidable hurdles stand in the way of securing corporate viability by creating *transferable wealth and wisdom. *A company not dependant on the CEO or any individual
Hurdle #1 Your corporate culture must be built on a solid foundation of values-directed leadership.
Courage has always been the cornerstone of a thriving company but industrial-age owners did little to encourage the involvement of employees. They viewed people as non-thinking commodities with capacity limitations—and considered them extensions of the company’s machinery. By contrast, managers who understand shift-age realities appreciate that inspiring employees to generate corporate energy is a highly profitable initiative.
Hurdle #2 Everybody must relinquish personal authority.
The CEO, executives, managers, and supervisors must be willing to govern and be governed by process discipline rather than by personal authority. Trusting process is akin to flying an aircraft using instruments rather than personal perspective. Pilots tell me that learning to use flight instruments does not automatically remove initial doubts and fears. At times, instruments may be telling them to do things that feel counter intuitive. In a process disciplined company there can be no half measure—it’s process, not personal experience or a supervisor that will tell people what to do. Learning to fly by key result indicators will be difficult for most and impossible for some. Do you have the courage to do your job using process?
Hurdle #3 Everybody must speak a common language.
Musicians who play in orchestras must be capable of reading the language of music such as, the difference between a bass and treble clef, how to count time, where to find notes (A,B,C,D, E, F,G) and the impact of sharps and flats. Working with process discipline is no different. To be effective, the entire company must use a common “process vocabulary”.