Healthy systems Act from a state of Balance in the face of Change. How do individuals and organizations cultivate and maintain this state?
We understand the interplay of structure and function and thus the importance of purposeful design at all levels of work. We understand the reciprocal relationship between the health of the organization and the well being of its individuals. We know the power of focus and attention to hold a course , remake (revolutionize or transform) our circumstances and to create and sustain improvement. We know that genuine service to others and to a larger whole is the essence of integration and that it is both satisfying and inspiring by its nature. We appreciate that all tension, conflict and roadblocks have within them potential and power, and thus, that by releasing them, creativity, innovation, learning and potential automatically increase.
This page provides a graphical overview of our approach and a model you can use to organize your management improvement efforts, integrate and align with others and navigate change.
Consider the ways your organization gets its work done. You have meetings, run projects, plan, design processes and work together in all sorts of combinations. The graphical representation you see here represents these drivers of change in a simplified form and shows the relationships and how they align. Identity and purpose drive direction. Direction informs process design and functioning. Key processes and their indicators drive projects and projects almost unanimously involve meetings. Throughout and between all this activity, working relationships carry information, gain understandings, come to agreements and learn.
Leaders and managers need more than content expertise in their particular specialty e.g. finance, IT or manufacturing operations. They need knowledge, skills and abilities (KSA) that enable their organization to identify purpose and mission. They need KSAs as well in direction setting, process (re) design, project management, meeting facilitation, and collaboration with others.
Each of these KSAs can be divided into three areas -- process, principles and person. Process includes a set of reliable steps and tools. Principles are the experiential truths and mental models that underlie process. Person includes the dynamic awareness, personal skills and practices/disciplines required to successfully run the process and enact the principles.
This gyroscope/top joins graphics one and two and adds a dynamic element. The gyroscope places our meetings and planning activities into the ever-changing circumstances we face day to day.
To be successful, we need to embrace the practices of a healthy organization:
• Skills and tools for designing our various activities to accomplish our goals (strategy)
• The discipline to hold a focus and direction
• A mindset and experience in service
• To respect the larger system within which we operate
• To release the bottlenecks and habits that hold us where we are
• To stay open and aware so that we can react in a timely manner, learn and adapt.
