Failure is not caused just by the attitude or behavior!!
Systems & Processes Play A Key Role
If you lead a business and can not think of ways to tackle the anti-business and unmanageable behaviors of your employees, which is further causing great damages to your business, I’ll suggest look beyond the individuals to address the issues.
I can explain why despite all the genuine efforts and intentions people fail to achieve results.
Because failure is not caused by the attitude or behavior, it is caused by the system and its structure!!
Note:
- Behaviors are closely linked with the system and its structure, and not with individuals.
- It is not the external forces, rather the internal forces that compel the system to collapse or behave in a certain way.
- Everyone present within a system does her/his level best to accommodate the needs of the other, however, still it collapses.
- Irrespective of who holds a position in a complex system, each role has certain behaviors common to it.
- Business or organization’s failure happen due to the ignorance of the systemic understanding, and system-wide impact of the problem and actions taken to resolve the issues in separation.
- Remember, complex systems are interconnected and heavily depend on one-another. In order to manage the problem/crisis, one must never look at things in isolation.
Business crisis are caused by the complex systemic issues, which go unaccounted as our organizations lack the adequate mechanism to monitor and address such multifaceted issues.
So…what mechanism must be put in place to manage such systemic blindspots??
We recently conducted a survey with a focused group (Founder & CEOs of SME sector in Delhi & NCR) revealed the following results:
- 83 percent respondents said that their organizations do not have a predetermined individual or mechanism to address the Organization Development needs, whereas 52 percent said OD related needs are looked after by CEO or top management.
- 100 percent respondents said system & process are areas with Major Development Gaps; whatsoever; an almost equal number of respondents emphasized on the need of greater improvement in assigning & defining roles and responsibilities.
- More than 80 percent respondents said Business Intelligence, Client Services, Manufacturing/plants, and Operations are the functions that have major developmental gaps and require immediate attention.
- Nearly 50 percent respondents said they would be interested in instituting an OD function or individual to look after their organization’s OD related needs.
Organization Development practices are common in the west, however, the business community here in India (except the large organizations) hardly recognizes OD practices playing key role in taking the organization high.
What mechanism you think can be put in to place to avoid systemic pitfalls?