Jos Groen
"Do you believe it yourself?" was the primary reaction an employee had after I told him the organization he works for was going to become sustainably successful again.1 The man sitting opposite me hadn't believed that for some time.
Heavily disappointed by several failed managerial attempts to turn the tide, he looked at me and said: "That would be nice but, honestly, that sounds a bit harsh in your first week. Every manager makes these kinds of promises in the first few weeks, then fails to fulfill them. And besides, experience shows that you are not going to make the difference either. You too will do this job for one or two years, and then be gone. That is what managers do."
An independent culture scan of the organization revealed a similar picture of urgency and disappointment.2. The survey correlated employees' personal values, the organization's current cultural values, and desired culture values. Results reflected a serious situation that demanded immediate action. The organization had been performing and functioning unstably for several years. Its portfolio and market position were not recognizable and its people were managed numbly. They felt frustrated, fearful, and insecure. There was distrust, job insecurity, cramped short-term focus, and reluctance to propose new ideas. People had lost their autonomy and joy, their trust with one another, and their connection to the organization. Personal development and shared recreation had long been abandoned because of cost-cutting. People were heard, but rarely listened to. And the organization viewed people as assets, not human beings. It was the kind of challenge that demands transformation in all facets of the organization.
And it would require an intuitive, transformational approach. It would require truly open leadership.
Two years after I worked with the organization and its leaders, we repeated the survey. The results portrayed a very healthy situation. And (coincidence or not) in that same period the company's financial results grew substantially. Performance was above target. Meanwhile, half of the people employed at the start of my time with the company were highly engaged. The other half had found their way to happiness at work elsewhere. It didn't affect the results, but enhanced the clarity.
I also had an opportunity to return to the disappointed employee I'd talked with at the outset. Today, we still laugh about that initial conversation. "I just lost it for a while, Jos," he would say about this period.
I helped facilitate this transformation out of a drive to see the organization become a more joyful, open, and sustainably successful place. I see my role as helping organizations become sustainably successful again, and I think an important step toward doing this is to facilitate people's growth and flourishing in open organizations that yield optimal returns.3 The people I met just deserved a safe working environment, a place where they can be themselves so that the potential already inside them can emerge. Open organization characteristics gave us the direction we needed to practice, learn, and create.4
In this chapter I'll share my experience in the hope that anyone undergoing a similar process might find some inspiration or guidance. Along the way, I'll highlight the role open leadership mindsets and behaviors played a role in this organization's successful transformation.
"Sometimes it takes the other way of looking at things to see that things can also be done differently, or perhaps they should be done differently sometimes."
All in all, the process involved multiple challenges—in the areas of people, business, and business operations. During this period of transformation, we balanced a focus on the business with an emphasis on the organization's people, cultivating a safe working environment grounded in trust and inclusivity. This attention to employee talent, growth, and development proved to be the right approach. Our process invovled a number of targeted interventions, with contributions from external parties.5. Those interventions involved creating equality in groups, guiding teams in search of their core directions, researching the organization's culture, and inviting people and groups to look at the things differently.
From the outset, everything was directed at giving the organization back to the profesionals that made it work. By "giving it back," I mean rebuilding the organization from its core and learning how to be successful organically (that is, without depending on me as a guide). From the beginning, I made it clear that the process was not about me but about the collective. At that stage, I felt like a messenger of hope, a broker of energy. My focus was on creating engagement and an open culture in which creativity is given room and people contribute from a place of intrinsic motivation in ways that surpass their own interests.
At its core, this approach is about cultivating autonomy, mastery, and purpose so employees themselves engage in organizational leadership and take responsibility for the issues and problems they see around them. Because the organization offers space for creativity and resourcefulness, people create the best solutions themselves, rather than simply being told what to do. Here the key ingredients of a good leadership style are transparency (however difficult at times), extending trust, and encouraging the participation of all employees (inclusivity). Leadership shouldn't be tied to function or title; it should cultivate the best ideas wherever they arise in the organization. You just have to be open to them and resist jumping to judgment. As one employee would later describe it:
Empowerment is about trust. Identify 'load-bearing walls' and give them trust and a mandate. This is where you set the direction and frameworks so the culture can form. Your role as a leader is to monitor this culture, give direction where it deviates and let go where it forms. Meanwhile, we can easily fall back on old, sometimes learned patterns. Try to recognize this moment and make the choice: act out of fear or out of trust.
"Every step in such a process makes you aware of the potential that is actually there and can still be extracted."
Much of the information available to me made it clear that underneath all the problems and obstacles present in this organization were opportunities that actually wanted to manifest. By focusing on these—by going deeper on the levels of people, business, and business operations—we could get to the core of the matter and let what was hidden rise to the surface.
Many organizational stakeholders were already connected to this potential. This meant that I would need to empower the others (and in this case it was a core team) to bring about change. And to do this, I would need to model the kind of open leadership behavior I wanted to see others eventually mimic. Through various interventions, communications, and sessions, I helped everyone become more familiar with the opportunities they wanted to manifest. In short: to bring about change, I had to first build community.
Together, we searched for essence of the organization and connected it to the ambitions of people in every business unit. We articulated our first outcome as "mastery." Our professionals had the drive to become a little better every day, and they demonstrated a desire to stimulate the development of their colleagues by working together and sharing knowledge. What we needed was a "master-apprentice" structure, through which experienced stakeholders could mentor newer members (though later we discovered that the master could also learn a lot from the apprentice, an enormously powerful learning effect!). Curiosity is at the core of this experience.
We then gave that core direction more substance and direction through a step-by-step, interactive process in which we involved more and more employees. No elaborate think tanks here—rather "do tanks" that worked on projects on the basis of a common understanding and support system. Our work made us realize we needed to refine the core direction into two dimensions: mastery is about both our craftsmanship and about being of added value to customers and colleagues. This formed the basis of our core direction, and was the first step to which members of the core team personally committed. Everyone was invited to discover the meaning of "mastery" in their specific roles. That led to some nice discussions around the coffee machine!
Gradually, a growing group of people gained insight into (and confidence in) exactly what needed to be done. Parallel to this process of awareness, we made difficult choices regarding the organization's portfolio, services, revenue model, technology, strategic priorities, and approach. But we did this transparently and inclusively, and as a result we created clarity for the entire organization.
More and more employees started contributing to the process, understanding now how they could make a difference. Organizational change accelerated. Trust increased. New insights arose. New successes were celebrated. Those who wanted to participate in the changes did so on the basis of their own natural drive.
People want to change; they just don't want to be changed. This experience was proof of that.
"An atmosphere has been created that is focused on collaboration, trust, vitality, and openness. Before this, there was mistrust, competition, selfishness, and individualistic behavior."
My next step (well, the next among many, as simultaneous steps were involved transforming the entire organizational system) was to communicate clearly and transparently about the performance of the collective. This immediately made clear that the performance of the group is more important than that of the individual. Thus, we stopped rewarding individuals and judging employees on individual performance; the latter became a collective objective. Reward-punishment mechanisms limit people's focus to what is strictly necessary (moreover, it encourages egocentric behavior). On the contrary, creativity, ownership and resourcefulness are necessary for good work. The purpose of setting objectives should be to stimulate people and talent to contribute, and individual financial incentives aren't best for that. By making this choice, we took the sting out of performance discussion—not to mention fear. This turned out to be a crucial element in creating peace and space in the organization and among the people. The invitation to contribute helped self-confidence grow beyond our initial expectations.
We then made an adequate estimate regard the financial results we felt were still feasible during what remained of the year, and we secured that target with the executive board. By managing the explicit and implicit expectations, formally and informally, with openness, we continued to establish peace among people and teams—and in the executive board. Suddenly, there was room for direct investment in important matters like employee development, job satisfaction, team building, and growth in financial results—a fundamental step in giving the organization back to its people.
Next we built space by by shifting our working horizon to the longer term. In many successive sessions, we were able to work on and with a new perspective. In doing so, we invited employees to think about the questions we had in hand and participate in shaping the culture. Despite the usual skepticism in this phase of the process, the new positive energy created calm in the organization. This gave employees the space to think about their own perspective, roles, and contributions. They could finally orient forward in their thinking and doing. In this way, people got a new sense of perspective.
That new sense of perspective was crucial for achieving organizational transformation. Throughout the organization and between its stakeholders, there were so many (pre)judgments and assumptions. I needed to manage these in order to create trust and generate space for the necessary next steps. These steps not only concerned results, but also the organization's people and its business.
Rocket science? No! But by the third month of our work we were already able to show positive results, all based on the accumulated impact of small initiatives and changes. By tightening our discipline, being transparent about expected financial results, catalyzing cooperation, and sharpening our thinking about the basic principles that guided our attitudes and behaviors, we were able to make progress in a relatively short time. There was calm among management and the executive board, while a more positive self-image formed internally. Success bred more trust. I felt a different energy. People acted differently. Pleasure returned to work; confidence increased. No one could quite pinpoint it, and it was likely invisible to anyone looking in from the outside. "What did we miss?" those observers might have said. "Can this really be done so quickly? Does a little discipline and focus produce results so rapidly?"
As someone leading the initial phases of work like this, you'll encounter situations that call continually for your intervention. The temptation to solve these problems immediately—to step in and do the work—is great. But this is often hasty. Your real challenge should be to delve deeper into the underlying causes of issues each time they arise. You'll want to do this without judgment, making as few assumptions as you can, and continuing to observe. Because only when the cause is clear can you transform a situation into a lasting solution. And that is the goal: to ask, to challenge, and to explore until you really know and understand. You do this by making the personal connections, listening, and remaining suspicious of easy answers.
{insert figure of DiSCO model}
(DiSCO model adapted from Alan Seale and repurposed with permission)
And this process of discovery isn't limited to the organization's people and their drives, passions, and energies. It's also about furthering your understanding of the organization's financial parameters and its administrative, operational, and commercial processes. It's about knowing where the opportunities for improvement lie in the short and longer term, and which people have the right energy to help meet those opportunities. In my case, my strongest advantage was my open attitude. It fostered the conversations we needed. And thus the core team that was to help support the transformation was born.
"Do I know, or do I think I know?" It's a form of curiosity that never stops.
"Thinking and acting together with the core team from the core direction is really stimulating!"
Now that relative calm had settled throughout the organization, it was time to deepen our focus on setting the direction necessary for achieving a sustinable result. We'd already clearly and openly discussed our choices in terms of market segmentation, portfolio and technology, and people and organization. Now it was time to reconnect everyone to the organization's core purpose.
An organization's core purpose is its essence. It's more than the organization's extensive vision statements, which no one really remembers in today's overcrowded information society anyway. A sharp core direction cuts through that noise. For example, Coolblue expresses its core purpose so beautifully: "everything for a smile." It steers the organization, creates clarity about what it's really about, the reason that people want to work for you and that customers choose you. It's something that goes "beyond the head" and impacts your gut feelings, your more deeply held beliefs. Leaders need to not only recognize but also embody this purpose and the new forms of consciousness it creates. They don't just need to articulate it; they need to live it.
Too often, over time, an organization and its leaders lose that essence. The reason why professionals and customers choose it become hazy or lost. This loss leads to a focus on short-term results in the service of shareholder growth demands, and less room for creativity and entrepreneurship. The result: employees lose their commitment and the organization loses its added value. Leadership shifts to management, its primary function from inspiration to control.
Thus, our next step was to help this struggling organization (re)discover its purpose. The process of arriving at the core direction is like solving a jigsaw puzzle. But you need to solve the puzzle without having seen the completed image first! So you actually don't know what you are building when you start. When you gain some sense of the image, then you can start working with the core team, and finally the entire organization, to put the puzzle together, piece by piece, scene by scene. This puzzle contains the elements of people, market, and business. Open leaders need to build this puzzle collaboratively and inclusively, together with their core teams, to facilitate a deeper understanding of its intention, how everyone will pursue it collectively, and what the intended outcome is. Indeed, all that emerges during the course of collaboration.
This is a continuous process of repeating, understanding, and honing. You might not get it right at first. But that shouldn't stop you from moving forward. As one participant put it:
"I always find it funny to see, in these days of agile and scrum, that people still have the need to have everything crystallized first before moving on to action! Entrepreneurship and growth is mostly about doing, learning and adjusting. Navigating the unknown, continuously."
Your goal as a leader is to involve everyone in the process of setting a core direction so everyone can see how their work ultimately supports it. Once we had a core direction, we started to connect individuals, groups of employees, customers, and all other kinds of stakeholders to it. The most important element of this work was letting people choose their particular connection to the core purpose. By doing this, I wanted to facilitate deeper connections to (and elaboration of) the core direction—together.
"Working on the annual plan every week is something I haven't experienced before," one employee said.
If this work is like solving a jigsaw puzzle, sometimes it also feels like playing chess on multiple boards: coorindating the actions and commitments of stakeholders across the organization. My experience tells me that managers, customers, and employees almost never make the same steps at the same time. Shareholders expect a conventional management structure with a focus on reporting, decisiveness, and performance, while the leaders you're attempting to cultivate demonstrate agility, patience, and willingness to continuously explain and clarify the process are called upon.
Fortunately, I didn't have to do this work alone. The core team also picked up its (mostly informal) responsibility in the process. Their exemplary behavior showed colleagues what was possible in daily practice when we think and act from the core direction. Open dialogue and transparency proved to be strong instruments here. The core team consists of the real "game changers," people who lead from a place of personal passion. Everyone begins sharing successes, responsibilities, and frustrations with one another; this only strengthens the team's spirit. It switches people "on."
"It's much more fun to work with people who are 'on.' You get energy from that yourself."
People are "on" when they act from a place of passion, engagement, and intrinsic motivation. They become sharper, more alert, more motivated, more open and engaged. They want to contribute both individually and as a group to create value for customers, for the organization, and for each other. Their energy creates room for development; they feel responsible and both give and ask for feedback with positive angles. The energy creates a kind of self-perpetuating movement, through which developments seem to happen as a matter of course—not only within the organization, but also outside. There's a vibe, an energy that can also be felt by colleagues outside the organization and, more importantly, by customers. When everyone is "on," we can no longer imagine how things were only a short time ago. Everyone is living in a "new normal."
This is transformation.
Transformation occurs more naturally from a place of curiosity. It requires a different way of looking and doing—something distinct from what's expected of you in a conventional environment. In this organization, employees were willing to live that difference, and they worked on both on large, visible changes and small, subtle adjustments. Together, we interrogated our exiting worldviews views, established new ones, and translated into personal development plans to fit them. The beauty of transformation is that everything in the present feels natural, and no one can actually pinpoint precisely what happened. That's how this felt. Energy had shifted from one mode to another, and energy is everything in an organization.
By the way, all this makes the process sounds easier and more straightforward than it really was. Sometimes it was heavy and felt pretty lonely. But, fortunately for us, more often beautiful situations arose from those same places of vulnerability. We navigated them because we remained focused on further developing the harmony between culture, employee development, and company results. As one employee said: "I found it exciting, fun, often confusing and beautiful. Slowly such a transformation gains substance and form."
Transforming into an open and optimally profitable organization and giving it back to its people is not an easy task, but the results are very satisfying and rewarding. Within the organization, there's a balance in attention paid to people and to the business. There is transparency, inclusivity, community, adaptive capacity, and unlimited cooperation. Employees are given a working environment in which they can contribute to sustainable results based on their strengths and intrinsic motivations. They can be themselves and don't need to individual salary or reward reprimands in spite of it. This takes vision and leadership and requires continued participation from professionals. It's a beautiful journey!
As for this organization: It's been sustainably successful for a number of years now. Employees' collective creativity, willpower, and positivity have led to stable performance, even during economically challenging circumstances. People know how to maintain a good balance between attention for people and the business. When I announced my departure from the organization, I received a nice gift from the team: earnest commitments to maintain the open culture we had created. I heard things like:
- "Everything is fine as long as we keep our open culture."
- "Thank you for sharing your transparency, honesty, kindness, guidance and humor!"
- "Thank you for always letting me be myself."
- "You teach us to look not only with the head but also with the heart, and that intuition is valuable."
- "Normally when a manager leaves, I always think that there will be another one who will apply the same management tricks, someone who is going to tell us what to do again. With you, I feel differently and even worry about preserving the culture now that you are leaving."
In the end, we sincerely thanked each other for the wonderful journey we'd shared. And it is with that feeling of gratitude I look back on this transformation experience. Even today, a group of ambassadors inside the organization continues taking the steps necessary for opening the organizational culture. In this way, the culture organically secures itself and the new patterns engrain themselves deeply into the organization. (A funny observation: people felt a key leader had left, while the executive board felt one of their best managers left. A matter of perspective!)
For me, though, this is the point where I let go, trusting that without my encouragement, people will continue with the open culture and corresponding performance. I now had the peace and space I needed to take my next step.
You live through such a transformation with an entire group of people. My thanks remain with everyone who contributed to the proces—although it is never finished. And my special thanks go to the people who embraced the idea of transforming into an open organization from the beginning, as well as to those stakeholders who, directly or indirectly, helped us create space for this transformation.
"How glad I am that I work for this company and that I stayed," said an employee involved in the final phase of the process. "I always had confidence that we were going to succeed. Colleagues, partners, and customers even see us as an example now. We innovate! I really never expected that."
Footnotes
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All quotations reproduced in this chapter come from employees who participated in the transformation. ↩
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Research conducted by 2ThePoint & Barrett Values Centre. ↩
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See "Transformation and leadership in a hybrid world" in this volume. ↩
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See appendix. ↩
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These parties included FYNCH, in the person of Marco Frijhoff, and Peter Vader Trainings, in the person of Peter Vader. ↩