Four actions to kickstart a dynamic that puts your people at the center
You can feel it in the air. Your organization is in overdrive again, and there's no end in sight.
A mild (or medium!) stress permeates the dialogue. You feel that sense of careening toward deadlines and hustling to the next milestone. Your past self lobbed items over the fence of tomorrow, and now you are dealing with time deficits and emergencies that are coming due. What was once a sense of adventure and possibility has lost its vibrant hue, and people look tired and diminished. Even work that has a deeper purpose feels less fulfilling when you can’t feel fully through the fatigue. Maybe drama starts to creep up as a lack of accountability and camaraderie fades.
It’s no fun, right?
At Leading Elephants, we’re seeing that organizations are “running hot” more often than not, and many feel like the grind is inevitable. That resignation seems to sap soul and vitality out of the work.
If we’re so bold to say… it doesn’t have to be this way.
So many leaders default to the common apology of “this is just the culture here” to describe their experience of overdrive. We want to explore with you how you can get off the hamster wheel and on a new path to vitality.
Before we go on: defining vitality
We think of participants in an organization operating with vitality when they show energy, enthusiasm, and commitment to their work. It’s as if they bring a full fuel tank to tackle challenges and collaborate with teammates.
The Dimensions of Vitality
Truth be told, most organizations settle for some level of chaos, dysfunction, and/or detachment as their norm.
We often see four archetypes of organizations based on their strengths and challenges they are facing:
There are two factors an organization needs to promote vitality and tilt away from overdrive and chaos:
Proactive practices that bring clarity and rigor. When an organization is really humming, team members can see their role and how they are contributing to a bigger picture. Organizations that get this right have clarity and rigor from the big things, like clear organizational strategies and priorities, to the small things, like clear roles and individual goals. There are manageable rhythms for coordination and collaboration, and strong managerial practices that bring support and focus on execution. Getting this right is no easy matter. Sometimes organizations nail this, but then they outgrow their routines as the organization evolves. At other times, the tsunami of a big project pushes a team to abandon what was working. Or maybe the systems were too onerous, so nobody follows them. Getting this factor right is really hard, but when it’s done well, it helps the organization to WIN and feel a sense of accomplishment.
An intentional orientation to people and purpose. The soul of an organization comes from understanding the beauty and the humanness of people. Organizational leaders who really capture this bring a deep empathy and awareness to how humans tick. They know that life isn’t as linear as the boxes in a calendar. They appreciate that humans, unlike machines, do better with oscillations of work and rest. They don’t see the other parts of life as a competition for work, but as an enhancement that brings richness. They know that connecting people to purpose and appreciation fills up the fuel that animates their work. It’s understandable how an organization can lose the plot here. Sometimes the excitement from the early years wains as an organization matures and newcomers arrive. At other times, rapid change, financial cuts, or big pivots (hello, COVID!) lead to significant disruptions in the ways of doing work together. In other times, new leaders bring in methods to create efficiency and clarity, but they cut away at the keystone features of culture. One of the trickiest parts of getting this right is that things like relationships, culture, values, and mission are all intangibles. Investing in this area rarely gives a distinct “done!” feeling.
It’s no wonder that it takes a LOT of things going right to find the sweet spot. So, as you reflect on these dimensions… where would you put your organization?
Four sure-fire actions to kickstart a new dynamic
By now, you’re probably wanting to begin moving more to the upper right of this matrix, and thinking about what would be lasting moves to get there. The path for your organization is as unique as its current recipe for overdrive, but we see that there are generally four major aspects that kickstart transformation.
Count the cost and set an intention for change. It is one thing to intellectually know you want things to be different, but your organization won’t push against the forces of chaos without a real “why.” So take some time to count the cost of what it’s like being in your organization right now. What is the cost of drama and workarounds? Where is decision making poorer or creativity diminished because people are going on fumes? Where are you getting turnover or begrudging compliance? What is the cost to the health, meaningful relationships, and joy of your team piling up? As you begin to see the ways you don’t want to be, take a moment to set the intention of what you DO want to experience at your organization. This grounding “why” can be a strong anchor for hard changes to come.
Find a doable, but meaningful change you can make immediately. While transformation needs more than surface level responses, we find that taking a doable action kickstarts the momentum of change. (This is especially true if your actions come from listening to people in pain and responding to them). Taking at least one step forward pushes against the overwhelming sense of complexity, and pierces the excuse that “this is just the way it is.” At Leading Elephants, we continue to ask ourselves the question of “how could this be simpler?” as a repeated way of finding relief and possibility in the face of our tendency for intricate solutions. Maybe you take a simple question and see how much calm and connection can come from an easy action. It might surprise you!
Carve out time for clarity. Let’s face it. You are not going to shift meaningfully if you try to squeeze solution making into the tiny windows in your hamster wheel. Yes, things likely feel intense right now. But the status quo is likely seducing you into prioritizing short term progress at the sake of greater clarity or connection. Regardless of what your organization is facing, it needs space to pivot. And it is more doable than you might think. Maybe you have to dig down and find a time to reflect. But we bet that you can find a window in the next 2-3 weeks (max!) to find some space to align and discover what the next solutions will be.
Discuss the elephants in the room with candor, curiosity, and care. We don’t know what the undiscussables are at your organization, but we do know one thing: almost every case of a stuck organization comes from an unspoken conversation. Perhaps there are challenging prioritization decisions that will feel disappointing to some. Or the inconsistency in accountability feels tricky to call out. Maybe there are fears around the abuse of flexibility that need to be named. In any case, we find that organizations who take time to “name the thing” thoughtfully will find a collective exhale, and a truer commitment to solutions that will work for everyone.
Vitality is worth the effort
We know you have likely felt that time where an organization is in its groove. It’s almost like you can sense the synapses firing, the trust that is palpable, the feeling of belonging and fulfillment that is so rich. There are still challenges in these places, but addressing them somehow adds a sense of camaraderie and can-do possibility.
When you think about these places, you can feel what it’s like to be a person in them. There’s a magic in the air when a leader is mobilizing the vitality of their people.
We believe that it is possible to be a high-impact, high-belonging organization. And we believe that relentlessly pursuing vitality yields huge dividends in return.
At the end of the day, the people are what your organization is made of. Are you ready to unleash the possibilities by putting their vitality at the center?
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