The work relationship has to be based on mutual respect. Nothing seems to matter more than having the right people working together using their creativity to explore innovative solutions for their challenges. That can only happen within an environment of respect [More]
So stated Peter Drucker. He went on to say “Psychological despotism is basically contemptuous—far more contemptuous than the traditional Theory X. It does not assume that people are lazy and resist work, but it assumes that the manager is healthy while everybody else is sick. It assumes that the manager is strong while everybody else is weak. It assumes that the manager knows while everybody else is ignorant. It assumes that the manager is right, whereas everybody else is stupid. These are the assumptions of foolish arrogance.”
In this day and age of the knowledge worker having our people working near the top of their potential is absolutely critical and that will only occur when they feel respected. Competition and egotism kills respect but learning to collaborate is everything.
Every organization faces challenges, but too many fail to perform, not due to any shortage of funds, technology or knowledge, but due to the fact that people in such organizations are not allowed to use their creativity to explore innovative solutions for their challenges. Respect does not exist in such organizations at least not past the niceties of polite friendships and networking through social pyramiding.
For a business to grow and meet the extreme challenges of our global village (in other words the commoditizing effect of instant communication, Internet and worldwide product cannibalization) we need everyone in our company to go beyond just their own potential. The new reality is that we have to work in teams across departments on projects if we are going to fully use our business resources.
Since the advent of China and Third World manufacturing it is no longer the superiority of our product but rather our ability to cooperate with each other (inside and outside our company) that creates true business value. Collaboration is the key for it takes innovation and creativity to higher and higher levels. It is never an idea, technology, market forces, or access to capital that makes a company innovative. What differentiates an innovative company from an average company is the people working inside the company.
Drucker went on to say of frustrated people working in poorly led organizations:
“So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work…..The people who work within these industries or public services know that there are basic flaws. But they are almost forced to ignore them and to concentrate instead on patching here, improving there, fighting the fire or caulking that crack. They are thus unable to take innovation seriously, let alone to try to compete with it. They do not, as a rule, even notice it until it has grown so big as to encroach on their industry or service, by which time it has become irreversible. In the meantime, the innovators have the field to themselves…. Management is about human beings. Its task is to make people capable of joint performance, to make their strengths effective and their weaknesses irrelevant…. T to make people capable of joint performance through common goals, common values, the right structure, and the training and development they need to perform and to respond to change”
That is why the hiring and development process is so critical. Sometimes a company will have to breed and nurse the talent itself. Sometimes the talent are guns for hire. But companies should have the confidence to give their people the freedom to explore the high-risk messiness and the fuzzy, nonlinear ways in which innovation grows. Innovation is most likely to emerge from a culture of encouragement.
This starts with the hiring process. We need a diverse talent pool throughout every level of our companies especially in terms of age. “With age brings wisdom; with youth brings innovation. Combine the two and they are unstoppable.”
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