Enhance individual & collective
capacity for performance & thriving
by making good sense common practice

The approach and philosophy underlying Thriving Workplace

"There is a crucial difference between declarative knowledge, knowing a concept and its technical details, and procedural knowledge, being able to put those concepts and details into action. Knowing does not equal doing, whether in playing the piano, managing a team, or acting on essential advice at the right moments."
[Daniel Goleman, Working with Emotional Intelligence.]

The Motivation

Two features of my work as an organisational development coach, trainer and leadership mentor simultaneously sadden and motivate me the most. The first is the prevalence of people who are passionate about their own work, their direct clients and close colleagues but whose passion for their organisation has died. Once inspired and excited by their leaders, they now regard them as ineffectual people whose influence is to be suffered, minimised or disengaged from wherever possible in order to reduce stress and inconvenience. They no longer believe the organisation's potential can be realised.

The second is the prevalence of leaders who do their absolute utmost to serve their ventures and people passionately but no longer seem capable of realising the vision and dreams they once had for them. Often seriously exhausted from extreme overwork, they have become emotionally and intellectually dispirited. Whatever formerly inspired them has been extinguished.

This loss of passion and energy is appalling and unnecessary. I work to help prevent it.

Clearly, within every group of people there is a vast reservoir of goodwill, knowledge, wisdom and talent. The duty of leaders and managers is - and the collective commitment should be - to tap this energy and direct the flow in ways that bring out the best and best-directed efforts in everyone. Unfortunately, conventional efforts often impede the flow or reduce it to a thin trickle. Groups end up struggling to survive, when they should be thriving.

We do better to understand the problem and experiment with different approaches designed to address its causes.

Challenging Conventional Survival

I do not believe that through rational analysis, methodical organisation and artfulness it is possible to order all aspects of our organisations into controlled efficiency, leaving nothing to chance. Nor do I value or want that possibility, if indeed it is one. I prefer the uncertainty of spontaneity. We are humans, not machines and when any of us get together for collective endeavour, interesting and unpredictable things will always happen, no matter what efforts are made to tame chaos and eliminate random events.

However, I do believe and have experienced that more of the desirable effects are possible than is usual and it's worth making the effort to try for them. I prefer thrival to survival.

The improvement of whatever your group is established to do is territory I may know either very little or nothing about. You'll need your own map for that, a well-planned and carefully-monitored plan detailing the usual pre-requisites for the delivery of your products or services. Those matters deal with an organisation's Primary Task, what it must do in order to survive; operational issues that not my focus. At least, not directly.

Primary Task and Capacity for Primary Task

In every organisation, team and group there are major opportunities for small-step improvements to performance, results and capacity for thriving. Most of them are very simple to make but are routinely missed. Potential for effectiveness is consequently lost.

The evidence is found in the frequent presence of unresolved and recurring problems, inertia, indecision, confusion, misdirected efforts, mistrust, hostility, cynicism, low morale, disengagement, factionalism, inflexibility and passive resistance.

There are two basic reasons why, even with such serious consequences, these improvement opportunities are not seen or not taken:

1. The existence of inappropriate, inconsistent and improvisational processes for managing Primary Task (what the organisation must do in order to remain in business) and the development of capacity for Primary Task.
2. Over-attention to the organisation's Primary Task at the expense of developing both individual and collective capacity for the Primary Task.
   

   

Of course, perfect functioning, complete efficiency and effectiveness would amount to and require a major modern-day miracle. Our organisations and workplace behaviours are as they are because of structural and systemic imperfections designed into them and perpetuated by our social history over hundreds of years, and because of the habituated perceptions, behaviours and expectations of individual participants. Changing all of those interlocking pieces of the puzzle would require a combination of commitment, flair, creativity and powerful magic I have yet to find anywhere.

However, many people have studied these matters and helped organisations harvest the rewards of useful changes. They have produced most progress when well-planned, managed, monitored, and inspired by far-sighted leadership with bold aspirations. Very often, as I said earlier, they involve implementing very simple, small-step improvements.

My own studies over 30 years have led to a belief that much of what is required to bring about thriving workplaces is encouragement to make what is simple good sense, common sense and common practice.

It surprises me how rare is this approach. What most surprises my clients is how much commitment and effort it takes to make it everyday practice, and how significant are the improvements that result from even its slightest application.

For further information, browse our free resources; they cover more details about of our approach and give an indication of what you can expect when you subscribe as a member.

Tom Watkins

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All material on this site is ©  2007 Tom Watkins.