Child

5/3/2019

‘Who started this work – the organisation’s founder, or the child who inspired him to do it?’

This challenge came as a healthy jolt, a moment of insight and inspiration, from Carlos, a humble, radical leader working with poor communities in Brazil. It was at an induction event for new leaders of a now very large, global non-governmental organisation (NGO). Its history was being presented through the lens of the organisation’s founder and its successive global presidents. The founder was a war photographer who had been appalled to see the terrible suffering of children during the Korean War. An encounter with a child had galvanised his determination to do something about it.

The resultant NGO had worked very hard over the years to support poor and vulnerable children throughout the world and had indeed achieved some remarkable results. Over time, however, as the organisation had grown in scale and scope, it had started increasingly to view the world through an organisational lens rather than through the eyes of a child. The simple-yet-profound voice of a child had become lost in the midst of complex strategies, structures, policies, plans and programmes. The presidential perspective symbolised a shift from client/beneficiary-centric to organisation-centric.

Why is this important? Firstly, this child’s interaction with and influence on the founder challenges traditional ideas of leadership as a hierarchical-structural phenomenon rather than, as according to Chris Rodgers (2015), ‘an emergent property of people interacting together, not as an elite practice confined to those at the top of organizations.’ Secondly, this NGO’s experience highlights the risk of subtle-yet-critical drifts away from a customer-client, outside-in focus to an intra-organisational, inside-out/inside-inside focus. How can we address these issues as leaders, coaches, OD and trainers?

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14 Comments

Geofree Githinji

7/3/2019 08:45:45 am

Familiar...

Nick Wright

7/3/2019 08:49:11 am

Hi Geofree. I'm intrigued. Can you say more..?

Sara Pearson MSc

7/3/2019 08:46:25 am

Hi Nick, Great insight. I agree that as organisations grow and become more complex, operational realities, pressures and data driven expectations can take precedence. As a result, customer focus can take a back seat and become a mere lip service. Make no mistake data driven activities such as structure, strategy, planning, and financial monitoring have an importance place in a business; however, there is significant supporting data that the strongest correlation for growth and success is customer loyalty and satisfaction.
As OD leaders, coaches and trainers we need to help people refocus their attention / priorities so that they can restart seeing their service through the eyes of its customers again. A good way to start is by stimulating outside-in inquiry, with questions such as, ‘why didn’t those customers buy anything’ or what did they come looking for and did not find’. However, we are, just one cog in a big wheel and to have a truly customer client focused service the business strategy must be one that is aligned to work and engage its employees at every level to create a shared understanding and commitment to ensure customers are centre stage at all times.

7/3/2019 09:02:35 am

Thanks Sara. 'Seeing their service (or brand/products) through the eyes of customers' strikes me as so important. I saw great examples in the leadership team of an organisation I worked with as team coach. They held their bi-monthly meetings at different locations around the country, using 50% of their time to meet directly with staff and beneficiaries at those locations. They periodically invited staff and beneficiaries to dial/video in at the start of their executive meetings to share their stories, excitements, concerns etc before moving onto a more formal business agenda. They invited and encouraged radical challenge to question their own and others' assumptions (e.g. around the validity of the organisation's 'evidence base' when developing strategy). In case of interest, here's a short write-up of one of the methodologies I developed and used with the team to do this: http://www.nick-wright.com/blog/spots

Steve

11/3/2019 09:47:15 am

An interesting reflection. How does a large organisation retain the benefits of being large and at the same time maintain the benefits and characteristics a small organisation, responsive to the client and their context.

As it becomes larger so does its risk. The risks are managed by top down controls, protocols and frameworks for its thousands of staff to align with. As they do this more and more of their managers time is focused on working on these, turning them to look inside, and less time with the client. The client too, the child, is also sort of expected to align with these processes, etc.

I think the solution is probably highly trained staff, that can be trusted to achieve the best possible outcomes for the poor in any given context they find themselves in. Evaluating performance,i.e. the benefit of the organisation, though is still tricky.

It would be fun to work it out how to do it though. Possibly, learning from a franchise model, albeit it is probably too complex for a franchise.

11/3/2019 10:13:45 am

Thanks Steve. I found your reflections interesting, particularly in terms of how systems and processes that are perceived as needed in larger and more complex organisations take more and more time, attention and resources to manage and administer. I guess if an organisation is to rely on highly trained staff to interface effectively with clients (or customers/beneficiaries), there would need to be similarly effective interfaces between staff and managers and staff/managers and other key internal and external stakeholders...which may create the same problematic effects?

David Hurst link

19/3/2019 02:15:55 pm

It's essential to have a complex adaptive systems (ecological) perspective on why this happens as organizations scale. As they scale they start to work with abstractions (maps) rather than with the actual territory. As the landscape changes, however, these maps become a less and less good fit with "reality". For a nine minute presentation on an ecological perspective see my presentation to the 2018 Drucker Forum here at the 15:00 minute mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zljfWE6SBKc&t=0s&index=7&list=PLSUz9F_4iImo9HL5Ju8IBXq4BuWP8f22E

19/3/2019 02:30:58 pm

Hi David. I think that gradual disconnect between map and reality is a good way of expressing it. It calls for frequent and critically reflexive reality checks. Thanks for sharing the link - interesting!

Julie Genney

19/3/2019 02:28:54 pm

Am I being naive here? For me it’s about perspective and going back to the Why, why we doing this? Why are we running this organisation/company/business? It’s a question I often ask myself!

19/3/2019 02:33:01 pm

Hi Julie. That doesn't sound naive to me. I too find that going back to the 'why' is such a fundamental and important question; whether at macro strategic level or at, say, a conversation at team meeting level.

20/3/2019 06:04:37 pm

Nick, I think we overcomplicate things. The old training mantra of keeping it simple!

20/3/2019 06:07:42 pm

Hi Julie. That may be true...although as my own professional mentor often says, 'These things are often simple - but rarely easy.' If that were not the case, fewer leaders, teams and organisations would find themselves drifting off track, I guess!

Yuvarajah Thiagarajah

20/3/2019 02:26:28 am

How often have we heard of "the system sucks". Taking a systemic thinking, we begin to wonder how it all got started to drift away. Just because the organisation grows, does it mean losing sight of the fundamentals - values that inspired and drove the creation of the crusade or business. Herein lies the challenge to leadership and follower-ship. Is there a particular order with which we should approach and address from in order to come up the most effective system?. Does structure shape the system thinking or does strategy drive the structural design to fulfill the needs of the customers/clients?. Many organisation have lost focus of their original purpose simply because along the way something else became more important, at the expense of the customer/client. How can we ever hope to achieve results by ignoring the voice of the very child we intend to help. Whether for profit or non profit, the challenge is the same - open channels of communication to build trust. Politics and silo mentality must make way for inclusiveness and innovation. Hence, we are back to the epicenter of self leadership and culture within the organisation.

20/3/2019 12:35:57 pm

Hi Yuvarajah. Thanks for sharing such interesting questions and thoughts. I think you hit the proverbial nail on the head with your pivotal comment, 'along the way something else became more important'. The drift can be very subtle and often takes place over time. It raises the question of what role leadership and culture play in ensuring an organisation maintains a strong connection with its fundamental purpose, values and relationships. 'What are we here to do?'

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