The above framework highlights the key components of organizations. Organizations exist to provide a service or product. They compete against a lot of noise that they try to sell to their clients from the malls, mail-ins (even though these seem to be decreasing), TV commercials, and the internet.
Since organizations compete with others in their industry and on the service or product they provide, most usually create a strategy on how to achieve their deliverables and milestones. The first key structure needed to achieve its deliverables is its organizational strategy. This provides the organization with the direction and focus they will need in order to achieve their deliverables.
Once the organizational strategy is in place they ensure their organizational operations are designed in a way to support the strategy and to deliver on their product or services. Their operations are how they deliver their products and services. This is how they deliver on why they exist. This is what delivers on their value-add and differentiates them from the competition.
The last component is their financial management. This is where they track how they are doing financially as an organization and provide management on their viability. It provides management an opportunity to assess if they have to adapt, cut back, or expand and where. It lets them know what to do next depending on what the numbers are saying. Can they expand, do they need to cut back, or what exactly?
In essence, this top portion represents the infrastructure of an organization, why it exists, how it plans to operate and grow, and what services and products it provides. It represents why the organization exists and the intended value-add to their potential clients. This represents what can set up an organization for success through organizational effectiveness. However, this top portion is not enough for an organization to succeed. After all, an organization is not complete without its workforce in order to provide the value that it ascribes to do. This is where the bottom portion plays a significant role.
The bottom portion consists of the human dynamics within the organization. It consists of the psychology of the workers. This is about what is expected from the individuals in the organization and how they may feel engaged in the workplace. Organizational dynamics is about how teams, departments, and team members interact with each other. This is also about how managers interact with their teams and the expectations they set for their team members. It is also about how department leaders model what they expect from their teams. It is about the sociological aspects of departments and teams. In a way, it is about the behavioral expectations within departments.
The last portion is the organizational culture. This is about what is expected in the organization from its team members and leaders. It is about the unwritten rules of how the workforce is expected to engage in the organization while performing their duties and interacting with each other and their clients. It is about the unwritten and unspoken rules of engagement that everyone understands.
Organizations will need to enable a human-intelligent workplace through effective leadership.
- How is your organization doing in this space?
- Is it really a human-centered organization?
- Is it a human-intelligent workplace?
- Are your leaders effective?
- How do you know?
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When these three portions are run effectively, it leads to organizational behavior. Organizational behavior has been defined as how individuals, groups, and organizations interact and influence one another. How the first three portions are established, and run will impact the organization and in turn create a differentiator from its competition.
What is fundamental to the success of organizational behavior is effective leadership. It is an organization where the leaders create a workplace where the workforce feels listened to, psychologically safe, happy to work in the organization, engaged, and living a positive workplace experience. Where leaders are empathetic, compassionate, and authentic when interacting with their workforce. They recognize the impact they have on their workforce, which has been found to have a bigger impact on them than their doctors.
The top portion of the framework highlights the hardware of the organization, while the bottom portion highlights the software. And like a computer, without its software a computer is just a piece of plastic, metal, or a box. An organization without its organizational behavior or differentiator and effective leadership can make the top portion of the organization short-sighted, short-lived, and possibly unsuccessful.
Allowing an unhealthy or toxic workplace to exist by not paying attention to the bottom portion of the framework can lead to an organization’s ineffectiveness and even downfall. There are too many organizations in the cemetery of past successful organizations. It is because of this that I believe that a healthy organization will prioritize the bottom portion of the framework through effective leadership in order to enable a positive organizational differentiator. I believe this can be done by creating a Human Intelligent (HI) Workplace.
An HI workplace is one where leaders model effective leadership behaviors by creating an organizational culture where the workers’ experience is one of being engaged while collaborating with their diverse team members. It is a workplace where the workforce feels psychologically safe when raising different perspectives, taking risks, being innovative, and/or being creative. It is a workplace where the workforce feels listened to and understood by their leaders. It is a workplace where the workforce finds fulfillment in the work they do and in the organization they work in.
In order for organizations to position themselves for success going forward, where the workforce has different expectations, they are going to have to balance organizational effectiveness with organizational behavior/differentiator through a more human-centered approach. Organizations will need to enable a human-intelligent workplace through effective leadership.
- How is your organization doing in this space?
- Is it really a human-centered organization?
- Is it a human-intelligent workplace?
- Are your leaders effective?
- How do you know?
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