A bad system will beat a good person

A bad system will beat a good person every time.
— William Edwards Deming (1900-1993)

87%‼️ of employees in Europe are not engaged, or actively disengaged at work. The lowest score in the world - across all industries and organisation maturities and sizes. (Gallup report 2023)

Most companies hold on to organisational practices that are 100+ years old. They date back to industrialisation and industrial automation:

A stable, complicated and predictable world, revolving around machines and manufacturing processes.

To this date, companies apply Taylor's principles of functions, departments, job descriptions, input, output and throughput times. People are told to focus on their tasks and not talk to other departments.

Managers tell everyone what to do, controlled efficiency and in a magical way ensure there are no information silos - despite this setup.

The believe still is that the common employee can't be trusted with a business, since they are inherently lazy, and wouldn't know what to do and how to organise anyway.

Anarchy, doom and gloom - the case for the strong leader(s) who is always a strategic mastermind.

The irony: You still hear this from people who claim their employees are the most important asset - however, they don't really trust them. 🤷‍♂️

A volatile, complex and unpredictable world requires a different system.

You can't plan things years in advance - one tiny change and your plan is useless. All you can do is be prepared - like a football team can't plan a match.

This world needs a system that lets a good person strive with purpose towards mastery.

It requires a human-centric organisation: Flexible and responsive to changes in its environment, i.e. employees, customers, market, suppliers, society, nature…

To this end an organisation needs to have purpose and provide autonomy & demand accountability, promote mastery by leveraging strengths and provide absolute (internal) transparency.

Yet, this doesn't mean 'do what you want, how you want it'.

Progressive organisations have a strict discipline in applying their practices, defining guiding principles and common practices.

It's about building a well attuned sports team. One that keeps the eyes on the ball (not on the coach), reaps the benefits of crowd intelligence, creativity and agility.

Progressive organisations are not only more fun to work with, but also outperform their traditionally peers financially.

Check out Svenska Handelsbanken (self-organised since the 1970s) compared to some of its largest peers: chart on Google Finance

And the best thing: There are easy ways for any organisation to start making a difference!

No need to shake-up and turn your organisation upside down!

Above all, safe yourself the money for expensive 'agile' 'SAFe' etc. consultants. There is no one-size fits all that you can pour over your organisation. It mostly results in cynicism and more resistance.

Feel free to reach out, if you would like to some meaningful and immediately rewarding steps with your own team.