For many years I have been researching ways to help organizations become more competent and, therefore, effective.
As I move forward I feel like I just started. One theme leads me to another and this other to another. My professional and personal commitment is to business "competence".
How do we tell our stories to others?
I am looking for methods so that companies can transform, among other things, internal competitiveness, faulty controls, intellectual irresponsibility, lack of communication between sectors, known customer dissatisfaction and institutionalized inaction against to her, in positive energy, in environments of evolution and development; in living spaces that are worth sharing. Sometimes, it seems that we forget that we spend a good part of our lives in our workplaces.
How is our dialogue with ourselves?
I seek coherence. That coherence that allows us to feel relaxed as we say, do and think the same. I got tired of the costumes and resignation. I am bored of empty phrases and this drives me to look for new working methods that allow the best of each member of an organization or group to emerge.
We all come from a story built with words, we have become accustomed to hiding behind them. We get used to repeating phrases, to promise, and to promise ourselves, a lot of actions to achieve certain results. We get used to excusing ourselves in front of the broken promises and we swallow the frustration that this generates to us.
Do we complain about what others do or don't do?
As I go down this exciting path I am losing certainties, and it is not carelessness, but part of my own process. I think there is much to do. I feel that organizations should give themselves permission so that their members can, in turn, give themselves permission to dialogue with each other.
I think that beyond the organizations themselves, the great beneficiary will be society, since a new instance of rapprochement between humans could be opened. There would be fewer spoken recipes and more acts of humanity. The recipes are, in short, more of the same: social mandates, tell us what to do and even how to do it, stifling the initiative and creativity of the BEING that we are.
How do we tell our stories?
Despite how much is spoken, little is said and one is usually very far from dialogue (search for shared meanings). It is very far from reaching shared visions (really), those that unite (add) the task of each one of the members of the company. Those that provide the feeling of belonging, those that inject enthusiasm (being inhabited by the gods).
When Peter Drucker expressed that we should "learn to unlearn what we learned," at first I felt anger. I felt cheated. With what it had cost me to learn certain concepts, now I had to unlearn them, and the worst thing was that I had no idea how to do it.
As I go along, I slowly understand what Drucker wanted to convey. If I cling to what I know, I will not be able to learn anything new and I will continue walking around known landscapes. How many times have I heard myself say: soup again!
Is there enthusiasm in my work group?
Using an everyday business example, Sales complains about Production delays, Production complains about Purchase delays, Purchases complains about Administration, which in turn complains about non-payment from customers and Sales misunderstanding, Marketing complains about lack of budget, Technical Service complains about overwork and lack of spare parts, etc.
What is the work environment like?
In a complaining, fragmented, hostile environment, without generative energy, each one is a victim of the actions of others. Neither feels part of the conflicts and we do not realize that in this way we cannot be part of the solutions either. We fall, recurrently, in looking for solutions outside. We "cling" to fighting to change our context.
We disguise ourselves as Don Quixote and, without realizing it, we cling to suffering. We are becoming, little by little, although inexorably, victims of circumstances. In this instance, neither voluntarism nor good intentions achieve. Everything becomes an energy waste.
Despite this, in our speech there are many phrases loaded with a successful combative role. We are ashamed to be confused, vulnerable. We resist showing ourselves human.
Do I accept what is there?
We find it hard to add visions and abandon the bid for individual, small, or even ineffective reasons for the social whole (organization, group, family, partner, etc.) to which we belong and in which we operate.
As Laing says: "we do not realize that we do not realize it" and we repeatedly fall into the trap of self-centered blindness that provides absolute certainty. There are not a few circumstances in which we end up emulating Narcissus and we drown seduced by our own "beauty".
What to do about this?
Accept what there is, open the game so that each one is heard and can listen to the others. Create a space for dialogue, in which each one can share what they feel in front of the others.
That each, in time, can express their assumptions and beliefs. That each one can learn to listen without judging or criticizing the other. That each one can be heard in the others.
Design improvement processes for certain circuits (internal and external) and carry out management controls with the aim of solving, among all, any deviations that may arise. Assuming control as a mutual interest in achieving common, transcendent goals of the individual. It is necessary to use processes that allow us to escape the trap of individualism that marginalizes us and that, in addition, reduces our individual and group energy.
Do I listen to my colleagues?
To reject the controls that require more controls, accepting the uncertainty that life presents us. By accepting, I mean not removing the body, taking responsibility for what happens and, simply, facing it as part of the life process, both personal and that of the organization or group to which I belong.
We can also, why not, leave things as they are and continue doing what we have been doing… Someday, perhaps, we will get tired and try another path.
