Last week I attended the 10th Peter Drucker Forum in Vienna, it was the second time I attended this forum and I consider it ‘food for the soul’. This year the theme was ‘The Human Dimension’. The greatest thinkers on management, leadership and organisation came together and discuss the state of things.
And in my humble opinion, we are in dire straits.
Let’s face it, organisations are killing people or - as described by Gary Hamel - organisations have become in-human by design. Huge bureaucracies are ‘emotional deadzones’, creativity and innovation is impossible, ideas are often approached in a hostile manner, greed and testosteron have become main drivers.
Organisations are not a safe place to engage in a truly meaningful conversation about improving oneself, the organisation and society. Management and leadership are increasingly distancing themselves of the problems and challenges that we face, they put no skin in the game. Blaming if something goes wrong, celebrating their great leadership if something went right. Or, according to Mintzberg; “we got too much disconnected leadership in organisations”.
In government this is even worse. Government has been derailed for decades by bureaucratic mindsets, powerbased scoundrels and the very defintion of silos. Talent management in government is a joke until they fix its culture, leadership habits and processes (Dan Pontefract).
Government is broken and we need to fix it.
It is a challenge to change this, but I believe we can. And this message was heard during the two days as well. Just start with acknowledging this great injustice to humans, the devastating effect it has on productivity, quality of service, the ability to innovate and the ability of organisations to be socially responsible (dear organisation, answer this question; in terms of purpose, why do you exist except for making more money?).
We can change, but it all starts with leadership being selfless, mindful and compassionate (Rasmus Hougaard). Listen!, be curious, ask questions (Hal Gregersen), facilitate decision-making (resist making decisions yourself) in small teams of people, reward initiative and competency. Power is not given to you by hierarchy, but its given to you if you take initiative (Xavier Huilard).
Or to put it more succinctly; just start giving a shit.
Reflection of oneself is vital in all of this. Don’t just act selfless, be it. Don’t just act social responsible, proof it. Don’t just act compassionate, let me feel it.
And I am writing this plea not only for management or leaders, I am also writing it to myself and others as well, because I truly belief that we are all leaders.
“Have some skin in the game”, stop rewarding yourself 500 times (or more) the average wage. Stop accumulating obscene amounts of wealth and underpaying your employees (Jeff Bezos, looking at you). Stop striving for global monopolies and crushing human rights and values in the process (Amazon, Google, Facebook, Uber, ....). Stop grabbing, start giving. Oh my, this is starting to sound like a sermon now.
I was impressed by Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever. What a passionate man, I felt his anger, driven by purpose, the common good and acknowledging that his company can change something for the better. Not only talking about it, but acting on it! Unilever has lost a great leader (after 10 years he will retire as CEO of Unilever), I really hope Paul remains to be on the stage. We need people like him.
Stop talking, start walking........Humans first.
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