Doug Ross

The steps to organizational vitality avoid organizations being bogged down in the swamp.  Swamps are full of attacks, competition, back biting, aggression, hostility, anger, and other nasty alligator bites.  Alligators are also very silent, withholding of information is common; passive aggressive behavior sends ominous warnings of pending disasters; we don’t know what is going on, where we stand, or what we have done that must be wrong, the antithesis of organizational vitality and health.

Here is what to do about it!

STEP ONE:   IDENTIFY MUTUAL PURPOSE

This step asks if we agree on the purpose, mission and vision for the organization.  In these times of supersonic change, missions need to be revisited often.  All stakeholders, or as many as possible, should be involved in the mission process.  Sometimes called “repurposing”, we need to continuously bring new folks aboard, and strategically evaluate the business environment and our place in it.  A vision of where we’d like to be in ten years is a logical extension of our mission, as is the tactical plan to get there.

STEP TWO:  BUILD MUTUAL RESPECT

It is crucial that we find ways to respect each other.  It isn’t necessary that everyone you work with be your best friend.  It is important that you respect them, even if they are very different than you.  Mutual respect asks us to value diversity, diversity of race, color, creed, gender, infirmity, attitude, belief, opinion and thought.  Out of  diversity comes the most creative solutions of shared meaning.

STEP THREE:  LISTEN DEEPLY

There are three kinds of listening:  listening to ourselves, listening to others, and listening to the sense of the group.  Stephen Covey (Seven Habits of Highly Effective People) says we have to understand first, and then seek to be understood.  To understand, we have to listen.  Deep listening is about suspending judgment and standing in another persons moccasins, seeing it from their side as well as our own.  Being heard is a very important in mitigating conflict.

STEP FOUR:  ESTABLISH SHARED MEANING

Shared meaning takes time.  We have to cook the soup until it is ready.  Shared meaning requires us to learn to know each other and trust each other.  We need a dialogic process that commits to openness and deep democracy of ideas.  Shared meaning is more than the sum of individual meanings -- it is inspiring.  It is to our advantage to listen to all stakeholders, and to try to honor all interests.  Shared meaning is co-created from all of our individual dreams of success.

STEP FIVE:  WALK THE 4-FOLD PATH

• Show up and be present.  Make sure you are there, you are part of, you stand up for what is important for you.  Participate actively, even when engaged in great listening.
• Pay attention to what has meaning for you.  Notice that you are more interested in some parts of what we are doing together than other parts.  Be clear about your intentions.
• Say your truth without blame or judgment.  Be sensitive, but honest and open.  Speak from your own experiences and perceptions using “I statements”.  Don’t withhold and be silent or stuff your feelings and later be resentful or violent.  Don’t judge rightness and wrongness of ideas, but rather understand where these ideas come from.
• Be unattached to outcomes.  Advocate with passion for what you want, and then be willing to support the majority will.  Lose your ego and self interest in the interest of what is best for all.

Winston Churchill said that we sometimes need to not only do the best we can, but we need to do what is required.

STEP SIX:  APPRECIATE, RECOGNIZE ACHIEVEMENT

Too many of us heard only about what we did wrong from our parents.  Appreciation begins with ourselves, and it helps when we get our own actions validated.  So let’s be appreciative of each other, and be sure to notice the positive things that happen to us.  We are working here, wherever that is, because this company/organization has an important life force that had brought us this far.  People have helped each other, supported each other. The business survived and we are part of it. Appreciation converts problems into challenges.

Vitality thrives in a positive environment. Silence and passive agressiveness are the swamps of organizational distress.  People who withhold, simmer, resent and stuff their feelings undercut vitality.  Angry, hostile, threatening, aggressive overly competitive people also undercut vitality.  End these behaviors now.

Employees are all a "face" of the enterprise.  Executives need to let them know that they all engage in marketing both in the workplace and outside of it.  Employees need clear expectations from their bosses, so they can perform in such a way to help the business to be successful.