On one of our recent leadership programmes we asked people to envision the future shape and scope of a particular aspect of their business. ‘How will such and such look and feel in 25 years’ time?’ we asked. For some the pragmatism of now and what we know took over. Others let their imaginations run. For many it was an energising experience.
How often do we take the time to peer into the future, long distance, given the challenges of the day-to-day? More than that, with change coming thick and fast, we can be caught in a cycle of react/respond and adapt. And the change we are experiencing is often so unfathomable that predicting next week let alone a quarter century hence seems impossible.
Perhaps the key thing is to envision a destination, a new state, and work towards that rather than focus on the specifics. So, let’s imagine that destination as a better world for all. It is at the heart of our leadership, team and organisation development work at azzur.
One of the big steps to this destination, in our view, is organisations turning to face the challenge – to ensure their business places equal importance on being a force for good and doing well.
And how will we know when we’ve arrived? That depends on the scale and ambition of our vision of course. Perhaps we could say that increasingly, a better world will become obvious. And in the organisation, we might see recalibrated ‘measurement’ tools centred on an elevated context where higher purpose sits at the heart of an organisation’s decisions and actions.
For example, imagine the 360° assessment, that measure of leadership impact, tuned to this higher level. We might be including statements like…
Guided by organisational purpose, always does the right thing. Or,
Accepts and demonstrates responsibility to contribute to the greater good. Or,
Trusts in intuition to guide action.
And what if we applied this to the staff survey? We might be inviting people to respond to statements like…
Our senior leaders consider all decisions and actions as an opportunity to support humanity flourishing. Or,
Our leaders’ commitment to building a better world brings meaning to my work. Or,
Service is a core characteristic of our culture.
These six statements are full of the possibility of organisations contributing to better. Out of curiosity, what statements would you add?