Posted on by shersh

Do populists fit in an organization?

Populism may be defined as the identification and vocalization of popular needs. Do populists fit in organizations? Yes. Of course.

Be clear that populism is not a bad thing, if you “pay attention” to the voices. As a leader, before you can create any plan of action, paying attention requires listening and listening requires using the skill of empathy.

I believe and encourage the point, that we are all leaders. Each and every one of you.
We take responsibility and accountability, at minimum, for ourselves. More broadly, we serve our team members, teams, our organizations, communities and globally. So please wear and bear a leadership weight on your shoulders that best serves.

Empathy requires more from us, individually, than just bearing weight. Empathy asks that we put ourselves in someone else’s shoes, hear, feel and relate to the emotion expressed. We can then connect meaningfully to that person in our words, tone and body language. Empathy requires that we change ourselves first in order that we can support or facilitate (whatever is needed) change in others.

In organizations, we may have many populists. The CEO who can read the many threads and weave them together to align people and goals, will see success. Is he or she a successful populist? In a manner of speaking yes.

The senior manager or anyone who senses an unserved need and raises it to enable change is also a populist or maybe he can also be viewed as a “trouble maker” rocking the boat. When is the employee good or the employee bad? In Shakespearean terms, That’s the rub!

Good or bad (absolutist) designations result from judgemental organizations. Organizations having low empathy sewn into their culture tend to forget that there is a learning side, with thanks to Peter Senge, and waste much organizational energy judging. Learning organizations can respond more positively and constructively to populists and enable their thinking to be included and have an effect on the decision-making governance processes. All good for long term organizational sustainability.

Judgemental organizations tend to quash or ignore populists, at their peril, allowing the untended thread to connect itself to other loose threads building into larger future issues. So much for engagement and adoption!

So next time you meet a populist, do your best to breathe, “listen’ to the message without judgement and ask collaboratively how the message can serve the overall organizational good. Worth the dialogue.

Posted on by shersh

Listen to your people – One thing we can learn from the US election

Through this election what can we learn, from an organizational perspective? One clear point is to know your employees. Trump appears to have taken advantage of a simmering thread sewn throughout the fabric that is the United States. Few identified that thread or its need to be addressed.

Organizationally it begs the question: How well do you know your organization? What do your employees think and feel? Is there alignment, dissonance or what? Is there a thread you have not addressed that can impact meeting objectives?

The simple ask is to talk to them! The harder task and more important, listen to them, hear them and engage them. Too often senior executives think they have their thumb on the pulse only to find out the negative after an attempted new product / service launch or other change fails. And that lack of success is very costly to organizational energy &performance, competitiveness and stakeholder value.

Surprised election pollsters complained that people often lied about their voting preferences when surveyed so pollsters allotted some numeric quantity to take this “problem” into consideration. For organizations it is about sustaining a dialogue and an underlying level of trust in the ability of senior management and the organization as whole to execute with alignment.

I have served organizations that from start-up to one’s with a history of over 100 years. The reality is our level of active, honest, transparent and active dialogue is lacking.

On line surveys and assessments are nice as one of the sources of data to glean insight. Streamed videos for the large and vastly disbursed as a start to talking is just a start, not an end. And assuming employee’s managers communicate consistently what they heard from their managers (and so on), this communication is also a start as well.

As opposed to 330 million people, organizations have a smaller and more manageable task.
Get out there, meet and engage face to face. Do it way more than once, do it deeply, meaningfully, with clear measurable objectives and very clear communications messages and engagement plans. Else you too may lose to a not so silent thread.