The Culture Key To Organizational Success

As I continue to learn more about organizational success strategies, I am coming to understand that the underlying culture of the organization is so very fundamental to its success.

I believe this is especially the case in terms of three critical competency areas:

– Communication – needs to be timely, constructive, multi-directional, and with emotional intelligence.

– Trust – must be be based on honesty and integrity including consistently supporting the success of everyone professionally and as a organization. 

– Collaboration – must be be anchored in respecting, valuing, empowering, and rewarding each and every person for their views and the contributions, both individually and as team members, and in treating diversity and collaboration, as a true force-multiplier. 

If any of these elements are missing or broken then it does not seem to me that the organization will be able to be successful for the long term.

Organizational success is built on ingredients that strengthen the ties of leadership and individuals and that foster contribution as individuals and as team members. 

No amount of smart, innovative, and even hard work, in my mind, will make up for shortfalls in these critical organizational success factors. 

So when planning for organizational success, make sure to build these in from the get-go. 

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

On The Lookout To Managing Risk

So risk management is one of the most important skills for leadership. 

Risk is a function of threats, vulnerabilities, probabilities, and countermeasures. 

If we don’t manage risk by mitigating it, avoiding it, accepting it, or transferring it, we “risk” being overcome by the potentially catastrophic losses from it.

My father used to teach me when it comes to managing the risks in this world that “You can’t have enough eyes!”

And that, “If you don’t open your eyes, you open your wallet.”

This is a truly good sound advice when it comes to risk management and I still follow it today. 

Essentially, it is always critical to have a backup or backout plan for contingencies.

Plan A, B, and C keeps us from being left in the proverbial dark when faced with challenge and crisis. 

In enterprise architecture, I often teach of how if you fail to plan, you might as well plan to fail. 

This is truth–so keep your eyes wide open and manage risks and not just hide your head in the sand of endless and foolhardy optimism for dummies. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Help Is Coming

So I used to have a boss who said something really funny.

He used to go, “Everybody says they want to help us” and then bemoaningly he would seem to repeat that a few times. 

The next part which he didn’t need to explicitly say was that “But no one does!”

It was the words, but also much the tone–yes, the walls could be caving in, the ship could be sinking, everything going up in flames, and of course, everyone is there looking on, shaking their heads pitifully, and seemingly stretching out their hand in an offer of help. 

For this boss though, the help couldn’t come fast enough or with enough resources to help resolve all the issues going on at the time. 

I suppose first and foremost, we have to help ourselves. 

Secondly, there needs to be a core understanding from the beginning of what is really doable and what is simply fantasy fare. 

Third, if help is on the way–great, but it’s got to be timely enough and come with enough raw horsepower to make a genuine difference. 

Finally, sometimes miracles do happen and everything works out great–the day is saved–but even then so much underlying damage has been done that you need to rebuild from the core foundations again. 

And for the next time, you’ll need to ensure capabilities beyond what was ever imagined before. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Who hasn’t Been There?

So I was teaching a course this week in enterprise architecture, and some of the students asked about EA having a bad rap and brand (i.e. that it seems to not work so well in many organizations) and why is that?

We had a pretty robust discussion around this–why some organizations fail and others succeed with EA.

We discussed the critical success factors that as the CIO or Chief Architect you can impact, and how these can drive planning and implementation for the organization to succeed.

At the same time, we also acknowledged how–to be frank–not everything is in our control.

This was a class full of CIOs and Vice Presidents, and I gave an example and said you are all successful now in your jobs and careers, but raise your hand if you haven’t been there–where you were on the outs and you boss or colleagues just didn’t like you?

This was a class of about 20 people, and out of all these highly achieved folks, only one hand went up–a young kid–with only 3 or 4 years out of school, and still learning the ropes.

Yes, this one person had not yet been on the losing end, but everyone else–all these successful people had been–ALL of them!

The point is not to say that success is just a chance event–it isn’t!

You have to work hard and try your best– but no matter how much you think of yourself–it’s even more important to remember that you don’t control all the factors of your life that determine whether you succeed or fail.

The same people that now had big, successful jobs, were the same people who had in a prior job or time been the person who could do no right at work.

I tell myself to remember that there is personality, chemistry and fit at work; there is timing–and it is everything!–and there is how the stars are aligned.

It helps a lot to be humble and learn, grow, work hard, never give up, have fun–and have faith in a mightier power above.

From what I’ve seen, life is a cycle and today you may be down, but tomorrow you will be up (and the opposite is true too–so don’t kick the person that is down and hurting).

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heavens.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1)–for everything and for everyone. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)