3 Forces that Distort Organisations

We recently worked through Integral’s values and attached behaviours, with the intention to better capture where we currently stand and where we are heading as an organisation. Over the last year we looked at our (now) previous values to reflect on what still was relevant and what was missing. We asked ourselves; “Who are we today?”. After sourcing from everyone and gaining a better understanding we then set out to create our new values and discuss the behaviours which exemplify these. The next phase is to train ourselves in celebrating and calling out these behaviours so that we can all fully live them and stay on course. Because no matter how great values or principles are, it is always easy to divert or miss the mark due to numerous seductive messages and forces at play. If we don’t train ourselves to live the values, how will we stay on true north?

Every day we will be pulled in various directions by forces we cannot fully control, but which we can work around by adjusting their influence. Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve enjoyed Primary Greatness, a posthumous book of selected work, which I covered a bit last week.

In Primary Greatness, Stephen R. Covey calls the forces out and to illustrate them, he would ask you to imagine that you are holding a compass.

Building (Culture)

When leaving a building, the compasses needle will shift a little, indicating that the building’s inside slightly distorted the reading. This is the same way cultures surrounding us will alter our moral sensibilities. When we leave, put some distance between us and the building, we realise that we went off the mark.

Projector (Subculture)

Put the compass down next to a machine and the reading will again be altered. For Covey, this was to illustrate the distortions of subcultures from a particular family, group, team, division or company. Each one can create its own slanted definition of north.

Magnet (Powerful Emotions, Strong Personality, or Compelling Philosophy)

The last force is the one from the single magnet that will make the compass’ needle point in whichever direction. Covey used this to illustrate how significant emotional events can alter our idea of where we are going, or how an extremely powerful personality can alter our senses, or how a compelling philosophy that’s well presented can distort our perception.

Combined Forces

Together all three forces will create a major distortion so much to the point that you may be heading south, believing you are heading north. It creates organisational vertigo and will make us lose control unless we start adjusting the influence each force has on our compass; aligning teams, having a shared understanding of values, living the values AND calling out and celebrating behaviours that do and don’t support them.

Application

What natural forces are you working against in your life or business?