Hey, happy Monday, how are you?
Last week I made a personal commitment to eliminating war metaphors from the jargon that is used at STRTGY to describe strategy and business dynamics in general.
I took it so seriously that I am rewriting the parts of the book on OKRs in which I used, despite myself, military metaphors.
Words have incredible power by even changing the secretion of certain hormones: words change us inside and influence our choices.
We have seen this in practice with Borzacchiello REPLAY and NeN REPLAY.
But before I leave you to the core content of this note here are two pieces of background information:
⚙️ If you would like to attend The Growth Machine Workshop, the first available date is Wednesday, March 9 at 6:30 p.m.
It lasts 90 minutes and those who participated got:
- Clarity on goals and priorities
- Simplification of activities
- Focus and alignment of teams
- Accurate identification of metrics
- Construction of OKRs 10× faster
📘 If you are interested in learning more about OKRs and want the earliest available date is Wednesday, March 16 at 6:30 p.m.
- Peek behind-the-scenes at the writing of the book
- Discover the system to launch the next cycle in 90 days (or less)
- Participate in the Q&A on methodology, bring your challenges, we solve them together
Next Monday instead we will meet the founders of Small Giants, the startup that produces sustainable snacks using cricket flour (yes you read that right 🦗). We will talk about Design and how to combine Profit and Purpose, the growth process and the future of this category. Entrepreneurship knows no boundaries!
In short, more opportunities to meet and thus more opportunities to work together and improve the way we connect strategy and execution.
ALWAYS MAKE PROGRESS!
-Antonio
● PEOPLE / Biomimesis.
A self-repairing organism
Using metaphors, besides indicating a high degree of understanding of what one is talking about, means condensing into a few words an entire world that transcends writing. By activating the imagination circuit, it is possible to teleport known emotions into a new context full of vivid, detailed and memorable images.
And this is precisely why the military metaphor is no longer sustainable to describe organizations.
If for that matter, that of the family is also a metaphor to be abandoned as soon as possible (more via HBR).
There are also those who describe the company as a machine and those who work in it as cogs. Which is quite depressing, especially when the word “function” is used to describe a responsibility. Then one should understand what happens when a person “no longer functions…”
It is time to update these metaphors that carry with them the illusion of efficiency along with a number of toxins that accumulate hardening in corporate culture.
The military, the family, the car, among others, presuppose an incredible effort of meticulous management of activities that leaders no longer want to, and cannot, sustain with the current technological and cultural evolution of work.
What is the alternative?
Let’s see how things change by choosing the metaphor of theliving organism.
For one thing, the work in the company is much more like what happens in the human body or in a plant. A large number of apparatuses exchange information to support the sustenance of the organism itself. In fact, there is no real chain of command but the functioning is much more like a network of signals.
In addition, each apparatus is autonomous. Each knows exactly what to do when it receives the right information. When there is a lack of information (e.g., few vitamins or little light), simply increasing the quality of the information is enough to improve the state of health.
But the most important quality of an organism and one that makes it “living” is the ability to repair itself.
Plants for example, when damaged, self-seal the wound to protect it from infection and initiate a self-healing process that makes them stronger.
Very similar to the system that is activated in our body when we get a cut.
And it is not the brain (the boss) that puts in a patch to fix things by transferring the message “you are incompetent, you got hurt!” to everyone.
The organism is designed to heal itself and evolve.
In the organization-organism se…
… marketing doesn’t work, the team fixes the campaigns themselves.
… sales are not going as they should, the team unblocks the situation.
… competition increases, R&D invents and validates a new product.
Is it really possible?
Yes, as long as leaders make three vital enzymes available to people:
➀ Autonomy
In his book Drive ( now also in Italian thanks to Ayros), Daniel Pink defines autonomy as the ability to be able to choose 3Ts: Task, Time and Technique.
This does not mean letting everyone do what they want; on the contrary, leaders must invest significant amounts of time in providing clarity on goals and making sure that everyone has the conditions for success.
“Control leads to conformity; autonomy leads to commitment.”
-Daniel Pink
➁ Agility
That is, the ability to constantly reprioritize as the context changes. Of not scarring past mistakes with bureaucracy and a workflow based simply on the organizational chart and long roadmaps.
Being agile involves the humility of not knowing all the answers and admitting that the results are not predictable.
It is important to create a safe space to experiment and make decisions quickly and frequently (see the previous point).
➂ Impact
The ability for people to be able to positively influence the course of events with their work in a tangible and measurable way.
People stick together, and strengthen bonds with each other, only if an appropriate sense of progress is created, and this happens when specific habits are established that allow work on the strategies and processes underlying the results.
By dividing the work into short cycles (see the previous point) and equipping yourself with data, you can start a cycle of positive signals that reinforce each other and allow you to amplify the results.
Building a self-repairing organization is a journey that is important to start today.
If you would like to evolve the way you lead your business by enabling your teams to become autonomous, motivated, and capable of achieving more ambitious results, pick a time to talk about it, I will be happy to show you the tools I have prepared for you.
