Can your organisation win Gold?
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| Purity, Perfection, Victory, Peace and Friendship. The Olympic Torch reaches St. Albans |
The Olympic Torch came to St. Albans last weekend. The event was part of the Torch Relay preceding the London games that has seen the torch carried the length and breadth of Great Britain. I wasn't actually that bothered about going to see it, but my youngest daughter was keen so I scooped her up and set off for a convenient street corner. We waited patiently as part of a growing crowd and after about an hour, the procession came in sight. I say sight, but actually I heard it before I could see it. The gaudy looking torch was preceded by about half a dozen advertisement riddled lorries playing loud music, creating the razz-a-ma-tazz that is now de rigeur for such events. Interspersed between them were to be found jugglers, flag sellers and at least a dozen hairy coppers on motorbikes (why do motorcycle policemen look so grizzly?).
As I stood surrounded by pavements full of Hertfordshire's finest citizens, I found myself reflecting on what it was that we had come to see (apart from the glitz of the spectacle of course).
The Olympic Torch symbolises purity, the pursuit of perfection and the struggle for victory. It also represents peace and friendship.
I think many would argue that these five values are among the aspirational goal of all humans. We decry vice and promote purity (even though we do both), we seek perfection in much that we do (although settle for far less), we pride victory over defeat (although coping with defeat can become second nature), we promote peace over disharmony (yes, the murder rate is falling), and we seek friendship (but can be choosy).
And I think that many of these hold true at the organisational level too. Recent events at Barclays serve to remind us of the importance we attach to ethical behaviour and purity to the way that we expect organisations to behave. Organisations spend billions of pounds on efficiency improvements in the pursuit of perfection (note that it is a pursuit, not attainment), and organisations in competition strive for victory over their rivals, sometimes at a cost that compromises the other attributes. But what about the last two? Are peace and friendship attributes that can be associated with organisations?
Many organisations are places of conflict. I see people working in companies who would not categorize their organisation as peaceful places to be, and we even promote conflict as a way of keeping the organisation sharp, something that creates the spark that drives constant improvement. Somehow, as people, we seem to be able to leave our peacefulness at home in favour of a more conflicting way at work. Not to say that is surprising, after all, management gurus have been saying for years that conflict is a good driver for creativity and improvement, but the consequences are that we have somehow lost the ability to ascribe the word 'peaceful' to our workplaces.
And what about friendship? Organisations create and build strategic partnerships, but is there such a thing as friendship either within or between workplaces? Friendships within organisations clearly do exist. Some people form very close bonds with other people in their workplace and everyone knows that the informal network at work can be both a great power for good and bad both at the same time, but there isn't much evidence that organisations develop friendship bonds. In a cut and thrust commercial world, such humble signs can be interpreted as signs of weakness. And that's a shame, because maybe the organisation that could pull together all five attributes would be the one that would win through to gain Gold.
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