Total organizational development creates effective organizational synergy and organizational poise so that your business systems and people are high performing on a sustainable basis.
The Power of Total Organizational Poise
The power of poise can be phenomenal in both living and non-living systems.! Groups and individuals achieve a far greater performance when they are physically, mentally and emotionally vital than when they are physically, mentally and emotionally sick. When an automobile is in top condition-all cylinders firing, all mechanical parts in sync, and all the peripherals and accessories are mint- what do you expect to get from it? When a motorway or freeway is spotless and the asphalting is of excellent quality, how will your ride be? When all parts of an organization- the various systems, the processes, the roles and the resources- are in top condition for the strategic situation of the business, how well will it attain its strategic mission?
In all the above cases you will expect the best outcomes possible. You will expect that the automobile will be efficient
and give a good account of itself. You will expect a pleasant, albeit, a near perfect ride on the freeway. And you will
expect the organization to excel in its strategic mission. Each of the above cases represents a situation when the system is in total poise- its parts are wholesome-in equilibrium, in the best condition, and operate in sync.
When your people are poised for personal excellence-their attributes, attitudes, and talents are in the best condition-
your organization is better able to achieve its mission than when these people are in pitiable or average state. A far
greater impact is achieved-and sustainably so- when the organizational systems are optimized and are effectively in sync with actualizing people's attributes. When there is effective synergy between the actualizing people's attributes and the integrating systems and facets of your organization, your business will achieve breakthrough performance which replicates on a sustainable basis.
The Ultimate Corporate Challenge
Developing total organizational poise and effective organizational synergy for sustainable high organization performance and long-run growth is the ultimate business challenge! This results from total organization development.
Keen watchers of corporate history and practices will marvel that not many top managers and Board are heeding lessons of limited corporate success arising from poor alignment and lack of effective organizational synergy. You need look no further than the increasing or urgent need for stringent regulations on responsible, transparent corporate governance in the last 10 years globally!
When top managers tend to allow their organizations to remain in a state of partial poise- so long as they are attaining an already defined level of profitability or productivity- their businesses are not motivated to create a vision of long-term corporate excellence. Far too often, and for too long, we see an organization which tends to focus on certain systems to the detriment of others forgetting the interdependent nature of subsystems in an organization.
Too often, and until very recently, many organizations focus on outcomes rather than the means, drivers, processes, and the equilibrants. In fact, had they focused on total poise-which enables all systems to deliver the potential they are capable of delivering-they might have achieved a quantum leap in overall performance; not during a particular fiscal year but through out the business life span.
Of course, it depends on how today's corporate executives see their mission. It depends on what they consider as their ultimate business mandate. Where the corporate executives see part of their mission as that of ensuring the future of their organizations in business, they will be taking imaginative steps in the direction of total organizational poise. With that vision, the heart, essence, and strategic thrust of efforts at sustainable high performance is to facilitate the synergy of the systems in a condition of best-fit. It is to imaginatively foster the synergy of personal excellence and corporate excellence for driving sustainable high performance.
The ultimate challenge facing top management in a pulsating business environment is how to achieve and maintain total poise for breakthrough performance.When there is total poise in your organization, your business is in a position to attain breakthrough performance on a sustainable basis.
The truth is that the nature of today's competition is beyond technology, but what drives technology, creativity and
innovations: the superior essence of the human mind and character. This is where the competition will be-and is being-won or lost! Therefore, complacency with the equations and formulas that brought success in the last two decades could be detrimental, if not fatal to sustainable high performance today, and in the foreseeable future.
Exploring The Concept of Total Poise
To understand any phenomenon or paradigm, a first principle is to examine its elements. Then, to consider its essence based on the relationships of those elements. This is how we can appreciate the concept of total poise.
'Total' refers to all the key systems as well as subsystems and facets in all aspects of 'poise'. This indeed is a tall
order, but it is the route to long-term success in a global and highly competitive corporate world.
Now consider 'poise'. There are some words that facilitate our understanding and appreciation of 'poise'.
Some concepts that promote an understanding of poise are wholesomeness, wholeness, integrity, strength, dignity,
alignment, equilibrium, synchronization, and synergy.
On the flip side, the essence of poise can be seen from its absence. Such words or phrases as tension, confusion,
disturbance, chaos, uncoordinated condition, un-relaxed condition, lack of composure, and risk aversion, vividly demonstrate what lack of poise connotes.
The Nub...Pursue This Process to Its Logical Conclusion
How many of your top managers will not feel fulfilled when your organization exhibits strength, wholeness, integrity, and wholesomeness? When you add alignment of all roles and resources with the strategic thrust, effective synergy of skills and systems, and the wholesome equilibrium of the subsystems in the strategic situation you'd be approximating an excelling organization that can stand the competitive fire of these times.
On the flip side, how many of your top managers believe your organization can excel when the following conditions afflict their systems, processes and resources: tension, confusion, disturbance, chaos, uncoordinated condition, un-relaxed condition, lack of composure, and risk aversion?
Fostering Total Organizational Poise
In an organization, total poise occurs when all the key systems and people of the organization are well-developed,
empowered and positioned to give the best they can. This results in effective organizational synergy. Ineffective
organizational synergy has led to failures of several organizations globally.
Total poise is critical to corporate success, on a sustainable basis. In deed, an organization could attain some measure of 'success' some of the time with what we can consider as 'partial poise'. This will not last. Your organization will accomplish breakthrough performance and approximate excellence on a sustainable basis when all its systems are in top condition.
Fostering total poise in organizations is an enduring challenge but an ultimately rewarding enterprise. Total
organizational poise results from a deliberate nurturing, empowering, aligning, and positioning of all the key systems of your organization to be the best they could be in order to give the best they could give.
What are those aspects of poise and total-ness critical in your organization's strategic situation? How do you arrive at
consensus across the organization? How do you drive commitment to the total poise equation you are adopting? What total organization development framework are you going to adopt and how will this be institutionalized without being fossilized in your organization?
You and your top managers need to explore and address these, and other such issues if you really care about your ultimate business mandate, that of creating the future of your business today through fostering effective organizational synergy.
ODSynergy
Author Bio
Dr. Oladele Akin-Ogundeji, PhD (Lond.), based in Lagos, Nigeria, is President of OD Synergy, a firm of strategic human resources and organization development consultants in Africa providing businesses insightful total organization development solutions for sustainable high performance and effective organizational synergy, as well as leading better poise development team. OD Synergy Resource Centre (www.odsynergy.com/od-resources.html) gives you helpful information on fostering high organization performance.
