Chapter 9: Moving to the Future with Creativity

OVERVIEW

No man ever followed his genius till it misled him.

—HENRY DAVID THOREAU, WALDEN

Around the world, leaders in forward-thinking corporations are transforming their organization cultures. They're abandoning— finally!—the nineteenth-century industrial business model and replacing it with a new twenty-first-century model. Hierarchies are being replaced with networks. Business leaders are relinquishing the old "command-and-control" approach to managing employees and focusing on collaborative techniques instead. Also being tossed out of executive suite windows is the old competitive win-lose model. Successful businesses are now embracing win-win solutions. One key to being able to make these kinds of cultural adaptations is linked to a leader's ability not only to think about the future, but also to live in the future. Because words and actions form a bond that builds trust, a leader's words must direct the organization's human energy to be future focused. Then, leaders must follow up with forward-looking behaviors that reinforce and solidify a future orientation.

Embedded in future orientation, and linked closely to forward-looking behavior, is the ability to change. We know of many organizations that view themselves as "change masters." In fact, many so-called transformations are merely about shuttering departments, shifting responsibilities, and shuffling people, and they call that change. What's the saying, rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic? The kind of change to which we're referring consists of fundamental, personal change that has a profound impact on core beliefs and allows new language and behaviors to become everyday habits. Once the people within an enterprise integrate these habits into how they do business day in and day out, the organization culture changes. An organization culture is not changed by rearranging the desk chairs on the top floor. It is changed by leaders transforming their everyday behavior.

Partnering Culture