What does physics, specifically the atom, have to teach us about organizations. Well it turns out – a lot.
Atoms are elegant things. They are composed of readily recognizable components: electrons, protons, and sometimes neutrons. The protons and neutrons (bound together by the strong nuclear force) form the nucleus. The electrons and nucleus are bound together by the electromagnetic force.
Here’s the point. We’ve all heard of electrons, protons and neutrons. We probably don’t remember the role electromagnetic force plays holding the atom together. And when we refer to the strong nuclear force – well let’s be honest – your eyes are probably rolling back into your head. Why? It’s really not that interesting.
Organizations are composed of an executive team (which in many organizations clearly needs to be held together by a strong nuclear force), and non-executives working at various levels from the executive team.
Holding it all together is an invisible, often unstated, organizational electromagnetic force. We can refer to this as the culture. Culture – the way things get done around here. But it’s the people who actually get work done. So people at different levels working in sync with each other and with the executive team get the work done and establish a positive organizational culture. For more information about culture, see out blog posting on: Culture: Made by Intention and Filled with Stories http://www.kubicalaforestconsulting.com/blog/?p=500.
In organizations we celebrate the superstars. We recognize the high performers. Yet what do we do with the employees who just hold things together: the employees who work silently and out of the limelight. They are often the unsung heroes. They hold things together; they insure that the organizational electromagnetic force is of sufficient strength? To be honest – we don’t do much with them. In fact, we often don’t even notice them, until they’re gone. Then the structure begins to deteriorate. We hear statements like: “things don’t seem to work quite as smoothly as they once did – I wonder what’s wrong.”
Improving organizational performance requires looking into all aspects of employee performance from the visible to the invisible. We often make the mistake of only recognizing and considering the highly visible employees for promotion. We caution you not to fall into this trap. The highly visible employees are not necessarily the best performing employees; they are not necessarily the ones insuring that the work gets done – they are just highly visible.
Just like the atom, a stable organization has an executive team, non-executive employees, a strong nuclear force and an organizational electromagnetic force. Ignore the forces that hold the components together and the result is an unstable organization, which may just deteriorate faster than you can control it.
See our full range of articles, videos and past blogs at: www.kubicalaforestconsulting.com
Copyright 2011 Kubica LaForest Consulting
If you enjoyed this piece, please consider sharing it!
