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"I would never ask anyone to do what I would not do myself."

~ Almeric Johnson ~

MY OWN TRANSITIONAL JOURNEY

Working in a variety of organisational situations I found it difficult to keep reworking the same problems in different guises and failed to understand why executives and managers were apparently content recycling the same presented problems. Having an insatiable curiosity, along with a desire to improve the situation, I began a long journey of instituting performance improvement initiatives that, in part, succeeded although at times they were vehemently challenged. It was these sets of behavioural practices that came into play, particularly when a programme was becoming accepted and more expansive, that were being used consciously or unconsciously to aggressively resist change. The nub of the problem was individuals and associated power cabals protecting their created defensive mechanisms that were being used as defences against anxiety at the expense of their organisation’s performance.

These induced displaced decision-making practices consistently created other common organisational problems. These problems manifest in communication, teams’ performance, interdepartmental collaboration, conflict management, and individuals becoming disaffected through not being able to influence the decision-making processes, which could be consistently traced to the induced dysfunctional decision-making practices.

Following my passion to improve the situation and develop sustainable solutions it became obvious that the common denominator in any organisation is the organisation. It became evident that when leading and managing major organisational transition for change I was acting as the organisation’s interpreting agent. This helped me to define my role to ensure that the design of the organisation enlisted the directed motivational intent of the human resources, systems and management technologies.

To become successful in resolving presented problems it was essential to have the ability to drill down to find the root cause of the problem. The developed process for successfully achieving this competency was to think organisationally as it allowed me to address the behavioural requirements of the organisation. It allowed me to separate out and identify the dysfunctional distracting organisational behaviour induced by that organisation’s dysfunctional problem solving and decision-making practices.

Developing a theory in practice I began to identify basic tenets that assisted in focusing my development. For example, the notion that the organisation is the common denominator clearly identifies that the organisation is not there for the employees or the management technologies, it is there to satisfy a primary delivery service. That service is the notion that the individual, the systems and the management technologies have, at all times, to work in harmony and to collectively complement the organisation’s delivery performance culture. These tenets are important in that they allowed me to understand that when designing high performance organisations you design the organisation from the service delivery end, allowing all the other activities to support and reinforce that identified delivery performance culture.

To address these issues I developed an organisational transition for a change process that acknowledged the existence of these behavioural practices. It is these developed processes that I want to share with you to enable you to understand these practices. This developed understanding will enable you to develop your intuitive cognitive organisational awareness, decision-making implementation and to significantly improve your own and your organisation’s performance.

The benefits of using this approach are enormous in that it enables multiple problems to be resolved simultaneously through the reduction of dysfunctional practices. It improves cost by not having to service these dysfunctional practices. It effectively harmonises the social and the technical and focuses everyone’s motivational intent. It has the capacity to reduce induced organisational stress, fatigue, sickness and absence, high labour turnover, poor productivity, quality and service delivery. It significantly improves the strategic, operational decision-making and, importantly, the successful implementation of those decisions, which have been achieved through the clarity of a shared organisational understanding and developed common organisational dialogue. These developed processes are motivationally addictive and will leave you asking why you were not made aware of them earlier.

As a Chartered Mechanical Engineer and member of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, I was trained to solve presented engineering problems. As Chief Engineer and in other executive roles I was predominantly required to solve organisational problems. Although a member of the Chartered Management Institute, I read for a Master’s degree in Organisational Analysis and Development, at the University of Bath, focusing on the psychology of individual and group decision-making behaviour. I examined the socio-technical needs that surfaced through the introduction of new technologies and when attempting to manage organisational change.

The acquisition of a Masters Degree was part of the process of me making a personal transition from being an engineer to becoming an organisational leader. Even so, I still consider myself to be an organisational problem-solving journeyman who constantly strives to improve his own and others’ performance. I work with an applied assumption that all leaders and managers in organisations share the same intent. Within my role, I am clear that you are the experts within your business, within my role to provide alternative insights for successfully improving your organisation’s performance.

I focus on improving the quality of leaders’ and managers’ decision-making to enable individuals, teams and the whole organisation to succeed. Executive coaching programmes are designed to enable the individual and their teams to directly transfer their developed competencies into the performance of their organisation.

As part of the process for openly sharing the methodology, I have published a book where background experiences, logic and numerous case studies enable you to improve your Intuitive Cognitive Organisational Awareness.