A Releasing Your Unlimited Creativity discussion topic

Copyright 2008 by K. Ferlic,   All Rights Reserved

Once the individual accomplishment level has been addressed as discussed in the topic, "Learning to dance and harmonize with others," and the individuals are capable of harmonizing, or learning to harmonize, one can then look at the options as to how to arrange the organizational pieces to get all the people available optimally aligned with the given mission. The approach used here assumes there exists some type of organization from which to start even if it is only a group of individual forming a committee which developed a charter for a new organization. It assumes the individuals have, or are working on, individual clarity of intention and vision as to why they have choose to be involved with the organization and they are working on finding inner and outer harmony. As such, this process starts with the information that is available and as though one is going to change the existing organization to something that better serves the individuals based on what they are discovering about themselves. Although it may seem that one needs to finalize individual intention and vision, even if we are working towards living the intention for our life or manifesting the vision that comes from that life intention, because of the nature of mind it will never adequately characterize the vision or intention so our understanding can be expected to change over time. One will always be working with where they are and should not expect to have a "final" answer but only a refining of answers as one gains broader and more diverse experiences of life.

Since one can always expect change, the focus of this approach is designed to develop a focus of where an organization needs to go and mindful of the performance to be obtained. It looks to captures the understanding of what need to be created to be used as a guiding light for the organization in its performance objectives The approach looks to develop the foresight and understanding within the individual or individuals responsible for the keeping the flame or guiding light for the organization to see where the organization needs to go to meet the organization’s true needs. It also creates the individual or individuals within the organization to utilize their own inherent abilities to orchestrate the change in the future as vision and intentions change. The goal of Orchestrating the Organization is to empower individuals within the organization to do their own orchestration and not rely on external sources.

Organizations exist for a reason. There is an intention behind each and every organization that is created. To orchestration anything one must aligning intention and vision. Key to organizational success is the alignment of individual’s intention and vision with the organizational intention and vision. To orchestrate the organization one directs their efforts at understanding the process that will implement the intention and vision and then orchestrating the available component to that process. It is not unlike the way the orchestrator is given a piece of music to be played by a given type of orchestra within a given style of performance. With the given piece of music, type of orchestra and style of performance, there is great latitude, but much less that if one could choose the music, the orchestra and the style. We often we assume we have more choices available to us than we do, yet we never seem to see all the choices that are available in a given situation because of what we believe about how things have to be done. Organizational alignment is a process that focuses on ensuring the clarity of the organizational intention for its effective translation in an unbroken and continuous fashion into the organizational vision, organizational goals, mission statements, roles and responsibilities, strategic plans, resource allocations, and performance measures. The process then moves to align individual intentions. Organizational alignment can be seen as creating that overall conductor’s musical score that captures all the different and necessary parts that will need to be played during a performance. However, organization alignment is not a document although there may be supporting written information. It is a very clear, concise process that address the essential information that the conductor of the change, the one ultimately leading the change, needs to know.

The key to any organization is its people. The success of any organization depends on getting the individual to turn their creative power over to the organization. Most organizations pay for individuals to "buy in." Rather that use payment to "buy in" in this approach, the goal is to get individuals to "buy into" the intention, objectives and approach selected by the management by aligning the individual visions. Many, like volunteer organizations, get "buy in" because the individuals believe in the goal or the mission of the organization to which they volunteer. There is an internal "buy in." The goal is to get this internal "buy in." In places where the organization and individual vision do not overlap, essential skills can be obtained by look at combing the organization with the individual vision much the way one would bind aka cords. By getting "buy in" by either shared common vision or binding aka cords, the organization approach focuses on the collective and shared aspects of the creation effort with the realization that the collective is only the sum total of the individual efforts. Of course in this effort it is realized that although the organization vision and intention is directed downward, the alignment process is a bottoms up approach in that one needs to ensure individuals are educated and on board as to what is happening. Depending on the type and kind of organizational work, it may be necessary to work intensively at the individual level.

As in an orchestra, the more accomplished the individuals and the better they are able to harmonize, the more difficult and the wider the selection of performances which can be selected. So, too, with the organization. Any restructuring proposals for the organization would be based on both the needs of the product to be delivered and the talents available within the individuals. It is not presupposed that the current organization possesses, or does not possess, the necessary capabilities already in house. One must "listen" to the performance of each individual and how effectively they can play and harmonize within their given role to understand what organizational structure would optimally align all the pieces. Here is where the real orchestration is achieved. One may find it necessary to establish a whole set of temporary rules and requirements or establish training dealing specifically with the change and/or suspending the normal way of doing business: not unlike the way one erects scaffolding around a building being renovated.

In choosing how a particular product or service will be delivered, the current methodology is usually to reengineer around the product and not around the product and incumbent staff. The method most often employed is to choose an organizational structure because some authority, inside or outside the organization, said it will work and then fit the individuals into that structure. What is proposed here is to build the structure around the process and integrated with the individuals, not unlike one orchestrates a piece of music for a particular ensemble. The way of orchestration will take a little more "up-front" work, but the payoff is much greater. For example, an organization that has been highly autocratic with a tiered pay structure will find it very difficult to expect the employees to move quickly to work teams where the work is shared and individuals with reasonably differing pay grades are asked to do and share the same work. It will be especially difficult if the autocratic managers have been free to make decisions at will in the past, suddenly find they are being expected to obtain consensus or at least obtain input on all their decisions. Here the inequities carried over from the old system will be too large. The organization will find it cannot just "jump" to this new structure without significant re-education and behavior modification, but rather it will have to evolve with a longer term focused and directed will towards the desired organizational structure.

In times of organizational change, how aligned the individuals are with the organizational vision and intention becomes even more essential. As the existing structure breaks down during change, individuals whose individual intention and vision are aligned with the organization vision will intuitively "jump" in the same direction when faced with unplanned events. It is not unlike turning over a rock covering an ant nest. Rather than see all the ants scatter in a myriad number of directions, would it not be fascinating for them all to move in the same direction? All it requires is that the individual intention and vision are aligned with the organization. If each individual within the organization knows where the organization needs to go and each person knows their individual part in both the old and new structure. There need not always be a physical leader for the aligned intentions and vision will guide each individual. There may be an instant or two of temporary confusion when that rock is initially turned over, but quickly the individual parts will come into alignment.

This is where the orchestration is essential. Someone, with true vision and the ability to see, needs to arrange the music for the new performance and ensure each of the individual players are capable of performing that new arrangement before the individual players attempt to perform as a whole. Someone must look at all the known influences and process for the new way of doing business and carefully understand what is known and not known about the proposed new situation. It must be compared to the existing structure and the differences clearly understood. Contingency plans may be needed for the unknowns that could be a significant influence. Once this is achieved, the individual parts must be assigned and arranged relative to the new way of doing business and then each individual must be given the opportunity to practice, learn and demonstrate their capability of performing their new part. Then, and only then, should the change be initiated. Obviously this approach does not lead itself to a reactive response. However, many of the methods one would use in Orchestrating the Organization can be very effective even in a reactive response. To be truly pro-active, it takes wisdom and foresight to understand where the organization needs to go before the change occurs within sufficient time to orchestrate the change. Seemingly impossible, but much easier than one would anticipate. One only needs to develop the proper focus.

Related topics
Aligning individual and organizational performance

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