Vision: The Remedy for Inter-organizational Selfishness

Hello People. I'm back with another article. Over this past week I've experienced some stress on the job like never before. While it's leading to me wanting a vacation, I'm learning some important life and professional lessons.

WORKPLACE SELFISHNESS

In my Public Administration class back at York University we learned about an important organizational issue. Competitiveness between departments within an organization. It's human nature for us to go into survival mode and it can be seen within our organizations whether we are a Business, Church, Non-Profit or Government Department. How do you remove the sense of competition between departments? It's a real issue.

Exhibit A: Competitiveness in the workplace can be seen in how employees share the facilities. The organization which is outsourcing me at the moment has an income tax clinic every year. The lady who provides the service is an older lady with medical problems. She was recently sitting down with a client in an income tax appointment with papers all over the room. Another employee, who hadn't previously booked the room, wanted me to move the lady to another room so she can have it. The lady is old, has health problems, was in the middle of an appointment, and had papers all over the room. I asked her is she could use another room and she complied. A lot of time employees are only worried about their meeting, their budget, their department.

Exhibit B: I was sitting at my desk on another occasion speaking to a member of the maintenance staff (someone is often overlooked). While I was speaking to him another employee came in and interrupted the member of the maintenance staff, asking me to perform a task. In my head I was asking, "Don't you see this person speaking?" The person I was speaking to was completely overlooked and disrespected.

Exhibit C: When people come to my desk for assistance people don't usually want to wait in line. It sometimes ends up like a meat market where people are trying to get their request in before the next peron. People don't like to wait and line up; we see that where shopping is concerned, or waiting on the phone.

THE POWER OF VISION

How do you create the sense of a common cause; a oneness amongst your staff? I believe a major factor is VISION. For some people a vision statement is simply a step in the organizational development process, but it's a lot more important than that. The statement is really a summary of the picture in the heads of leadership. Having a clear vision provides a channel towards where you're going as an organization. I've sat down with clients who have great potential and ideas, but no vision. It's become a lot easier for me to differentiate between ideas and vision when I listen to someone speak. Vision is a group of interrelated ideas, or vision provides a covering for ideas. I've seen with myself and friends/business partners that whenever a new idea comes to the table I have to ask how that idea relates with (or works with) our vision.

I learned a lot about visionary leadership from the life of Ted Rogers; Founder/CEO of Rogers Communications. One night at a Christmas party I had the opportunity to speak to a friend who works as a technical consultant with Rogers. At the party he was telling me about the effects of losing "Ted". "When we lost Ted..." he went on to explain what it was like to lose the visionary of the company. I thought to myself, "What kind of leadership is this that an employee who responds to technical inquiries, who probably never met the CEO, could refer to him in such a personal way?" It was then that I learned the power of visionary leadership. It unifies and brings people together, from the boadroom to the mail room. Ted Rogers has become my new model for business development, relationship building and visionary leadership.Are people at odds in your organization (business, non-profit, or church)? First ask yourself if your vision is clear. It may not be the only solution, but it's a good place to start!

Kevin Bourne
Senior Admin/Management Consultant
Public & Busniess Administration
krbourne@jdas.ca