Today, organisations face very different set of problems than they are traditionally accustomed to. Technological advancement and globalization have enabled businesses find new ways in configuring the value chain and in creating, delivering and capturing value. Customers are not left out of this big shift. Today, they are better informed and can make informed decisions on products and services. In this new world, most organisations find themselves playing catch up or been pushed out from their markets. As organisations formulate strategies to stir the organisation into new frontiers, it has become increasingly clear that the market requires new ways of doing business, new management models and new styles of leadership. Some organisations have come to the realization that they need to be more inclusive to be able to wield the full force of its organisational brain power.
Experience and expertise have become suspect
When change was gradual, the usual suspects would formulate the organisations strategy and pass it down for implementation. Because change moved at a much slower pace than it does today, experience gathered a few years back carried a lot of weight in predicting the market. Today, experienced hands sitting at the top cannot keep up with the rate of disruption in the marketplace. Disruption is often happening in smaller organisations were the approach is lean and agile, unlike the more established and operationally efficient organisations. To keep up, operationally efficient organisations need new ideas and contribution from the “frontline”. The frontline is closer to the market and understand the market much better than the decision makers at the top. To wield the full force of an organisations brain power, it has become imperative to include not only frontline insights but other relevant executors of the organisations strategy with first-hand knowledge of the market. So, the tightly guarded circle of decision makers and strategy formulators need to change its model and send open invitations to involve all in its strategy making.
Organisational Inclusiveness as a strategy
Preparing the organisation for the fast paced and quick changing markets requires tapping into the knowledge and expertise of the frontlines. Including employees more in the organisations strategy formulation allows for capturing of real market insights. In an inclusive set up, strategy designers and executors would have a common understanding of the goals of the organisations thus making it easier for knowledge and strategy transfer. Engaging employees to facilitate this process requires a modern approach because today’s employees seek a different experience in the work place. They want to work in organisations that inspire and offer a satisfying future. If management can convey that they trust employees to contribute to the future of the organisation, it will in turn foster a sense of ownership and fuel the kind of energy and passion that organisations require to be competitive. Managing this process requires the use of creative tools that enable organisational wide engagement.
Ever increasing tools landscape
Technological advancement has spurred the emergence of collaboration softwares and platforms that enable knowledge sharing and information capturing regardless of geographical location. This means, employees in large organisations can contribute to the organisations objective irrespective of distance to helm of affairs. In other developments, we see the evidence of leveraging technology in the different work concepts available to talents and organisations alike such as remote working and collaboration through tele- and video conferencing, enterprise collaborative software and new to the scene – virtual reality. Already, teams can share ideas through e-mails, internal chatrooms, document management systems, real time audio and video communication – with the latter enabling visual collaboration. Still in its early development is the use of virtual reality technology enabling virtual lifelike interaction in the workplace. This technology gives a modern experience to person to person interaction in comparison to video conferencing technology. What is apparent is that there is a technological push towards inclusion and many organisations adopt this technology with no clear implementation plan. The organisations that fully leverage these new concepts would have active knowledge sharing and engagement platforms. However not all knowledge can be captured in writing. Some knowledge resides in people’s heads in the form of creativity and imagination which are better shared through other means such as face to face meetings or workshops. Management will need to use a mix of tools to guide the process by taking advantage of technology and other face to face engagement tools.
Inclusive Implementation requires good guidance
The success of driving inclusiveness is largely dependent on the type of leadership in the organisation. Mobilizing and managing employee participation requires skilled and substantial effort to guide the process. Good leadership will provide the platform for employee engagement thus inspiring employee contribution. The continuity of the inclusive process rests on the shoulders of management. It is managements responsibility to ensure that the process is not one off and that the organisation will not return to business as usual. To make this work, management would need to have an internal champion that can spread the enthusiasm and excitement of inclusiveness into the very fibre of the organisation.
