After years of telling corporate citizens to 'trust the system,' many companies must relearn instead to trust their people - and encourage their people to use neglected creative capacities in order to tap the most potent economic stimulus of all: idea power.
Interpretation
Companies should focus on empowering their employees and encouraging creativity over strictly following systems.
This quote emphasizes the shift in corporate mindset needed to unlock true potential in the workforce. Rather than relying solely on established systems and structures, organizations should trust and empower their employees to think creatively and contribute ideas, as this creative power can drive significant economic growth and innovation.
In practice
In a team meeting, I’d like to share a quote that emphasizes the importance of trusting our colleagues during project discussions.
Tribalism reflects strong ethnic or cultural identities that separate members of one group from another, making them loyal to people like them and suspicious of outsiders, which undermines efforts to forge common cause across groups.
Organizational structures that allow divisions and departments to own their turf and people with long tenure to take root creates the same hardened group distinctions as Congressional redistricting to produce homogeneous voting blocs - all of which makes it easier to resist compromise, let alone collaboration.
The way innovating companies are designed leaves ambiguities, overlaps, decision conflicts or decision vacuums in some parts of the organisation. People rail at this, curse it-and invent innovative ways to overcome it.
The boomers' biggest impact will be on eliminating the term 'retirement' and inventing a new stage of life... the new career arc.
The middle of every successful project looks like a disaster.
I've found that small wins, small projects, small differences often make huge differences.
The reality is that the United States military alone cannot be all things to all nations. We will sharpen the application of our resources, better deploy our forces in the world and share our burdens more and more effectively with our partners. And frankly, all our allies need to do the same.
When you're female working in a male-dominated industry, there are unfortunately extra things you need to do - for example, couch opinions in a way that sounds palatable and not threatening. That's a skill I developed.
I never did anything alone. Whatever was accomplished in this country was accomplished collectively.
One of the little-celebrated powers of Presidents (and other high government officials) is to listen to their critics with just enough sympathy to ensure their silence.
Looking at U.N. staff and budgetary rules and regulations, one might think some of them were designed to prevent, rather than enable, the effective delivery of our mandates. It benefits no one if it takes nine months to deploy a staff member to the field.
Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.
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