Why is VBO essential in the 21st Century?

The prevalent organizational model of today is proving to be less and less adequate for dealing with the increasing stress of doing business. The networked environment with its growing number of active participants, shorter turnaround times and an ever faster changing technological, economic and political environment poses a formidable challenge.

Many leaders are faced with the escalating dissatisfaction of virtually all stakeholder groups; customers, suppliers and employees and, in the last five years, investors.

A new model is needed, one that inspires, motivates and fulfills internal and “external” stakeholders, helping create “win-win” relationships for all parties. That model provides far superior returns to investors (see Evidence for VBO).

Does this mean that organizations have to jettison the old model and replace it with the new one?

For most existing organizations this may be not practical, or even possible. We usually recommend - especially for larger organizations - that the new model be introduced in stages through pilots, preferably in self-contained areas of the enterprise.

Figure 1
Figure 2

This new model needs to reflect the changing shape of today's business. While yesterday's organization looked like Figure 1; a monolithic rigidly hierarchical pyramid, mechanistic, driven by fixed procedures and legal contracts, slow changing, predictable and often ruled by fear and distrust, the emerging networked model looks more like Figure 2.

It is networked, organic, fast changing, driven by innovation, knowledge-based, global, unpredictable and largely dependent on trust.

In this context , several factors make it even more imperative for organizations to create and enhance a culture of care and trust that fosters cooperation, initiative and innovation. Knowledge workers thrive in such an environment. Customers, partners and suppliers are drawn to enterprises where win-win is the credo. In our web-based networked economy - in which accelerating change is the norm - ventures, projects and partnerships cannot be sustained by legal contracts and performance agreements alone. Those documents will be obsolete before the ink has dried.

A new, practical, dynamic paradigm is emerging. It is a non-threatening one that is founded on fundamental values to which most people can relate. People at all levels of organizations, large and small, have a deep yearning for such a model. It will redirect the huge amounts of energy wasted in the friction and noise inherent in the win-lose approach towards the creation of cooperative dialogues that harness the collective genius.

Many well-conceived initiatives, such as TQM, reengineering and Six-Sigma have often fallen short of their targets. Much ink has been spilled analyzing the reasons for these frequent disappointments. Our contention is that much of the time these approaches were oriented towards fixing or curing, rather than healing.

Enrolment, alignment and motivation of individuals and groups can only be sustained by an approach that is firmly grounded in a common Core Foundation of Shared Values, common Purpose and a shared Vision.

Far from being a pipedream, such an approach is easier, cheaper and quicker to implement and maintain than traditional methods.

This statement begs the question: "Why don’t all leaders, since it is clear that VBO is in everyone’s interest, rush to implement Values-driven strategies?"

As an answer to this important question we suggest that there are three major inhibitors outlined on the "Key Inhibitors to VBO" page.