One manager complained to his peers about the self-serving nature of a key contributor and he wondered what he could do about it.
If I view a company through the rational lens of “means and ends”, the person this manager described falls into a category called “extractors”. Extractors are there to maximize what they get. Bosses tolerate extractors because they believe that without them they won’t be as successful. Bosses and extractors have an unwritten agreement and they willingly accept the organizational tension their relationship creates. I know because I have been an extractor.
Other employees are in a second category termed “converters”. Converters efficiently do what their boss asks of them without complaint. They convert their need for security into a motive to meet the boss’s basic needs, whatever that might be. In reality, converters dominate the landscape of most companies. Bosses and converters also have an unwritten agreement to avoid tension.
We commonly describe a final category as “organizational citizens”. Citizens make a choice to act through discretionary behaviors that go beyond the requirement of their job description. Citizens contribute positively to overall organizational effectiveness. Citizens are willing to hold the uncomfortable tensions of organizational life through a faith that says, “Good will eventually materialize and I can contribute.”
The company is a primary place for citizens to create life’s meaning. This is their “practice field”.
Given this framework, ask yourself these questions:
1. In your company, how do the relationships between extractors, converters and citizens’ impact productivity?
2. How does this influence the way human energy flows throughout your company? Try to notice the “cycles of value” and the “cycles of waste” that are present.
In a recent post we said, “Promises summon the sort of social integrity that lays the ground floor for all community. Life together survives as a human togetherness, not on a diet of warm feelings, but on the tough fibers of promise keeping.”
Now to my point: If you view promises, activities and results through the lens of “what do they teach me”, they become clues to the invisible living architecture of your company.
Why is this important? A living architecture acts as an invisible fabric that folds everyone into the way your company expects them to think, act, and relate amidst the stimulating and sometimes confusing swirl of the tensions they experience in organizational life. Tensions never go away, but when embraced properly they are an amazing source of invention.
Without clarity, your company becomes like an overgrown garden with tangled activities sprouting uncontrollably while the competitive context of your marketplace simultaneously shouts for a leaner cost structure.
Tensions characterize a leader’s work and that is why it’s lonely!
I have never seen a business problem that can prevent profitable long-term growth. However, I do see confusing webs of incongruent unwritten agreements and values that drive good people toward becoming extractors and converters, when they would rather be citizens.
Deep down, every extractor and converter would rather be a citizen and it’s your responsibility to sponsor their transformation.
A company with less than 1,000 employees can become a living “practice field” – a place where meaning is created and citizenship becomes the standard. By upgrading your living architecture, you upgrade performance. Going at it alone is tough. Would you like some company? As always, I’d love to know your thoughts. Jim@peer-place.com
Jim
To me you are right on, Jim. I observe leaders who operate in a two dimensional world defined by the physical and financial vectors…two lines defining a plane. They actually see and treat people as physical objects to be used for their own ends.
Their is a third vector or dimension which is the human dimension. It actually has divergent properties as it is biological whereas the first two are more Newtonian. That means it moves, learns, grows, experiences pain, etc. and requires very different principles to lead with it in mind.
Those who can only acces the first two dimensions are as clueless as a shadow on a sidewalk trying to understand what it is like to be a human being…