Dee Hock founded the VISA credit card company — a hugely successful organisation which in 2021 had a turnover of more than $24 billion from more than two billion credit cards in more than 200 countries around the world.
To build this company, he invented a new type of organisation structure, something he called ‘chaordic’: a combination of chaos and order that has proved extremely successful in a turbulent world.
In a recent article, Dee talked about what he sees coming next: the successful organisation of the future.
He said:
“The organization of the future will be the embodiment of community, based on shared purpose, calling to the higher aspirations of people.”
Let’s unpack what he means.
- “The organisation of the future will be based on shared purpose.”
Shared purpose aligns people around a common goal or direction. This increases motivation, job satisfaction, and productivity. A 2016 survey of technology companies showed that employees at Tesla and SpaceX had the lowest paid and most stressful jobs but also the most meaningful and inspirational: their sense of purpose outweighed the higher stress and lower pay.
. - “The organisation of the future will call to the higher aspirations of people.”
Gallup research has found that companies with highly engaged workforces “outperform their peers by 147% in earnings per share.”
“A highly engaged workforce,” Gallup says, “means the difference between a company that outperforms its competitors and one that fails to grow.”
If someone told you there was a way to increase your profits by 147%, would you want to know more?
. - “The organisation of the future will be the embodiment of community.”
The results any company achieves depend on the contributions its people make. An organisation that maximises the contribution of each person by aligning them around a shared purpose will maximise those results.
These three things are what Inner Leadership exists to produce.
First, Inner Leadership creates people who understand their own purpose, values, and unique contribution. Then it enables those people to convert any challenge they face into an opportunities to achieve more of their purpose and values — and to inspire themselves and the people around them to long to make those things happen. And third, when people like this come together in a community or organisation built around their shared values and purpose, they not only increase their own motivation, job satisfaction, and productivity to grow the organisation they are part of, they also maximise their ability to express themselves most fully in the world (their ability to ‘self-actualise‘).
When the aspirations of the people and their organisation are aligned around shared purpose and values then the way each person can best become the person they are most longing to become is by adding the most value to the organisation as a whole. And when these people work together in a like-minded community, then their ability to achieve the results that matter most to each of them becomes far greater than they could ever achieve alone, or in another type of organisation.
This is the organisation of the future: filled with people who have the skills, knowledge, and attitudes of Inner Leadership; who know who they are and who they want to become; and who know that the best way they can achieve that is by helping an organisation that aligns with their purpose and values to succeed.
As Dee Hock then says:
“I know it can happen. I’ve been there — or at least gone part of the way… It’s very difficult to put in words, for in a truly chaordic organization there is no destination. There is no ultimate being. There is only becoming…
“And what about profit? Well, from my experience, profit becomes a barking dog begging to be let in.”
Do you already work in an organisation like this? Would you like to? Is your next step to continue as you are, change your organisation, or change yourself?
The Churning, Inner Leadership is a framework and a set of tools for building inspiration in a time of change.
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(And remember: you don’t learn to swim just by reading about swimming, you also need to do the practice.)
Photo courtesy of The Systems Thinker