Change Management & Business Sustainability

The bitter reality is “there’s no justice in business”.

A phrase my mentor keeps reiterating.

The problem we face is that we haven’t realized that organizations, nations, institutions are actually living things. An organization is likened to a being, it lives and breathes like every normal human. Failing to realize this fact led to the designing and implementation of poor business models that crumbled in times of crisis such as the current Covid-19 pandemic.

Over the years, organizations have focused on marketing strategies, systematic processes, technologies, infrastructural development, supply chain modules with the aim of maximizing profits, remaining relevant and most importantly thriving… But you see, marketing strategy, technology, systems, processes, infrastructures all have one common denominator “people” … So how can a business claim to be sustainable when its business model focuses on everything else except the common denominator: “people”.

Processes will fail, current technology will be outdated, marketing strategies will be outwitted, infrastructure will degrade but “people” are the only components that can adapt to the ever changing and unpredictable situations like the Covid-19 pandemic.

In this part of the world, organizations are seen as simply a vehicle to make profits. As much as this statement has a similitude of truth, the fact still remains that organizations are a reflection of the Leader’s “owner’s” philosophy.

So if emphasis is being laid on “cosmetic” sustainability plans than actual sustainable ones that are derived from satisfying all “interested parties”, it’s a no brainier… You have a preview into the philosophy of the business owner.

Apparently the term “interested parties” has been given a new meaning by business owners which is “everybody else except the actual employees” … So employees aren’t really stakeholders, just the goose that lays the golden egg. So why not starve them, exact tremendous workload, cut paychecks and lay them off?

After all you get fruit juice from squeezing fruits hard enough…

The infinite game suggests that we should take pride in designing processes, strategies, technology, systems, infrastructure around people not with the sole intention of maximizing resources for profit but primarily taking care of the people who are tasked with driving these processes.

Taking care of your employees who then in turn take care of the process, this ought to be the philosophy… in reality the employees are the real “business”; they are your first line of defense during unpredictable situations such as the one the world is currently faced with.

Within the liberty of a healthy people-oriented business model, employees possess the uncanny ability to adapt and innovate with respect to the owner’s philosophy. This is how loyalty is created in organizations.

It’s the “Thrive-ability” index: the innate empathetic ability of an organization to unite, survive and thrive during rough times.

Whatever an organization’s business model is predicated upon forms the framework for implementation and its actual business sustainability.

If your current business model is not built around taking care of your people, then you’re going to have a hard time coming out of this pandemic and if you do survive, you’re going to have to claw your way back to relevance as you might have just destroyed your best customers yet “your employees”.

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