Russian Transformational Strategy

In the private sector, what begins as a campaign to increase productivity can sometimes turn into a large-scale transformation of values. The need for increased productivity can lead to the requirement for immediate problem solving, and then to the need for frontline creativity and responsibility. This taste of creativity and responsibility can subsequently increase the capacity for inquiry, dialogue, and aspects of personal growth. In several large insurance companies, directors who went looking for real gains in productivity were surprised by the renewed trust, open dialogue, and creativity that came with it. For anyone who knows this field, productivity is an actual by-product of trust, dialogue, and creativity. So managers should not be surprised that wanting “bottom-line productivity” will drive them to truly engage staff in developing solutions, and that renewed levels of trust and dialogue, along with many other quality-of-life indicators, and even staff retention, will occur. ToP methods have always produced both types of results—increased productivity, and increased quality of work life with staff retention, so organizations sometimes put their whole staff through ToP training. While ToP trainers and practitioners often speak the language of productivity to clients, they are quite clear that the real benefit is a happier, more respectful workplace. It is common knowledge that the twentieth-century habit of creating a conventional hierarchical structure and organizational chart conditions its members toward straightforward behaviors of accountability. Some unsophisticated leaders may think that a simple change in the organizational chart will occasion a transformation. Many organizations are finding that conventional reporting and decision-making structures have outlived their usefulness, and that those conventional structures can end up blocking the effective operation of the organization. Consultants sometimes propose enterprise “cluster models” and “matrix models” as the new hierarchy, but then staff raise questions like “Which boss will resolve my competing priorities?” Just as Linux is one native operating system for the collaborative nature of the internet, the ToP approach is a native operating system for matrix and cluster organizations with participatory values. Healthy patterns of behavior and dialogue become the norm when the ToP approach is applied throughout an organization. Old-style managers newly arriving at a ToP-trained workplace may try their command and control behaviors, and be quickly corrected by staff: “We talk about things to solve problems around here!”