Understanding the Challenges of Developing a Partnership Culture

Organizations are challenged on how to cost-effectively establish a partnership organization. In overcoming that challenge it is important to understand why many organizations choose to maintain a domineering culture. Some people believe it is because general managers don’t want to release their power. However, my experience is that managers responsible for results are open to any effective way of improving performance. They know continual improvement is important for the organization’s survival. However, middle managers do not trust delegating and giving autonomy to the front line because they believe the front line does not understand how to effectively deliver results and I think they are right.

An organization that has been managed top-down has focused on developing the skills of individuals but not the capability for those individuals to successfully integrate their work with others and take responsibility for improving the processes they use. An analogy can be made to an orchestra in which the individual members have developed the competency to play their instrument, but to produce music that enlivens the spirit they need both the score and a conductor. For frontline workers to achieve excellence they need to understand the processes they use and find ways to address any challenges that arise in their implementation. It is reasonable to understand why a manager is fearful of giving autonomy to the front line to manage daily work if they have not gained an understanding of the processes they use and ways in which to effectively address challenges that arise.

Overcoming management fear involves enabling front-line workers to understand the processes they use to get work done, methodology for identifying ways to improve those processes and empowering and supporting them in implementing improvements.

Key Thoughts

  • It is important to understand why managers are reluctant to change the traditional domineering culture. Managers need to have experienced a demonstration in the own organization that a partnership organization is likely to increase performance and well-being before committing to it.
  • Managers are open to any effective way of improving performance. However, they do not trust delegating and giving authority to the front line because they believe the front line would not be able to effectively deliver results.
  • Organizations that have been managed from the top down have focused more on developing the skills of individuals and less on the capability of individuals to integrate their work with others.
  • Overcoming management fear involves enabling front-line workers to understand the processes they use to get work done and empowering them to identify and implement improvements.
  • 1. Alleviating the Symptoms of Societal ill Health and Eliminating the Root Cause

    2. The Challenge of Embracing a Fundamentally Different Management Paradigm

    3. Process Management And the Importance of Inner Wisdom And Creativity

    4. The Living Organization

    5. Organizational Evolution Theory

    6. Understanding the Challenge of Developing a Partnership Culture

    7. Conclusion Comments and Final Thought

    8. Organizational Evolution-Food for Thought

    9. Evolution of Human Context

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