Traditional hierarchical/pyramidal organizations are still the prevailing way corporations and most social systems are being organized. Although many of them are not workable and not delivering the necessary performance and innovation, it may be too risky, too difficult or too impossible to change the structure. (Not only) in this case, a change of perspective can make a fundamental difference: switching from a..traditional perspective: Relating to hierarchy as a pyramid from the surface perspective but also describing and operating them as if they were one. The CEO, the Board, the management team at the TOP, the middle management in the middle and so on until we get to the bottom: the workers and “small” employees. Clients and other stakeholders are nowhere to be seen. This is what you would call a closed system.
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.. a new perspective: Just look at the same pyramid from above. What do we see? The top management transforms into the core management situated in the heart of the organization. The direction of communication and interaction is now INSIDE-OUT – reaching in all directions with a broad interface to the external world, such as clients, suppliers, partners, etc. Like stones thrown into the water, the activities and communications of everybody become inside-out activities, expanding like waves ripples into the whole organization and beyond, with different impact and content.
Without changing anything in the structure, by a mere change of perspective, we are instantly confronted with a total different reality of an organization, followed by different behaviors, implications and results! If you can’t change and don’t want to love or leave a system, you can choose this powerful option: take a new perspective and you will experience a different reality, an instant transformation.
Julia Culen 