Sebastian Klein - The Loop Approach: How to Transform Your Organization from the Inside Out, plus E-Book inside (ePub, mobi oder pdf)

W henever we want to do something well, we always start our work with a check-in. Checking in is the simple act of stepping back, taking a deep breath, and affirming to others that were really there, present in the moment. Making time for this short break helps us understand our own intentions and communicate them to others, thereby getting everyone on the same page. If someones mind is still dwelling on last nights Margarita Monday or on their life crisis, they shed such preoccupations here.

Typically, a check-in takes the form of two simple questions, which everyone present answers in turn. So to get you started on your journey of working through this book together with us, please answer the following questions.

Whats on your mind?

What has your attention right now?

Take as much time as you need.

Just like you, we find ourselves taking part in a major transformation thats gripping the world right now. A transformation thats fundamentally changing the way people work together in organizations. The rigid hierarchies of old are being replaced by new, more flexible organizational models, and this will be arguably the greatest organizational upheaval since the Industrial Revolution.

And as with most revolutions, theres just no ignoring this one. New organizational models will become the status quo, and traditional hierarchies will fall along the wayside of history, like steam engines and fax machines before them. We cant imagine going back to a world without electricity, airplanes or the internet, and soon, the same will be true of these new organizational models.

But why is this revolution happening? If youve ever worked in a corporation thats organized as a traditional hierarchy, you probably also recognize and appreciate that change is sorely needed. Until recently, it was commonly accepted that if you wanted to get any larger group of people to work together, the pyramid model was the only way to go. But today, it is becoming increasingly obvious that the era of the pyramid is over. And while there are many reasons for this, we want to highlight three:

First, people find it very demotivating to work in a rigid hierarchy, where theyre just expected to do as theyre told. Young, well-educated professionals entering the workforce today are no longer willing to sacrifice years of their career to just following orders from pointy-haired bosses. After all, they can afford to be picky: the market for good talent is competitive, meaning employees are no longer desperate to cling on to whatever stable job they can. The most sought-after professionals demand much more than a steady paycheck: they want meaning, flexibility, and to be trusted with the authority to make decisions that actually impact the organization.

Second, the rigid, hierarchical pyramids of the past are just too slow and cumbersome to succeed in competition with young, agile upstarts. Without the burden of a pyramid on their shoulders, the newcomers are much faster at adapting to their changing environment. As a result, they are inventing and reinventing businesses faster than the old guard can even fathom, let alone compete with. If established corporations used to laugh off small startups operating from garages somewhere, their smirks have since been thoroughly wiped off their faces. As companies like Amazon, Facebook and Google have proved, any scrappy newcomer could skyrocket to the top of the Fortune 500 list in under a decade, leaving former industry leaders in the dust. The age of the dinosaurs is overthe mammals are here, baby!

Third, if we take a big picture view, we rapidly see that our world desperately needs new kinds of organizations. From accelerating climate change to increasing inequality, we believe that many of humanitys biggest challenges today stem from our sadly out-of-date organizational model. Countless organizations emerging today have already adopted the greater purpose of changing the world for the better, and they only continue to evolve around this purpose. Many such companies have already entered the spotlight via Frederic Lalouxs book Reinventing Organizations. And in our own work, we see more new purpose-driven companies similar to Patagonia, Burtzoorg, and Zappos emerging every week. Whats more, were also excited to see many larger organizationsor at least parts of themtake on the challenge of reinventing themselves and boldly reorganizing how people work within them.

A new mindset

What were currently witnessing in the world around us is a great shift from one dominant type of organizational operating system to another. The old, hierarchical management pyramid, which for millenia seemed like the only viable option for running any larger organization, is finally being replaced by more network-like models. But this update isnt going smoothly. Not at all. In fact, its generating lots of tension and friction.

On the one hand, we have a new generation of companies thats instinctively embracing new way of doing things. They adopt ready-made solutions like Holacracy, or design their own, and just go with it. Meanwhile, most companies still run on the old operating system, and for them, updating to a new one is no easy task (yes, even worse than Windows 10). Though the software analogy can make it sound like companies just need to press a button to update and reboot, the truth is that its much more complicated and arduous. And the older and larger an organization, the harder and more painful the transformation will be.