Last week, my co-conspirator on the ‘culture’ discussions on twitter- Harish – shared a Forbes article on why top talent leave organisations. This was a distilled version of another article that had 10 reasons! So, “Top talent leave an organization when they’re badly managed and the organization is confusing and uninspiring.” As the author notes, the 10 reasons in the earlier article could be roughly divided into managerial and systemic reasons. My 2 cents is that bad managers exist because the system allows them, and sometimes even rewards them. When good professionals see ‘wrong’ behaviour rewarded, they realise it’s time to leave.
The second of two pieces of advice that the author gives firms involves purpose and culture. Though it would seem that the former drives the latter, culture is capable of working towards or subverting an organisation’s purpose.
As is becoming a regular occurrence, I had an article waiting for me on Reader – Umair Haque’s “Overthrow Yourself“, in which he draws out the fine nuances between an organisation’s vision and its ambition. The former is an egoistical version towards which resources toil, and the latter is a portrait of the human consequences that your enterprise (not just your “company”, but your ideas, effort, time, ingenuity) creates. Semantics, you might say, but I think ambition also acknowledges the sense of purpose of the individuals involved.
To add to last week’s post, good professionals love to be empowered, and when they are, they love to be held accountable for the decisions they make, decisions that drive them towards achieving a purpose they can identify with. Probably every startup begins that way, but sometimes the vision takes over, just as in the case of social platforms.
until next time, purpose.ly