#308 from Innovative Leader Volume 6, Number 11          November 1997

Natural Productivity
by Richard J. Leider and Steven W. Buchholz

Mr. Leider and Mr. Buchholz are partners in The Inventure Group, a training and consulting firm in Minneapolis, MN (612-921-8686).  Mr. Leider has published The Power of Purpose: Creating Meaning in Your Life and Work (Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco, 1997).  This article is based on their contribution to the On Purpose Journal.

As continual change becomes a fact of organizational life, we see a shift occurring in how organizations are perceiving change and how they need to operate if they are to grow.  This new time can be illuminated by putting it in the context of recent changes:  from crisis to transition to potential.  This latest stage requires that we now focus on how to tap more optimally the potential of our staff.

Crisis

Organizations confronted by the changes that began to manifest themselves in the 1980s were jolted into survival.  Many were unprepared for the extent of changes and challenges in their business.  The time of survival became an era of reductionism, as downsizing became a common response to the pressures to cut costs and raise cash.  The challenge was for the workers to hang on.  The goal was to stabilize.

When survival was at stake, the frame of mind was often one of crisis.  High uncertainty created anxiety and left little energy to focus on success.  The defining question for organizations struggling to make it through this time was, Can we survive?

Transition

Organizations not strapped by crisis were also challenged to change as the business climate was transforming.  These organizations began to reinvent themselves—to move to new structures, processes, leadership and markets.  The time of transition was a time of restructuring and reengineering, as employees were asked to implement improvement strategies.  The goal was to achieve new efficiencies that would lead to profits and growth.

Some people experienced the transition as an endless and, at times, overwhelming series of changes and adjustments.  Many organizations tried to bring in solutions from the outside, by hiring consultants and undertaking ambitious initiatives to improve.  The challenge was for people to summon the energy and focus to carry out the needed improvements, in spite of continued change and uncertainty.  The question for these organizations was, Can we change?

Potentiality

While transition continues, a third time frame is now evident.  Organizations that were able to change are ready to go forward in a new way.  Change is still present but it’s positioned more strongly in the context of opportunity.  The organization’s focus is less on structures and processes and more on people.  Although certain practices of transition may continue, the intent is to push beyond the goal of efficiency.  The new strategy is effectiveness.  This new time is one of growth and potentiality.

Organizations moving into the new era of potentiality are reconsidering the costs of reductionism on human energy, and questioning the value of outside “fixes.”  Their focus is shifting from bringing in solutions from the outside to bringing out the best in their workforce…to discover what’s natural in their work.  This feels like a new beginning and provides a sense of renewal that energizes the organization.  The new question is, How good can we get?

The key to an organization’s potentiality is found in the productivity of its people.  Achieving full potential—getting as good as possible—means maximizing productivity.  Some leaders are beginning to question their most basic assumptions about productivity.  What is essential to igniting the human spirit?  How can we tap an individual’s innate talents?  The fundamental challenge is to bring out the Natural Productivity inherent in people.

Every individual has a desire to be productive, based on his or her unique purpose, passion and talents.  We’re naturally drawn to doing that which satisfies our hunger for meaning and makes the full expression of our uniqueness possible.

During times of survival and transition, change often dispersed energy.  Business strategy often failed to become implemented.  Initiatives had little or no payback.  Individuals were overwhelmed or underwhelmed, and their productivity was withheld.  Organizations unconsciously erected barriers to Natural Productivity by failing to recognize and bring out the natural resources in its people.  The mindset was to bring in solutions, when what was really needed was to bring out the Natural Productivity already there.

Natural Productivity means bringing all parts of ourselves to work.  It means discovering the right work for ourselves through discovering who we are and acting on the deepest, most essential, parts of ourselves.  Each of us is part of the natural world.  Each of us has a unique life purpose, a gift to give to that world.  Our work can be a natural expression of this gift.

The Wisdom of Nature

Natural Productivity encompasses the wisdom of nature:

Natural Energy.  Individuals are nourished by the act of being naturally productive.  It is related to the flow state that we experience when we’re freely expressing the purpose, talents and passion that are uniquely ours.  At these times, we gain more than we give away; our energy is self-renewing.  People are naturally productive when their spirit is acknowledged and honored.

Natural Environment.  Potentiality isn’t something to manage; it calls for strong leadership.  In the new time of Natural Productivity, the leader practices an inside-out philosophy founded on integrity and courage.  Essence takes on more meaning than form.  Who I am is expressed clearly in what I do.  A work environment exists that respects and unleashes Natural Productivity.  The new leaders recognize that growth will come from the bottom up and from the inside out—naturally!

Natural Intelligence.  Natural Productivity reflects a belief in inner intelligence and a basic trust in the rightness of people’s positive abilities and intentions.  Lack of this requisite trust is what makes it difficult for some organizations to embrace the concept of Natural Productivity.  Perhaps they fear getting bogged down in the swamp of individual expression and self interest.  Nature suggests unpredictability, a lack of control, wildness, even danger.  How can organizations function if they trust nature?  We tend to be more comfortable in a familiar and controlled landscape.  In the new era, organizations will need to trust human nature.

It is time to realize that the controls we’ve placed in organizational life, and all the solutions we brought in from the outside, worked for survival and transition.  They will not work, however, in the new era of potentiality.  Answers lie above “advice.”  Individuals embody the needed potential that can be tapped but not ignored.  Like the natural processes that can filter and purify our lakes, people’s inherent talents and dreams are available to produce the results organizations need.  Natural Productivity offers the promise of rejuvenation and vitality.  Aware and enlightened individuals and their leaders, by understanding the ingredients of Natural Productivity, can create cultures to unleash it.

The Natural Productivity workplace is a place that supports the expression of our essence—our personal gifts and talents.  Work needs to be an expression in the outer world of who we are in the inner world.  When we do work that’s separate from what we are, “just to make a living,” we’re not naturally productive. manage; it calls for strong leadership.