By Marina Capizzi, author of Hierarchy to Die or to Thrive?

 

Who writes the emails you look at right away?

Who do the requests come from that become immediate priorities?

When you’re working, whose face do you observe most carefully to pick up the messages of the eyebrows, the nuances of the gaze, the movements of the mouth?

Whose silences do you listen to the most?

And if you interrupt one phone call to immediately answer another, who is calling you?

And when you disconnect from a meeting, or leave a training course, is it to respond to…?

In short, who occupies the center of our thoughts when we work (and sometimes beyond)?

 

I know.

You’re all thinking the same thing….

The CLIENT!

 

Of course.

No clients, no business.

In fact, you make huge investments in getting to know current and potential clients, attracting and retaining them.

All very consistent.

 

I beg your pardon?

No…?

Isn’t that what we do with the Client?

 

Hmmm…

 

I get it.

We do all this for our people.

Companies always say, “people at the center.”

They are right. Results are done together.

We would never get into the habit of postponing meetings with collaborators to answer to someone else!

 

How?

No, it’s not the collaborators.

 

Okay, then it’s the colleagues together with whom we carry out activities and projects.

No?

No.

 

And so, sorry…

To whom is all this attention, concern, listening and dedication directed?

 

That’s it.

Now we can imagine dozens, hundreds, thousands of faces looking upward.

We can imagine an entire organization with eyes that are frequently turned upward.

 

It’s a metaphor, of course. People are working, busy, writing and receiving dozens and dozens of emails, many of them going from meeting to meeting non-stop, analyzing data, developing technology, checking the arrival of goods, producing parts, meeting with clients and suppliers…

 

But.

 

In which direction does the majority of their attention go?

 

Upward.

Toward the Boss.

Toward the Boss of the Boss, and the Boss of the Boss of the Boss….

 

Working by bringing attention upward has very important concrete consequences on the physical, on the mind, on activities, on relationships, and, of course, on business.

 

So much energy is funneled upward.

 

Those above are very much observed. The words and silences that come from above are studied, investigated, weighed. The signals, interpreted. The behaviors, evaluated…

Who else in the organization is the object of so much attention?

And how much listening is left for clients, co-workers, colleagues, suppliers, partners?

How much free space does this vertical posture leave for communication and mutual understanding with other stakeholders, for coordination?  And how much for experimentation and sharing mistakes, for learning and innovating?

This is what traditional hierarchy looks like.

The solution that we as humans have found to make organizations work.

Of course, it was born in a world where those at the top thought, decided, planned, controlled. And below, you executed.

You could plan for the long term anyway.

And because those on top valued those below (and not vice versa), you could also use fear as leverage.

This approach is still present in our organizations today.

And, over time, it has created a rigid posture that is not in tune with the changing world and that, like anything that is not fluid and in step with the times, creates a symptomatic gap

We can call it: organizational wry neck.

This is a painful individual and collective posture, because it reduces vision, speed of response, empowerment, initiative, Psychological Safety – that is, transparent and frank confrontations based on ideas and results, not hierarchical rank.

And so much more.

Like so many tensions that we do not perceive, it conditions our movements and we do not notice.

In short, a posture that becomes culture.

Isn’t it time to preside over enterprise competitiveness and people skills using the agility of movement?