Your organization doesn’t exist

What is your organization going to achieve in the coming year?

What actions will it perform to achieve those goals?

Let me suggest to you that those are trick questions.

Your organization doesn't hope, doesn't act, and doesn't achieve.

Only its people do that.

• Any accomplishment is based on the individual or collective actions of one of more people.

• Any goal that's genuinely pursued is based only on the hope and commitment felt by specific individuals.

• Any sense of joy in accomplishment is felt only within the minds of the people who worked hard to achieve it.

Here's the thing:

As a leader in your organization (which you are, regardless of your job title), what are you hoping your people will achieve?

If you really want that to happen, it's up to you to connect those people to that goal — inspire their hopes, coordinate their efforts, smooth their challenges, and in the end, encourage them to celebrate.

I get it. It's a habit for most of us to focus on the organization as a whole, as if it really were a thing that exists on its own.

But just because that's our usual way of thinking, it doesn't mean it's really effective, or even true.

All the best,
A.