The established assumption that leaders are the purveyors of all knowledge can be categorically overturned by valuing organisations as rich repositories of experiential knowledge. Business is self-limiting when it relies on objectives of increased turnover and profitability which stem from the leader as the expert who is responsible for all decision making and knowledge acquisition.
The embedded and intuitive knowledge that every human carries through daily life is often overlooked and undervalued, but in allowing this to become an important facet of organisational development, we open up new potential to build a collective experiential knowledge that benefits everyone.
Why Do Collective Visions Work Better For Our Businesses?
A collective vision liberates a business to unleash unprecedented success, and the reasons for this include the following:
- It is essential for leaders to understand that their frameworks are limited, and that inviting in perspectives and approaches that allow them to reflect on these limits can bring positive challenge.
- An acceptance that working from one worldview can only provide a partial or incomplete picture can be useful in developing new frameworks. This takes into account that there may be a better way to make effective use of knowledge and create a more complete standpoint.
- The important of conflict and conflict resolution allows the sharing of knowledge to become a productive and vital force for change, making the most of the dialectic, rather than trading in fixed and opposing views.
- Gaps in knowledge offer space for development, team strategizing and cohesion rather than signifying problems where a group works together to update and co-create expectations.
- In shared knowledge models, the manager becomes a facilitator who is coherent in experimenting with methods and ideas to implement a positive way forward across the organisation. This approach is based on empowering and equalising the workforce, rather than instilling trained obedience, which is demoralising and problematic.
- A shared vision model is more flexible, offering more opportunity to respond to real world situations that are divergent and involve unique client requirements.
The practical changes that must take place to bring this kind of dialogue into your business can be challenging and demand a development in thinking, but the potential benefits are well worth this investment of time and energy, and the outcomes can be exponential.
Take The Challenge: Grow Yourself And Your Business
Kieth Deats is a specialist in Equality-Based Practice and has committed his lifetime’s work and doctoral practice study to addressing equality at every level of society as a practitioner. He is driven to enable this with individuals, teams and leaders.
Kieth partners with peer practitioners and entrepreneurs, working to develop frameworks that introduce and integrate Equality-Based practices and management actions to update and evolve their enterprises. The goal is to sustain and increase rates of growth, with a determination to see each other’s success and the well-being of leaders and their organisations as a priority for Modern Enterprise.
Kieth is available to give talks, and enable the design and implementation of Equality-Based Practices in your own settings, and is contactable via www.recree8.com.