From Failure to Success

“The major problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them”

– Albert Einstein

The most brilliant mind of the 20th century perceived the universe as one extraordinarily complex system.

We look at a company as a system. To keep things simple, we work with four major elements:

• People
• Projects
• Processes
• Culture

When things go awry—especially when the failure is of titantic proportions—we look for processes and projects that are not aligned to your business drivers. People can also fall out of alignment; but more often we find that employees are at the effect of other misaligned elements.

What makes organizational change tricky is that the elements below the water line (on the Iceberg Model) are not directly observable. Your company culture may support sea monsters in the form of invisible feedback loops which work contrary to your stated organizational values.

We observe hidden weaknesses indirectly, by listening to employee complaints and watching them work around broken processes to keep the engine of your business humming. We get our most reliable and valuable information about systemic weaknesses from the company grapevine and its sneaker nets.

Hidden weaknesses exposed, then repaired, become your greatest organizational strengths. This is how you (re)gain business momentum.