Most organizations are designed to fail. That’s why work is so hard.

You see, nearly all businesses are structured like medieval armies or 18th-century factories. They are designed to preserve power, maintain order and drive efficiency.

Today, all those things are in the way of getting real work done.

So we make up for the weakness of our business structures with the brute strength of our own hard work. It makes our work exhausting and draining and needlessly slow and frustrating.

Be Agile or Die

Today organizations have to be agile or they will die. Yet they operate as hierarchies with command-and-control relationships. The result is they can’t think of truly creative ways to create new value, connect with customers or respond to threats. Hierarchies are simply not designed to do these things… so they employees are in constant crisis.

What’s worse is that hierarchies consistently promote extraordinary people until they are put in positions in which they are no longer extraordinary. It’s called the Peter Principle named after Laurence Peter who documented that individuals tend to be promoted until they reach their level of incompetence. And there they stay.

I have found that this is not just a clever sounding theory. Often when I do research on the leadership effectiveness of an organization’s top 1% I find that most people are doing jobs with demands that exceed their abilities.

Are You Designed to Fail?

You know you’re working in an organization that is designed to fail when you are consistently doing rework, having emergency conference calls, doing work at night and on weekends and consistently failing to achieve important goals without heroic effort.

The reason we have organizations that are slow, lumbering and bureaucratic is our leaders have responded to 21st-century competition primarily with the admonition to work harder.

But when you’re designed to fail you will never be able to work hard enough to win.

Getting Real Work Done

Today real work gets done in teams. The ideal core team has no more than seven members. Interestingly, this is the maximum number of hunting parties in hunter- gatherer cultures. Hunting parties are the ultimate, agile organizational design element.

For a hunting party to be successful they must be diverse. When hunters go out to hunt they need strategists, tacticians, communicators, project managers, logicians

And some people who are damn good with spears and bows and arrows.

Successful hunters need to know where to go, move fast and stay in harmony.

What they don’t need are endless, repetitive conference calls to discuss past failures in an effort to create new excuses.

The Key to Operating a Network Organization

So let’s get back to 21st-century enterprise. Agile organizations, even the biggest ones are made up of a network of interlocking, fully empowered teams. Operating a network is completely different than oiling the gears in the machinery of a hierarchy.

Human networks require a different operating system, roles and processes to get work done.

The fundamental operating system is a universal leadership model I call 5-STAR that is simply designed to get everybody on the same page and keep them there all the time. This is essential for winning…or bringing home the bison.

If people don’t know, minute-by-minute WHAT’s important, are unclear as to WHY it’s important and not sure HOW to participate… failure is assured. Since these things are constantly changing this is not as easy as it sounds.

The underlying engine that drives strategic agility and consistent winning is phenomenal communication. And human beings are not very good communicators.

Mastering Communication

The good news is that mastering communication will make you powerful. You don’t need formal power to be extremely influential in a network. In fact, when I do organizational analysis I set aside the formal structure and look for the true influencers. I call them strategic amplifiers. These are people who constantly re-frame the organization’s strategy so that it stays relevant in daily work.

I encourage you to make yourself more powerful in your workplace. This will decrease your frustration and increase your opportunities and work satisfaction.

Five simple ways to make yourself a much more powerful communicator:

Ask everyone for input constantly. Since conditions and competition is constantly changing, invite your colleagues to tell you what’s going on. If you don’t ask most of the time you will get unpleasant news too late…that will increase your anxiety and your failure rate. When listening always look for the grains of truth. Most of us listen for ideas that are wrong rather than ideas that are right. We are wired to be skeptical and wary. Rewire yourself. Acknowledge other people’s contributions, pull out the idea-particle you can build on and keep moving forward. Your goal is to be effective not to be right. (Only jerks insist on being right.) Be practical, always. That means you’re solution focus and action oriented. If you are not sure what to do, select the smartest direction and keep moving. Success is like riding a bicycle… if you stop you will tip over. Always express your inner motives. Your outer motives may be obvious… like this action is necessary to fix a problem or answer the competition. But people are much more inspired by your inner motives. This is the meaning and purpose you find in doing great work. If you’re not fully aware of your inner motives simply ask yourself what value do we create for our customers and our employees. I’m talking about human value. What are people able to do that makes their life better because of what you do? Research is clear that people are inspired to do their best when they are working for a purpose beyond on their immediate self-interest. While people may work for money they create value that matters only when they’re inspired… so inspire them. Be calm, be assertive. The word authentic is tossed around constantly in business these days. We are told we want authentic leaders. But most people make a whopping mistake. They think authenticity gives them license to be emotional. It doesn’t. Calmly explaining why you’re frustrated is very different than acting frustrated. Emotionalizing your opinions or your behavior will result in distrust and ultimately disrespect. On the other hand if you stay calm you can say just about anything. So be calm and strong. Say what’s on your mind respectfully.

The great thing about improving your communication skills so they work in a 21st-century world is that it doesn’t require anyone else’s permission. You need to quit waiting for everyone else to get their act together and focus on what you can do to empower yourself.

Both work and life will become much easier.

Will

P.S. Did you know the popularity of Will’s bi-weekly ThoughtRockets is growing like crazy? It’s because they’re based on today’s science of positive well-being, take 30 seconds to read, and are easy to do. Sign up here and see for yourself.