Companies, like all groups and organizations made up of people, are like people. They make decisions the way people do, they act the way people act, and they have souls like people.
We know companies have souls because their values are so much more powerful than rules.
There are quite a few companies around that are a lot like I was before I began to get to know my own soul, my own deeper self. They believe they probably have a soul, but have not really done anything to connect to it.
Companies do many things well. They tend to be very good at analysis, efficiency, and productivity. One thing companies tend not to do very well is reflection. Companies tend not to trust their inner voice, or gain lessons from their past experiences.
Companies tend to develop strong minds and bodies. Souls are all about values and reflection.
Leaders help their organizations build strong souls.
Companies often produce statements or lists of their values. Those lists are the result of quite a bit of analysis, but not very much reflection. The values on those lists tend to be the values that the company wants to have, or wants other people to think they have, rather than their true values.
Many companies do the process backwards. They decide where they want to go this year or this quarter, then develop a vision that they think will take them there.
That only makes sense if our goals are more essential to us than our vision and values.
Please join me for a webinar this morning about The Soul of Your Company hosted by my friend and colleague Amy Walker.
How do you describe the soul of your organization?
What do you do to help your organization strengthen its soul?
[Image by avrene]
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