Navigate the Swirl

CHAPTER 20An Invitation to Transformation

We began this book with a description of organizational breakdown. The Swirl is quite capable, to again paraphrase Peter Drucker, of eating strategy for breakfast—and quite frankly, for lunch and dinner as well. The best laid plans seem to simply dissipate like smoke in the air when it comes to trying to force something through an organizational system that is caught up in that type of bureaucratic mess. But as teams become high performing, by engaging the Seven Crucial Conversations, the Swirl dissipates. A true HPT—confident, empowered, and intelligent—knows how to digest a business or enterprise strategy. It can understand its components, identify essential roles and responsibilities, connect them to the team's strategic purview, and implement and adjust where necessary. And it can even start to engage other teams around those issues and help encourage the smart adoption of a more effective approach throughout the organization. Ideally, the whole organization will begin to feel that energizing sense of being on a transformational journey.

A transformational journey in business is both a human journey and a shared journey. It may begin with a leader, but that person's leadership always involves a deeper degree of appreciation for those with whom they share the path, and an expanded sense that “we're in this together.” It may sound like a cliché, but in a very direct and unambiguous way, it's true: you will succeed or fail together. ...