In December of 1862, at a critical economic and social turning point in America’s past, Abraham Lincoln presented his Second-Annual Message to Congress. In it, he said:
"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country."
The words, “disenthrall ourselves,” are unusual, aren’t they? By them, Lincoln suggested that Americans, at that time, were entrapped in ideas and assumptions that had effectively hypnotized them---ideas to which they were “enthralled.” To succeed, they needed to become free of those ideas, and to think differently.
Strangely enough, we face an economic and social turning point of our own, and Lincoln’s words ring true again today. Our current economic conditions are “new” so we must think “anew” and act “anew.” We must again “disenthrall ourselves” to save our country.
I can tell I’m “enthralled". If I find myself functioning the same way I functioned in the 1990s in terms of my job, my business, my connectivity with my clients, my communication processes, etc., I do this because I still think that the conditions under which those things were successful still exist.
But they don’t!
With this type of “mindset,” we find ourselves approaching a new set of realities with an old set of ideas and we’re getting tripped up. And it’s not because we’re bad; it’s because the conditions are different than they used to be.
We’re not achieving the levels of success we would like because we’re still fighting the battle the same way.
It takes courage and determination to make personal and professional paradigm shifts. It also takes creativity. And creativity isn’t something you can just turn on with the flip of a switch if it’s not part of how you operate.
Let’s say your business has a problem and you know changes need to be made, but you’re not sure what changes or how to go about implementing change. If you don’t allow the unique and creative juices of your employees who work directly with your business systems and your customers to be involved in the solution to the problem, it will finally get to a point where you have to make “wholesale” change.
And, wholesale change is way more painful and expensive than allowing things to flow and ebb and change naturally and creatively.
Consider this scenario: If I had a wind-up toy designed to walk on a flat surface, it will work perfectly as long as the surface remains flat, and it has enough energy in the spring, right? But what happens if the flat surface begins to incline 45 degrees? The toy would just stop moving or tip over because it is not designed to work on anything other than a flat surface. Success would require a “wholesale” redesign.
So, instead of a wind-up toy encountering an obstacle, what would a business do? How does a business handle an approaching 45 degree shift in the business landscape? Who would actually think about or anticipate any obstacles?
Would your management attempt to identify the obstacle from their decision-making “box,” or would the employees who actually do the work, are closest to it, and who actually touch the customers identify the landscape changing? And, once identified, how does your business adjust? Who decides? When?
See, in most organizations, management is located at the top of the pyramid, more distanced from the activity on the ground. Now, in the creative organization, management receives creative ideas and solutions for the company from the employees at the bottom, the widest part of the pyramid, closest to the activity on the ground. These employees are given the freedom to recommend and even act on creative solutions as they see business obstacles on the horizon.
Caution: Creative solutions often involve implementing ideas that haven’t been tried before. They may work the first time, or they may not work at all. However, if you’re designing or nurturing a culture that’s creative and innovative and an employee does something that doesn’t work, the last thing you would want to do is what? Punish them.
Punishment kills creativity.
It’s important to remember that you can’t be creative and always be right.
There’s something very special that occurs when you allow employees to be involved in creative decision-making and empower them to implement their own creative business solutions.
It’s called employee engagement. And, employee engagement can take place in either the decision-making or the methodology of implementation. Employees want to be involved.
Employee involvement? Employee engagement? Employee satisfaction and higher levels of employee morale and productivity? Higher levels of business success?
Now that’s what I call “disenthralling ourselves”---thinking anew and acting anew, encouraging and implementing creative business solutions to produce profit-generating results and achieving higher levels of success!
In my next Insight, I will discuss the democracy of decision-making and implementation.