| We
believe that people working in organizational settings are
whole people with rich lives, dreams and desires, who regularly
negotiate their way through life's challenges and responsibilities,
uncertainties, disappointments, unexpected surprises, planned
events and achievements.
We all work because
we care about something. All of us, given the proper resources
and space, can thrive for our own and our organization's benefit.
Creating this environment
is a commitment. Just as a person committed to physical fitness
must not only care about their health, they must make daily choices
to realize their vision. Similarly, it is not enough to plant
seeds in well-cultivated soil; to enjoy a bountiful harvest takes
regular tending and responsiveness to the flux of nature. In our
organizations, the manifestation of a dynamic environment must
extend beyond the carefully crafted words in a vision or mission
statement, beyond well-produced quarterly meetings, beyond competitive
benefits packages, and even beyond training. At the same time,
each of these aspects of the organization must support productive
engagement.
In our organizations,
as with our bodies and gardens, there is not one static
definition of health, nor is there one prescription to create
it. Each organization has unique functional, market, customer
and employee demands. There is a second reason that we don't
believe in prescriptive approaches to organizational issues:
Prescription is a metaphor from medicine, and reflects the
idea that organizations (and their participants) are in
some way ill, and need outside intervention to get better.
Our experience and years of research has taught us that
this metaphor leads to externally-driven, short-term solutions
at best and, at worst, can actually do more harm than good.
We offer an alternative
to short-term, outside-in, prescriptive approaches. We work with
organizations who want to engage the best of their talent and
passion from the inside-out and sustain a culture of participation.
The good news
is that talent, passion, creativity, and the desire to make
a difference are the very core of human nature. They do
not need to be coerced; they do need the space and support
to flourish.
Our
Guiding Principles >
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