Corporate vs Individual Growth
empowerment • Aug 17, 2022 • By Doug Harris
Many of you have known me as the CEO of The Kaleidoscope Group, a diversity, equity, and inclusion firm, with a 40-year career in business including my corporate experience and entrepreneurial endeavors. Our company has had the pleasure of serving many clients over the years to help create environments that allow organizations to thrive. Our approach has been to aid organizations in identifying and removing obstacles that impede individual success. When these obstacles are removed, individuals can then focus on bringing their best to every situation. We called that an empowered organization, one that seeks to have everyone contribute to their best ability. As a company, we will continue to equip leaders with the tools needed to show up and create those empowered organizations.
One would think that creating better organizations, by default, creates better employees. But I have found that removing the obstacles to success doesn’t prepare people for that success. Their experiences and training have taught them to react in certain ways. When the organization changes many people are not ready to change with it. In fact, many of the people who are fighting for that change are not prepared to operate in a new environment. They are stuck in the old ways of doing things. They are unsure if the removal of the barrier is really an opportunity to not just act differently but be different. Changing the organization doesn’t prepare people for the opportunity, it just creates an environment for opportunity. So we must work with individuals if we really want organizations to be their very best. This doesn’t mean more training and more manuals.
With corporate growth, many consultants recommend policies, practices, and procedure changes that will improve the way business is being conducted. As consultants we know we can’t change individual beliefs but we can regulate individual behavior. We can tell our associates what is and is not appropriate but we can’t tell them what to believe. We hope they believe in fairness but just in case, we put some policies in our businesses to help regulate that. We hope they believe in equal pay for equal work but we put in procedures to help them come close to equality in pay. Secretly, or maybe not so secretly, we hope that by modeling behaviors we eventually impact beliefs. The reality is we will never really know if we are impacting beliefs and changing people’s hearts and minds. Therefore, policies, practices, and procedures are our guardrails for making sure our companies are creating an environment for empowered people. When those environments are created we need empowered people to truly develop and cultivate an empowered organization. You can’t have an empowered organization without empowered people. Working on the organization is necessary but it is simply not enough to realize the real potential of that organization - even when it appears to be successful.
Individual growth and development are critical to the success of any team or organization. And companies know this. That is why they send people to training to help them with things beyond how to do the job. There are personality tests, team exercises, and leadership models designed to identify areas where individuals can improve. All of these things are important and when companies help us with individual assessments, leadership development, and team building they are giving us the tools to reach our potential. Yet, that general knowledge is only one part of personal growth. Without a personal investment in our own development, we will not be able to fully capitalize on that corporate investment.
At the end of the day, each person must feel they are so valuable and critical to the success of an organization that they refuse to hold back their greatness in the face of any obstacle. A great environment can nurture that belief but it doesn’t ensure people will have that belief. I am convinced more today than ever before that now is the time to help individuals do the personal work they need to do to capitalize on the opportunities that are developing right before their eyes. That work is individual. That work is personal. That work is difficult. This is an area where I plan to devote some added energy toward individual empowerment.
To be clear, I’m not saying companies have done all they need to do or have removed all the barriers to success. That is an ever-changing challenge and there is a lot of work left to be done. I can honestly say I am confident that we have super capable people doing the work necessary to make companies better. I am also saying individuals need to work on empowering themselves to make it all really work together. When you add empowered people to empowered companies you create an empowered world. A world where it’s not just about individual achievement but about collective growth. Empowered people empower people.
I look forward to engaging you in the conversation.