Not withstanding all the Change management and Consulting education I have received, I have been known to say: ‘Companies do not exists… they are merely a complex set of individuals and even more complex networks of (networks of) individuals.

I have experienced, first hand, how any one-size fits all approached fails over and over in any organization. On the other hand I have a lot of experience too with how personally diversified dealings with change succeeded (often against all odds!).

Based on best practises, infamous management books (like “First Break All the Rules” by Marcus Buckingham, “7 habits of highly effective people” by Stephen R. Covey and “Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow” by Chip Conley, “Good to great” by Jim Collins and “Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us” by Daniel H. Pink) and several change management projects I have lead, I came up with the following two dimensions that seem to nicely predict what will have a (more) positive/negative effect on organizational results:

WhatWorksDimensions

As an example, not to be complete, I have plotted some interactions and/or characteristics thereof, onto the two dimensional matrix.

Whatever appeals to a person’s intrinsic motivation will lead to better results. Long term works better than short term, unless there are threats that force focus on short term.

Now, how is your company doing? Is it, sadly so like most others, mainly facilitating the lower (extrinsic motivation based) interactions?