What is the Truthful Organization?

The Truthful Organization is a values based, people-oriented, way of working together that fosters deeper cooperation while helping people claim a personal stake in the success of the venture. Fundamental to this outcome are key skills which help people explore their passion for life and craft for themselves a personal life-mission. When the energy of that person's passion and the focus of their mission are aligned with the goals of the organization, that person, regardless of whether they are the owner or the least senior non-technical trainee, participates as an owner-entrepreneur. Their days as an employee are over!

While motivational training has been around for decades, and teambuilding has grown in popularity in the last few years, these programs often work at crossed purposes. Personal motivation often leads to competition, while teambuilding can result in a lack of personal initiative and group-think.
This is a challenging time for people's business careers. With reengineering, reinvention, down-sizing, total quality and a myriad of other change initiatives, it is difficult for people to figure out where they fit in and how to participate. To date, most of these large-scale reinvention programs have failed to overcome people's scepticism and fear, let alone engender real buy-in. The Truthful Organization is not another change initiative; it is just a natural way of working together that works with existing structures to breath new life into old companies, rejuvenate failing improvement programs and motivate disenchanted workforces. It does this in an extraordinarily unique, yet utterly reasonable way... from the bottom up!

So much has changed in business that it is difficult for people to distinguish between yesterday's wisdom and ever day lies undermining quality and participation. To guide people from any level of an organization, on a personal journey to empowerment, Ward Flynn, author of the Truth Zone: Building the Truthful Organization From The Bottom Up! has originated seven steps to champion trut

The word truthfulness as used here does not express a moral attitude. It is more accurately, a description of the quality of relationships and degree of alignment within the organization. To assess the quality of alignment, a twenty-eight item (TM) has been developed.
While truthfulness is essential in any organization, honesty alone does not begin to describe the many facets of alignment cultivated in the four primary levels of a Truthful Organization: Personal, Interpersonal, Team and Organization.

Personal & Organizational Alignment

In the last few years, it has become fashionable for organizations to write and publish vision statements - which staff are expected to support. Yet beyond furnished job descriptions, few employees are encouraged to explore their own missions. In a Truthful Organization every employee is expected to define and live out a personal mission. While a clear mission may lead some people away from the organization, others discover a profound alignment between their mission and the company vision. From that day on, motivation is never a problem.

Motivation

A motivated workforce has always been elusive. Today with millions riding on quality, reengineering and customer focus initiatives, motivation is vital; unfortunately it is in shorter supply than ever.
Motivation is only the beginning. When people have a mission, they stand for something. Dealings with co-workers become passionate and more direct. Office politics, competition and superficial civility give way to open-honest communication, teamwork and operating agreements.

Personal Empowerment

With new tools and practice, people grow to empower themselves and assume roles of leadership within the organization and community. In the last few years, training programs have been developed that teach managers how to empower their employees. While the intention may be admirable, the fact, is no one can empower another person - those who try are only playing out the latest hand in the old game of parental control; what is given can be taken away. Empowerment is only achieved through an individual act of courage; it is not bestowed upon others.

Top Down - Bottom Up

The Truthful Organization is unique because it can be deployed from the top down by management across wide areas of the organization or from the bottom up by any individuals and clusters of workers at any level of the company.

Four Levels of Truth

There are four levels of "Truth" in a organization: Personal, Interpersonal, Team and Organizational. When the driving principles and values at all four levels are aligned, the organization is said to be a Truthful Organization.

Personal Truth:

In a Truthful Organization, each individual is encouraged to declare and live out a personal mission and determine how, and to what degree, participation in the organization supports that personal mission. Participants are in touch with their own moral principles and act with authority from those values. Likewise, each employee is encouraged to determine how their contributions add unique value to the enterprise. In this way, each person's participation is self-motivated, ethically defined and intentionally aligned with the rest of the organization.
Moreover, there is a direct correlation between a person's understanding of their personal mission and the degree of passion they bring to the job. When a person's job contributes to their mission, then they bring more of themselves - and their passion - to the job.

Interpersonal Truth:

The Truthful Organization establishes criteria and offers tools to improve interpersonal cooperation. Individuals learn to accept responsibility for their own safety and happiness and avoid blaming others. Everyone learns to lead, collaborate and proactively resolve conflicts.
Conflicts, while natural, are less frequent when the quality of relationships are improved up-front. Operating agreements permit open, honest and direct communication and support a rapid resolution when discord arises.
People in a Truthful Organizations strive for greater self-awareness. They understand people do not always behave in open, non-manipulative, truthful ways. Sometimes people try to control and manipulate others, at other times, they feel powerless and unwilling to accept responsibility for themselves.
In developing a Truthful Organization, the goal is not a "new religion" to control behavior or change people, but to instill in people a craving for self awareness. When people are more aware, they can be more intentional and less prone to volatile reactionary behaviors.

Team Truth:

Teams are a part of every organization. How they participate, make decisions and deal with obstacles are critical to overall team performance. Whether the organization has moved to formal teams, or the team is simply the usual co-workers - specific skills can be applied to enhance team effectiveness. Teams are more than a group. The impossibility of "team math," where the total output of the team exceeds the sum of its parts is accomplished by creating genuinely interdependent relationships which enhance the performance of the individuals while focusing output toward a shared outcome. Team skills are learned behaviors that must be practiced.
In order to achieve real interdependence, team members must move beyond simple cooperation and everyday civility. Real teamwork rests on artful skills of dialogue, negotiation, and contracting as well as the ability to recognize and resolve conflicts when they arise.
Dialogue is different from discussion. In a discussion, there is a clash of ideas where the passion and logic of one argument is pitted against another in the belief that the best one prevails. In dialogue, the passion is not for one's own argument, but for understanding each participant's point of view. In a dialogue ideas receive a more equitable hearing. The idea which is finally adopted has more to do with its merit than the quality or passion of presentation.
Negotiation is an important, and often overlooked, tool any individual can use to change things that are not working. Just because something has always been done one way, or because the boss wants something a certain way does not mean these thing should not be questioned. However, the question should be put in the form of a negotiation. One might approach the boss with a comment like, "I am not comfortable with the location of the new water cooler, would you be willing to hear my reasons and consider some alternative locations?"
Contracting is akin to negotiating, but it is especially important in improving relationships between co-workers, especially between internal customer-suppliers. All too often, a worker (supplier) assumes their job is to do as they are told without asking questions. In reality, employees are far too valuable to leave their brains at the door. Whenever an employee is asked to perform a task, it is important that clarifying questions be asked to make sure the job will be done to the customer's satisfaction and in such a way that the supplier is able to apply maximum efforts. For example, a key piece of boiler plate in any contract is the simple question: "Do you want me to do this job in a specific manner, or may I use my best judgement?" Asking that common sense question up front can save untold trouble down the road - but how often does it get asked?
No matter how well team members communicate, negotiate and contract, occasionally conflicts will occur. Conflicts are natural. But how conflict is dealt with on a team marks the difference between a work group and a team.

Organizational Truth:

Some organizations make it easy for individuals to align their own personal goals with the goals of the organization. Others make it difficult, some by treating people like brainless cattle, others by operating without organizational values or a long-term vision. Such organizations, even with strong centralized leadership, tend to drift with shifting markets and occupy their workers with short-term projects and crisis management. In such an environment, it is difficult for any individual to know exactly where they stand in relationship to the overall organization; individual and organizational alignment occurs by happenstance, if at all.
A Truthful Organization has a clear vision and operates from a set of well defined values. Employees are personally motivated to think and act like owners. Organizational assets are invested in an on-going enrichment of individual employee resources. The Truthful Organization seeks to align individuals within the organization to enhance the overall viability of the enterprise and the experience of the individuals.
The leaders of a Truthful Organization walk their talk. Leaders operate with the same guidelines as all employees. Because there is no need to create artificial incentives, hierarchies, turf building - sacred cows like sales contests which institutionalize internal competition are systematically eliminated. In a Truthful Organization, it is enough that the organization itself succeeds. When the organization wins, everyone benefits; who needs more?

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