Don’t measure yourself against some perfect ideal.
It may be hard to plan in a VUCA world but we can have a long distance, aspirational target to give us some direction. It might be an idealised model of how we want to operate, like sociocracy; or a hope of who we want to be with maybe Teal culture: or even a series of goals to be a certain size covering a certain territory; or a unicorn organisation we would like to model ourselves on.
It’s like a star that we navigate by when sailing. We don’t expect to get there but we know we want to go in that direction.
In the Northern Hemisphere they talk about a North Star or a Pole Star, but those terms don’t mean much up here in the South, so I like to use “matariki‘, the Māori name for the Pleiades, which was a navigational constellation for them. Not only is it visible in most of the world, but it is a tight group of seven or nine stars, not a single star. Having a single goal can distort the behaviour of the organisation so I like the idea of having a cluster of them, but not too many.
Remember that in the real world nobody implements the idealised model. It’s not a blueprint, it is just a directional beacon.
In reality we should move forward experimentally, iteratively exploring the space to discover what solution works for the steam right here right now in this organisation. The answer will be different in every instance. And nobody can predict it, no matter how much you pay them for it. Let the solution be emergent as your team tries different ideas then reviews what works for them and what doesn’t.
Don’t compare yourselves to that imagined idealised future state. A star doesn’t get any closer no matter how long you sail towards it. If you benchmark against perfect, you will always be disappointed. Navigate towards that ideal, but measure progress looking backwards, at how far you have come.
The author, generated by Dall-E, no copyright