How can People Strategy create Organizational Flow ?

Having a good People Strategy is about achieving what we’re calling “Organizational Flow”. Similar to the psychological concept of flow where the mind gets into a rhythm of doing all the things that need doing, an organization in a flow state is doing what it needs to without unnecessary hurdles.

Flow is not a state of ease, low complexity, or downtime. The essence of flow is that the same fast moving waters in one river might result in choppy conditions, sending boats in every which way, but in another river, could move smoothly unobstructed, and with no boats capsized. It’s not the water, it’s the river! An effective People Strategy is like building the river to allow for flow. No unnecessary rocks, dips, or obstacles, only enough resistance to allow for the right checks and balances before the water moves along down the river to its destination.

In an organization the things that enable a good people strategy and create the right environment for flow, are hard to define. These are often the things that are everyone’s job and yet no one’s. These are the items that are generally on an ambitious 1-year roadmap but get pushed aside to make room for the urgent matters of the day. And yet, these are the things that when left incomplete or untouched, erode trust, create inefficiencies, and limit the potential of people, teams, and companies.

Think of things like improving the current performance framework, refreshing the onboarding experience, reviewing the organizational structure and supporting job descriptions and titles for consistency, or refreshing communications channels and processes so staff get the information they need more efficiently and in the flow of their work. Unless an urgent need arises, these are often medium to long term roadmap items that we may never get to.

When organizations do get to these People Strategy items, it’s important to remember that it’s only partly about “what” gets done, but more about “how” these get done. How are these initiatives communicated? What style of language is used, who is delivering the message, and what channels are being used? What about the initiatives themselves - are they accessible to everyone, do they truly address the needs of the team and the organization?

The urgent matters of the day, are just that - they need attention and usually without notice, consume the most amount of time and resources. These urgent matters also usually require the attention of those closest to the matter as they have the context to manage these challenges. Working with external advisors can help the in-house team do what they do best while the medium to long-term roadmap items can get in motion sooner rather than later and into the flow of work.

Effective people strategies are rarely shiny, they almost never glitter, but when they are there, it’s like gold!