Last week I mentioned how decades and centuries of task driven culture have, today, led to the

phrases “that is not my job” and “this is how we have always done things here”. The origins of being
task driven come from mass production, where an employee had one job and was posted at one
machine. Their task was to operate that machine and carry out that operation. Given the state of
industry, that was not a bad idea.

Obviously, the state of industry has changed since then. However, the culture around being task
driven has not changed a lot. Just for a few moments, let me take you into an alternate, parallel
industry which is results driven. How does this look like?

Employees have an overarching job description, aligned to the culture and values of the company,
and broad definitions of their daily work. The idea being, employees have accountabilities, but also
have the freedom to apply their thinking and creativity on a daily basis, focusing on achieving the
said objective. What does this look like?

Notice the fact that there are no departments, only projects. Also notice the transparent nature of
arrows to reflect transparency and openness along and across the organisation. This is vital. As a
result of this, the organisation’s move upwards starts with employees pulling the teams upwards,
teams pulling the projects, and projects pulling the company.

Why pull though, and not push? Pulling is associated with attraction, and pushing is with repulsion.
You pull towards, but you push against. Pulling together is the ability to attract towards the common
goals and objectives, and align everyone towards those.
Additionally, when this happens, employees are empowered to take decisions and are valued for it.
This results in continuous improvement, because everyone, at every level in the organisation is given
the power and accountability to improve how things are done, and valued for their contributions.
Processes aren’t merely followed, but are kept relevant to achieving the objectives, by constant
validation and improvement. Redundant processes that come in the way of progress are improved
or removed. Due to this, people are empowered and more committed, people are more receptive to
change, and more productive, all of which gets reflected not only in the organisation’s performance,
but also in the organisation’s health.