We are all creatures of habit. We enjoy and depend on our structures and routines, especially at work; and especially in larger organizations. We feel secure, stable and comfortable. There is a lot to like about business as usual. For organizations that have an imperative to improve, change and transform, however, this can be a negative hand brake on progress. When the status quo is disrupted we feel insecure and discombobulated, and all we can think about is Job Security. Unfortunately the more we focus on it, the more job insecure we feel.

My professional life had been spent as an organizational effectiveness consultant working with medium to large organizations, improving productivity through the people. In the last 10 years, I have also worked for several small businesses and not for profits. I have also been fortunate to work in approximately 25 countries and I have clients in many more.

In my experience, the reaction to job insecurity is universal. There are two questions that always come to the fore. How do I feel secure in my job again? And who, or what can secure my job security? Until these two questions are answered it is difficult to get people to focus on anything else, no matter how positive it may be.

This negative energy has to be confronted head-on and workshopped until a critical mass of people arrive at the conclusion that job security, as we may have known it, is dead. It can no longer be achieved through traditional channels, read management, or the unions, or the government. In the future, the only job security on offer will be provided by customers and stakeholders, who demand the highest levels of performance, resulting in competitive products and services.

So if we take all our energy and focus it on performance, results, products and services to identified customers, - now or in the future, that is the most positive response and adaptation to the crumbling status quo, and the absence of the world of Business as usual. While this will not guarantee job security, either now or in the future, it will give us a sense of control over our work destiny and enable us to make progress. This approach can be adopted as an individual, team or organization, online, NOW! If you don't take control of your own destiny than someone or something else will.

One of my favourite training videos, the Power of Vision, by Joel Arthur Barker opens with the sentence:

 We better pay attention to the future because that is where we are going to spend the rest of our lives

He goes on to explain that a positive vision of the future is essential to individuals, teams, organizations and even countries, especially in really tough times.

A positive vision of the future is an integral part of what we call a unified sense of direction, one of the 10 essential components of team performance. These basic components are written up in my book, What do I do on Monday morning? There are 10 components and 10 systems that are essential to the team and organizational effectiveness. These essential components and systems are simple, common-sense elements strongly evident in all high-performance teams. In short, these are the fundamentals of organizational effectiveness. The secret to greater productivity is getting these basics right. 

To quote Michael Jordan, the basketball player:

Fundamentals were the most crucial part of my game in the NBA. Everything I did, everything I achieved, can be traced back to the way I approached the fundamentals and how I applied them to my abilities. There really are the basic building blocks or principles that make everything work. I don’t care what you’re doing or what you’re trying to accomplish; you can’t skip fundamentals if you want to be the best. But some guys don’t want to deal with that. They’re looking for instant gratification, so maybe they skip a few steps. It’s like they’re so focused on composing a masterpiece they never master the scales.

In times of business as usual, before Covid-19, organizations had common people problems and the bigger, and more global, the organization the bigger the problems. Some examples are:

 No unified sense of direction, and the existence of silos

 Ineffective, or non-existent strategic plans

 Disengaged, unmotivated workers.          

 Poor measurement systems

 Lack of role clarity and the acceptance of responsibility

 Absence of reward systems, etc.

Last November I had the opportunity of spending three weeks in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. I attended a program run by the Globalize Acceleratoras a member of Cohort 11. This included visiting the Headquarters of organizations like Google, Uber, and PayPal and experiencing much of what Silicon Valley has to offer. One of the things I learned was that the technology to deliver measurable and sustained productivity and performance improvement in new and completely revolutionary ways already exist. I came to the conclusion that the organizational effectiveness industry is ready for disruption by technology in the same way Airbnb, Amazon, and Uber disrupted their respective industries.

I learned that the technology to deliver measurable and sustained productivity and performance improvement at unprecedented levels already exist.

I know there are many consultancies who sell expertise in many formats including those who charge on an hourly basis, and innumerable training/development programs as well as IT and Software applications.

 I am not suggesting that you do without these things that are offered. But what is a sure road to failure is when you focus on one small part of the picture. Joseph Juran

As far as I can tell many of the solutions on offer are all over the place, not (teleological), focused on measurable productivity-based end results. In addition, they are not in accordance with general systems theory and they are falling well short of the almost limitless potential that would arrive with the effective, and holistic use of currently available technology. Most important: the genetic blueprint for ensuring all 10 of the fundamental components and systems essential to success through team performance is not embedded into the cultural DNA of the application.

The ability to learn and adapt faster than competitors has been described as the only sustainable competitive advantage.

Sacher Associates are currently adopting game-changing productivity improvements to our tried and tested organizational effectiveness approach. We aim to utilize modern technology in the form of comprehensive software platforms, to bring tools and techniques, perfected by us, over the last 25 years, and essential to organizational success, to within arm’s length of any size organization, in any sector, that considers themselves less than perfect. Please see our online consulting and learning platform, here.

All of our solutions are now being made available, online and can be applied to individuals, teams or organizations now. Here are some examples.

You are a small to medium business you need a strategic plan to cope with Covid-19

Larger organizations require not just strategic plans, but also performance management, performance measurement, and all the other performance systems necessary for success.

In partnership with you or your team or your organization, using state of the art technology, and our associates and alliance partners worldwide, we are in a position to offer you a unique solution which can be wholly implemented online and adaptable to the current circumstances

Please email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for a free clarification discussion.