Earlier today I was engaging with a connection on LinkedIn. We were discussing his reaction to my recent article Fire Fire! Controlling the Unseen Threat to Organisational Survival.
An important point he made is that in any organisation, stress is inevitable.
The point he made is that the absence of stress is not necessarily a good thing – it can make the organisation lazy. Too much stress can break it too.
Which reminded me of a chapter I wrote for Marshall Goldsmith’s AMA Handbook of Leadership. In it, I explored the notion of Political Temperature, and the senior level activity to adjust it to suit the stage/context the organisation is facing.
If the temperature is too hot for the cycle stage, that’s a problem. Too cold at the wrong time, calamitous.
Take a look at the ideas I shared about how you can begin to take more conscious control of the political system, and influence it in the right direction to build the appropriate level of stress/strain and or, political rivalry.
Resources
- Fire Fire! Controlling the Unseen Threat to Organisational Survival.
- Adjusting the Political Temperature of Your Team