Richard Hawkes

Navigate the Swirl


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but to exactly what end?

      The Swirl is an absorbing state of organizational inertia. It draws our perspective in on itself, narrowing our vision. Our very consciousness runs aground in the muck of the everyday. There is always another problem to solve, pain point to acknowledge, issue to fix, turf battle to win, drama to ameliorate, or political challenge to overcome. And in the midst of it all, we lose track of the future. We forget that we're all on a journey together. Questions like “Where are we going?” and “How do we move forward together?” fade into the background as the endless demands of the everyday stifle our momentum like heavy weeds entangling the rudder of a boat.

      Internally, it happens when the company reaches a point at which one leader or small top team, however good they may be, can no longer simply direct the company's operations and guide its growth. This may be a result of the company's size or the complexity of the business model; it may also be because the culture of the organization has started to chafe against traditional hierarchy and bureaucracy. Senior leaders and teams no longer have the bandwidth to be in the salient details of the business. They have become remote managers, dependent on others for key insights into business and operations. They are too far away from where the value is actually created.

      Externally, it happens because the world around the company, the technologies available, and the markets in which it is operating are changing faster than the company is able to respond. In today's business world, that experience is heightened by circumstances like the Covid-19 pandemic, which has overturned the way we work, leaving organizations large and small frantically paddling, trying to figure out how to operate with a remote workforce while at the same time reinventing business models to meet new rules and more challenging market conditions. And there's no going back to business as usual. The questions we're asking now—How do we align a team and work interdependently when we're not in the same space? How do we make our business models more resilient? How do we win customers' loyalty so they'll stick with us during tough times?—will all continue to be relevant. And the underlying challenge for so many organizations today is this: How do we move from a hierarchical structure with one leader or executive team at the top to a more networked or team-based structure in which leadership is distributed throughout the organization? I call this the shift from directive leadership to distributed leadership.

      In 2007, with a group of talented business leaders, I founded Growth River, with the intention of bringing together everything I've learned and sharing it with teams and organizations that want to unleash higher performance. I call it the Growth River Operating System. It's based in my own experience and practice, but it also draws on and attempts to connect some of the best thinking in organizational development and business theory—including Lean, Agile, Theory of Constraints, and Operational Excellence (OpEx). I've also been influenced by other disciplines—complexity theory, evolutionary biology, systems theory, psychology, ontology, and integral philosophy. If that's starting to sound too high-minded, let me assure you that all my thinking and approach has been forged in the crucible of creating growth and delivering value. This is a rational, systematic, analytical, and results-driven approach that includes a comprehensive leadership and management toolbox. And front and center in this approach are people: messy, inspiring, unpredictable, creative, surprising human beings. After all, what is a business without people, for better and for worse?

      Because people are front and center in this approach, the “social system” of an organization will get special attention in these pages. It's an essential aspect of the Growth River approach, culminating in the Seven Crucial Conversations. After all, the Swirl is an expression of a dysfunctional social system. Growth and high performance are the product of a social system intentionally created. The road to such a transformation must ultimately pass through individuals and teams, and the productive and purposeful conversations they engage in. Change driven at this level of the organization has the potential to reach all the way down to the ground, and take root.

      This is not a theoretical supposition. My experience has shown me that there is a way out of the Swirl. There is a flow to the development of a team and the growth of a business. There is a steady current that can guide us from unproductive chaos to high performance, and that can carry a company from bogged-down and bureaucratic to agile and collaborative. And you don't have to figure it all out for yourself—you can chart your course by principles that are tested and proven.

      I can't tell you that the journey will be easy. Transformational journeys aren't like that—at least not when they involve human beings. They offer too much to be proffered for so little. This journey will involve real work—reflective moments, honest conversations, hard-won insights, and difficult choices. It will include making important distinctions about team, business, and organizational life. And it will require courageous leadership.

      If you're holding this book in your hands, I will consider you a leader, whether your job title confers that role officially or not. Anyone can be a leader on this transformational journey. Wherever you sit in your organization's system of roles, you have the opportunity to use the language, tools, and ideas in this book to create greater alignment and growth among your team. Whether that team is a small functional team responsible for a specific task or an executive team steering the company, its transformation will inspire and catalyze higher potentials in other teams. As teams become high performing,