Does organizations like followers or innovators

I remember my earlier boss and company founder saying, their are three types of individuals you will find in today's organizations; a. Individuals with less energy to perform and go ahead and have very less appetite in their belly. They are happy to work on routines and have very less aspirations in life. b. Individuals with a latent hunger and always hibernating with their ideas and actions. They just need the spark to rise up and do the best and finally c. the challengers, individuals who are the leaders marching from front and leading the organization to the pinnacle of success.


In today's organizations, it is very difficult to find the third level of leaders who take enough joy and happiness in doing something with holistic thoughts of organization building. Every body wants to be a good subordinate to a good boss and in this process they develop a habit of nodding their heads to all possible ideas, thoughts and dialogues. Fear for challenging the status quo, thinking in different or for the mere shake of favoritism, individuals develops the state of 'learned helplessness'. They develop a thought process which helps them think that whatever is doing around is good if not at least for them rather than the organization.

Their are few bosses in today's organizations, who will like a subordinate to challenge his views, ideas or actions. Even do they agree in public, at the back of the mind, the resistance is buried deep? Very few managers are inclined towards learning new ideas from their juniors. Sometimes, in some organizations, challenging the status quo is itself a sacred cow and such organizations are engraved with the institutional leadership principle of one man / one generation ideology.

Developing openness to ideas, thoughts and new actions requires organizations to develop and create a culture of transparency, ownership and innovation which is driven by a bottom up approach.

How???? Ideas are invited ......please share.

How does an organization align its goals with the individual goals to acheive great results

In today's complex global environment, organizations are finding it quite difficult to align their core organization goals and philosophy with the individual goals and aspirations. While working in complex economic and global competitive scenario, most of the managers tend to develop a short term fix to address current contingencies focused to achieve quick results.


Cutting down on headcount, reducing prices or shrinking of operations are some of the examples of short term myopic vision of managers to coup up with the present market dynamics. In this process, organization core values, philosophy or goals remains buried deep in the thoughts yet actions resembles a different mode of thinking.

In today's organizations, the new gimmick is 'love your job and not your organization' and nowadays with the entire diaspora of financial downtrends, this has become the new success mantra for the generation. Does it really work for the benefit of the self and the organization in the long run? Does the individual and organization work in silo yet achieve the synergy?

I will not like to blame the managers for such an act as the entire onus lies in the hand of the leadership in place. Organization culture is the sum total of the company's values, beliefs and philosophy which has been in place for long and resulted in creating a unique entity in the individuals. Great companies understand the sensitivity of shared values and strides towards creating a culture of collectivism which combines both individual and organization interests to achieve the bigger objective.

How can organizations create a better work place by encouraging individuals to work collectively? Opinions are accepted....