Responsive Organisation

The Responsive organization is responsive to its own needs, and to the needs of the customer, market or world. Responsive organizations are truly a pleasure to do business with for they seem to recognize what the business is, and are prepared to make “best effort” to see that the needs of business are fully met, even if they do not completely understand all the details of the total operation. Certainly a great improvement over the old Act-React cycle, but not without its limitations, for the level of comprehension may not go much deeper than the words themselves. Indeed, over time, people in the organization may become so invested in the words that they forget the meaning. Faced with some change in the language, the reaction is likely to be resistance and negativity.

Responsive organizations are marvelous in a given time and place. They do what they do competently, and usually with a smile. While they may not always know what the words mean, they always know the words, and in that lies their strength. But when the times change or the words have been used for so long that they have separated from their meaning, the situation becomes strained, and the sense of competence, comfort and direction disappears.

At that point, it is not unlikely that the organization may devolve to the Reactive stage in which activity becomes its own end, on the grounds that not being sure what they should do or why, they must DO SOMETHING.

There is of course another possibility, that they should draw upon a deeper aspect of their Potential, Understanding – so that once again they may go behind the words to the meaning and logic of the enterprise. Should they do this, the organization will gain a vantage point from which may be thought out Purpose and Direction, not only as they may appear at a particular time and place, represented by a special language, but also as that purpose and direction may relate to coming events, otherwise known as the future. In short, the organization may transform and become Pro-Active.

Harrison Owen, 1987