fbpx

Society 2045’s Teamwork Based Innovative Work Culture

by Jan 10, 2022

Business Innovation Brief Best Article

Today, many organizations have an individualistic approach to their culture and concentrate primarily on revenues and profits. This tends to impact the way employees think about their participation at work as well. 

An organization focused purely on revenues and profits, will illicit employees who focus on their compensation as a similar yardstick for measuring success. 

Is it any wonder we are in the middle of the biggest shift of employment in history known as the great resignation economy?

“People become and act like the environment they are in at work, and this extends outward into society.”

It doesn’t take rocket science to figure out the outcome on society from being purely individualistically focused.

However, when we take the collectivist approach to how we work, we begin to make this world a better place to work and live in. Isn’t it about time we really talk about this?

Organizations purely focused on profits, also tend to have rigid structured hierarchical management, which can lead to underestimating new and innovative ideas, because they focus on compliance and conformity, instead of openness and curiosity.

What if we concentrated our efforts on creating teamwork-based cultures, whereas the focus is on enabling the collective best in each other?

Society 2045 has an ongoing series of interviews with change-makers seeking to improve the way society works.

Society 2045 is a community of people from around the world seeking to co-discover a vision for the year 2045. The goal is to connect with leaders of emerging communities and movements across society and come together to co-create a better future.

In an interview with Dave Landa, we discussed the current work cultures that organizations follow and ways to build open and flexible work environments. Dave Landa is CEO of Kintone US. Kintone is the US subsidiary of the Japanese public company, Cybozu Inc. He has been working with the company for the last seven years.

The Mission

Since the advent of the internet, the world has become transparent. Transparency has given equitable access to information to everyone around the globe. Access to information has opened a multitude of avenues for people working at different levels of management in an organization.

Information has strengthened the perceptiveness of employees working at different levels. Perceptions backed by information, are worthy of getting deserved attention and due credit.

This can only happen when there is a high level of flexibility and openness in the working environment.

Adaptive Methods

Dave, like many of us, has worked in a structured and strict environment and found that it doesn’t work very well for organizations as well as for individuals. So, it is important to change the perception towards the working culture we have been following for the past many years.

“It’s time to empower individuals who want to build an organization based on openness and flexibility. ~ Dave Landa

We need open organizations where everyone has open access to decision-making, problem-solving, problem sharing, and governance.

Dave’s company developed different work cultures that strengthened them financially and socially. They have adopted the concept of “100 different people having 100 different work styles” and “gender equity.”

Obstacles and Risks

Dave shared one incident from his company during the Society 2045 interview: “A few years back, we were developing a team-based open problem sharing and problem-solving method and structured radical collaborative decision-making process. We came to the point where we started thinking about our board of directors, and we thought that we were an open organization where all executive meetings take place openly. All members of the organization have an equal say and their opinion impacts company decisions, then why do we need a particular set of board of directors? If anyone can review and audit our decision-making process, why can’t anyone in the organization be a board member? We changed our board of directors from three founders to 17 members in our organization. All these members are willing to take responsibility and desire to do their best for the company.”

Divisions and polarization exist because of opportunities, economies, and organizational structure focused on competition. However, if we work to continue to support this type of pervasive work culture, we will end up with a further polarized and divided society. 

Impact

Open and transparent culture in an organization will make people confident. They have access to information in every decision-making process. It will help to make better decisions based on much broader inputs from comfortable co-workers, who act as co-owners.

Dave assured that gig economies would support the idea they have applied. He believes that the internal organizational methods that they deployed could be shared externally, and it will impact other organizations.

Some gig economies movements support the flexible workstyles ideas that we are providing. According to Dave, economies cannot flourish without providing benefits to the workforce.

“We need to provide a platform for workers to put their opinions and work with freedom openly.” ~ Dave Landa

Innovative Concept

Dave’s idea of work culture has a simplified concept, “transparency.” Dave is working on a foundation under the name of “KT Game Changer,” where “KT” stands for “ KouMeiSeiDai-style Teamwork,” a Japanese concept.

It consists of four principles: “Open, Clear, Honest, and Loud.” The concept is about open and honest intentions and having the courage to speak to them clearly and loudly. “T” stands for teamwork that will change the nature of organizations.

“The more flexible and open organizations are, the more inclusive those organizations become, and this will lead to a more inclusive society.”

Dave’s vision for developing a teamwork-based society in 2045 is groundbreaking. It will be amazing if we can achieve his vision in the coming years.

Check out the interview here: 

Business Innovation Brief
Blog Subscrition Here
Loading

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This