The Patient Organization: An Introduction to the 7 Question 7 Promise Momentum Framework

Description

It is told that Distinguished 17th Century architect Sir Christopher Wren, shared a story about Employee Engagement. Yes, there was interest in employee engagement in the year, 1678. Wren, who was highly regarded for many of London's finest church designs, was visiting the job site of his St. Paul's Cathedral project in London. His visit took him to the stone mason's pit. He came upon a mason and asked: "What are you doing?" the worker answered: "I am cutting these stones to a certain size and shape." He asked the same question of a second worker and the worker answered, "I am cutting stones for a certain wage." He came to a third mason and asked the question again. This time the worker got up from his work, straightened himself and replied: "I am helping Sir Christopher Wren build St. Paul's Cathedral." This story hits my heart every time I think about it because it is exactly the world and situation I am trying to help my clients create. I want their folks to stand tall and say, "I am helping John build the best company he can, I am not anonymous or irrelevant." On the scale of engagement, who would you say was the most engaged mason? In our world of ICI (instant competitor imitation*), the one thing that cannot be instantly copied are engaged employees. You know who they are, they are your folks who believe in your vision, assume accountability, live in a productive reasoning mode, are not fearful and defensive; who stand up, hold their shoulders back and say I am part of the team and we are doing this. I train owners and leaders in the use of tools that allow them to consistently hire and motivate employees who stand tall and think of their work as more than their job. They are teammates on a team driving to a common vision, a common goal. [* ICI - Instant Competitor Imitation: I lived in this world, my company, Layline, was the industry thought leader and what came with this were imitators/copycats... and with the advent of the internet, the speed that a competitor could adjust to a message or offering was basically overnight. The only thing that allowed a gap was incredibly engaged team mates who added that special something, caring, whatever you want to call it, that the customers could feel and appreciate. Employee engagement is still the only defensible position against Instant Competitor Imitation.] The problem with Millennials is... You can complete that sentence any way you wish. Like all stereotypes it will be false and the odds are favorable that I've heard whatever you come up with. I am lucky, in a typical year I get to spend 8 hours a day across 125 days huddled with senior leadership teams of 30 different companies doing the gutsy work of improving their organizations. The biggest problems at organizations have to do with people and through the years, I've noticed that complaints about people often include the Millennial stereotype excuse. This confused me. Every week I worked with Millennials who are part of my senior teams, Millennials who are not only smart, engaged, and hard-working, but also poised to take over the world. Why the disconnect? The teams and organizations I worked with did not share a bias against Millennials. What was it that we were doing together breaking this Millennial stereotype? I went verbal with these Millennials. I started pulling them aside, having discussions with them, trading thoughts and emails, looking for the pattern, probing for what made them different, what was breaking the mold. I distilled my analysis and used it to discover the seven fundamental principles that distinguished companies that were happy with their Millennials from those that were not. From these principles came the Seven Questions at the heart of this book. As we refined the Seven Questions and shared them with everyone from programmers, receptionists and salespeople we realized we had the solution - 7 Simple terms. Belong, Believe, Accountable, Measured, Heard, Developed, Balanced.

Walt's clients say he brings two Unique Abilities to the table. 1: The ability connect with a team, take them into the future. and then help them map a path back to the present. Connecting with CEOs, Owners and Sr. Leadership Teams, taking them into the future, and then helping them map a path back to the present where they execute to create perpetual momentum is one of Walt's gifts. Clay G - CEO 2: The ability to see patterns and connections others do not see, and then communicate, model and codifying them into usable tools and methods that can be repeated creates real-world value. Walt has an uncanny ability to see the unseen, describing it in words, drawings and models; bringing the invisible out into the open where it can be understood, worked on, made actionable. A life of observing, coaching, systemizing and improving shared with you. Always helping, always coaching. Walt has been coaching individual contributors and teams since he founded his first company, Layline.com in 1986. In 2006 he sold Layline and founded Smart-State.com where he focused on coaching CEOs and Business Owners in the art of Strategic Thinking. 2008 he switched to exclusively coaching Sr. Leadership Teams when he founded waltbrown.co and hung his shingle as a full-time EOS(R) Implementer. EOS(R) is the Operational cornerstone of the 7Q7P(TM) Momentum Machine(TM) 2017 he published his first book with Forbesbooks, The Patient Organization describing the 7 Question 7 Promise Culture and Engagement Framework(TM). TPO is the Culture and Engagement cornerstone of the 7Q7P(TM) Momentum Machine(TM). 2020 he published Death of the Org Chart describing the Organizational Cognizance Model(TM) and the 14Pt Checklist(TM) the Organizational Structure and design cornerstone of the 7Q7P(TM) Momentum Machine(TM), 2020 he launched OGraph.io a SaaS software company based on graph database science, to capture the organizational structure and design work he is teaching inside his book Death of the Org Chart. A couple of Walt's Belief Statements. #1: Your company is a fiction. An organization, your company, is a fiction that is only given meaning and power by those who buy-in. If you have 100 people and 49 buy-in to this, and 51 buy-in to that, then you have two organizations, and you have already been divided and are on your way to being conquered. #2: We must have clarity and consistency in three areas of an organization for it to compete as a unit. Everyone must be bought-in. In order to create buy-in we must have clarity and consistency in three areas, operational, cultural and structural. These are the three components of the Momentum Machine. #3: Leadership is future alignment. You know you are leading when you experience another person aligning or turning over all or part of their future with your future. You will know it when it happens, you can feel it. Walt works in a human laboratory. Working exclusively with senior leadership teams. Since 2008, Walt has averaged more than 130 days a year sequestered in session rooms, facilitating senior leadership teams as they do the gutsy work of improving their organizations. Walt calls this his laboratory - it is where the patterns are seen, where the discoveries are made and tested. His work focuses on diving deep with companies and nonprofits, helping them create Cultural clarity and consistency, Structural clarity and consistency, and Operational clarity and consistency. Bio: He started his work-life as an accounting and statistics guy with the CPA firm now called E&Y. He then founded four companies, selling all four in 2006 after twenty years at the helm, leaving that orbit and moving to his current coaching and facilitation orbit. Walt is based in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina, where he lives with his wife of 35 years, Anne, an attorney by profession, who raised two daughters, Jane and Marion, with very little meaningful help from Walt. Jane is a Chemical and Biolo