What are organisations’ most significant challenges – and how can Action Learning deliver against the McKinsey’ report’s recommendations?
For McKinsey’s recent report ‘The State of Organisations 2023’ they surveyed over 2,500 business leaders worldwide to identify the most significant organisational shifts they need to address today.
Their top 10 include the usual big picture stuff about increasing speed, resilience and efficiency, alongside newer shifts such as AI and hybrid working. But perhaps most interestingly half the changes are about people: the workforce who make up these organisations, and their individual needs, characteristics, and aspirations.
They include:
- systematic support for mental health and wellbeing,
- more self-aware and inspiring leadership,
- individualised approaches to attracting and retaining people,
- ensuring the right people are in the most important roles, and
- meaningful progress on diversity, equity and inclusion.
This focus on who these people are (or should be) and what they want (or should have) is timely and much needed.
As well as identifying these shifts, they interviewed ‘beacons of inspiration’, companies who are adapting and thriving. Their most important shared qualities were their commitment to people, and their ability to transform.
For many organisations, their starting point with Action Learning is often leadership development, and there is a strong body of evidence showing its impact on leaders’ awareness of themselves and their environment, as well as their confidence and capabilities.
However they often find its benefits are much more expansive, including improving wellbeing in a psychologically safe space, helping people rediscover the joy in their work, and providing space for them to solve some of their organisations’ toughest problems – with the added value of accountability meaning ideas translate into action.
McKinsey’s report puts people and their development at the top of organisations’ ‘to do’ lists – not as a ‘nice to have’, but essential to adapting and surviving. Action Learning is a powerful tool to integrate this individual growth with organisational problem-solving, so awareness of these worldwide shifts helps us get clear on our role in supporting companies to survive and thrive.
