Exercise: The graph of your organisation

Before you do this excercise, please first complete “Exercise: The graph of your life” first.

This exercise is similar to the previous one. Just follow these brief instructions:

1. Get a pen and a piece of blank paper
2. Draw the outline of a simple diagram as shown below
3. In one minute, draw the graph of your organisation within the diagram
4. Scroll down when done

Now have a look at what you’ve drawn. Do you notice anything special? Can you explain to yourself or someone else all the curves and changes in your organisation’s graph? Now, let’s go a step further and answer the following questions:

Q: What is on the why-axis?

In other words: What causes your organisation to do well? For example, some organisations might be optimising for financial success, and others for adding value to society. Question is whether this is in line with what we wish our organisation to optimise for. If we want organisations to be good, we would have to define good in a way that it can optimise for it (the why-axis).

Q: Conversely, what would your organisation’s graph look like if you would put its official purpose on the why-axis?

This is probably a difficult question. But if this is indeed the case, it means your organisation is not as purpose-focused as it probably should be, at least from your perspective. Something to think about.

Troughout this blog, we will investigate how organisations’ why axis might need to be built up out of both legal, commercial and moral elements.