Tired of the 'Them vs. Us' mentality? Does your corporate culture breed fear and is constantly reacting to problems? Do you feel more like a fireman than a business person? The adversarial model comes with all the negative personal, financial and productivity consequences. This is often the result of seeing your company as a machine or production facility.

Your business is more a community than a machine. Always has been, always will be. What has changed? The new hyperactive business environment demands leadership and trust. An organization that consciously works at an environment in which people earn one another's trust is also able to establish trust with customers. It can reach new markets easily, inspires loyalty and retains the best people. In addition, this company is more innovative in the creation and delivery of its products and services.

Brief History Lesson

In 1776, Adam Smith postulates a value-added theory using production manufacturing (the conveyer belt). A few years earlier, the Industrial revolution begins to take hold in England. This concept revolutionizes manufacturing productivity and the business model of the company as a machine begins to take hold.

About 1880, the Industrial economy begins in America. In 1920 Sloan at G.M. creates the Industrial Model, i.e. decentralized operating system with centralized policy and financial controls. Today, this industrial model is still used to organize corporations. We have modeled our organizations upon industrial models that are now obsolete! We are running Post industrial businesses using an Industrial Age management theory. Our management model and the context with which we manage, does not suit the context of today's businesses!

Look at these trends:

• Decline of employment in all manufacturing sectors;
• Service employment is increasing in all sectors, as well within in the manufacturing sector. For example, car manufacturers make more money by providing financial services than from manufacturing cars;
• Many manufacturers are now service providers. When you blend industrial (manufacturing) and service sectors, approximately 75% of the wealth (productivity) is service related;
• Increased opportunity for employee/customer interaction and relationships in service related industries;
• Decreased opportunity for employee/customer interaction and relationships on the Internet.

So what is a well intentioned manager or business owner to do? Change the way you think!

Understand these issues first:

• In our present age, the ???value added??? to products & services is increasingly provided through intangibles. Intangibles are at the core not the periphery of your businesses deliverables. Do not despair. It is not that consumers need tangible goods less. They need intangible goods and services more!
• We need to reevaluate how we measure success. The old strategy was to measure ???efficiency of outputs???, i.e the more you make in less time, the more you make! Now we need to focus on 'effectiveness of outcomes'. In other words, did we achieve our outcome and was it effective? We need to distinguish intangible human resources just as industrial models do for tangible physical resources. For example, an increasing portion of capital will be invested in intangibles, such as informative, knowledgeable workers because they have the opportunity to make the greatest positive impact on the value added deliverable.
• Information is the fuel by which we acquire knowledge (principle product), which creates the value-added exchange of energy, which creates wealth. Where hydrocarbons were the fuel for the Industrial Economy, information provides energy for our economy. Furthermore, information, knowledge and the 'experience' is the principal product produced by this fuel. Although there are limits to growth of finite resources, there are no limits to learning. The more information you add to a finite resource, the more valuable it becomes. Price, quality, design, utility and workmanship all provide information about products and services. To increase the value of a deliverable in the consumers eyes simply increase the type and amount of 'information' to your goods and services.
• Technology is a conceptual bridge, linking developments in science to new products and services, which ultimately forces us to change the way we manage our business.
• Customers want products and services in their time frame not yours. Since our society has become time poor and money rich, customers are demanding goods and services be delivered when they want it, anytime they want it. Some examples of the success of this model are: One hour photo finishing; eyeglass prescriptions filled in one hour; 24 hour bank machines, banking by phone; personal shoppers; pre-approved mortgages; Federal Express; the Internet and Ecommerce.
• Produce your product or service in real-time. Eliminate or reduce the time between the moment the customer identifies they have a need and actual delivery of that need. Each of the above businesses have moved their product or service into a real-time context or have eliminated most of the waiting time between need identification and fulfillment. In other words, these companies have created the systems necessary to give consumers immediate gratification.

Change of thinking or context

Just as the assembly line revolutionized manufacturing, so we must change our thinking that our organizations are machines. Our new thinking must embrace our sustainable competitive advantage within the dynamic and resilient human spirit. Using this model will cause us to look for strategies that will create meaning, trust, rapport, inspiration and depth. We will also learn how to best balance the wonderful paradox that, as we embrace the concept of trust, we must also be prepared to deal with the fear, conflict, pain and distrust that will arise. This model will work because people are looking for meaning in a world of overwork and distraction. They want to feel passionate, connected and trusted.

The benefits of this philosophy include:

• observing a real-intangible sustained competitive advantage;
• significant capacity for change;
• significant strides in efficiency;
• staff demonstrating increased reliability and self regulation;
• people will be inspired to perform.

In short, you will have created an environment that is based on trust and has an incredible ability to cope with change. As you build trust within, your staff are more empowered and willing to create a trustful environment with customers.