#13 What is Vitality in organisations with Liberto Pereda

Liberto Pereda has been the managing director in several big organizations. He has lead international teams successfully and recently made the shift in his carrier to bring collective effectiveness to all teams.

In simplicity lies the answers to all complexity and with that theme Liberto gives simple answers to bring vitality at work

What is Vitality in organizations?

Vitality is the capacity to have a meaningful and purposeful existence, of self and organisations.

• In the complex world we cannot just depend on data and plans, we need to sense of what’s happening around us, in our markets and respond effectively in order to survive. Therefore, everyone in the organisation needs to feel vital to respond to complexity.
• Profitability, the way people hold conversations, the way behave are some ways to identify the level of vitality in organisations.

However, if we look into the last hundred years, we see that we have been asked to be profitable in a hard way, in a very focused way. And that has in instances resulted in low vitality.

Why is Vitality important?

We need to move from organisational development to human development because humans develop organizations.

In order to develop our organisations, we need to focus on the development of people who make up part of the organisation. As Robert Kegan speaks in one of his books, creating organisations that are deliberately developmental helps people grow, change and improve and eventually help organisations thrive.

When organisations exist to develop humans and the human race, we come together to deliver a higher purpose through real cooperation and authentic relationships.

What does low vitality look like in a team?

Whenever there are conversations of US vs THEM in the organisation, it is a clear indicator of low vitality.

Whenever the profitability is down, despite chasing the markets for a while, or when performance over time has been flat, delivery, maybe between 2%-5%. 

The bottom line is holding the same results over a period of time, is most likely an indicator of low vitality and a lack of creativity in the company. So profitability can also be an indicator of low vitality.

What’s your secret to bringing more vitality in organizations?

[11:16] The answer is quite simple.

1. Listening to people. Gathering your people, having a conversation, listening to the questions people don’t bring to the main stream conversation.
2. Engage with people in the front line of business because they know what’s going on, they know the challenges and they may even have solutions and ideas on how to overcome challenges.

I realised in my role as a Managing Director I actually didn’t need to have all the answers. That’s a belief that was really limiting me.

What challenges do leaders face to engage in a real dialogue?

[13:35]

Leaders need to unlearn:

• The belief that I have the right to speak first
• The belief that I need to always be right and always have the right answers
• The believe that I have to make the final decision
• The belief that I need to control everything

That’s impossible for a human being and this is very limiting.

Leaders need to:

• Develop others
• Hold the purpose and vision of the organisation
• Connect the organisation with the entire ecosystem
• Keep questioning themselves, keep challenging status quo.
• Be authentic and act with integrity

How can leaders engage in dialogue?

[16:24]

• Before starting a meeting, take a minute of silence and don’t jump into the meeting. Allow people to check in and share how they feel. Especially when agenda’s are full, stress levels are high and many things need to get done. We need to create a space for what matters most.
• Reconnect your purpose. Ask yourself the question repetitively: What am I doing this for?

Statistics shows that in the next 40 years we are going to spend about 10 years in front of a screen. What if we removed some of that time to sit with people, real people, actual meetings, face to face, where we can have conversations connecting with what matters most to us.

Can you give one TIP that brings more vitality at work?

[19:49]

• Enter the office with an intension to LISTEN and OBSERVE
• Think about how people FEEL in any given moment
• Sit with your team and have a conversation about trust

Liberto believes that children have a lot of teach us, so whenever you face a challenge, step into the perspective of the grandfather or grandmother and ask yourself, what would a grandfather or grandmother do in this situation?

Then you will realise that it’s not about you or me and and that it is about about all of us being well.