Article from Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones in HBR

Suppose you want to design the best company on earth to work for. What would it be like? For three years Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones have been investigating this question by asking hundreds of executives in surveys and in seminars all over the world to describe their ideal organization. This mission arose from their research into the relationship between authenticity and effective leadership. Simply put, people will not follow a leader they feel is inauthentic. But the executives they questioned made it clear that to be authentic, they needed to work for an authentic organization.

Rob and Gareth write about “the organization of your dreams.” They say that is, in a nutshell, a company where individual differences are nurtured; information is not suppressed or spun; the company adds value to employees, rather than merely extracting it from them; the organization stands for something meaningful; the work itself is intrinsically rewarding; and there are no stupid rules.

In their article they present a useful checklist, The “Dream Company” Diagnostic, where you check off each statement that applies. The more check marks you have, the closer you are to the dream.

They elaborate on the next topics:

• Let People Be Themselves
• Unleash the Flow of Information
• Magnify People’s Strengths
• Stand for More Than Shareholder Value
• Show How the Daily Work Makes Sense
• Have Rules People Can Believe In

Read the complete article on Harvard Business Review