I have received many questions on how to effectively implement the infinite stake theory since I propounded the idea. I have been using the infinite stake theory as a basis for leading organisations and advising leaders both in the private and public sectors. I have advocated for employee capitalism as a subset of the infinite stake theory.
At one of my recent international engagements, I shocked my participants when I posited that the primary responsibility of leaders is not to achieve the organisation’s results directly Leaders are responsible for those meant to be responsible for producing the results.
Therefore, leaders should focus on those who are directly responsible for the result by ensuring the environment, culture, process, and product support the anticipated outcome. Culture is a crucial element that is often overlooked. All other features and strategies cannot be effective without the alignment of the people with the culture.
A leader who proposes to adopt the infinite stake organisation transformation method must first be what he wants to see
Infinite Stake Leadership is, therefore, a leadership approach that focuses on the retailers within an organisation. I use the word ‘retailers’ to push for significance. A retailer is someone or group of people whose efforts produce quantum results, influence, impact and affect multitudes in the process.
For an organisation or individual to be sustainably prosperous, such a person or entity must serve as many people as possible, even with the lowest revenue margin. The lowest margin with a volume of patronages will produce the critical mass of consumers that delivers superb financial and non-financial value.
A leader with an infinite stake mindset will focus more on the employee groups that produce the golden eggs, the people that directly interface with the customers, those the drives the process and in simplicity, the mass market of employees within the organisation. They are often low to middle-level cadres in any entity. They are those that receive and execute the directives of the top-level managers. These are the troops and the future of any infinite organisation. As a culture and leadership consultant, I have made it a call to guide my clients to focus on this group by insisting that they have more stake as individuals and collectively in the sustainability of their organisations than those with high titles and big perquisites of office.
What do I mean? The ‘employee retailers’ have more years to serve, more direct impact and growth potential than those at the peak of their career. They are the ultimate success of any organisation that intends to transform into a sustainable institution. For example, the CEO can only be promoted to be the Chairman of the Board and either retire or move on after that. However, a middle-level officer could climb more rungs of the corporate ladder with more years of active service.
An infinite stake leader will reasonably treat the retailers in their team with a future stake mindset. As the proponent of the Infinite Stake Theory and Leadership, my role is to develop the people with the cumulative quantum influence into leaders with a high level of engagement with the organisation; be it public, private, profit-making, or non-profit oriented.
In response to the numerous questions on how an infinite stake leader can effectively implement the infinite stake theory in the workplace, I have developed a pictorial explorer with four stages for ease of execution. The four pillars of the infinite stake leadership and organisational evolution method are also termed the four pillars of achieving institutional sustainability and legacy.
The four stages of the infinite stake leadership explorer are adjusting, pruning, supporting, and renewing. Each explorer stage is mutually dependent on the others with different deployment and execution strategies.
A leader who proposes to adopt the infinite stake organisation transformation method must first be what he wants to see. The adjusting phase starts with giving honest answers to a set of twelve questions that determines the dominant culture, the level of employee engagement and the future perspectives of the employees for the organisation. The future is vital as no employee gives their ultimate best if their future could be better elsewhere. At the adjusting stage, a decision is made to deviate from the norms. Developing empowering relationships with the individual employees is a building block of the adjusting phase of the infinite stake explorer. Above that, sincere adjusting will generate and guarantee long-term loyalty, results, and brand visibility for the organisation. The outcome of the adjusting phase will be a revised philosophy about people and positions, a change of culture that cuts across perspectives of people and influences communication and interactions. In the most straightforward summary, the employees will be seen and treated in their future state. They will see and value the retailers (employees with cumulative quantum impacts) as who they can become for themselves, the organisation and its various stakeholders-consumers, customers, shareholders, government, and the larger community.
The Pruning phase is to align the overall intention with resourcing actions. The outcome of pruning will be developing a set of people who are ‘believers’ in a just cause through the platforms of their employment and involvement with the organisation they work for. We have developed a set of intervention and engagement practices to align the individual aspirations of the identified, profiled, and targeted employees with the organisation’s future stake at the pruning phase. The resultant alignment will create a pool of engaged employees and leaders.
Whenever my team and I at Mentoras Leadership Limited implement the pruning phase, my favourite slogan is: ‘everyone on board with us at this phase is either a leader or on their way to becoming one. Within 15 months, one of our clients recorded a massive 211% growth in net assets with the implementation of the adjusting and pruning phases of the infinite stake leadership explorer.
The adjusting and pruning phases are like a Siamese twin. They are the drastic and radical departure of the standard norms. The successful implementation of the first two phases of the infinite stake leadership explorer will rebirth employee loyalty, commitment, openness and ultimately lead to creating a trusting team with a high level of employee citizenship and a radical crash in the attrition rate.
To be continued…
