One of the most common methods to run a company is top down, it can work and for many organizations works well because there is a very defined result that needs to be done. For example, in a fire, senior people need to take control because of the dangers in fighting fires and the experience in fighting the fire and staying alive need to have a chain of command to ensure the fire is brought under control and then put out safely.  The military is also an organizations that needs a top down organization most of the time – when the troops go into battle discussions are not made by all, but through the chain of command. For many other organizations, they can adopt something in between most of the time. One of the problems of organizations that run from top down is they are highly dependent of the agility, the passion, the ability of the leaders. When the leader does not see anything beyond the way it has always been done, the organization suffers.

One of the books which tries to look at changing a top down organization is Cultural Intelligence and Leadership, Editor Karen Davis, Canadian Defence Academy Press, 2009. All military organizations love traditions including the method of decision making that has been passed down from past leaders. Those that wish to change often go to important but smaller military structures to learn the past is the best before coming back to the larger military structures to move up the chain of command. The problem is institutions and countries change quicker than the top down institution, for example in many cities in North America police were Irish, it was not that others could not be, it was it was so much easier if you were Irish to be a cop – having a relative made it easier to get into the force. A good police force reflects the population it serves, things move slowly.

In the book Cultural Intelligence and Leadership looks at least learning about the other cultures in the country and the world and try to determine which approach to use to better procedures of the military and sometimes that means not engaging in battle. Although one quickly learns there are always more than one agenda by groups of people, sometimes they work in together, sometimes they work to take apart.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, competing in the marketplace is easier for people to vote with their pocketbook than with guns. However, with cultural differences one needs to be able to determine how to get an entry to develop a continual market share. If your dividend paying company does not have cultural intelligence and leadership, it is missing a large portion of the market, just because it never had them in the first place. There is money to made in linking to all people not just the ones you have always appealed to.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions