Over 20 years ago Jim Collins penned the idea of Catalytic Mechanisms to transform organizations. He defined them as “devices that translate lofty aspirations into concrete realities.” Lofty aspirations today hover around buzz words like “innovation”, “responsiveness”, “collaboration”, “customer intimacy”, “employee engagement“, and today’s term de jour “digital transformation”.
Collins said then, and it seems to stand true today, that “perhaps only 5-10% of companies currently employ catalytic mechanisms.” That means all these buzzwords remain just that, buzzwords. Inactionable.
What all these words have in common is that to achieve them requires that people come together and that they share with each other across levels. The “devices” needed then to make these lofty buzzwords into concrete realities are all around creating a more social organization. And to do that means you must alter the systems and structures that inhibit people from connecting and sharing – systems like how we recognize and reward, make decisions, and communicate new information.
Social IS a catalytic mechanism. Unleashed, it will transform whatever it is put up against. Ironically though, to unleash it, requires catalytic mechanisms itself and those are to make both transparency and openness, the heart of social, as the new default.
