A crazy picture that I created many months using an app on Facebook in which I “Borged Myself” got me to thinking about organizational culture change. But first a little history. The Borg are an alien race that humanity first encountered during the television show ‘Star Trek, The Next Generation.’ They are cybernetic organisms that operate as one mind collecting technology. They attempt to assimilate everything and everyone they encounter throughout the galaxy into their collective or hive, with the catch phrase ‘Resistance is Futile.’
I and my colleagues are leading the implementation of changes in the organization for which I work and encouraging creativity, a freedom to fail, empowerment and greater employee engagement. We want employees that will fearlessly think for themselves and come up with continuous improvements in the way we conduct our business. We encourage managers and supervisors to trust and empower employees in all aspects of the business to breed a culture of it’s okay to fail as long as you are failing forward. We may come up with an improvement and implement but we must continue to improve on the improvements, there is no standing still.
Organizations often want assimilation in the aspect of if something works and is successful then everyone should do the same thing and the cycle continues. I mean it has shown to be successful so let’s get every employee to do the same thing, right?.Â
- On the surface this may be a good idea, but at what cost?Â
- Does this stifle further creativity and continuous improvements?
- Would this allow complacency to creep in?
- Would employees become disengaged?
- Where would the next challenge come from?
I consider myself a rebel and a misfit as does my staff as we will not be assimilated into a one collective mind. We will continue to be disruptive with positive intent in challenging the status quo.  We always assume that others act with positive intent and we will be leaders who stand expressing own ideas encouraging others to do the same, for what is the collective but a collection of distinct and unique pieces that make the whole!
