ORGANIZATIONAL ENERGY FOR BUSINESS EXCELLENCE. A powerful framework in management.

WE JUST PUBLISHED OUR BOOK in English "Organizational Energy: 7 pillars of business excellence" (2014) from the original in Spanish ("Energía Organizacional: 7 pilares de excelencia empresarial", Ed. Profit, 2012).

“This book is a major contribution to the evolution of our views of organization and leadership moving us towards understanding them as Living Organizations. Boldly setting a new framework, the Organizational Energy System (OES)® modeled on the human energy system, the authors provide us with practical approaches to diagnose root causes and release blocked energy to open new pathways for innovation and business excellence. This is a must read book!"

Norman Wolfe, Chairman/CEO Quantum Leaders (USA), author of "The Living Organization: Transforming Business To Create Extraordinary Results"

 Coming soon to bookstores but NOW AVAILABLE in AMAZON kindle version. Click HERE

WHAT IS ORGANIZATIONAL ENERGY?

The term '''Organizational Chakras''' refers to the set of energy centres within an organization or company (public or private). It can also refer to the Organizational Energy System (OES) of an organization.  It is based on the assumption that an organization is a living organism and therefore has its own energies.  The concept of “organizational chakras” is an attempt to classify and organize such energies.

Content

The parallel between the human body and the body of an organization (as both are living entities) gives meaning and content to the concept of Organizational Chakras. Just as human bodies have energy centres (those human chakras that are a long established tradition within Eastern wisdom systems), organizational bodies also have energy centres (organizational chakras).

As proposed by Bernal, Cos and Tarré, the organizational chakras that form the Organizational Energy System (OES) are:

1.- Grounding.

            2.- Wellbeing

            3.- Willpower

            4.- Cooperation

            5.- Communication

            6.- Wisdom

            7.- Community

The authors hold that examining an organization through the lens of its OES provides many useful and insightful opportunities for diagnosis, intervention and transformation.  Their approach deliberately starts from a different perspective than more traditional business models (such as departments, products, processes, etc.). They also hold that the OES is a broad and effective management tool that can be used in all types of organizations, such as private companies, public administrations, not-for-profit, associations, etc.

Academic background

Several authors developed the concept of organic and living organizations before Cos, Tarré and Bernal.  Prominent examples are Arie de Geus (The Living Company,  1997), Norman Wolfe (The Living Organization, 2011) and William A Guillory (The Living Organization: Spirituality in the Workplace, 2000.). While all three explored the concept of an organization as a living entity, Wolfe also introduced the idea of energy as an organizational parameter that can be evaluated and managed.

Although Fon Trompenaars and Peter Ten Hoopen wrote on what they called the chakras of leadership (The Enlightened Leader: An introduction to the chakras of leadership, 2009), it is the authors Enric Bernal, Joan Cos and Xavier Tarré that first published on the concept of organizational chakras.  They explored this concept in depth in their 2012 book, “Organizational Energy: 7 pillars of business excellence”. In the book they proposed a way to classify and quantify the energies of an organization through a system of energy centres (chakras).  They also developed a business methodology for working with those energy centers that they claim has proven to be transformational and highly effective. Cos and Tarré had previously written about the energy of teams and methods to manage it (Gestionar un equipo a través de su energía - Team Energy), in the book Team Beat, 2011, EADA Centro de Innovación: Barcelona.).

Others authors have taken a non-traditional approach to understanding and improving aspects of organizations, such as its soul (Richard Barret) and its energy (Schwartz and McCarthy).  Peter Senge popularized the notion of organizations as systems in his seminal book "The Fifth Discipline"

The premise behind many of these non-traditional approaches is the need for an evolution  of management thinking and methods beyond viewing an organization simply a machine for translating inputs into outputs for an economic return. Current mainstream management methods have their origins rooted in the Industrial Revolution and Taylorism, with a narrow focus on economic efficiency through process improvement. The newer approaches look to develop management methods and techniques that are more inclusive of the central role of human nature and behaviors; even spirituality. Gary Hamel has written extensively on the need for newly rooted business management concepts and techniques (The Future of Management, 2007).