“For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” – Romans 1:19-20
Over the last three years, in particular, I have been refining my thoughts on the emergence of the 5M Shepherding concept (Model, Management, Mindset, Mentoring and Money) as necessary and sufficient for sustainable success.
In this process, the ManOBiz™ (the management of business systems) Matrix has evolved as a Shepherding tool to facilitate the development of a private sector business or a public sector department on the journey to sustainable success.
Over the next several weeks I shall update readers on the results of this evolutionary process beginning this week with the inspiration for the business systems approach which embodies the five business systems – Corporate Governance, Investment Finance, Marketing, Operations and People Development.
The human body is God-made. Not only has the under-five global human mortality rate reached 4.6 percent in 2013 and is still declining, but the human body is very robust as manifested by the way it bounces back in spite of the way it is sometimes treated.
What can we learn from the 12 successful systems of the human body – www.innerbodycom – against which to pattern a similar model for the systems of a business?
The skeleton (1) and the muscles (2) constitute the Structure. The skin/hair/nails (3) and the immune system (4) form the Security. The nervous system (5), directed by the brain, the cardiovascular system (6), the respiratory system (7) and the endocrine system (8) combine to give Life to the body. The digestive system (9) feeds the body and together with the urinary system (10) eliminates waste. Jointly they result in the Growth of the human body. The Male (11) and Female (12) reproductive systems work together to produce offspring. This permits the sustainability of mankind.
As we have transitioned in the above human system synthesis of the design of the robust human body, a simple logical sequential pattern has been revealed: Structure → Security → Life → Growth → Sustainability.
Let us match this sequential human body system pattern to the systems of a private sector business or a public sector department. Then, the Corporate Governance system constitutes the Structure, the Investment Finance system forms the Security, the Marketing system gives Life, the Operations system results in Growth, and the People Development system permits Sustainability.
The next steps, over the coming weeks, will be to reveal, first of all what is involved in the five management (planning, organizing, staffing, leadership and monitoring) functions and secondly how these business systems, one business system at a time, may contribute to sustainable success.
It has been my experience that this new generic perspective helps in the management development process.
God has shown us the human systems that are endemic to the development of robust human beings. Let us learn from his eternal power and divine nature to create business systems that can reduce the failure rate of start-up businesses from 90 percent, in the first five years, and create a movement from chaos to order.
(Dr. Basil Springer GCM is Change-Engine Consultant, Caribbean Business Enterprise Trust Inc. – CBET. His email address is basilgf57@gmail.com and his columns may be found at www.cbetmodel.org and www.nothingbeatsbusiness.com.)