Flexible operation is the key to the success of many entrepreneurial companies.  Hazell Carr offers the services of professional actuaries who work from home.  Training services are provided to the freelance knowledge workers, and checks are in place to monitor the quality of calculations resulting from the company’s virtual model of operation.  Working at night enables RS Communication Services staff to install phone lines in City Offices while their users are asleep or clubbing.

Virgin and easyJet have based their business strategies upon doing things differently.  Small companies sometimes give a lead when it comes to adopting alternative ways of working.  Although operating in a traditional sector, Swift Construction allows its people to work flexible hours and job-share.

Cisco Systems grew rapidly by providing products that allowed others to use the Internet and embrace ebusiness.  New ways of working also create business opportunities for those who help to make it happen.  Telework Systems products include software for tracking, monitoring and managing mobile and remote workers.

Too often the workplace is a constraint, an overhead cost and the cause of sick building syndrome rather than an enabler of creativity and flexibility.  Offices should be designed to support a variety of relationships, behaviours and patterns of interaction. To encourage imaginative thinking there should be quiet spaces for personal reflection, and activity areas for brainstorming and other group sessions.

What do winners – the more successful companies - do differently in relation to new ways of working?  To answer this question the author has examined the corporate experience of over 2,000 companies.  The results are summarized in: ‘Transforming the Company, Manage Change, Compete and Win’*.

Losers tend to stick with a particular and hierarchical model of operation.  The structure is set out in organisation charts.  There are probably job descriptions for most positions, and how the organisation operates is set out in a physical or electronic manual. Preparing these and understanding them takes time.  Hence people are reluctant to make changes that might involve altering diagrams, updating files and reprinting documents.

Some people become complacent.  They believe they have discovered or created a formula for continuing business success.  They also swear by particular approaches and enshrine them in standard processes and procedures.  The framework solidifies.

Many losers have a weakness for single solutions, panaceas and fads.  They believe that this management approach, that technology or a particular consultant’s methodology will provide an answer or solve their problems.  While struggling to make a chosen course of action work they fail to consider alternative options.  They lock themselves in.

Employees who can be trusted to operate in approved ways and observe standard practice are promoted.  After some time corporate structures, processes, systems and mind-sets become rigid and inflexible.  Subject them to increasing stress and they first creak and groan and then snap.

Increase workloads and transaction flows and people in ‘loser’ organisations struggle to cope.  Rather than operate in new ways or change processes they endeavour to work harder, faster and for longer hours.  They quickly become overloaded and break down. Work-life balance is an issue in these companies because people suffer additional pressures without enjoying any of the compensating benefits.

There are often alternative ways of achieving the same objective.  Winning corporate cultures are more tolerant of uncertainty and diversity.  Their people think in terms of flows rather than structures.  They reflect.  They are willing to question, review and consider alternatives.  Fluid roles, flexible systems and adaptable processes enable these organisations to move in new directions as situations and circumstances change.

Winners avoid blind allies and dead ends.  They do not take continuing success for granted and are always open to alternative ways of operating.  They are less wedded to precedent and more likely to treat each case on its own merits. They are also willing to re-invent themselves and to learn and work in new ways as the occasion demands.  Innovative responses and novel approaches are recognised and rewarded.

Bespoke products and services are offered.  Processes and their supporting systems exist to support developing relationships with customers.  Learning is built into them.  They are updated as required, and individual tasks are handled in whatever ways are thought to be most appropriate.  People endeavour to improve and build upon what has gone before rather than merely replicate previous responses.

On the whole, winners are pragmatic, catholic and wary of ‘single solutions’.  They assemble creative and practical combinations of whatever ways of working and learning and change elements they feel will enable them to achieve their purposes.  They are always alert to the possibility of better alternatives and vary the factors selected to improve outcomes and cope with changing circumstances.

Attitudes, processes, systems and ways of working and learning are relatively robust and resistant to stress.  Because they flex to accommodate changing conditions and circumstances they do not fall over when the going gets tough. Winners handle new challenges and opportunities by prioritising, adapting and securing flexible access to whatever additional resources are required.

A new way of working must be appropriate for the tasks to be performed and the people concerned.  Tasks should be defined in terms of delivering a specified 'output’ with fixed parameters of cost and time.  Ideal flexible workers are those who are inner directed and able to apply their knowledge and skill independent of any particular location.

People likely to be involved in a new way of working - and those who work with them - need to be involved and prepared.  Clear objectives and targets should be set and health, safety and security issues addressed.  Voluntary programmes are far more likely to succeed than those that are imposed.  Regular communications with those who are working flexibly are also highly conducive of success.

© Colin Coulson-Thomas, 2004

*Further Information
‘Transforming the Company, Manage Change, Compete and Win’ by Colin Coulson-Thomas and published by Kogan Page can be ordered by Tel: +44 (0) 20 7278 0433; Fax. 020 7837 6348; E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or from http://www.koganpage.com/ or http://www.policypublications.co.uk/transforming_the_company.php

A framework and methodology exists for introducing new ways of working while restructuring [‘The Responsive Organisation’] and re-engineering supply chains using the enabling technologies of electronic commerce [‘The Competitive Network’]. Details from Policy Publications: Tel. +44 (0) 1234 328448; Fax. +44 (0) 1234 357231; Email mailto: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or from www.policypublications.com

Prof. Colin Coulson-Thomas, an experienced chairman of award winning companies, author of ‘Transforming the Company, Manage Change, Compete and Win’ (Kogan Page, 2002/4), and principal author of ‘The Responsive Organisation’ methodology leads the ‘leading performance improvement and corporate transformation’ research and best practice programme. After leading the EU’s COBRA re-engineering project, he became the world’s first Professor of Corporate Transformation and more recently the Process Vision Holder of major transformation projects. Colin has worked with over 80 boards to improve board effectiveness and/or corporate performance, and can be contacted by telephone: +44 (0) 1733 361 149, E-mail:
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or via http://www.coulson-thomas.com/