You must be the change you want to see in your company

During these last months of MBA, I’ve been thinking more and more about the sentence from Gandhi “You must be the change you want to see in the world” and how I should apply it not only to my private life, but also to my business environment. You may find my comment a bit disrespectful because of the different interpretation, but you shouldn’t. It’s not different, but if anything, an integration in a different contest.

We (managers) frequently complain about redundant processes, unclear ways of managing the business, or, even worse, about the corporate culture. But the point is: what do we do to change? We are part of our business environment and whatever decision we make has as an impact on it. Even not making a decision means accepting the current standard. In other words we always play an active role in what happens to us and around us. We’re accountable for what’s happening in our daily life. So why not taking the lead? Let’s try to change the processes. Let’s push to be more efficient. Let’s fight to be owners of our actions and fully responsible for the consequences.

I know pretty well that changing the culture of a company is a top down event, but I also do believe that we can all work in a constructive way on making the top management to feel the Organization’s need for a change. I understand it may look like an utopian subject, but on the other hand we cannot even hide us behind a wall of alibi and then blaming on someone else.

Every day I wake up thinking “I want to have a positive impact“. I want to make my company more successful. I want to support my job mates and grow with them. If I had to state my way of doing business, I would use Amazon’s motto and say that I enjoy working hard, I love having fun and I want to make history. Or to say it in a “ghandian” way, You must be the change you want to see in your company!