Have you ever noticed that your organization seems to have a personality of its own? After all, it consists of individuals interacting directly with each other or in groups or units, guided by policies and expectations. Add to this an established power structure and historical trends, and you begin to see an organizational personality, better known as organizational culture. We call it organization-ality.
The Willo3™ model suggests that one can understand organizational cultures by focusing on three main modes, referred to as: (1) Engagement & Vigor or EV; (2) Learning & Creating or LC; and (3) Community & Humanity or CH. The predominance of one or more of these modes determine how an organization as a collective “acts, thinks or feels.”
Similar to natural physical systems in the day-to-day world, your organization’s own “inherent” cultural modes determine how it responds to changes in the external environment. Your organization has the ability to develop and shift its internal modes and fine-tune how it responds to changing external conditions and circumstance.
While each organization is unique in its own right, there are seven Willo3™ archetypes that most organizations relate to based on their predominant modes.
Organizations of a given archetype have strikingly similar cultural inclinations. Just like individuals who, once aware of our personality types, can cultivate new skills to behave or even think or feel differently in certain situations, organizations are able to make similar adjustments at the collective level. Awareness of your archetype will help place your organization’s own strengths, drivers, and competencies in perspective. Your organization can develop the capability to change its archetype at will.
One of the key features of this model is the visual representation of the culture through 3D shapes and colors, as depicted in this chart — the Willo3™ archetypes and arche-shapes. The shape and color suggests at a high level the arche-shape, the volume suggests the cultural strength or fullness along a given mode.
The Willo3™ Model makes no assumptions or judgment about the value or significance of each arche-shape. Your organization is where it is or how it is for a number of reasons and may decide to stay that way. But it can also choose to cultivate other modes — shifting its shape and color — or deepen its strength in a given mode.
Through our 3DViewfinderTM, members of your organization are able to look at what they collectively perceive as your Present and Preferred organizational shape. Once the present and preferred shapes have been identified, we can help you take steps to start moving from where you are now to where you might like to be.