Continuing in our series on Understanding Organization, we started our walk around the organization wheel in the north, the place of organization wisdom. Our last stop was in the east, the place of how the organization works. From there we continued our journey to the east.

According to the Medicine Wheel, the south represented youthful energy. The animal of the north was the coyote, and the south was associated with love, growth, and trust. The south, the place of the home fire, represented the safety and enthusiasm of the home fires.

Here is where our spirit warrior leaders begin to look into the hearts and souls of the organization. Here is where they find the overall culture and the aspirations of the people who live in this organization. They use the south to engage the organization.

For our corporate shaman, the south represents the real internals of the organization. You can think of this as the home fires of the system. Here is where people live out their values in how they interact with each other, the places they create, and the skills they practice each day. When looking at the dynamics of the wheel, this is where the "current state" of your organization resides, and it looks across the wheel to the north to where the vision and mission lives. There is an inherent tension built into the wheel that represents the literal tension in organizations between overall direction and the day-to-day of "how things are done around here".

There are two elements in the south. One is The People and the other is Enabling Support Systems. You can think about this part of the wheel as focusing on where "people live" inside the organization.

• The People – This element includes beliefs, attitudes and values of those who populate the Human System. Their knowledge, skills, and capabilities. Their culture, personalities and diversity. Their career expectations. Their quality of work life expectations. Their support needs.

• The Enabling Support Systems – This element contains the organization’s technical and human process support systems. Information systems. Maintenance and supply systems. Systems for developing personal and organizational effectiveness. Access, control and authority allocation processes.

EXAMINING YOUR PROCESSES AND PRACTICES

The People

This element deals with the "4-C’s" of people in organization: capabilities, culture, career expectations, and character. It addresses the match between these characteristics and the needs of the system, identifying where you will have to make adjustments to your system or establish developmental plans for the people.

Capabilities and Needs for Development

• What is the present distribution of existing abilities among the members of your Work unit?

• How does it match up with "your work unit’s plan for skills distribution"?

• What development needs do you have within your work unit?

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