Much of the work Rawlinson Partners undertakes with organisations and causes revolves around the themes of Progress and Stewardship.
Progress can be defined as successful defence, maintenance or advancing goals. Stewardship is the effective execution of these aims.
Progress involves many core elements: Transformation – Renewal – Simplification – Strategic Thinking. Stewardship embraces – Management as Art – Advocacy and Narrative – Servant Leadership.
Progress for an organisation or a cause requires transformation, development and change. Bringing leadership experience, skills and insight from the investment, industrial and philanthropic sectors gives Rawlinson Partners an advantage in bringing about transformation for its clients and partners. We use our pedigree to think laterally and creatively about challenges which face every organisation in a period of development or change.
Transformation is creative renewal. The replacement, introduction and implementation of new ideas requires careful leadership. The art of leadership in renewal is conserving the worthwhile practices whist building the capacity and appetite for change before integrating new differentiated products, services or process. This preliminary work is as important as executing the transformation.
Simplification is accurately distilling the core challenges from the overall landscape which much be addressed to achieve progress. Strategic thinking provides the backdrop for the simplification process. By contrast, short termism and ad hoc implementation create veneer and complexity, which always adds risk and undermines long term results. Simplicity derived from strategic thinking gives rise to elegant solutions which naturally incorporate an understanding of the marketplace, competitive forces and macro trends.
Strategic thinking for organisations and causes often begins with a fundamental question: “What do we actually stand for, which makes us who we are?” The answer to that question unveils the DNA of a truly competitive organisation. Simultaneously this fundamental approach defends against isolated reactions to disparate challenges which means management can make decisions in a broader strategic context.
Management is referred to as the oldest art and the youngest science. Science gains greater traction through combination with artistic elements – resulting in a holistic approach and greater opportunity for creative ideas to sit alongside established wisdom. Avoiding the artificial dividing line between art, business science and creativity initiates innovative thinking to entrenched and difficult problems. The art of management is cultivating good intuition, fine discrimination and the ability to identify and optimise the connection of seemingly unconnected ideas and themes.
The narrative of any organisation determines how well it performs in the market and how effectively its people execute. Rawlinson Partners distil this narrative through a process of silent engineering through listening, formulating, refining and reflection. Only then can organisational priorities, identification of the audience and method of communication be selected. This process empowers by conveying the correct narrative and then encouraging the development of broad base advocacy.
Servant leadership is the practice of providing clear leadership while enriching the lives of staff and stakeholders. This simple principle naturally results in building better organisations and ultimately creates a more equitable world. Empowerment ultimately allows responsibility to be shared, and offers a more contemporary view of how organisations should be organised and managed. This approach replaces the vertical command structures of the past with more efficient practices that are networked and devolved. Servant leadership is the timeless progressive process that lies at the heart of stewardship.