How We Do What We Do
At Aletheian, we help you to transform your company into one where people are engaged, effortlessly effective and synchronised with each other and with what you are trying to achieve. A company that deals with crises and challenges with ease. A company that is authentic and true to its purpose.
We do this via a three step process that changes the character of your company.
The three steps can be thought of as Finding out where you are; working out where you want to be; and then taking that journey to transform your company.
Stage 1: Mapping your current organisation
The first step is to find out what sort of organisation your company is – how do people habitually do things, how do you make decisions, how do you communicate, what is important to you?
In other words, what is the Character of your organisation.
To give you an idea of what this stage looks like, we have prepared a little quiz. We divide companies into four basic types that we call archetypes. This quiz will tell you which archetype your company fits.
Obviously these archetypes are very general. Not all companies fit neatly into one category – but most do. Many companies have one dominant archetype combined with elements of others. When we work with clients our findings are, of course, far more detailed and nuanced. However, if you take the quiz results as a basic guide you can get some valuable insights from thinking about your company’s archetype and how this varies from the approaches that other companies take.
You can take the quiz by clicking here or hitting the button to the right.
Stage 2: Deciding what sort of organisation you want yours to be
The best character for your organisation is the one that best enables it to follow its strategy and meet its objectives. This not only aligns your operations and the way that people naturally behave within your company with what you are trying to achieve. It also means that your company is much more authentic – it does things with honest intent to meet a clear goal rather than doing things for the sake of appearance or because it seems like the right thing to do.
If you look at our module here (or click the button below) you can think about how each archetypal character would suit your own company’s objectives.
It is worth noting here that many people form companies with noble and moral intentions – to provide a great place to work, to be environmentally friendly, to provide good and honest service to particular groups or communities. While people feel very passionate about such motives, these should not be the starting point when designing an organisation. The foundation stones should still be based around how the company is going to pursue its strategy and achieve success (however you define that). The most important thing is to stay in business, so that you can continue to honour your ethical mission. Design your organisation around your strategy first, then layer your ethical elements on top. And don’t automatically assume that your mission defines your company, particularly when that mission may well be a means to achieving another goal.
Stage 3: Transforming your Organisation
Look at our module here (or click the button below) to see the six key areas that we look at when we help you to transform the character of your organisation.