Josh Bersin: The secrets of crafting enduring organizations

Everyone falls victim to trends. 

Big blue aliens convinced the movie industry that 3D movies were here to stay. Colored rubber bracelets hung on our wrists to remind us of the cause du jour. Wide-legged jeans are back in again, and we must never forget the frosted tips of the early aughts (many of us still regret that one). 

All trends have one thing in common: they sure seemed like a good idea at the time and ostensibly serve some purpose, despite looking silly in hindsight. My junior high school yearbook picture drives that truth home. 

The same goes for business trends and the beliefs they accompany. Trickle-down economics seemed like a viable answer for a bit, but it has done its share of harm. A trend that keeps coming around is an overreliance on cold data in a vacuum (quantitative observations, or the McNamara Fallacy). Then there is the importance of being an “alpha” wolf/leader—not only is this often straight-up unhelpful and potentially toxic, but the core concept itself was rejected by the term’s originator after realizing his original observations were wrong.

Current organizational trends (and this will be a surprise to no one) heavily center around the expanding use of AI (and all the slapdash vagueness that sometimes implies) and a focus on emotional intelligence (a skill that will help guard against threats such as misapplied AI). We’ve yet to see where this AI road will take us, but intuition tells me emotional intelligence is a better investment for the long term. 

I have a hunch that Josh Bersin, founder and dean of The Josh Bersin Academy, would also bet on emotional intelligence. An author, educator, and thought leader, Bersin is often cited as one of the leading HR and workplace industry analysts in the world. His 2022 book, Irresistible: The Seven Secrets of the World’s Most Enduring, Employee-Focused Organizations, eschews trends—good and bad—in favor of some evergreen concepts he’s developed by analyzing the relationship between organizations and employees.

Don’t play “follow the leader”

There is a reason trends latch on—after viewing success, a completely reasonable response is to follow suit. It’s how well-worn paths become, well, worn. 

“In the early days of my work as an analyst, companies would ask me the same question over and over again. Will you just teach me how GE does this?” says Bersin. “There are very faddish, trendy topics that come and go in management. People copy Jack Welch, or they copy whoever may happen to be the CEO of the year or of the decade, but many of those principles don’t last.” 

He doesn’t claim that following trends is necessarily wrong; companies need to pay attention to how the culture is evolving and be able to pivot quickly as it changes. It is just easy to fall into the trap of starting at the end goal and working backwards to the beginning—the employee experience.

“There’s this really interesting conversation going on in business right now about productivity. And it’s being driven by AI, automation, technology, and a sense that the economy is slowing down. Companies are saying, ‘We’re going to create more productivity in the company by reducing the number of people, asking people for more output, buying more technology, implementing AI.’” 

Bersin suggests starting with the employee instead of trying to reverse engineer productivity. “If we listen to them, if they have a great experience at work, if they have a sense of autonomy and control over their environment, they will constantly create productivity…. Because they’re going to feel empowered to constantly do things to make the company better.”

As such, one of the seven secrets his book explores is the concept of “Work, Not Jobs.” Through this, he examines the importance of redefining the way your organization characterizes a job.

But that’s not my job!

There is often a strict definition and idea of a “job” and how it relates to the organization. Industrial engineers created this idea; once upon a time, they had proven that by breaking down a business into individual parts and grouping them neatly, you could optimize an organization by specializing employees. This cleanly segments everything into management and labor while instituting an inflexible hierarchy.

It tells you what Job X is, that Job X is above Job Y, and that Jobs R, S, and T work in a different department. Think of most job postings you’ve seen. “We have this organizational hole; this is the person we need to fill it.”

When you look at it from a certain point of view, of course that makes sense. If a part goes bad or falls out, you switch it out for a new one. It’s like a well-oiled machine! The issue with this is that it reduces humans to replaceable parts, elevating a job description to be the prominent entity and, in turn, introducing a host of problems stemming from inherent rigidity. 

Bersin elaborates on these problems, “It gets in the way of paying somebody who’s young, but very, very highly capable, because they’re lower in the hierarchy…. It gets in the way of moving people around. And people say, well, I’m not going to take that job unless it’s a promotion. I don’t feel qualified to do that job. I wasn’t trained to do that job.” 

This structure also creates fear and insecurity among employees, in addition to a brittle and fragile company. The knock-on effects include a reward system that becomes imbalanced and a company that struggles to adapt its structure as needed. 

“I’m not saying we still don’t have job titles and levels. That stuff’s probably going to be around forever. But we have to operate beyond that in the work that we do and not let that get in the way of solving the problems and addressing the opportunities,” says Bersin. 

How do we define success?

A question that immediately pops up when you discuss changing the definition of “a job” is, “Well then, how do I advance?” Without a structure that shows a path up a ladder, how can an employee tell if they are going anywhere? And how can they tell if the direction they are moving is the direction they want to go? Nothing creates a discouraging organizational structure more than uncertainty. 

This ties into another secret—“Growth, Not Promotion.”

You must step in as a leader at this stage. Bersin says you need to foster an environment of continuous development so that people don’t fall into the trap of thinking, “I can’t do this! I wasn’t trained for that!” Instead, work to demystify and show where growth opportunities exist.

“For example, in our company, we have close to 50 people. Everybody does everything. Everybody talks to customers. Everybody works on research. People come together and work on our conference. And so they end up having very rich, rewarding developmental careers.”

To help nurture this perspective, Bersin says it is important to leverage what he calls the Four Es: 

• The first of these is experiences—it is essential to bring your employees to meetings with diverse individuals, including senior leaders and customers. Encourage them to take on developmental assignments and to take job rotations that they do not typically take.  
• Next, expose them to new situations—to specialists, people in different countries, people in different industries, and people with different jobs. Similar to experiences, this is about broadening the scope of your people. 
• From here, provide opportunities for education. Empower your people with additional training, skills, and certifications to grow them as employees. 
• The fourth is to create an environment where your company and your team are learning as a group. The organization should reward growth and openly discuss the ways in which it can improve.  

These four Es are what define your growth experience, and as a leader, you should make sure that these are available to your team. 

Craft your enduring organization

In the end, trends aren’t necessarily the bad guy; it’s leaders who unthinkingly follow trends solely because they are trends that run the risk of making themselves villains. Don’t you want to accomplish this in a way that is adaptable and not based on the latest (hopefully recyclable) yellow rubber bracelet?

Regardless of your organization’s specifics, the goal is to optimize growth and productivity in accordance with your chosen objectives and culture. The best move for you may be to steer clear of the newest trends and avoid forcing your company into the latest craze. 

“The more you get away from this idea that, ‘I have this box around me and I have to work inside the box,’ the higher performing company you’re going to have,” says Bersin.