In the future we will not talk about this or that type of organizational structure, we will talk about one model that includes all of its predecessors. Hierarchical, Flat, Holocratic, Team, Matrix, Adhocracy, Functional, Accountable, Objective… all combine into one.

Most of the people that know me are fully aware of my fondness for using sailing analogies. Honestly, I can’t help it; sailboat racing has had a profound influence on my life, and much of what I learned about the importance of teamwork has its roots in my sailing endeavors.

As a business owner, you undoubtedly hope for the best when it comes to the future. Whether you are ultimately hoping to become wealthy, or you are simply building a small, humble organization because it is your chance to construct a workplace culture that you would be thrilled to work in every day, you are hoping to create a system that produces comfort that will persist well beyond today.

As owners and founders, If we could have things our way, our employees would gladly give at least 70 hours per week to the business, just like us, and they would do it with perpetual smiles on their faces.

Over the course of the past 13 years, I’ve interacted with nearly 200 business owners who had questions about optimizing employee engagement within their organizations. It’s not that the organizations were in desperate need of help. On the contrary, some of these businesses were performing very well, and the owners of these companies simply wished to explore the possibility that some ingredients might be missing that would allow these companies to perform even better if they could be discovered.

The 7Q7P Framework is partially built on the presumption that employee buy-in needs to occur on an ongoing basis. Having a single discussion with your workers and having them agree that they belong in your organization is a great start, but things are never static in business, and all of the elements that drive the business forward are constantly changing. In addition to that, the features of your employees’ private lives will also fluctuate as time marches on.

Depending on which dictionary you use, the primary definition for the word “cognizance” will vary. According to YourDictionary.com, cognizance is defined as “perception or knowledge,” and especially “the range of knowledge possible through observation.” In Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, cognizance is primarily defined “a distinguishing mark or emblem,” while Dictionary.com defines cognizance as “awareness, realization or knowledge.”

Within the 7 Question - 7 Promise Framework, the matter of employees embracing the ways in which they are measured is an important one. Yet, there are some interesting examples from outside the world of business that shine a spotlight on how success measurements can vary from organization to organization, and why it is essential for people to embrace the ways in which they are measured so that they don’t feel like the metrics being used to gauge their performances are unfair, or unwillingly imposed upon them.

Within the 7 Question - 7 Promise Framework, we’re big on accountability. We consider it to be not only reasonable but essential that every worker in an organization understands and embraces the ways in which they are accountable.