In the 1540’s the world was in some respects no less turbulent or unpredictable than it is today. It is the decade when Ivan the Terrible came to power as Tsar of Russia, and the Turks began their 150 year occupation of Hungary. It also when the Spanish were busy discovering the Americas, Henry VIII still ruled England, and when the Jesuits were founded. It is this last that is of interest: the Jesuits were the 1540’s equivalent of a entrepreneurial organisation with a mission founded in a period of uncertainty.

Over the past week or two Don Sull of London Business School has dedicated a series of articles in his blog at the FT to the question of what modern businesses can learn from the Jesuits. A little unusual in approach, it shows that the Jesuits excelled at more than simply the equivocation for which they became renowned, and whatever our opinions on Jesuits might be it is their historical organisational structure and capability that make them worthy of attention here. There are some definite pointers for corporate HR professionals.

Don Sull explains it like this:

The Jesuit’s approach is best characterized as “strategic agility” or an organization’s ability to seize opportunities to achieve long-term goals as they arise and build the resources–including people, cash, and brand–to exploit unforeseeable opportunities. Strategic agility combines clear long-term mission (saving souls for the Jesuits) with a recognition that the best opportunities cannot be planned in advance. From – Strategic Agility: The early Jesuits

The concept of strategic agility has also been picked up by Boston Consulting Group who this month published a paper on what they describe as “adaptive advantage”. The authors of the BCG paper define this as “the ability to achieve superior outcomes in a turbulent environment by continuously reshaping the enterprise through a process of managed evolution.” Not to be left out, the themes of this years World Economic Forum at Davos are given as “Rethink, Redesign, Rebuild”. This is something many businesses will have to do as recession recedes and it will be HR that is left to rebuild the workforce in terms of quantity, quality and indeed motivation. People are key to the success of any organisation and getting the right people on board with the right motivation is absolutely critical; it was also absolutely critical for the Jesuits and Don Sull has outlined Five People Lessons from the Early Jesuits for your consideration. I briefly list them here but the link will give you more detail:

Distil in words what the ideal candidate looks like.

Seek out the most promising candidates.

Weed out candidates who do not fit.

Maintain mobility.

Allocate the most talented professionals to institution building.

The above might seem obvious, but then as Don Sull observes on the last of the five points “In many firms, the best professionals stick to practicing their profession, and leave management to less capable peers or outsiders, who lack credibility within the firm.  By putting weak people in management positions, firms cannot build and manage the organization for long-term vitality.” It’s not always what you do, but how you do it that makes the difference, and as history can attest the Jesuits were no slouches when it came to talent acquisition, nor to creating a successful organisation –  the Jesuits remain the largest religious order in the Catholic Church today with close to 19000 active members.