Being Change: A Responsive Organisation Needs Responsive People

Over the last series of posts I have illustrated the need to become, and the benefits of, The Responsive Organisation.
I have drilled into how to identify and how to respond to the Context Shocks from which a Responsive Organisation can benefit. I have provided a guide to developing and scaling its capability to benefit.

But, of course, a responsive organisation needs to be populated by Responsive People.
Indeed, from the lessons we learn from feedback loops, the responsiveness of the people who are the organisation will prove either dampener or accelerator to the responsiveness of the organisation.
I referred to the responsiveness in the individual as 'learned personal antifragility' in a previous post and recommended that those of us who had learned this, may hold some responsibility to share how, with others.

That is the intention of this post.

Engaging people in their personal journey of change is, in the reality of the complexity of organisations, entangled with the change of the organisation.

In the chaotic moments of Context Shock, of the kind we are experiencing through Covid19, the need to 'see what we do not see' is essential - and reliant upon the 'wisdom of crowds' that engaging everyone in the organisation can give you. Dave Snowden's Cynefin framework and its application to leadership through crisis provide ample evidence of the value of this.

A fine example of 'what we do not see' - and one shared by Dave - is this widely published image (below). 83% of radiologists miss the anomaly so don't feel bad if you do. Taken individually there's a very large chance it gets missed. But if you ask 100 radiologists it gets found (17 times being enough for you to take a closer look... at the Gorilla in the dark, top, right side of the lungs.

However, in the context of today's post I want to emphasise the purpose of 'asking the crowd' for its additional value in engaging people in change they can embrace.
Very simply the process for this is:
1. Identify and reach out to your crowd
2. Set the constraints of their observations
3. Capture their response as close to real-time as possible
4. Conduct your quantitative analysis
5. Spot the Gorilla and tell the crowd.

Now we have their attention (as well as useful emergence from weak signals to shape responses to the Context Shock).

The next step is to help them learn their personal antifragility. Your responsive organisation is reliant on people seeking learning experiences in change vs responding with fear. The more people you can take on the journey, the more you can amplify the positive benefits of the responsive organisation.

When Rory Yates and I reflected on what had given us some form of personal antifragility, the themes reflected in the slide above became clear (follow previous link for our validations).

With my 4-steps of Making Responsive People (above slide) I am seeking to replicate some of what we have learned from 20+ years in digital innovation and change.

1. Play: If you aren't a gamer and never have been, you missed out on some foundational stuff. We learned trial and error in a very 'safe to fail' environment. Let's close that gap in your psychological armour.
2. Feedback Loops: Properties on the web were so much more instantly measurable than anything that had come before. We learned to try stuff and saw, very quickly, what happened as and when we did. We saw rewards fast and that improved our responsiveness. So find what measures directly what you do, and measures it fast. Then, crucially, we must encourage and reward you to respond to what happens.
3. Positive Psychology: Recognise that most people fear change. They don't seek learning opportunities. They see threat in movement. It's natural. But it can be overcome. Programs which help people identify their 'Fixed Mindset' blindspots (see Carol Dweck's Mindset) can and do help us to change our approach to change. Building happiness through low-effort, high impact activities such as Yale University's (free and online) Science of Wellbeing Course gives us the tools of positive psychology to help.
4. Learn Through Doing: This is the essence of Being Change. But simply thrusting people at anything, from back to normal, to new normal, to no normal, without making them change ready, is a recipe for fear, unhappiness and dampened organisational responsiveness. You may identify some teams are ready to go straight to this step. Game-on for them . But they are in the minority. So for the rest, ensure steps 1-3 are conducted, then start your newly responsive-ready people on small, relatively low risk, test-and-learn projects with very small teams (5 works well).

Applied at scale you have tools to make your people, and with them the organisation, much more responsive.