Moving positively towards the needs emerging from Context Shock

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Change has become the constant. That 'what comes next is unknown,' is the only known.

No organisation should rush to start the desperate clamber back to their 'new', but diminished, normal in the face of this reality.

In your rush, you may miss the fact that the context of your customers' needs - and those of your employees' - has radically altered. In your rush you may learn very quickly how to do things you've never had to do before (eg how MS Teams works, how to run a workshop online, how to recruit - and layoff - people when you can't be face-to-face etc).

In your rush, you may well scramble back to an approximation of your old normal. But, if you haven't invested in making your organisation more responsive, this new normal will be diminished and set for further decline.
When the next Context Shock comes... you won't be any better placed to do anything other than rinse and repeat your routine of decline.

Crucially, when the next Context Shock comes (and they are coming thick and fast right now) you won't be any better placed to do anything other than rinse and repeat your routine of decline.

Whose problem does this solve?

The smarter alternative is to start building an organisation that benefits from shock. It benefits because it is designed to understand the context of the shock and its impact on the needs of its customers - and to do so at pace. When a Context Shock strikes customers' priorities change. New needs emerge. If you don't keep pace with that, you go into decline.

One straightforward example: When the sale of business formal wear falls through the floor, the less responsive suit seller tries tempting the same customers with a new lower price point. It thinks its problem is its glut of supply.

The responsive org understands the context shock has changed its customers needs. The responsive org thinks its problem is in not having enough information about those new needs. So it gathers insight and builds a response to test vs customer need, at speed.

This is where product-focused, cross-functional, distributed (time, space, leadership) teams are required to generate a rapid, test-measure-learn (probe-sense-respond) responses to the new need.

In our example the responsive organisation starts making and selling sport and leisure wear - if that's what the new context of their customers lives shows them is a demand to be met.
The responsive organisation solves its problems by solving those of its customers.

The responsive organisation has little interest in going back to normal. If the context of its customers and employees lives have changed, then so must it.

It gathers insight on the emerging employee needs the Context Shock has created for its people. It responds to these with a New Better to maintain its competitive edge in the labour market.

It builds a New Better for itself, its customers and its people.

There is much inspiration from antifragility in the Responsive Organisation. For example, the notion of Context Shock (included in this article) attempts to humanise Black Swan change factors. Context Shock thinks of these from the point of view of 2nd and 3rd order consequences for the lives of customers and employees. The Responsive Org seeks rapid insight into these and works to address the needs emerging.

The Responsive Organisation moves positively towards Needs of People rather thinking first of its own 'Need' to repair the 'negative impact of the Context Shock on its 'Normal'.

And crucially, it is ready to continue scaling the New Better with each new Context Shock. There is no end date to the programme - the learning is permanent and hands-on.

The Responsive Org - led by insight, always driving to value and working in distributed teams with distributed leadership - has long been a smart way to design. Its ability to make the impact of Context Shocks positive makes it a wiser way forward than ever.

First steps are easy and relatively low cost. Compared with the alternative, they are the bargain of the century.