The Responsive Organisation, elements of which I have been outlining over the past several blogposts and Linkedin articles, leans heavily on lessons learned in digital, transformation and change over two decades. It is how we can get better at aligning with need, at speed, generating positive benefits at all times and handling the Context Shocks we are learning to live with.
A quick summary:
1. Value without Insight is like the tides without the moon.
2. You can't be an expert in the new - but you can learn emerging practices from probing it.
3. Exploring the new means accepting ambiguity, expecting complexity.
4. Behaviours aren't 'driven' in complex environments (that would demand clarity of cause and effect, which can't be discerned in complexity) - but we can modulate them - encouraging the positive.
5. Flatter, distributed leadership = faster, more accurate match with need.
6. Work small - compact, insight-led, value-focused, decision-making, cross-functional, distributed product teams, tackling rapid and incremental bite-sized activities.
7. Productise what works as fast as you can - scaling your abilty to respond with value.
I have witnessed and worked on digital change and transformation programs, good and bad. I've learned ways around silos and how to unlock them, how to inspire, excite and persuade, how and why so many change programs and so many 'innovations' fail (for very similar reasons, it turns out). I've learned to recognise complexity is not the same as things being complicated - and that best practice is a great way to do things that may have worked for others, and in the past.
I have learned to adapt - and learned to apply approaches which recognise the challenges of operating in an always-on ambiguity - made even more apparent by the repeated Context Shocks of Covid-19.
The Responsive Organisation recognises both the nature of change and the environment in which that change is happening. It synthesises elements from Design Thinking, Lean Start-up, Agile, Antifragility, Situational Analysis and (Dave Snowden's) Cynefin framework.
It creates an organisation more able to handle, and thrive amid, the unpredictability and ambiguity - more ready to identify, learn from, and respond to, the emerging needs of people to create value that matters to customers and employees.
It must of necessity, be nuanced in order to make sense of the complex environments we increasingly find ourselves learning in. Traditional models of change fail in these environments - anchored as they often are to the milestones, project plans and 'best practices' best left in the Ordered or Complicated, unambiguous world's we have said farewell to.
But despite the complexity of the environments, I want to try to keep the language and the concepts as accessible as possible. The tools must be for everyone.
To that end I am adding an additional building block today - a simple (I hope) guide to recognising the next Context Shock to hit us, and the steps required to move positively towards the emerging needs to create value.
For context, and additional insight and frameworks, the reader may like to explore these recent articles and blogposts:
1. The Responsive Organisation is Built To Flouris Amid Context Shocks
2. Lock-Down creates the fastest shifts in context we have ever seen.
3. The Greatest Opportunity of our life times - To Create A New Better
4. Lessons in Resilience Any Time-Served Motorcyclist Can Teach.
5. The New Better of Work: Virtualising the best of office and home.
6. The Language of Lock-Down Is Holding Us Back
7. The Future of Work is Distributed across Time, Space & Leadership
8. Urgent Transformation? Dump The Strategy and Get On With It
9. Urgency Makes Everyone An Innovator - And Changes the Organisation
10. In Stressed Environments Speed of Adaption is Key Survival Indicator
Photo by Stephen Isaiah on Unsplash
No comments:
Post a Comment