GUEST POST from Janet Sernack

Some CEO’S, executive teams and leaders mistakenly assume that organizational culture is simply a social phenomenon that they have no control over, and cannot impact. Yet, according to Gallup, CEO’s, executive teams and leaders are the key catalysts towards creating a collaborative workplace culture. This is because culture is more about connecting with & sharing people’s values and beliefs, understanding & hearing their thoughts, developing positive rituals and supportive and aligned communication, reward and recognition systems as well as encouraging and role modelling constructive behaviors.

These factors wield enormous influence over people’s beliefs, mindsets, levels of engagement, actions and decisions, effecting performance, safety, diversity and inclusion, strengths, compliance and innovation. Especially as many organizations are moving towards initiating agile transformations, where the most fundamental and critical success factor is the ability to develop and support implementation efforts by creating a collaborative workplace culture.

Illustrated by ANZ Banking Groups Manager of omnichannel, Christian Venter’s statement – one of the key executives that has led an agile transformation at the Adobe Summit 2019 in Las Vegas –  “In many organisations today, work is siloed: it comes in, it goes into one specialist team, it moves to the next, moves to the next, and it moves to the next. Those handoffs are killing your organisation right now.” Reinforcing that it’s not just about disrupting and breaking up silo’s, it’s also creating seamless connections across geographic and demographic boundaries, differing industries, structures and technologies and diversely different ethnic groups.

Compete or collaborate?

There is very challenging and complex situation here in Oz, as organizational cultural data, amassed over the past twenty-five years, constantly reminds us, that many of our organization’s core cultural instinct is to win by competing, and not by collaborating.

As a transformational leadership facilitator and executive coach, I have come across many organizations where the CEO created intense competition among senior executives in the leadership team, which may be considered a smart move if their motivation was to work together to out-compete the external competition. Instead, their motivation tended to be internally focussed, to out-compete each other, to show who was the lone, smartest individual, whilst depreciating the efforts and contribution of others. Commonly known as the “Tall poppy syndrome”– describing aspects of a culture where people of high status are resented, attacked, cut down, strung up or criticized because they have been classified as superior to their peers. Colliding with another common Australian cultural syndrome, commonly known as “white-anting” – which is often used in reference to groups such as political parties, organisations and individuals where information from insiders is ‘leaked’ or used to undermine individual, or the goals of the group. Applying the termite (white ant) metaphor, where termites are known to eat the inside of wooden building foundations, often leaving no outward evidence, until the structure (team or organization) crumbles. Resulting in workplace culture where arrogance, back stabbing, in-fighting and resource hoarding, become habitual ways of getting things, where there is minimal safety and permission to challenge the status quo, and mistrust rules.

If you want to create a workplace culture that will produce breakthrough results that digital, agile and other business transformations are built to achieve, then collaboration trumps competition by a long shot.

New ways of rapidly interacting

Whilst conventional team development approaches are still relevant, and foundational to organizational success, there are other needs to be met in our disruptive world. Including the need to:

• Provide a unified face to customers,
• Be agile and make faster decisions,
• Share resources to reduce costs,
• Work interdependencies to improve efficiencies and productivity,

and finally, to solve bigger, more complex problems.

In fact, technology is also supporting the development of collaborative platforms and ecosystems, which serve multiple functions, including facilitating (and sometimes profiting from) the innovation of others, expanding reach and collaboration, and enabling new multiparty solutions and offerings to customers.

Alternately, to harness people’s potential for change and innovation, other reasons for advancing a collaborative workplace culture, involve;

• Engaging, enrolling and aligning people in the organizations passionate purpose,
• Being values led, with clearly defined supportive behaviours, systems and symbols to build the trust and safety that co-creation and collaboration need to be successful.

Focussing on up-skilling people’s confidence, capacity and competence in collaborative skills and practices enables them to creatively challenge and disrupt the status quo in ways that maximize differences and diversity through flowing with constructive tension, discord and conflict.  Doing this enables people to develop discomfort resilience, to connect, explore, discover and invent co-creative solutions to complex business problems.

Join the next free monthly innovation webinar in our Making Innovation a Habit Series – “Coaching on the cusp of disruption” It’s on Thursday, 13th June 2019 at 9.00pm Sydney & Melbourne, 7.00pm Perth & Hong Kong, 12.00pm London, 1.00pm Berlin, 7.00am New York. Register now. In just 45 minutes learn how the leadership and coaching playing fields have shifted, and how, as innovation coaches we lead the way by enabling our clients to survive and thrive through exponential change and disruption.

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GUEST POST from Janet Sernack

It seems that the waves of change are not going to subside anytime soon. As AI and other advanced technologies permeate the workplace, flipping mindsets, learning new behaviours and skills and shaping organizational cultures are causing us to radically rethink work in ways that maximize the intelligences of both humans and machines. Leading companies are recognizing that these technologies are most effective when they complement humans, not replace them. There is also growing recognition that AI tools require human oversight. Many organizations lack readiness for this kind of impact and are not proactive in addressing the widening gap between AI and other emerging advanced technologies with the vital people factor. As humans and machines work together even more, connectedness, creative conversations and effective explanations will be at the very heart of collaboration between people and machines, as we move towards radically rethinking work.

The possibilities and opportunities that are emerging, can only be realized by individuals who collaborate with machines to become human-computer superminds – a group of individuals acting together in ways that seem intelligent. Operating from a kind of collective intelligence, which is an ability to do things that individuals in the groups could not have done previously. As machines can increasingly participate in intellectual, and physical activities of these groups we are able to combine people and machines to create “superminds that are smarter than any groups or individuals our planet has ever known”

Closing the “readiness gap” – what can organizations do about it?

This is an opportunity for organizations to not only develop strategic foresight, they can also develop a systemic and cultural advantage that maximizes human and machine potential in their efforts to adapt, compete and grow. Yet the Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends 2018 Report analysis of this “readiness gap” for this issue shows that, while 72 percent of their respondents see this area as important, only 31 percent feel ready to address it.  Also, the impact of culture on business performance, is hard to overstate: 82 percent of the respondents to Deloittes 2016 Global Human Capital Trends survey believe that culture is a potential competitive advantage, yet so few organizations truly understand its potential to create & nurture superminds that can drive and deliver strategy through disruption.

New 21^st century data tools

To stimulate business growth amidst high levels of disruption in operating environments, organizations are required to observe their environments, select, interpret and act on data, information and knowledge in their efforts to adapt and grow. For example:  Amazon now has 100,000 robots in operation, which has shortened training for holiday workers to less than two days. Walmart recently deployed virtual reality technology to improve its in-store training and effectively simulate customer environments. Manufacturers such as Airbus and Nissan are finding ways to use collaborative robots, or “co-bots,” that work side by side with workers in factories.

Today, there are also new data tools available to help leaders measure and manage culture toward alignment with and achievement of business goals. Leaders now have access to new high precision tools to identify both their organization strengths, as well as the hidden factors constraining their organizations growth ability.  The OGI® (Organizational Growth Indicator®) is a 21^st century tool, vital for very business leader, because it identifies and provides tangible metrics of a “readiness gap”. It also identifies specific areas and what mindsets and behaviours, systems and processes need to be introduced or accelerated to drive and support lasting organizational improvement and performance, innovation, growth and sustain success.

Organizations are complex, adaptive systems

As AI and other advanced technologies permeate the workplace, our research indicates that there is a disconnect and even, a competitive element, between what organizations need to do to survive and thrive and what people are currently able to do. This is embodied in people’s mindsets, the crucial intellectual, emotional and visceral elements that enable people to be ready and receptive to change, facilitate and coach creative conversations, deliver effective explanations, make intelligent decisions and win in a VUCA world.

• What is a mindset?

A mindset represents more how we think, it captures how we feel & how we act as individuals & as whole organizations. It is an active & dynamic expression of an individual’s culture & consciousness, in that it taps into their underlying values, beliefs & assumptions at play, within it.

• Why are mindsets important?

Mindsets influence the way people seek to fulfil their purpose & strategic mandate, and capture how we connect with ourselves, how we think, feel, make choices & decisions, as well as on the behaviours & actions we take & the results we get.

-Mindsets are unconsciously managed by our autonomic nervous system.

-Mindsets are a key part of our personalities and are based on our belief systems.

Mindsets shed light on a person’s unique active cognitive stylistic preferences, which shapes what they say & do, how they solve problems, set goals & make decisions – inside & outside of the “box.”

• What is an organizational mindset?

All organizational types demonstrate preferred mindsets which are expressed in behaviours, systems & artefacts, all of which then impact on their ability to grow and transform.

An organization’s set of mindsets about innovation and digitization will significantly impact on its ability to embrace and apply them as positive, productive & competitive levers in the face of disruption and VUCA times. The OGI® acknowledges and codifies the unique cognitive style that all organizations inherently have, which influence their approach to growth and transformation.

Complementing humans to develop superminds 

Leading companies increasingly recognize that these technologies are most effective when they complement humans, not replace them, through creating superminds, groups of individuals acting together, with machines, in ways that seem intelligent.

The need for human involvement complicates the widely held view that AI will automate everything. If anything, humans and their innate skills seem to be growing more important as the need to devise, implement, and validate AI solutions becomes widespread. Understanding the unique capabilities that machines and humans bring to different types of work and tasks will be critical as the focus moves from automation to the redesign of work.

Which of course, also requires the redesign of mindsets, behaviours and skill sets, and how people engage and collaborate with machines, one another, teams, customers, and with their ecosystem partners, and culture is the glue that binds all of these disparate and complex elements together as we radically rethink work in the 21st century.

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GUEST POST from Janet Sernack

After the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos drew to a close, Martin Reeves, Senior Partner & Managing Director, Director of the BCG Henderson Institute shared his reflections of the event with the Boston Consulting Group. Whilst discussion trended down global economic growth, they also elevated risks on a number of fronts, spanning the whole system, in the context of technological & economic risks, as well as societal & the planetary risks. Whilst most of the risks discussed were not new, & mostly well known, and some even have well-defined solutions.

“But most of them require collaboration and collective action. While we might once have depended on governments for this, business now needs to be part of the solution, given fractious politics and social division”.

What does this mean for business?

Below is a summary of the six imperatives that business leaders need to focus on by retooling to win in the next decade;

1. Resilience to cope (flow, adapt & grow) within a VUCA global economy.
2. Innovation and vitality (agility) to create differential growth against a backdrop of declining aggregate growth.
3. Being trustworthy, including by self-regulating and/or embracing government regulation, and by adopting good practices for algorithmic and data governance, (and how they interact with people).
4. Being purpose-driven and inclusive, by clearly articulating the social value of their business and addressing increasing social division in many countries.
5. Adopting sustainable business models (people, profit and planet).
6. Be proactive and collaborative in creating and contributing to collective solutions to these challenges.

A new leadership agenda for the next decade

Considering that the future competitive environment will look very different to what it is today, business need to evolve to embrace new technologies. According to another recent BCG “Winning the ‘20s” article,  they also need to reshape their external relationships, organizations and approaches;

“When the 2010s began, the world’s ten most valuable public companies by market capitalization were based in five countries, only two of them were in the tech sector, and none was worth more than $400 billion. Today, all of the top ten are in the US and China, the majority are tech companies, and some at least temporarily have surpassed $1 trillion in value”.

Stating that to stay ahead of the key trends impacting these types of changes, leaders need to question their current assumptions and retool their companies for the coming decade.

After reading and digesting these two articles, I realised that my ongoing personal entrepreneurship story, that I have shared in my last two blogs, have landed in this exact same space.

In my last two blogs, “Surviving and thriving in the entrepreneurs game”, and “Reinventing the entrepreneurs game” I  highlighted the 6-key lessons from the first twenty years of my entrepreneurship journey.

Including the importance of;

1. Making fundamental change choices.
2. Clarifying, enacting & embodying a passionate purpose.
3. Constantly re-educating & re-inventing yourself to take responsibility to manifest the results you want.
4. Being accountable & holding others to account.
5. The power of team cohesion & collaboration.
6. Mindsets are foundational to all change.

Here is the final instalment of my ongoing personal entrepreneurship story, describing my next three lessons & how they might also apply towards retooling to win in the ‘20’s.

The third ten years 2008-2018

As I outlined in my previous blog, my fascination with power & role of mindsets in change processes led me to play even more deeply in the transformational leadership, team coaching & organisational culture development space. At the end of 2006, I found myself, at MIT, in Boston, attending the “Presencing: Collective Leadership for Profound Innovation and Change” five-day workshop. It was hosted by SOL (Society for Organizational Learning) and presented by Otto Scharmer, Peter Senge and other key people involved in the development and evolution of Theory U and Presence.

1. Pay attention and be present to openings for new possibilities

This profoundly deep experience created “cracks” in my assumptions about change, leadership and culture. It opened the doorway, and create the threshold towards retooling myself for the coming decade.

Having always sought creative ways of fast tracking a client’s consciousness, presencing concepts, incorporating emergence & mindfulness principles, ultimately created new pathways and a core toolkit for connecting, exploring, discovering and designing new ways of being, thinking and doing. This amazing learning journey took me to Mount Abu, in Rajasthan, India, where I reconnected with the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University, through my participation in a range of Emergence & Peace of Mind Retreats, at various stages, over the next ten years.

I learnt to deeply appreciate the power of retreat and reflection, stillness and silence, observation and immersion, connection and attunement, attention and intention.

All core elements of authentic and resilient leadership in VUCA times.

I continued evolving this dense, philosophical way of opening my mind, heart and will to sense and perceive new ways of being, thinking and doing, experimenting with facilitating leadership retreats and adapting the concepts, principles and techniques to my ongoing work at Compass Learning.

2. Deep learning involves letting go of the old to allow the new to emerge

Only to find myself once again, embarking on yet another deeply transformational experience, when my husband and I, along with our two small dogs, and pussycat, along with all of our earthly possessions, relocated to live in Zichron Yaakov in Israel, where we resided for the next six years.

Arriving in Israel in 2010, I faced a series of harsh new realities which defied & challenged most of what I had been taught & experienced about high-performance organizational cultures, leaders & teams. Aptly illustrated by Dov Frohman founder of Intel Israel in his book “Leadership the Hard Way” where he states that “leadership in today’s economy is a lot like flying a plan through a thunderstorm”.

Which has since become the perfect metaphor for the resilience required to cope, flow, adapt & grow within a VUCA global economy.

Where else better to learn how to do this, than in a country that is in a permanent state of VUCA, yet at the same time, a global role model of star-up, innovation and eco-system success!

I found that its success as The Start-Up Nation & its ascension in The Global Innovation Index, defied most of the consulting, culture, leadership & coaching models I had learnt & had been attached to.

I knew that, to allow the new to emerge, you have to let go of the old.  

Ultimately, I managed, not without a lot of difficulty, to let go of almost everything I knew & had practiced throughout my professional career. I set about completely re-inventing myself by massive amounts of reading, field researching, learning, interviewing, networking & debating. I sought to understand, decipher, integrate & generate new approaches to developing innovative organizational cultures, leaders, teams & coaching within a holistic innovative business eco-system approach.

3. Experimentation allows you to fail fast to learn quickly

Once I managed to clear the fog of disruptive change that had settled into every fibre of my being, I realized that I had landed in completely new & radically different Innovation & entrepreneurship space which totally fascinated me.

I sailed voraciously around in the volatile, uncharted waters that this amazing learning journey took me on, with its high emotionally, cognitively and viscerally challenging peaks & deep troughs, involving a range of horrible failures along with the odd triumph.   Whilst not intending to, I became an Israeli start-up entrepreneur, and founded an innovative global consulting and learning company called ImagineNation™.

Where I sought to invent new non-prescriptive, adaptive & innovative ways of disrupting prevailing leadership, culture, coaching & corporate learning paradigms.  To devise creative & innovative ways for organizations, manager, leaders to learn, adapt, take risks, lead & thrive in this bewildering VUCA environment.

This made ImagineNation™ the first global learning company to research, decipher & replicate the “secret sauce” behind the hugely successful and enviable Israeli innovative culture & entrepreneurial start-up phenomena and lifestyle.

ImagineNation™ has evolved, over the past six years, through constant experimentation, massive failures, iterations and pivots as a global eco-system of expert people, who unleash breakthrough mindsets to help companies, change, innovate and win through the use of our twentieth century tools and OGI® (Organizational Growth Indicator).

As innovation thought leaders, we help people and companies grow through disruption (as we ourselves are constantly doing).

Closing the loop – enabling businesses to be part of the solution

In the end, it’s all just about making a fundamental choice to shift your way of being (mindsets and moods), thinking and acting, to create the groundswell by unleashing new possibilities for positive change.

To then articulate these into your passionate purpose and be committed in to constantly re-educating & re-inventing yourself.

By boldly taking the risks necessary to manifest the results you want, and to be accountable & hold others to account to achieve them.

To then retool to win in the coming decade by knowing how to fly your organisations plane through the thunderstorm emerging in the ‘20’s.

By being willing to;

• Bravely open your minds, hearts and will towards letting go of the old that is no longer relevant to people, organisation, society and the planet. To create an empty space for the new ways to emerge to contribute towards co-creating collective solutions to the range of global challenges.
• Adopt and merge your sense of urgency and determination, passionate purposefulness, conviction and resilience of authentic entrepreneurship with the emotional integrity, candour, creativity, compassion and courage of authentic innovative leadership.
• Integrate cohesive, trusted relationships, cultivate inclusiveness and collaboration of effective teams through teaming and networking. Through experimenting with agile principles & start-up methodologies that facilitate agility and speed, and the development of sustainable business models.

Contact us now at janet@imaginenation.com.au to find out how we can partner with you to learn, adapt and grow your business in the digital age.

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GUEST POST from Janet Sernack

In my last blog I described how important it is to unleash the power of innovative entrepreneurship in our digital & connected world.

How doing this manifests an optimistic, abundant & positive futures that:

• Maximises the potential of entrepreneurs to see & solve 21^st century wicked problems, innovate new businesses that successfully compete, achieve exponential & sustainable growth in VUCA times.
• Creates the best environmental conditions for people across differing & diverse demographic & geographic segments to deliver sustainable & inclusive business developments that deliver a triple bottom line (people, profit & planet).
• Models & replicates how successful entrepreneurs lead & build entrepreneurial companies that accelerate access to new markets & ultimately become scalable, high-growth businesses, within collaborative eco-systems.

Taking collective action

Achieving this requires us to take collective action in questioning, rethinking, renewing & reinventing our habitual ways of working & doing business.  Because, as prosperous individuals, teams & organisations, we can no longer afford to sit on our laurels.

We have the opportunity & perhaps, even the responsibility, to unleash our people’s innovation potential, in any place, at any time.

By collaborating & sharing new ways of maximising the “triple-e’s” education, employment & engagement, now matter where we are located.

In a world, where according to a recent McKinsey Report, in Asia today, there are more than 1.1 billion youth aged 10 to 24, which represents 26% of the total population where;

• 220 million youth are not engaged in education, employment or training.
• Among those who are, achievement is low.
• 36 million youth are unemployed, with another 300 million underemployed.
• This does not account for those in vulnerable working conditions (e.g., part-time work, jobs in the informal economy)

A pool of human possibility

The report states that “these numbers are staggering and it would be fair to argue that the world has never had a greater pool of human potential at risk” or is it a greater pool of human possibility?

To create a new pool of innovative entrepreneurs who can rethink, reinvent & renew their corporations, basic civil systems, communities & even their nations?

To become the “crazy ones who spit in the eye of the status quo” with compassion, creativity & courage, fuelled by a passionate purpose to make their dent in the universe.  Which is what is necessary for creating equilibrium & a successful & more sustainable world.

My ongoing entrepreneurial learning journey

In my first blog in this series, I shared how shocked I was to see in my calendar that was exactly 30 years since I exited my corporate career. I outlined some of my many mis adventurous occurring in the first ten years in the management consulting & learning & development space. I also shared details describing my first three learning’s as a serial female entrepreneur.  So here is the next instalment of my ongoing personal entrepreneurship story.

From the second ten years 1998-2008

1. Being accountable & holding others to account

Being an associate with Corporate Vision for over 12 years enabled me to develop & hone my corporate training knowledge, skills & experience across the culture, leadership & team development domains. It was an awesome learning experience, especially when we developed an innovative & experiential learning approach to training leaders in accountability in major Australian organisations.

It seems that accountability is a subject that everyone seems to talk about, yet finds difficult to define.

Yet, to be effective & successful as an entrepreneur, you have to be willing to be accountable 24/7, especially in the early stages, when there is only self to rely upon.

This involves doing what you say you will, being trusted to keep your word & ensuring that others you count on, keep theirs. It also requires a certain type of boldness, deep integrity, strong intrinsic motivation & smart risk taking. As well as taking personal responsibility for delivering the desired outcomes, & applying  milestones as guiding lights & score cards along the way.

2. The power of team cohesion & collaboration

Whilst I was associated with Corporate Vision, I facilitated a vast number of team development programs, largely for IT business units, in a number of major financial services organisations. Being largely project based, developing diverse, cohesive & collaborative, & hard-core agile teaming skills were the critical success factors for effective project execution & delivery.

Because team leaders have a profound impact on their team’s ability to coordinate, execute & deliver outcomes, I focused on developing the most resourceful mindsets, behaviours, skills & practices of both the team leaders & members.

This involved applying a vast number of diverse team diagnostic tools & processes, providing both data representing quantitative measures of team effectiveness. As well as a qualitative assessment of the key messages driving individual & collective behaviours & their impact on performance. I then shared these results with the team & designed & delivered their customised blended learning journey. These incorporated adult & experiential learning methodologies that provided opportunities for team leaders & members to safely learn by doing.

I moved on from Corporate Vision & boldly established my own learning & development organisation, Compass Learning Pty Ltd.  Initially, in collaboration with my experiential learning provider, Team Focus International, we co-created & facilitated a series of customised top team alignment learning journeys. Where we aimed at developing for our clients, the mindset & behavioural changes needed to create high performing leaders & aligned executive teams in ways that were ethical, sustainable & enduring.

Successful entrepreneurs understand & focus on unleashing the innovation potential & power of people. They develop an ability to work cohesively & collaboratively with others effectively.  By candidly & bravely maximising differences & diversity, taking smart risks & by experimenting with doing things differently. They successfully engage, enrol & align people to collectively solve the intractable problems of starting a business, in the hope of satisfying a customer or user, anywhere, anytime, with anybody.

3. Mindsets are foundational to any change process

Individual, group & team functionality is based on understanding and working with people’s underlying needs, values, beliefs & emotions. These are usually then expressed as thought & feelings & presented as a unique worldview or mindset.

Facilitating high performing teams involved co-creating clarity of purpose, agreeing roles & responsibilities, setting team goals & developing trusted relationships. Then developing effective team communication, decision making & problem-solving processes & habits for working together cohesively & collaboratively within a Team Charter.

To be successful, I noticed that I needed to calibrate & work with, at very deep levels, each individuals’ unique needs & values sets, & their varying ranges of emotional & cognitive responses to what went on for them personally, & in the team. I did this to ensure that people felt & thought that their contribution meaningful & purposeful, & could therefore align both emotionally & cognitively, to enact the Team Charter.

This made it easier to introduce & train teams in the necessary teaming skills, & also created the foundations for developing constructive team cultures, practising mutual accountability & improved performance.

Successful entrepreneurs understand & leverage the power of co-creating purposeful & meaningful work, by understanding the power of mindsets in creating powerful & constructive messages that engage & enrol people in change processes. They focus on quickly developing the most useful mindsets that enable & empower people to acknowledge & maximise differences & diversity & co-create, embody & enact a passionate purpose for change & cultivate entrepreneurship.

Being a congruent role model 

Over these ten years, I deeply learnt what it means to be both a team leader & a team player, how to be accountable & how to hold the line in holding others to account. I also learnt how to design & deliver customised blended learning journeys for transformational leadership & top team clients that delivered what they promised.

Finally, my fascination with power & role of mindsets in change processes led me to play even more deeply in the transformational leadership, team coaching & organisational culture development space. To progress even further in the next ten years, in my most recent re-invention, as the Founder & CEO of ImagineNation™.

Watch out for my third & final blog in this series – the next ten years 2008-2018 & the continuing entrepreneurship journey & my next re-invention, through the creation of ImagineNation™ & my next 3 major learning’s as a female entrepreneur.

Join the next free monthly webinar in our Making Innovation a Habit Series – “Cultivating an Innovation Culture” on Wednesday, 27th February 2019 at 8.00am Sydney & Melbourne, 9.00pm London, 1.00pm San Francisco & 4.00pm New York. Register Now.

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GUEST POST from Janet Sernack

I was shocked to see in my calendar that it’s exactly 30 years since I exited my corporate career as a top retail executive at the now defunct Coles-Myer Group. I also realized that it’s also my 30-year anniversary as a serial entrepreneur who is not only still in a SME business, but is ploughing away, when most of my peers are advancing begrudgingly towards retirement, at creating a global start-up that everyone said wouldn’t work.

This caused my wonderings to continue seeking what might be the key ingredients of the magic formula that successfully inspired, sustained & resourced me to survive & thrive in this challenging innovative & entrepreneurial game?

Where, during those many years I managed to refresh, renew & reinvent myself & my business focus so many times?

How might this be interesting & useful to others, in the new age of global entrepreneurship, especially as a woman, where The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) Report for Women 2016/17 reports that 274 million women were already running their own businesses across 74 economies, of which 111 million were running well-established businesses by 2016.

Whilst the World Economic Forum in its New Models for Entrepreneurship Report stated that;

“Entrepreneurs are key drivers of economic and social progress. Rapidly growing entrepreneurial enterprises are often viewed as important sources of innovation, productivity growth and employment (small and medium-sized enterprises account for 97% of all jobs in emerging economies).”

It was when I first encountered Ernst & Youngs White Paper, Avoiding a Lost Generation, when I was starting up ImagineNation™ in Israel, that I came across The International Labour Organization (ILO) report. Where, almost 13% of the world’s youth — close to 75 million young people — are unemployed  and many are also underemployed relative to their training and capabilities. In the worst-hit countries, youth unemployment rates have risen well above 30%. The Economist in Generation Jobless reported that the real rate was much higher, with an estimated total of almost 290 million young people neither working nor studying.

In the Middle East & Africa, where I was located at the time it was estimated that 40.6% of this age group were inactive or not working. Making them ripe for enticement into unsavoury & unlawful activities, and also an incredible force for massive change in education to unleash the power of entrepreneurship.

Age is becoming less of a barrier, where World Economic Forum Research looked at 2.7 million business start-ups between 2007 and 2014, & found the average age of people who founded a business and went on to hire at least one employee was 42.

So, based on the knowledge, skills & experience I gleaned from my 30 years of serial entrepreneurship, here are some suggestions, in my first of three blogs, on how to make the entrepreneurial leap.  To unleash the power of innovative entrepreneurship through manifesting an optimistic, abundant & positive future in VUCA times within a digital & connected world. Dedicated to the currently under & unemployed to the many women seeking the confidence & self-efficacy to make a stand & go it alone. To the wise ageing boomers or “modern elders”, who wish to contribute, add value & make a sustainable difference to the quality of people’s’ lives, in ways they appreciate & cherish.

From the first ten years 1988-1998

1. Make a fundamental change choice

In early 1988, I achieved the status of being the top female retail executive in Australia, as the Fashion Direction Manager of 42 Australian based department stores, coupled with the key responsibilities of a marketing development managers role. It would have been very easy, & comfortable continuing enjoying the benefits of my regular glamorous global international trips to the fashion capitals of the world, my high designer wardrobe, my designer boyfriend & architect designed inner city home.  Where, to help me cope with the stress of the job, I initiated a daily meditation practice which I have continued to sustain on a daily basis.

Taking the less easy path, it became a period of incredible learning, where I not only created & invented my role, I  also studied business management & marketing part-time as mature student. I also  undertook a series professional management & personal development programs. All of which compounded into a serious “reality check” around having a lot of status & material possessions. As well living what appeared to me, as a superficial & yet somewhat unsatisfying life centred around fashion’s deliberate obsolescence & a female leadership model where women role modelled their behaviours on the men.

Most importantly, I did not have the self-esteem & self-efficacy, emotional capacity & competence & constructive leadership style to enjoy & sustain it all.

This deeply confronting & bold immersive process led to a further realization that I actually did not really like the person I had become – that becoming a better person required making a fundamental change choice towards creating a very different, more meaningful, purposeful & fulfilling life.

2. Clarify, enact & embody your passionate purpose

Janet Sernack Design Management Consultants Pty Ltd was born serendipitously soon after making this fundamental change choice. My passionate purpose was to facilitate focus, direction & solutions for manufacturers, retailers & small businesses in the turbulent & volatile lifestyle & fashion industries. Which, at the time, were seriously at the effect of an Australian government restructure in the removal of protective tariffs & duties across the Textile, Clothing & Footwear industries.

Over the 6 years I operated this business, I had the privilege of working for iconic brands including Seafolly, Chanel, Oroton, Jenny Kee, among others, like Kerry McGee, Image Clothing & Charlie Brown, many of whom are no longer in existence.

Whilst my aim was to be of service, make a difference & a contribution to the creation of product & service design, quality & excellence, it didn’t take me long to realize that the best business plans & marketing strategies usually ended up in the bottom drawer. Because no matter how creative, inventive & innovative the leader of the organization was, they seldom had the leadership capability nor the management disciplines & processes necessary to implement & execute the required changes.

3. Constantly re-educating & re-inventing yourself to take responsibility to manifesting the results you want

It wasn’t until early 1994, when I was experiencing one of those seriously slack times in the entrepreneurial roller-coaster, that a colleague suggested that I approach Corporate Vision, to explore the possibility of working with them as a corporate trainer. Not only had I never been educated in this field, I had never previously worked within that industry sector. Succeeding in winning a huge contract as a corporate trainer for Corporate Vision’s Customer Service Program with the managers of one of the big four Australian banks, I quickly enrolled in Stephanie Burns’ 6-month Training to Train Program & re-invented myself as a corporate trainer. I facilitated this program, as an associate of Corporate Vision, for the next 4 years, & learnt the experiential, accelerated & corporate learning & training ropes.

Around this time, I also got married for the first time & embraced yet another set of deeply personal & relational learning experiences. I also completed Inform Training’s 12-month Professional Trainers Track with industry leaders including Marvin Oka, Philippa Bond & Colin James.

Being the change

I really started to learn what it means to take personal responsibility for & the ownership of the results I was causing in the world.

I also started to learn what it means to be congruent, by walking the talk – for things to change, first I must choose to change.

Which has kept me on a constant & continuous professional & personal learning curve as an innovative serial entrepreneur ever since.

Watch out for my second blog in this series – the next 10 years 1999-2009 & the continuing journey with Corporate Vision & my next re-invention, through the creation of Compass Learning Pty Ltd & my next 3 major learning’s as a female entrepreneur.

Join the Coach for Innovators Certified Program starting Tuesday, 22nd January, find out more.

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GUEST POST from Janet Sernack

The world is now entering the third wave of digital innovation, leveling up out of the internet & connectivity era into what the World Economic Forum is calling the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”.

Since digital innovation began back in the 1980’s with the first wave – the era of personal computing – Australia, & other countries too, with some pockets of success aside, have largely failed to cash in on the opportunities it has brought compared to many other countries.

Yet, we all have the talent to maximize the potential share talent can bring, here in  Australia, we have an industry worth $315 billion in the next 10 years according to the CSIRO Data61 Report & we need to ensure that we don’t miss out! 

“Our reputation for innovation & research is spotless. It’s well past time we started cashing in on our talent”

Yet, whilst technology can improve productivity, the significant amount of turbulence in the business environment is causing most organizations to grapple with the complexity & unpredictability of what it might mean to “cash in” on their talent, within a globally changing workforce & environment.

Quantifying your talent opportunity

The third wave is flagged globally as a “$10-$15 trillion global opportunity” & alphaBeta’s report has identified a potential share for Australian industry worth $315 billion of that over the next 10 years & that there are even more digital opportunities opening up in the next 10 years.

Right now, ABS & OECD stats show Australian digital innovation has so far managed to capture just 7.4% of its GDP – for the rest of the world’s advanced economies, that figure is at 11.2% of GDP & running away.

So what can you & your organization do about it, no matter where you are located.

Maximizing the talent opportunity

1. Put Talent at the intersection of Strategy, Technology & Digital Change

Incorporate a strategic focus on the people side of innovation, putting talent at the core of your strategy as a powerful enabler of systemic change through:

• Outlining a clear why it is important for people to adapt & grow in the face of disruptive change.
• Outlining an inclusive vision, mission & strategy that support speed, agility, learning, collaboration, teaming & networking – as the key levers for effecting organizational productivity & performance improvements.
• Aligning behaviors, systems, processes, artifacts & technological changes outlined in Josh Bersin’s “Flow of Work” diagram below.

2. Acknowledge that some people are struggling to embrace the changes of digital innovation

Create new ways of interacting with people & stakeholders to be present to, & hear their concerns, acknowledging that many are becoming psychologically uncomfortable, anxious, confused & conflicted about the speed & constancy of change.

According to Josh Bersin;

• Businesses & their people are feeling overwhelmed – yet the shift to productivity requires future human intelligence’s & technologies to simplify our work lives.
• The pace of work is accelerating – yet the shift to digital is putting even more pressure on business leaders & their people as existing career & organizational models are continuing to evolve.
• We are all way too busy – we are now negotiating with an electronic boss every minute: our phones.
• AI is making systems conversational – yet the growing use of AI-related technologies is expanding as their expertise in conversational robotic intelligence powers, casing us to question as to how will they be designed & implemented?
• Design, critical & creative thinking are here to help – making learning a work-related intervention rather than a work interruption.
• Coaching people to improve their performance & achieve better results, especially in applying new ideas “on the job” & implementing high value projects.

3. Acknowledge that the desired changes begin with coaching mindset change

Mindsets influence & capture how we think, feel, decide & how we act as individuals, teams & as whole organizations. Our ability to connect to ourselves, & to others, how we feel, think & make choices & on the behaviours & actions we take & the results we get.

Our mindsets are unconsciously managed by our autonomic nervous system – which means that people’s readiness & resistance are unconscious & neurologically based.  This requires very specialised & skilled coaching support, to align, enable, empower & maximize talents potential in this new world.

To coach people to take responsibility & effectively deal with their range of reactive responses, & their individual & collective struggles with change led digital innovation including proactively resolving people’s;

• Disengagement & Avoidance; which results in creating a culture of blame, shame, retribution & envy where no-one flourishes.
• Complacency & Comfort; resulting in inertia & innovation permafrost where no-one progresses or evolves.
• Alignment Issues; where people feel disconnected by lack of clarity to the why, meaning & purpose of the desired changes so seldom bring their best selves to work.
• Emotive & Safety Issues; where people are fearful & anxious about the change & their ability to adapt, control or survive within this brave new world so shut down to possibilities change might bring.
• Cognitive Blindness & Biases; where people are negative & cynical about change, because they have heard it all before or make up their own meaning about it.
• Distortion; where the lack of clear communication, trust, meaning & a cultural legacy of punishment & retribution inhibits people’s abilities to take smart risks, make mistakes & learn from failure.

To then provide people with specialized & empathetic coaching support to pull people towards cultivating useful, powerful & resourceful mindsets & more useful responses in times of organizational change & growth.

Including enabling them to take personal responsibility towards developing & applying new foundations for innovation mindsets.

To then support them to learn by doing, on the job, so that they know what it means to be & think differently in any situation to improve their performance & productivity.

4. Acknowledge that the nature & flow of work has changed & work with it

Referring again to Josh Bersin’s Flow of Work diagram above, he recommends that organizations might deal with these aspects by;

• Looking outwards – engaging more with people, customers & stakeholders.
• Prizing delegation & not controlling – sharing decision making.
• Encouraging boldness over caution – taking risks, failing fast & learning.
• Taking more action, less planning – committing to adaptation & continuous iteration.
• Valuing collaboration over individual effort.
• Embracing & fostering connectedness.

5. Provide coaching support to “cash in” on developing people’s capability to be, think & do things differently through structured coaching & team based learning programs;

• Make learning a work-related “on the job” intervention through customised blended learning programs that are team & project based.
• Develop a safe learning environment where people feel safe & trusted to experiment & learn from their mistakes.
• Provide formal, structured mentoring & coaching support that fosters & enables fresh & different thinking, creative problem solving & collaborative business practices.
• Incorporate, promote & reward specific, the core desired mindset shifts, behavioural changes & new business practices.

Finding the balance

Deloitte’s Readiness Report reveals that the majority of business leaders surveyed acknowledged that they were uncertain they have the right talent to be successful in this new era of technological advancement as only;

• 25% are highly confident that their workforce has the skill sets needed for the future.
• 14% are highly confident in their ability to harness the changes associated with Industry 4.0.

So what are you willing to boldly do, in your organization to;

Flourish in uncertain times, strategically finding the right balance of humans & machines, in ways that complement each other to improve both performance & productivity?

Re-design roles & cultivate people’s multiple intelligence’s & maximize your organizations’ potential to adapt & grow in disruptive times?

Join the next free monthly webinar in our Making Innovation a Habit Series –  Innovation Coaching. It’s on Wednesday, 12th December at 5.00pm Sydney & Melbourne, 7.00am Amsterdam, 6.00am London, 10.00am Dubai, 2.00pm Hong Kong.  Register Now.

Image credit: RiseSmart

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GUEST POST from Janet Sernack

What if there is a way to create coherence, align people’s hearts & minds as well as build an environment that generates learning & results in organizational re-organisation & transformation?

At ImagineNation™ we know that this can be done by transforming people’s cognitive dissonance into the vibrant & creative energy that makes innovation happen.

Just think about how much easier it will be if innovation lead change strategies are designed, articulated, received & executed by people in the VUCA times of our Digital Age.

An innovation lead change strategy in organizations often begins with a clear reason why innovation is important. This is often communicated as a passionate purpose, aimed at aligning an organization, team or individual with a clear reason as to why the change is so important. It also typically includes a vision, encapsulating a vivid picture to describe what it wants to be – in the form of the desired outcome from the valuable investments in executing an innovation led change strategy.

Disrupting business as usual

This disrupts people from their “business as usual malaise” as it most likely represents a very different picture to what the present state, or current reality may look & feel like. As it creates unconscious cognitive dissonance, within people,  as to what this might really mean, as well as to how people connect to it & whether they can identify with it, or not.

As many of us are aware, the space between the present state & the desired outcome is the space that cognitive dissonance lives.  Because, it is where people’s neurological, emotional, visceral & cognitive challenges to the massive changes innovation causes & brings, thrive, & if not dealt with effectively, will sabotage any innovation led change efforts.

“cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort (psychological stress) experienced by a person who simultaneously holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values”.

How cognitive dissonance affects people

Cognitive dissonance affects peoples’ autonomic nervous system, which operates largely automatically & outside of their conscious control.

It impacts on their whole being – physically emotionally & cognitively.

People in organizations who are already feeling overwhelmed by the constantly fast changing VUCA business environment, will often collapse into a set of “un-resourceful” states. We are all familiar with people who appear to be “frozen” or paralyzed, apathetic & unmotivated when more changes are introduced.  Alternately, people may collapse into “un-resourceful” states of high anxiety & become immobilized by their unconscious fears.

No matter which response dominates, both tend to create, in the work environment, conflict, discomfort & tension.

Largely because of the invisible & unconscious disconnection that occurs between what is happening, or may happen in the future state when the purpose & the vision are achieved, & what each person holds to be true & real for them.

The passionate purpose & vision for the future, may have been clearly defined & articulated, within a safe & trusted environment. For people to understand, make meaning of & align to the desired future states, the organization needs to ensure that their change led innovation plan is designed upfront to, holistically & systemically:

• Resonate with people’s core values & beliefs,
• Honour who people are, their core identities,
• Support people’s inherent need for self-preservation.

Why is this important?

When these key elements are not included as a crucial, critical success factor in the design & execution of the change led innovation strategy, people become psychologically uncomfortable, anxious, confused & conflicted:

“This discomfort is triggered by a situation in which a belief of a person clashes with new evidence perceived by that person. When confronted with facts that contradict personal beliefs, ideals, and values, people will find a way to resolve the contradiction in order to reduce their discomfort”.

This activates within people, a range of “un-resourceful “neurological, cognitive, emotional & visceral “states.” Depending on their unconscious survival, safety or security needs, most people will unconsciously & automatically do anything, to try to reduce their mental discomfort & their cognitive dissonance.

They will make some, or all of these cognitive strategies to avoid the anxiety, discomfort, tension or confusion by;

• Avoiding; people will ignore, delete or deny the information, to move away for the pain or discomfort.
• Distorting; people will exaggerate & make the change process bigger, more radical, important, dangerous that what it really is.
• Disconfirming; people will resist & ignore a different mental model, or point of view, because it does not confirm their core beliefs.
• Reassuring; people will seek assurance from others to validate or justify what they believe to be true.
• Re-evaluating; people will re-evaluate or change the importance of existing, new ideas & facts.

What inhibits people’s & readiness & receptivity to change led innovation?

These factors are normal human reactive responses that tend to increase & magnify people’s whole-being experience of cognitive dissonance.  Typically resulting in a range of either passive defensive behaviours that safely & securely move them away from the cognitive dissonance.

• Behaviours might include blaming & shaming, justifying & denying what is really going on, & ducking for personal safety.

Or reacting in a range of aggressive defensive behaviours that sustain their personal safety & security & give them a false sense of power over another people & the situation.

• Behaviours might include opposing, arguing & contradicting, resisting & ignoring, being myopic, self-righteous & diminishing of others.

People may then feel a sense of hopelessness, helplessness & even be discouraged, all of which increases their sates of emotional tension, anxiety & diminishes their receptivity & readiness to an innovation led change strategy. Making their ability to engage, enrol & implement the change processes involved in collaborating in executing the innovation strategy will be severely limited.

What might be another, more useful way?

It’s all about creating coherence, alignment & an environment that generates learning, collaboration, experimentation, re-organisation & transformation.

1. Choosing to see the gap between the vision & the current reality as a source of creative energy

The notion of “Creative Tension” was introduced by Peter Senge in the Fifth Discipline, describing the gap between the vision & the current reality as a potential source of “creative energy.” That truly creative people use this gap as a source for generating energy & intrinsic motivation for change & innovation.

2. Facilitating new ways of applying creative tension to generate emergent outcomes

Generating energy & intrinsic motivation for change & innovation involves being able to acknowledge, work with and flow with people’s cognitive dissonance (not make it bad or wrong).

By applying cognitive dissonance & disruption to yourself & your people’s habitual ways of being, thinking & doing through:

• Letting go of being “nice” & worrying about being politically correct to develop innovation or collaboration, whilst still being empathic & compassionate, when acknowledging the elephants in the room.
• Artfully utilizing cognitive dissonance to intentionally create “collisions” between people’s values, beliefs, mental models & internal programming.
• Sensing & creating “cracks” in the current reality to generate openings & thresholds in people’s minds to emerge possibilities & new ideas aligned to the vision for the future.
• Enabling learning by embodying & enacting an extremely subtle artful & incredibly powerful generative skill-set involving being intentionally provocatively competent, contrary & safely disruptive.

3. Pull & not push people towards generating authentic change by taking whole person perspective

When we understand that people function as a whole system, governed by a series of factors, which neurologically impact on their four core human structures;

• Cognition – how we perceive, think & make meaning.
• Feeling – how we emote, what we value & how we relate.
• Willing – how we identify & preserve ourselves & mobilize ourselves to act.

This means that when we TELL people that they have to/must/need & PUSH them to innovate, what typically happens;

• Cognition (head) = people get challenged as how & who they think about or perceive themselves to be & will be unable to make meaning of the change.
• Emotion (heart) = people will feel disconnected, may feel that a values misalignment or violation, isolated, diminished, vulnerable & powerless.
• Will (gut) = people get uncomfortable, threatened, frustrated & exposed, will be risk adverse to protect themselves by avoiding making mistakes & being made wrong or punished for failing & being imperfect to preserve a sense of self.
• Body (actions) = people will oppose, challenge & resist change to preserve self & play safe through inaction, resulting in an unwillingness & inability to participate in the change process & take intelligent actions.

When we ASK people to innovate, clearly communicate the strategy, make it meaningful & purposeful we can then apply creative tension to PULL them towards a better, brighter & more compelling future.

• Cognition (head) = effecting clear artful communications (culture) that compel them to sense, perceive & align themselves with the innovation vision. by knowing why innovation lead change is meaningful & important in value adding ways, to themselves, organization & customers.
• Emotion (heart) = creating values-based connections (culture) with the innovation led change process, igniting feelings of excitement & passion around future possibilities, opportunities & benefits. To build receptivity & readiness to enrage in & collaborate with innovation led change.
• Will (gut) = creating a safe environment (culture), where people are trusted & respected & have permission to take risks, make mistakes & learn from them as a positive, creative & rewarding strategic & systemic change journey for everyone involved (no blame, shame, envy or retribution).
• Body (actions) = mobilizing, harnessing & maximizing potential & delivering emergent outcomes by taking intelligent actions.

What can you do about it?

Living in our fast paced constantly changing VUCA business environment, many people are already suffering from both anxiety burnout and depression shutdown & are fearful of what is to come as the Digital Age relentlessly advances.

If this relates to your business environment, it might be useful to press your pause button, to take time out to retreat, reflect & dwell on how your people’s current thinking, feeling & willingness are impacting on your ability to execute your change or innovation strategy and:

• Consider as to how to make your organization more coherent, by undertaking a cultural diagnostic to reveal both the supporting & restraining factors surrounding your change lead innovation strategy.
• Teach & coach people to take self-responsibility for transforming their cognitive dissonance into creative energy for change.
• Create a safe, trusted environment & organizational culture that generates learning, collaboration, experimentation, re-organisation & transformation true innovation requires.

Join the next free monthly webinar in our Making Innovation a Habit Series – “Leading a Culture of Innovation.” It’s on Wednesday, 14th November, 2018 at 5.00pm Melbourne & Sydney, 8.00am Amsterdam and Berlin, 7.00am London, 2.00pm Hong Kong, 10.00am Dubai and 11.00pm San Francisco on Wednesday, 10th October. In just 45 minutes learn why developing and aligning an agile innovation culture is crucial to achieve to 21st century success. Register Now.

Find out about The Coach for Innovators Certified Program, a collaborative, intimate & deep personalized learning program, supported by a global group of peers over 8-weeks, starting January 22, 2019. It is a deep blended learning program that will give you a deep understanding of the language, principles & applications of a human centered approach to innovation, within your unique context. Find out more.

Contact us now at janet@imaginenation.com.au to find out how we can partner with you to learn, adapt and grow your business in the digital age.

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GUEST POST from Janet Sernack

We all know that you can’t innovate if you don’t collaborate, yet how do we make the time to have the creative and candid conversations that true collaboration and innovation requires?

Conflicting priorities and ever-present digital media distractions constantly compete for our attention. Even when we manage to get everyone in the same room, or on the same line, it seems most people have their head stuck in a device signalling that we’ve lost the fine art of conversation.

So, what can you do to get more creative ideas, to enable people to think creatively and critically, from the time you can get from your team, and have a conversation that matters, no matter where they are?

Where attention goes energy flows

Most of us have been challenged with finding effective ways of breaking and disrupting people’s habitual way of working and trying to capture their attention.  To explore how to use peoples’ differences and diversity to solve complex problems, (the #1 skill identified by the World Economic Forum needed to thrive in the fourth industrial revolution) quickly and efficiently?

Whilst most of us are aware of the value disruption can potentially bring in effecting change and learning, it’s not always an easy situation to deal with, simply because it often creates discomfort & pain.  This usually results in a sense of uncertainty & instability, which we, as people, are neurologically wired to react to & move away from.

Paradoxically most of us also know that without some kind of disruption that creates a crack, or an opening, deep learning, change & creativity seldom occurs.  

It’s not about being nice, or soft, it’s all about developing gumption & grit

Gumption is a new leadership & coaching attribute I have warmed to recently as it is particularly relevant to coaches and leaders, as an important attribute to cultivate in today’s VUCA world.

It is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as “the ability to decide what is the best thing to do in a particular situation, and to do it with energy and determination.” For those of us who grew up with a very handy container of Gumption in their kitchens know that “GUMPTION Multi-Purpose Cleanser is a mild abrasive cleaner that delivers a deep clean without the use of harsh chemicals or bleaches!”

This means that the first step is to cleanse your mind of how things “should” and “ought” to be & decide to take intelligent action & energetically pursue how they “could possibly” be, with energy & determination.

In recent article “5 Characteristics Of Grit – How Many Do You Have?” by Margaret M. Perlis, she begins it by describing how she met with close friends who have worked in education with adolescents for over 40 years  “when I asked what has changed with regards to the character of kids, in unison they said “grit” – or more specifically, lack thereof. There seems to be growing concern among teachers that kids these days are growing soft.”

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, grit in the context of behaviour is defined as “firmness of character; indomitable spirit.” Angela Duckworth, in her TED talk, based on her studies, adapted this definition to include “perseverance and passion for long-term goals.” Stating that it’s the constancy of your tenacity, which is based on the degree to which you can access, ignite, and control it, is what really matters. That being risk adverse, and being unwilling to embrace and learn from failure, is the biggest inhibitor towards developing the Grit (and Gumption), necessary to survive, achieve & thrive in VUCA times.

Gumption and grit are synonymous in innovation 

This requires people to let go of being “nice” worrying about being politically correct, to develop innovation and collaboration, by being intentionally & safely contrary, provocative & disruptive involving;

• Gumption; deeply cleansing people’s minds, to let go of old fixed, conventional & avoidance mindsets, risk adversity, fear of failure, complacency & other normal & habitual resistance factors to change they might have, without making them “wrong.”
• Grit; passionately persevering being contrary, provocative & safely disruptive to achieve innovation goals & outcomes.

Being provocatively competent

At ImagineNation™ we teach coaches, leaders, teams and organisations to embody & enact gumption & grit by enabling them to develop an extremely subtle, artful & incredibly powerful generative skillset to become provocative competent.

This involves:

1. Firstly, being able to work both with “what is” going on for the person, then having the gumption to detach from it & flow with it, essentially, cleansing their own mind of judgement & evaluation, & enabling the client or the person, to do the same.
2. Secondly, having the grit to then move themselves, as well as the client, or person tenaciously & simultaneously, towards “what could be” possible & available for them, in the context of an innovation outcome or a goal, to elicit a crack or an opening for learning & change.

The characteristics of provocative competence

It’s all about having the gumption & the grit to discard “being nice” & create intentional disruptions, that safely open people’s minds & hearts in ways that rock the boat, challenge the status quo, expose any elephant’s & sacred cows & other resistant or avoidant factors that people hide behind.

The aim is to disrupt people’s business as usual mindsets, behaviours & patterns to get to the deep core of the problem, resistance or avoidance factor.

To challenge, deeply cleanse people’s minds & hearts of their habitual patterns, to create cracks, openings & thresholds for generating creative ideas & innovative solutions that ensure future success.

From our research and experience, we have identified seven key characteristics of provocative competence:

• Candour is about being authentic, open, honest & frank, calling it as it is, without judgement & with detachment, even if it hurts.
• Courage is about being firm, bold & brave, in the face of difficulty & challenge, being willing to confront & overcome fears.
• Curiosity is about being inquisitive, coming from an open, beginners mind, & desiring to learn or know more about something or someone, dispelling judgement & with detachment.
• Confidence involves feeling or believing that one can have faith in, or rely on self, someone or in succeeding in achieving an outcome or a goal.
• Compassion involves feeling distressed, concerned & empathic to the suffering or misfortune of another, often including the desire to alleviate it.
• Conscientiousness is about being careful & painstakingly meticulous in achieving the outcome of goal, demonstrating conviction & commitment to go for gold.
• Connectedness involves a state of being joined or linked, a feeling of belonging to or having affinity with a particular person or group, eco-system or whole system.

Why being provocatively competent really matters

In the Digital Age, to thrive in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, where even robots are now being programmed to have social intelligence and embrace a growth mindset, that enables them to interact more effectively with us humans, we need to focus our attention towards facilitating creative conversations.

“Some jobs will disappear, others will grow & jobs that don’t even exist today will become commonplace. What is certain is that the future work force will need to align its skillset to keep pace.”

If people lose their attentional capacity & ability to be present to others, in order to have real & creative conversations, then how can we work together to collaborate & innovate, to solve the range of complex and wicked problems, confronting us as teams, organizations & communities?

If we can’t be contrary, provocative and disruptive, how will we, & those people we interact, team and collaborate with, harness people’s collective intelligence by developing the key skills in creative & critical thinking where differences, disagreements & deviations create the dissonance and disruption necessary for the cracks & openings for new ideas & solutions to emerge?  

Join the next free monthly webinar in our Making Innovation a Habit Series – “Leading a Culture of Innovation” it’s on Thursday, 11th October 2018 at 5.00pm Melbourne & Sydney, 8.00am Amsterdam and Berlin, 7.00am London, 2.00pm Hong Kong, 10.00am Dubai and 11.00pm San Francisco on Wednesday, 10th October. Register.

Find out about The Coach for Innovators Certified Program, a collaborative, intimate & deep personalized learning program, supported by a global group of peers over 8-weeks, starting October 2, 2018. It is a deep blended learning program that will give you a deep understanding of the language, principles & applications of a human centered approach to innovation, within your unique context. Find out more.

Contact us now at janet@imaginenation.com.au to find out how we can partner with you to learn, adapt and grow your business in the digital age.

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GUEST POST from Janet Sernack

Whether you are a company that wants to attract top talent or an individual who is trying to land your dream job, or create a new business, it’s becoming clear that the future of work is both human and technology centred.

For us humans to be effective, productive & innovative, in the Digital Age, we must have great leaders who;

• Take a strategic, systemic & human centred approach to their role & work, who make it safe & possible for people to change, adapt & innovate.
• Lead from behind to harness & mobilize people’s potential because they know that skills like creativity & complex problems solving are the result of collaborative efforts, facilitated through teaming & networking across diverse groups, often in different locations.
• Enables & coaches people “on the job” & facilitates “lifelong” learning opportunities, which are more important than ever in resourcing people to deal with the speed & volume of change & uncertainty.

Entrepreneur as role model

Globally successful entrepreneurs are emerging as exciting, courageous & authentic new role models demonstrating many of the vital qualities required for effective 21st century leadership.

This is because they are re-inventing how to engage in the art of applying entrepreneurship & intrapreneurship practices to harness potential & mobilize human energy towards creating better future by;

• Developing creative ideas & innovative solutions to some of the world’s greatest societal challenges.
• Demonstrating deep values driven conviction, emotional integrity, individualism, creative energy, fearless & passionate purposefulness, coupled with determination & empathy.
• Knowing what it means to practice empathy through people & customer centricity.
• Being safely & intentionally different & provocative, to constantly disrupt & challenge the status quo.
• Being a willing emotional ally, who teaches, transforms, innovates & coaches others to create, invent & innovate.

Leadership as a way of life

For us humans to be effective, productive & innovative, we must have great leaders who also focus on making trust, humility, accountability, experimentation, collaboration, digitization, innovation within a commercially astute context, a way of organizational life. Doing this ensures that their people & their company constantly deliver increased value for customers. It also ensures that they drive success within their ever-expanding areas of influence & responsibility, to flow & flourish in uncertain times.

At ImagineNation™ we embraced these elements when we designed our Innovation Leadership Framework, focussing on developing people’s capability to embody & enact 7 key Leadership Roles, which we believe are necessary to survive & thrive, by adapting, learning, innovating & growing in uncertain times.

These 7 roles deliver valuable innovative organizational solutions;

1. Explorer; means being fully present to self & others, being mindful & adaptive to change & uncertainty, to emerge, diverge & converge, & connect creative ideas & trends that embrace people, process & technology.
2. Inquirer; means being positively optimistic, inquisitive & foresighted about the present & the future, having mental flexibility thru critical & creative thinking capability to synthesize, clarify, ideate & develop ideas that embrace people, process & technology to potentially extrapolate the future.
3. Pioneer; means being trustworthy, brave, passionate & intentional in creating an environment applying design thinking principles & iterative practices, making it safe for people to take smart risks, improvise, experiment & fail fast where trying is valued as learning.
4. Cultivator; means being humanistic, vulnerable & empathic to self-manage & regulate in safe ways to ignite, harness, mobilize & maximize people, teams & business units potential through coaching, encouraging people to take smart risks, add value, when innovating to achieve own, people, team, business & customer goals & improve their overall experience.
5. Convincer; means demonstrating conviction in the innovation purpose & vision, being open to possibilities, being flexible in “not knowing” in the face of VUCA conditions, being astute & rigorous in risk taking, dealing with fear, removing barriers & obstacles to create readiness & receptivity to innovation & in eliciting creative ideas.
6. Co-creator; means being creative, seeing, responding to & solving problems generatively through play, playfulness & improvisation, sensing, listening, inquiring & debating to intentionally & safely challenge & disrupt how people perceive the status quo to co-create & deliver desired outcomes.
7. Connector; means being both a team leader & member in co-operating across geographies, demographics & functions to break down silos, navigate & build networks, creating eco-systems that maximize differences & diversity to implement & deliver desired outcomes.

“On the job” & “lifelong” learning in 21^st century leadership

“Lifelong learning is the “ongoing, voluntary, & self-motivated” pursuit of knowledge for either personal or professional reasons”.

With the advent of the Digital Age, our research reveals that corporate learning can no longer be divided into a place & time (workshops) to acquire knowledge & a place & time to apply the knowledge acquired (workplace). In VUCA times, where we cannot predict or control events, we need a new sensemaking skillset that enables us to respond to the question – “How do we make sense of the world so we can act in it?” Learning to be an effective 21^st century leader is most effective when it takes place on an ongoing & “on the job” basis, as well as from the feedback from our daily interactions with others & from the worlds we operate within.

As humans, we need to know how to apply learning as a mechanism for creating situational awareness & an understanding of highly complex systems & situations in order to take intelligent actions & decisions by;

• Making sense of the relationship & connections between what is old & what is new & is constructed by individuals or groups making sense of their experiential worlds.

Recipes for 21^st century leadership learning

This suggests that 21^st century leadership learning programs are most effective when they focus on cultivating new mindsets, creative, critical & foresight thinking strategies & develop the ability to anticipate, adapt & develop new behaviours & take intelligent actions.

All of which require experimentation, repetition & continuous practice to refine & master, & are best delivered through a range of micro & macro, blended learning options, depending on the desired change or learning outcomes.

This customized approach includes an integrated, bespoke recipe of a combination of these key elements;

• Face to face learning events & workshops to engage people & introduce concepts & principles & experiment with techniques to get immediate feedback when refining & applying them “on the job” now & in the future.
• Experiential & playful improvisational activities for people to experiment & fail fast, that bring theory to “life” & create memorable moments for observation, & for retreat & reflection necessary to emerge distinctions as to the most effective mindsets, behaviours & skills to apply “on the job” to maximise their use of time & resources.
• Evidence & team-based action learning assignments to create opportunities for collaborating across boundaries, to experiment, test, iterate & pivot concepts, principles & techniques “on the job” now & in the future.
• Playful business simulations to create permission & safety for stretching & challenging people to exit their comfort zones & learn to experiment in being creative & collaborative, by failing fast.
• One on one, peer & team coaching to enhance “on the job” learning, skills & effectiveness & cultivate “lifelong” resources & capabilities.
• Online “sandwich” learning micro components including webinars, coaching, video bots & MOOC’s that give people the freedom to take responsibility for their own learning processes, collaborate with others, & manage time & financial constraints.

The ultimate measure of effectiveness for 21^st century leaders

When asking “what are people for”, in his book “Sensmaking” author, Christina Madsbjerg, responds by stating that “People are for making & interpreting meaning”.

That we should be using both human science tools and technology, to optimize both ourselves and technology to scale, innovate when finding solutions to the world’s most difficult problems.  It will enable us to better structure the unknown so as to be able to act in it.

“The ultimate measure of effectiveness for leaders is the ability to sustain superior results over an extended period of time. Organizations filled with aligned, empowered & collaborative employees focused on serving customers will outperform hierarchical organizations every time. Top-down leaders may achieve near-term results, but only authentic leaders can galvanize the entire organization to sustain long-term performance.

We need them to rebuild the trust that has been lost in capitalism”.

At ImagineNation™ we provide innovation coaching, education and culture consulting to help businesses achieve their innovation goals. Because we have done most of the learning and actioning of new hybrid mindsets, behaviors and skill-sets already, we can help your businesses also do this by opening people up to their innovation potential.

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GUEST POST from Janet Sernack

Haga clic aquí para leer este artículo en español.

As so many of us are aware, we are living in an era of extreme rapid & continuous change, driven largely by the technological leaps of the Digital Age, impacting exponential shifts in customers needs, priorities, preferences & expectations that affect all of us, no matter what business we are in, or what kind of lives we lead.

“The accelerating pace of change is unfamiliar and unprecedented. To some, this change is a threat; to others, it’s an opportunity; for most, it’s both… and we’re all struggling to adjust to this new state of dynamic equilibrium”.

What is so often forgotten is that all these changes originate in the minds of human beings, for some, who see the changes as an opportunity the ultimate outcomes will be determined by human ingenuity. For others, who see change as a threat, it will be determined by complacency, panic, anxiety and fear, where people feel that everything they know & are familiar with, is under challenge.

So, how can we prepare people to make the fundamental choice between the future as a series of threats or as a field of opportunities, that cannot be predicted or controlled?

“The ultimate outcome will be determined not by the technology itself, but by human ingenuity, collaboration, and an explicit intention to try to make the world a better place.”

At ImagineNation™ we know that organizations who invest in becoming agile to speedily adapt to changing market demands, by embracing a strategic, systemic & human centred approach, achieve mastery at the interface between people & digitization.

“What we sometimes forget is that all this change originates in the minds of human beings. Disruption isn’t just happening to us; we are the force behind it. If individuals aren’t being creative and working disruptively, businesses and technologies aren’t going to change and disrupt either”.

We also know that building an organizational culture that embraces & embodies a values-based approach, focussing on trust, creativity & collaboration, enables people to collectively & equally comfortable with what can be known and with exploring what is unknown.

We also know that the leadership& teaming paradigms have shifted, creating an increasing need for innovation coaching, to fill people’s skills as well as their “knowing-dong” gaps to survive & thrive in an ever-changing world.

Playing in both the opportunity and threat fields

Involves people having permission to be creative & work disruptively, to do this, they need to firstly expand their capability, capacity & confidence for navigating change, developing adaptiveness & innovation agility, & also exploring new ways of connecting people & technology by:

• Working at ways to “unfreeze” the status quo, & reduce people’s fears, discomfort and resistance, which allow for deviant & opposing views, to seek out the diversity & differences of thoughts & ideas within teams.
• Shifting from conventional ways of thinking & business as usual approaches, towards embracing risk & actively experimenting within a fail fast to learn fast context.

Requiring leaders to demonstrate;

• Deep conviction in their passionate purpose when navigating positive change & uncertainty.
• Receptivity & readiness, empathy & empowerment in leading people & teams in the face of uncertainty.
• Emotional integrity in their embodiment & enactment of deep presence & the key values & attributes they wish to see in others.
• Customer & people centric ways of doing business balanced by commercial business acumen.
• Execution, digital & risk mastery.

Coaching innovation leaders & teams

It is more important than ever, to teach people to unlearn, through structured coaching processes, their habitual ways of being, thinking & doing. To create the safe space for people to learn how to embrace creative & collaborative ways of enhancing their bravery, boldness, determination & courage in uncertain times by;

• Imagining new possibilities boldly and optimistically, whilst simultaneously understanding they are quite likely to emerge sooner than expected.
• Pursuing amusement & wonder, whilst simultaneously trusting that smart risk taking allows people to learn fast from mistakes & failure.
• Unlearning knowing and doing what they have always done, whilst simultaneously adopting a beginner’s mind to allow new learnings to occur.
• Being curious about the future & blend new ways of planning, including strategic foresight, scenario planning into conventional business planning.

Key capabilities to prepare people for a future we cannot predict

Some of the key competencies we can teach & coach people to help prepare them for a future they cannot predict include;

• Design, Creative & Critical thinking to help them make sense of and perceive their worlds with fresh eyes.
• Start Up Methodologies to experiment with new business models, with iteration & pivoting new services, products & delivery streams that can be scaled & leveraged.
• Generative Discovery Skills in deep listening, questioning and debating to provocate & disrupt the status quo.
• Teaming & Networking to break down silo’s, identify & maximize interdependencies, collaborate & build high value delivery eco-systems.

Making 24 minutes a day matter

In Josh Bersin’s “The Disruption of Digital Learning: Ten Things we have learned” he revealed that employees are feeling “overwhelmed” and in reality, only have “24 minutes a day to learn”.

To seriously prepare people for a future we cannot predict, then we must work harder at making people feel & believe that they matter. Doing this strategically & systemically, will energize, catalyze, mobilize and harness your people’s receptivity to change & uncertainty & unleash their innovation potential.

What really matters is culture, people’s career successes and coaching, where people feel safe, empowered & have permission to participate in on the job experiential learning, where they can learn from mistakes; supported by effective performance data and rewards systems within a culture of learning to imagine, create, capture and scale hidden value in an increasingly complex and dynamic world.

At ImagineNation™ we provide innovation coaching, education and culture consulting to help businesses achieve their innovation goals. Because we have done most of the learning and actioning of new hybrid mindsets, behaviors and skill-sets already, we can help your businesses also do this by opening people up to their innovation potential.

Haga clic aquí para leer este artículo en español.

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