Category Archives: Change

A Guide to Harnessing the Power of Foresight

Leave a reply

Unlock Your Company’s Full Potential

A Guide to Harnessing the Power of Foresight

GUEST POST from Teresa Spangler

Foresight is the superpower of the 21st century business world, allowing companies to see beyond the horizon and seize opportunities before they become trends.

Innovation has always been the driving force behind progress and growth in the business world. However, in today’s rapidly changing landscape, it has become even more essential to stay ahead of the curve and uncover major shifts and hidden opportunities to remain competitive. Companies that can harness the power of foresight and innovate in response to changing market conditions will be well-positioned to succeed in the years ahead.

So, what exactly is foresight, and how can it be leveraged to drive innovation? Simply put, foresight is the ability to anticipate and prepare for future trends and developments. It involves a deep understanding of the current landscape and an awareness of emerging technologies, consumer preferences, and macroeconomic forces. By staying attuned to these trends and developments, companies can stay ahead of the curve and take advantage of new opportunities.

Company leaders can take several key actions to tap into the power of foresight and drive innovation in their organizations. Here are a few steps to get started:

1. Develop a culture of innovation: To truly drive innovation, creating a culture that encourages and supports creative thinking and risk-taking is essential. This can be accomplished through a variety of means, including:

  • Encouraging open and transparent communication among employees
  • Providing opportunities for employees to share their ideas and collaborate with others
  • Offering training and development programs that help employees develop new skills and knowledge
  • Encouraging a “fail fast, learn fast” mentality

2. Invest in research and development: To stay ahead of the curve and uncover new opportunities, companies must be willing to invest in research and development. This could involve dedicating resources to exploring new technologies, conducting market research, or experimenting with new business models.

  • Protect your ideas is easier now leveraging the blockchain, sign up and protect your ideas at no charge for the first three and manage the features along the sprint cycles. Link

3. Foster partnerships and collaborations: Collaboration is key to unlocking the full potential of innovation. By working with other companies, universities, and organizations, companies can access new ideas, technologies, and expertise that would be difficult to acquire on their own.

  • Your best customers want to be your most collaborative partners. How are you engaging them in foresight and planning for the future?
  • Stay connected to customers: Understanding customer needs and preferences is critical to driving innovation. Companies should regularly engage with customers and solicit feedback to stay attuned to their changing needs.

4. Embrace new technologies: Technology is driving many of the significant shifts and hidden opportunities in the business world. Companies that are able to embrace new technologies and leverage them to improve their products and services will be well-positioned to succeed. Seems so simple these days, but there are so many new technologies.

  • Bring in experts to keep you abreast of new ways technologies are integrating
  • Explore a new technology in with a different set of filters – break it down and break down how you might use it to innovation.

5. Be open to change: Finally, companies must be willing to embrace change and be flexible in their approach. The world is constantly evolving, and companies that are able to adapt and evolve in response to new trends and developments will be better positioned to succeed. Are you tired of hearing BE OPEN TO CHANGE? I imagine so, it’s fatiguing all the change we’ve been through the last 4 years however, change in the world is accelerating, keeping pace can be daunting.

  • Ensure you have people with eyes on the future
  • Create foresight team and create scenarios of your future
  • Imagine the best possible change but also imagine the downside “what ifs”

The business world is changing rapidly, and companies that can stay ahead of the curve and innovate in response to shifting market conditions will be well-positioned to succeed. By tapping into the power of foresight and taking the necessary steps to drive innovation, company leaders can unlock new opportunities and stay ahead of the competition. So why wait? Start taking action today and seize the opportunities that lie ahead.

FutureForward podcasts (and videos) are now available on your favorite Channel:

Image credit: Pixabay

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to join 17,000+ leaders getting Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to their inbox every week.

Elevating the Importance of Construction and Manufacturing

Leave a reply

Elevating the Importance of Construction and Manufacturing

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

Restaurants aren’t open as much as they used to be because they cannot hire enough people to do the work. Simply put, there are too few people who want to take the orders; cook the food; deliver food to the tables; clear the tables; and wash the dishes. Sure, it’s an inconvenience that we can’t get a table, but because there are other ways to get food no one will starve because restaurants open. And while some restaurants will go out of business, this situation doesn’t fundamentally constrain the economy.

And the situation is similar with manufacturing and construction: no one wants those jobs either. But, that’s where the similarities end. The shortfall of people who want to work in manufacturing and construction will constrain the economy and prevent the renewal of our infrastructure. Gone are the days of relying on other countries to make all your products because we now know it’s not the most cost-effective way to go. But if there is no one willing to make the products, there will be no products made. And if there is no one willing to build the roads and bridges, roads and bridges will suffer. And if there are no products, no good roads, and no safe bridges, there can be no strong economy.

While there is disagreement around why people don’t want to work in manufacturing and construction, I will propose three for your consideration.

Firstly, the manufacturing and construction sectors have an image problem. People don’t see these jobs as high-tech, high-status jobs where the working environment is clean and safe. In short, people don’t see these jobs as jobs they can be proud and they don’t think others will think highly of them if they say they work in manufacturing or construction. And because of the history of layoffs, people don’t see these jobs as secure and predictable and don’t see them as reliable sources of income. This may not be the case for all people, but I think it applies to a lot of people.

Secondly, the manufacturing and construction sectors don’t pay enough. People don’t see these jobs as viable mechanisms to provide a solid standard of living for themselves and their families. This is a generalization, but I think it holds true.

Thirdly, the manufacturing and construction sectors require specialized knowledge, skills, and abilities skills that are not taught in traditional high schools or colleges. And without these qualifications, people are reluctant to apply. And if they do apply and a company hires them even though they don’t have the knowledge, skills, and abilities, companies must invest in training which creates a significant cost hurdle.

So, what are we to do?

To improve their image, the manufacturing and construction trade organizations and professional societies can come together and create a coordinated education program to change what people think about their industries. And states can help by educating their citizens on the importance of manufacturing and construction to the health of the states’ economies. This will be a long road, but I think it’s time to start.

To attract new talent, the manufacturing and construction sectors must pay a higher wage. In the short term, profits may be reduced, but imagine how much profits will be reduced if there are no people to build the products or fix the bridges. And over the long term, with improved business processes and working methods, profits will grow.

To train people to work in manufacturing and construction, we can reinstitute the Training Within Industry program of the 1940s. The Manufacturing Extension Partnership programs within the states can be a center of mass for this work along with the Construction Industry Institute and other construction trade organizations.

It’s time to join forces to make this happen.

Image credit: Pixabay

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.

Charting Change for an Outstanding 2023

Leave a reply

Charting Change for an Outstanding 2023

Wow! Exciting news!

From now until February 22, 2023 you can get a 40% discount on my latest best-selling book Charting Change – plus FREE shipping!

OR you can also save on the eBook!

You must go to SpringerLink for this Cyber Sale:

  • The offer is valid until February 22, 2023
  • Please use Bzecfn32w at check-out to get your discount on books & eBooks*
  • Free shipping

Click here and enter the code Bzecfn32w before checkout

*This offer is valid for English-language Springer books and eBooks in the aforementioned subject area(s) and is redeemable on link.springer.com only. Titles affected by fixed book price laws, forthcoming titles and titles temporarily not available on link.springer.com are excluded from this promotion, as are reference works, handbooks, encyclopedias, subscriptions, or bulk purchases. The currency in which your order will be invoiced depends on the billing address associated with the payment method used, not necessarily your home currency. Regional VAT/tax may apply. Promotional prices may change due to exchange rates. This offer is valid for individual customers only. Booksellers, book distributors, and institutions such as libraries and corporations please visit springernature.com/contact-us. This promotion does not work in combination with other discounts or gift cards.

Creating Great Change, Transformation and Innovation Teams

Leave a reply

Creating Great Change, Transformation and Innovation Teams

GUEST POST from Stefan Lindegaard

Teams and organizations need to be agile, resilient and able to effectively navigate change and transformation to stay ahead in today’s fast-paced business environment.

Thus, the above question is one I often ponder upon and discuss in my network and circles. I would like to start a conversation here to better identify the key elements to make a team great for adapting to change, managing transformation and driving innovation.

So, this is like a discussion starter. Feel free to engage and follow-up with your ideas and perspectives in the comments!

What are the key benefits for you and your team(s)?

I am working on these three key benefits that a team should strive for as they develop through the building blocks I propose in this context.

1. Improved ability to embrace change and innovation!

Teams need to develop the skills and mindset needed to quickly and effectively respond to new situations, changes, and opportunities, leading to a more agile and adaptive teams and organization.

2. Stronger team cohesion and communication!

By focusing on psychological safety, emotional intelligence, resilience and internal communication around change and transformation, participants can get insights into creating an even more supportive work environment that encourages open communication and collaboration, leading to stronger relationships, a circle of us and a more positive work culture.

3. Continuous growth and development!

When teams and the team-members step outside their comfort zones, foster a culture of continuous learning, and develop a growth mindset this can lead to ongoing personal and professional growth for all team members.

The Building Blocks to Apply for Stronger Teams

Here, I share a range of topics that teams can work more specifically with in order to get better at adapting to changes, managing transformation and driving innovation.

Maybe you can suggest others like this or let me know what you think is really relevant here or not so at all?

1. Adaptability and Agility: The ability to be flexible and responsive in a fast-paced environment, adapting to change and embracing new opportunities.

2. Fostering Psychological Safety: Creating a supportive work environment that encourages open communication, experimentation, and learning.

3. Developing a Growth Mindset as a Team: Cultivating a curious, learning-oriented approach to challenges and opportunities, fostering a team environment that values personal and professional growth.

4. Internal Communication Around Changes and Transformation: Clear and effective communication of vision, strategy, and goals to team members and stakeholders to help them understand and navigate changes and transformations.

5. Collaboration Capabilities: Enhancing the ability to collaborate effectively with stakeholders, partners, and other teams, both within and outside the organization, to achieve common goals.

6. Emotional Intelligence (EI): Recognizing, understanding, and managing emotions to effectively navigate social interactions and build positive relationships.

7. Resilience: Bouncing back from challenges, maintaining positivity, and adapting to adversity through proactive approaches.

8. Strategic Vision: Aligning goals and vision with the organization’s future, anticipating future trends and challenges, and thinking systematically about goals, resources, and challenges.

9. Expanding One’s Comfort Zone: Encouraging personal and professional growth by embracing new challenges and taking calculated risks while continuously learning and developing.

10. Continuous Learning: Fostering a culture of continuous learning, growth, and development.

11. Stakeholder Engagement: Identifying and effectively engaging with internal stakeholders to ensure their support for successful implementation.

12. Data-Driven Decision Making: Making informed decisions by identifying, analyzing, and utilizing relevant data and insights from within the organization.

13. The Circle of Us: Identifying and focusing on the people elements and interpersonal interactions that need to be address to a higher degree to build stronger teams.

14. Empowerment: Many team leaders struggle with empowerment as in giving this to their own teams. Among several reasons for this, two might stand out. 1) They are unsure what they are allowed to do for their own leaders and 2) they don’t know how to increase the level of empowerment for their team members.

15. The “being too busy” Challenge: Everyone is so busy today. This can lead to a focus on the “wrong” things which in particular can have a negative impact in the mid and long-term range. A key issue here is to understand if and how being too busy impacts you in negative ways and then how to address this.

I believe these capabilities and mindset indicators help teams and employees develop and improve in areas critical to their success and growth, allowing them to be more effective and confident in their roles. This is highly needed for change, transformation and innovation.

Please be sure and share your reactions and additions in the comments.

Image Credit: Pexels

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.

Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of January 2023

Leave a reply

Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of January 2023Drum roll please…

At the beginning of each month, we will profile the ten articles from the previous month that generated the most traffic to Human-Centered Change & Innovation. Did your favorite make the cut?

But enough delay, here are January’s ten most popular innovation posts:

  1. Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2022 — Curated by Braden Kelley

  2. Back to Basics: The Innovation Alphabet — by Robyn Bolton

  3. 99.7% of Innovation Processes Miss These 3 Essential Steps — by Robyn Bolton

  4. Top 100 Innovation and Transformation Articles of 2022 — Curated by Braden Kelley

  5. Ten Ways to Make Time for Innovation — by Nick Jain

  6. Agility is the 2023 Success Factor — by Soren Kaplan

  7. Five Questions All Leaders Should Always Be Asking — by David Burkus

  8. 23 Ways in 2023 to Create Amazing Experiences — by Shep Hyken

  9. Startups Must Be Where Their Customers Are — by Steve Blank

  10. Will CHATgpt make us more or less innovative? — by Pete Foley

BONUS – Here are five more strong articles published in December that continue to resonate with people:

If you’re not familiar with Human-Centered Change & Innovation, we publish 4-7 new articles every week built around innovation and transformation insights from our roster of contributing authors and ad hoc submissions from community members. Get the articles right in your Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin feeds too!

Have something to contribute?

Human-Centered Change & Innovation is open to contributions from any and all innovation and transformation professionals out there (practitioners, professors, researchers, consultants, authors, etc.) who have valuable human-centered change and innovation insights to share with everyone for the greater good. If you’d like to contribute, please contact me.

P.S. Here are our Top 40 Innovation Bloggers lists from the last three years:

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.

Kickstarting Change and Innovation in Uncertain Times

1 Reply

Kickstarting Change and Innovation in Uncertain Times

GUEST POST from Janet Sernack

In our last article, we described why innovation is transformational, and why, at this moment in time, it is more important than ever to innovate. We stated that innovation-led growth is absolutely critical and that people need to be enabled and equipped to adapt, connect and collaborate in new ways to kickstart change in agile, constructive, equitable, and sustainable ways to innovate in uncertain times. Yet, our research and experience at ImagineNation™ over the past 10 years has revealed that many governments, communities, organizations, teams, and leaders, feel somewhat – but not very – confident in their readiness, competence, and capacity to change and innovate in a world of unknowns.

Six Strategies to Kickstart Change and Innovate in Uncertain Times

To help build this confidence we have identified six key strategies and the key first steps to help you focus your attention, kickstart change, and drive and execute your change and innovation initiatives, to survive, thrive, and flourish in uncertain times.

Strategy #1

Build change readiness and receptivity to survive and thrive in an uncertain world by:

  • Giving people permission and safety that allows them to accept and acknowledge the range of emotional reactions (fears), physical consequences (exhaustion), and work-life imbalances as a result of the imposed WFH environment.
  • Acknowledging how people are feeling helps them better re-balance, adapt, and become resilient by supporting them to develop a work-life balance to better connect with others, tolerate uncertainty to change, and innovate in uncertain times.
  • Challenging people’s habitual default patterns of remaining in the safety of their comfort zones, breaking habitual “business as usual” habits, inertia, and complacency.
  • Being empathic and compassionate with people’s anxieties, confusion, insecurity, and uncertainties about their futures at work, and supporting them through their personal conflicts.

Strategy #2

Allow, accept and ack knowledge people’s fears and struggles about change, help manage their anxiety, improve their productivity and attune them to the possibilities and potential opportunities in the current business environment by:

  • Providing individual and collective support to enable people to take back and refocus their attention, self-manage anxiety, and become grounded, mindful, and fully present, with self and with others.
  • Investing in time and money to enable people to unlearn, learn and relearn how to be change ready and change-receptive, and become adaptive to effectively facilitate successful business and digital transformation initiatives.
  • Helping people get familiar with the brain’s basic cognitive functions, and build the foundations to help get work done by regulating emotions, suppressing biases, switching tasks, solving complex problems, and thinking creatively.
  • Developing 21st-century skills to shift old mindsets, develop new behaviors and the reasoning, problem-solving, planning, and execution skills to initiate and sustain business, cultural and digital transformation initiatives to embed the changes and to innovate in uncertain times.
  • Developing the fundamental foresight and energizing vision to perceive innovation strategically and systemically, adopting an approach that is holistic, human, and technology-centered, to align, enable, and equip people to adapt and grow and to change and innovate in uncertain times.

Strategy #3

Make sense of innovation, and develop a common understanding and language as to what innovation means in a unique context by:

  • Developing an awareness that innovation is, in itself, a change process, and paradoxically requires rigorous and disciplined change management processes and a chaotic creative and collaborative interchange of ideas.
  • Clarifying an energizing and compelling “why” innovation is important to an overall “cause” developing a passionate purpose and a sense of urgency towards leveraging innovation to achieve long-term success, competitiveness, and growth.
  • Knowing how to both make connections and distinguish and leverage the differences between creativity, invention, and innovation.
  • Building the safety, permission, and trust that helps facilitate, educate and coach people to deal with the emotional consequences of failure, to reframe it as opportunities to encourage a culture of taking small bets to learn quickly.
  • Taking a disciplined and methodical approach to risk planning and management, that allows and encourages a culture of smart risk-taking to reduce risk adversity.
  • Creating a consistent and common understanding as to what innovation means in their unique government, community, social, organizational, leadership, or team context and creating an engaging and compelling narrative around it.

Strategy #4

Optimize the notion that innovation is transformational and leverage it as an overall energizing strategic and systemic alignment mechanism and set of processes to kickstart change by:

  • Improving engagement, energizing and maximizing people’s potential and intentionally cultivating their collective genius to learn how to execute and deliver deep change and innovate in uncertain times.
  • Aligning technological, processes and adopting a human-centered structure for change management to deliver business breakthroughs and digital transformation initiatives.
  • Breaking down silos and supporting people to collaborate; re-connect, re-energize and re-invent themselves in a disrupted world.
  • Maximizing differences and diversity that exist between people’s demographics, cultures, values, perspectives, knowledge, experiences, and skillsets to deliver their desired outcomes.
  • Learning and coaching people to adapt to survive and thrive by solving complex problems, uncertainty, instability, and trends that are constantly emerging.
  • Improving both customer centricity and the customers’ experience.
  • Building accountable, equitable, and sustainable business enterprises that people value, appreciate, and cherish.

Strategy #5

Challenge the status quo and conventional ways of perceiving innovation to unleash the possibilities and the opportunities and kickstart change that true innovation offers by:

  • Taking a strategic perspective in the longer term and the need for investment in innovation, rather than being reactive, and short-term profit-focused.
  • Developing an understanding of the different types of innovation and how they can be applied, including incremental, breakthrough, sustaining, and disruptive, depending on their strategic imperative and motivation for change, and not just focussing on making continuous and process improvements.
  • Improving trust in organizational boards and leadership decisions, reducing self-interest and eliminating corruption, and focussing on being in integrity to successfully empower people in change and innovate in uncertain times.

Strategy #6

Explore opportunities for measuring, benchmarking, and contextualizing the impact of innovation on business performance, leadership, executive team, and organizational ability to adapt, innovate and grow by:

  • Embracing new business models, developing leadership capabilities and collaborative competencies, capacities, and building people’s confidence to perceive their worlds differently, and with fresh eyes.
  • Letting go of “old” 20th century methods of diagnosing and assessing culture, based solely on the “nice to haves” rather than exploring the emerging “must haves” to enable people to survive and thrive by experimenting with new assessment tools like the OGI® and the GLI® to quantify and qualify current and potential strengths and weaknesses.
  • Using data to know what new mindsets, behaviors, and skills to embody and enact, differently to become future-fit and succeed in the 21st century, and accepting that some of these are “not nice”.
  • Cultivating an innovation culture to embed deep change, provide learning and coaching to evoke, provoke and create mindset shifts, behavior and systems changes, and radically new sets of artifacts and symbols.

Taking the first steps to change and innovate in 2023

Embracing a range of new and different strategic and systemic approaches governments, communities, organizations, teams, and leader organizations can successfully kickstart change and innovate in uncertain times.

By using this moment in time to choose to refuse to walk backward and sleepwalk through life, by simply committing to take the first baby steps in allowing and enabling people to pause, retreat, reflect and:

  • Recover from the effects of working mostly alone, from home, and online.
  • Re-balance work and home lives through reconnection and resolving loneliness and rebuilding a sense of belonging.
  • Know how to tolerate uncertainty and become resilient and adaptive.
  • Reimagine and refocus a more energizing, compelling, and sustainable future.
  • Reinvent themselves, their professions, business practices, and teams in meaningful and purposeful ways.

We can then confidently, meaningfully, and purposefully energetically engage and enroll people, mobilize and harness their collective genius, to innovate in uncertain times in ways that add value to the quality of people’s lives in ways they appreciate and cherish.

To kickstart changes that contribute effectively to global stability, security, connectedness, and sustainability in the current decade of transformation and disruption.

Find out about our collective, learning products and tools, including The Coach for Innovators, Leaders, and Teams Certified Program, presented by Janet Sernack, is a collaborative, intimate, and deeply personalized innovation coaching and learning program, supported by a global group of peers over 9-weeks, starting Tuesday, February 7, 2023.

It is a blended and transformational change and learning program that will give you a deep understanding of the language, principles, and applications of an ecosystem focus, human-centric approach, and emergent structure (Theory U) to innovation, and upskill people and teams and develop their future fitness, within your unique innovation context. Find out more about our products and tools.

Image Credit: Unsplash

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.

The Five Gifts of Uncertainty

2 Replies

The Five Gifts of Uncertainty

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

“How are you doing?  How are you handling all this?”

It seems like 90% of conversations these days start with those two sentences.  We ask out of genuine concern and also out of a need to commiserate, to share our experiences, and to find someone that understands.

The connection these questions create is just one of the Gifts of Uncertainty that have been given to us by the pandemic.

Yes, I know that the idea of uncertainty, especially in big things like our lives and businesses, being a gift is bizarre.  When one of my friends first suggested the idea, I rolled my eyes pretty hard and then checked to make sure I was talk to my smart sarcastic fellow business owner and not the Dali Lama.

But as I thought about it more, started looking for “gifts” in the news and listening for them in conversations with friends and clients, I realized how wise my friend truly was.

Faced with levels of uncertainty we’ve never before experienced, people and businesses are doing things they’ve never imagined having to do and, as a result, are discovering skills and abilities they never knew they had.  These are the Five Gifts of Uncertainty

  1. Necessity of offering a vision – When we’re facing or doing something new, we don’t have all the answers. But we don’t need all the answers to take action.  The people emerging as leaders, in both the political and business realms, are the ones acknowledging this reality by sharing what they do know, offering a vision for the future, laying out a process to achieve it, and admitting the unknowns and the variables that will affect both the plan and the outcome.

  2. Freedom to experiment – As governments ordered businesses like restaurants to close and social distancing made it nearly impossible for other businesses to continue operating, business owners were suddenly faced with a tough choice – stop operations completely or find new ways to continue to serve. Restaurants began to offer carry out and delivery.  Bookstores, like Powell’s in Portland OR and Northshire Bookstore in Manchester VT, also got into curbside pick-up and delivery game.  Even dentists and orthodontists began to offer virtual visits through services like Wally Health and Orthodontic Screening Kit, respectively.

  3. Ability to change – Businesses are discovering that they can move quickly, change rapidly, and use existing capabilities to produce entirely new products. Nike and HP are producing face shields. Zara and Prada are producing face masks. Fanatics, makers of MLB uniforms, and Ford are producing gowns.  GM and Dyson are gearing up to produce ventilators. And seemingly every alcohol company is making hand sanitizer.  Months ago, all of these companies were in very different businesses and likely never imagined that they could or would pivot to producing products for the healthcare sector.  But they did pivot.

  4. Power of Relationships – Social distancing and self-isolation are bringing into sharp relief the importance of human connection and the power of relationships. The shift to virtual meetups like happy hours, coffees, and lunches is causing us to be thoughtful about who we spend time with rather than defaulting to whoever is nearby.  We are shifting to seeking connection with others rather than simply racking up as many LinkedIn Connections, Facebook friends, or Instagram followers as possible.  Even companies are realizing the powerful difference between relationships and subscribers as people unsubscribed en mass to the “How we’re dealing with COVID-19 emails” they received from every company with which they had ever provided their information.

  5. Business benefit of doing the right thing – In a perfect world, businesses that consistently operate ethically, fairly, and with the best interests of ALL their stakeholders (not just shareholders) in mind, would be rewarded. We are certainly not in a perfect world, but some businesses are doing the “right thing” and rea being rewarded.  Companies like Target are offering high-risk employees like seniors pregnant women, and those with compromised immune systems 30-days of paid leave.  CVS and Comcast are paying store employees extra in the form of one-time bonuses or percent increases on hourly wages.  Sweetgreen and AllBirds are donating food and shoes, respectively, to healthcare workers.  On the other hand, businesses that try to leverage the pandemic to boost their bottom lines are being taken to task.  Rothy’s, the popular shoe brand, announced on April 13 that they would shift one-third of their production capacity to making “disposable, non-medical masks to workers on the front line” and would donate five face masks for every item purchased.  Less than 12 hours later, they issued an apology for their “mis-step,” withdrew their purchase-to-donate program, and announced a bulk donation of 100,000 non-medical masks.

Before the pandemic, many of these things seemed impossibly hard, even theoretical.  In the midst of uncertainty, though, these each of these things became practical, even necessary.  As a result, in a few short weeks, we’ve proven to ourselves that we can do what we spent years saying we could not.

These are gifts to be cherished, remembered and used when the uncertainty, inevitably, fades.

Image credit: Pixabay

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.

Why Humans Fail to Plan for the Future

Leave a reply

Why Humans Fail to Plan for the Future

GUEST POST from Greg Satell

I was recently reading Michiu Kaku’s wonderful book, The Future of Humanity, about colonizing space and was amazed how detailed some of the plans are. Plans for a Mars colony, for example, are already fairly advanced. In other cases, scientists are actively thinking about technologies that won’t be viable for a century or more.

Yet while we seem to be so good at planning for life in outer space, we are much less capable of thinking responsibly about the future here on earth, especially in the United States. Our federal government deficit recently rose to 4.6% of GDP, which is obviously unsustainable in an economy that’s growing at a meager 2.3%.

That’s just one data point, but everywhere you look we seem to be unable to plan for the future. Consumer debt in the US recently hit levels exceeding those before the crash in 2008. Our infrastructure is falling apart. Air quality is getting worse. The list goes on. We need to start thinking more seriously about the future, but don’t seem to be able. Why is that?

It’s Biology, Stupid

The simplest and most obvious explanation for why we fail to plan for the future is basic human biology. We have pleasure centers in our brains that release a hormone called dopamine, which gives us a feeling of well-being. So, it shouldn’t be surprising that we seek to maximize our dopamine fix in the present and neglect the future.

Yuval Noah Harari made this argument in his book Homo Deus, in which he argued that “organisms are algorithms.” Much like a vending machine is programed to respond to buttons, Harari argues, humans and other animals are programed by genetics and evolution to respond to “sensations, emotions and thoughts.” When those particular buttons are pushed, we respond much like a vending machine does.

He gives various data points for this point of view. For example, he describes psychological experiments in which, by monitoring brainwaves, researchers are able to predict actions, such as whether a person will flip a switch, even before he or she is aware of it. He also points out that certain chemicals, such as Ritalin and Prozac, can modify behavior.

Yet this somehow doesn’t feel persuasive. Adults in even primitive societies are expected to overcome basic urges. Citizens of Ancient Rome were taxed to pay for roads that led to distant lands and took decades to build. Medieval communities built churches that stood for centuries. Why would we somehow lose our ability to think long-term in just the past generation or so?

The Profit Motive

Another explanation of why we neglect the future is the profit motive. Pressed by demanding shareholders to deliver quarterly profits, corporate executives focus on showing short-term profits instead of investing for the future. The result is increased returns to fund managers, but a hollowing out of corporate competitiveness.

A recent article in Harvard Business Review would appear to bear this out. When a team of researchers looked into the health of the innovation ecosystem in the US, they found that corporate America has largely checked out. They also observed that storied corporate research labs, such as Bell Labs and Xerox PARC have diminished over time.

Yet take a closer look and the argument doesn’t hold up. In fact, the data from the National Science Foundation shows that corporate research has increased from roughly 40% of total investment in the 1950s and 60s to more than 60% today. At the same time, while some firms have closed research facilities, others, such as Microsoft, IBM and Google have either opened new ones or greatly expanded previous efforts. Overall R&D spending has risen over time.

Take a look at how Google innovates and you’ll be able to see the source for some the dissonance. 50 years ago, the only real option for corporate investment in research was a corporate lab. Today, however, there are many other avenues, including partnerships with academic researchers, internal venture capital operations, incubators, accelerators and more.

The Free Rider Problem

A third reason we may fail to invest in the future is the free rider problem. In this view, the problem is not that we don’t plan for the future, but that we don’t want to spend money on others who are undeserving. For example, why should we pay higher taxes to educate kids from outside our communities? Or to infrastructure projects that are wasteful and corrupt?

This type of welfare queen argument can be quite powerful. Although actual welfare fraud has been shown to be incredibly rare, there are many who believe that the public sector is inherently wasteful and money would be more productively invested elsewhere. This belief doesn’t only apply to low-income people, but also to “elites” such as scientists.

Essentially, this is a form of kinship selection. We are more willing to invest in the future of people who we see as similar to ourselves, because that is a form of self-survival. However, when we find ourselves asked to invest in the future of those we see as different from ourselves, whether that difference is of race, social class or even profession, we balk.

Yet here again, a closer look and the facts don’t quite fit with the narrative. Charitable giving, for example, has risen almost every year since 1977. So, it’s strange that we’re increasingly generous in giving to those who are in need, but stingy when it comes to things like infrastructure and education.

A New Age of Superstition

What’s especially strange about our inability to plan for the future is that it’s relatively new. In fact, after World War II, we invested heavily in the future. We created new avenues for scientific investment at agencies like the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, rebuilt Europe with the Marshall Plan and educated an entire generation with the GI Bill.

It wasn’t until the 1980s that our willingness to plan for and invest in the future began to wane, mostly due to two ideas that warped decision making. The first, called the Laffer Curve, argued that by lowering taxes we can increase revenue and that tax cuts, essentially, pay for themselves. The second, shareholder value, argued that whatever was best for shareholders is also best for society.

Both ideas have been partially or thoroughly debunked. Over the past 40 years, lower tax rates have consistently led to lower revenues and higher deficits. The Business Roundtable, an influential group of almost 200 CEOs of America’s largest companies, recently denounced the concept of shareholder value. Yet strangely, many still use both to support anti-future decisions.

We seem to be living in a new era of superstition, where mere belief is enough to inspire action. So projects which easily capture the imagination, such as colonizing Mars, are able to garner fairly widespread support, while investing in basic things like infrastructure, debt reduction or the environment are neglected.

The problem, in other words, seems to be mostly in the realm of a collective narrative. We are more than capable of enduring privation today to benefit tomorrow, just as businesses routinely take less profits today to invest in tomorrow. We are even capable of giving altruistically to others in need. All we need is a story to believe in.

There is, however, the possibility that it is not the future we really have a problem with, but each other and that our lack of a common story arises from a lack of shared values which leads to major differences in how we view the same facts. In any case, the future suffers.

— Article courtesy of the Digital Tonto blog
— Image credit: Pixabay

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.

Hyper-Innovation

Leave a reply

A Change Management Strategy for Better, Faster Ideas

Hyper-Innovation

GUEST POST from Douglas Ferguson

The nature of innovation is that it is a hyper-fluid force that is never fully predictable. A well-curated change management strategy helps to harness the power of innovative change.

Innovation plays a significant role in driving positive change, as 51% of organizations attribute their success to innovative initiatives, all of whom also experienced an 11% increase in revenue.

In this article, we trace the pathway to innovative change in the following topics:

  • The Plan for Change
  • Designing Strategies for Change
  • An Agile Approach to Transformation
  • Getting Curious About Change

The Plan for Change

In charting a course to bigger and better ideas, a clear change management strategy helps to identify a direct path forward. Creating a thoughtful change management strategy allows you to plan several steps ahead and steer change in your favor.

The most intentional change management strategies focus on proactive change. The following are key elements in creating a proactive path for change:

1. Prepare to Plan

Preparing to create a change management strategy is essentially planning to plan. As you consider the best approach to creating change, take time to map out each step of your strategy. While it may seem more effective to just dive in, remember that intentionality is the name of the game in lasting change.

2. Cultivate Transparency

Many changes are unexpected and unwanted. For this reason, many organizations make the mistake of keeping changes quiet from the rest of the team. However, this type of secrecy can sabotage your organizational transformation.

Make it a point to cultivate a sense of transparency at every level of your organization. By including all parties in your plans for change, you’ll get a head start on driving innovation. When team members feel included in major decisions like a big change, they are more likely to accept and support it going forward.

3. Encourage High Tolerance

Tolerance for change is a muscle that should be exercised. Challenge your team members to fight their resistance to change by sharing the benefits of change. Explaining “what’s in it for me” gives team members a reason to root for change while increasing their tolerance for the unknown.

4. Monitor and Measure 

Just as true change is a long-term endeavor, creating a change management strategy isn’t just a one-time event. Successful strategies for change will never be static, making monitoring and measuring key performance indicators a perpetual part of the change management process.

Design a fluid change management strategy by teaching your team to measure success, monitor potential problems, and resolve issues as efficiently as possible. This way, your strategy for change will evolve according to your needs.

Designing Strategies for Change

A design thinking change management strategy places team members at the heart of a change. This people-first approach to purposeful change lets team leaders curate a strategy with the greatest benefits for all parties involved. At Voltage Control, we explore design thinking as a change management practice to inspire the most innovative ideas, allowing team members to shape new initiatives together.

Apply design thinking to your change management strategy in the following ways:

1. Find the ‘What’ of Change

Design thinking facilitates purposeful change. Shape your change management strategy by determining the “what” of your change to inform your path to the most viable and innovative solutions.

2. Center Empathy

Successful changes tap into our emotions. Design thinking cuts to the heart of a change by prioritizing empathy from the very beginning. Harness empathy in your next change by considering your team members’ mindsets and perspectives before implementing change. Continue to research how all participants will be impacted by a change as you incorporate empathy into your change strategy.

3. Use Divergent Thinking

Employ divergent thinking in your change management strategy. Through a design-centered approach, shape a plan for change that encourages collaborative thinking, integrated innovation, and holistic decision-making.

4. Practice Constant Experimentation

Experimentation is the beating heart of design thinking. Make the strategizing process more tangible by testing new ideas and running experiments to see what works. By testing an idea on a small scale, you’ll be able to make the necessary changes to help shape your initiative for real change.

An Agile Approach to Transformation

An agile approach to change management zeroes in on a faster, more urgent need for transformation. Agile principles offer a valid framework for transformation. Agile is tailor-made for systemic problem-solving, allowing team members to find the most groundbreaking solutions to the most persistent problem.

According to Carie Davis, a corporate innovation specialist, inventing new methods for problem-solving is the key to driving innovative change. Regardless of how powerful an initial initiative is, lasting change won’t take hold until it truly transforms an organization. For this reason, Davis suggests that businesses initiate long-term shifts by starting small and by making little changes at the core of the company. These smaller changes are a key part of Agile change management strategy and are instrumental in catalyzing lasting transformation.

Consider applying agile methodology to your change strategy in the following ways:

1. Go Lean

  • Focus on a change strategy that provides increased value and positive change. Going lean allows for rapid transformation by limiting factors that waste resources, energy, and time.

2. Practice Continuous Improvement

  • Agile champions continuous improvement through small changes over time. These small changes lead to the most significant shifts.

3. Encourage Employee Authorship

  • Innovative change doesn’t happen with a top-down approach. Create an agile-informed change management strategy by bringing your employees into the decision-making process. This way, all team members can determine the most pressing areas for improvement and make meaningful contributions as they work together to co-create the next change.

    • 4. Practice Reflective Improvement 

  • In shaping a change management strategy to grow with your organization, practicing reflective improvement guarantees consistent long-term change. Regularly evaluate your organization’s performance and initiatives as you continue to shape your change management strategy into a better, leaner plan.

    • Getting Curious About Change

    In designing the most innovative change management strategy, don’t forget to consider a sense of curiosity. Thrive through change and drive innovation by cultivating a curious desire to be better than ever.

    Research shows that curiosity allows us to welcome new experiences with less defensiveness and aggressiveness. By responding to the unknown in uniquely positive and inquisitive ways, your teams can dream up the most imaginative solutions on their path to lasting change.

    In addition to helping teams accept change, facilitating a sense of curiosity is an essential component in designing an innovative workplace. In creating a culture of curiosity, you’ll encourage team members to become change agents themselves. With a desire to learn more, be more, and do more, you’ll be able to reframe the potential pitfalls of change and the fears that come with it as an opportunity to get better and better.

    Innovation and change are infinitely interconnected. Harness the power of both by designing a change management strategy that continues to transform your organization in the best ways possible. Explore our offerings to learn more about taking change management to the next level.

    Image credit: Pixabay

    Article first seen at VoltageControl.com 

    Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.

    3 Things for the New Year

    Leave a reply

    3 Things for the New Year

    GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

    Next year will be different, but we don’t know how it will be different. All we know is that it will be different.

    Some things will be the same and some will be different. The trouble is that we won’t know which is which until we do. We can speculate on how it will be different, but the Universe doesn’t care about our speculation.

    Sure, it can be helpful to think about how things may go, but as long as we hold on to the may-ness of our speculations. And we don’t know when we’ll know.

    We’ll know when we know, but no sooner. Even when the Operating Plan declares the hardest of hard dates, the Universe sets the learning schedule on its own terms, and it doesn’t care about our arbitrary timelines.

    What to do?

    Step 1: Try Three New Things

    Choose things that are interesting and try them. Try to try them in parallel as they may interact and inform each other. Before you start, define what success looks like and what you’ll do if they’re successful and if they’re not.

    Defining the follow-on actions will help you keep the scope small. For things that work out, you’ll struggle to allocate resources for the next stages, so start small. And if things don’t work out, you’ll want to say that the projects consumed little resources and learned a lot.

    Keep things small. And if that doesn’t work, keep them smaller.

    Step 2: Rinse and Repeat

    I wish you a happy and safe New Year.

    And thanks for reading.

    Image credit: Pexels

    Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.