Tag Archives: training

Creating 21st Century Transformational Learning

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Creating 21st Century Transformational Learning

GUEST POST from Janet Sernack

I was privileged to attend one of the first Theory U; Presencing Leadership for Profound Innovation and Change Workshops presented by the Sloane School of Management, in Boston in 2008. This means that I have been able to observe, engage with and participate, from both Israel and Australia, in the evolution of Presencing and Theory U as powerful resources and vehicles for effecting profound transformational change and learning.

Intentional Change and Learning

I have seen and experienced the growth of the global Presencing community, as it transformed from a small, diverse, thought-leading group in the USA, seeding a range of deeply disruptive core concepts, as described in their groundbreaking book – Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future into a global movement.

Where they introduced a radical new theory about change and learning, I also participated in its evolution into its current manifestation, as a global movement for profound transformational change. Which seeks to create, within the whole system, intentional shifts that break old patterns of seeing and acting that continually create results, on a planetary level, that are no longer needed or wanted. Achieving this by encouraging deeper levels of attention and intention, as well as deep and continuous learning, to create an awareness of the larger systemic whole, ultimately leading to us to adopt new and different mindsets, behaviors, actions, and systems that can help to shape our evolution and our futures.

A Turning Point

It is suggested by many, that we are at a turning point, a critical moment in time, where all of us, individually and collectively, have the chance to focus our attention toward activating, harnessing, and mobilizing transformational change and learning to shape our evolution and our futures intelligently. To maximize the emergence, divergence, and convergence of new patterns of consumer and business behaviors that have emerged at extraordinary speed and can be sustained over long periods of time because digitization, coupled with the impact of the global pandemic, have accelerated changes faster than many of us believed previously possible.

Paradoxically, we are facing an uncertain future, where according to the World Economic Forum Job Reset Summit – “While vaccine rollout has begun and the growth outlook is predicted to improve, and even socio-economic recovery is far from certain” no matter where you are located or professionally aligned.

Leveraging the Turning Point

This turning point, is full of possibilities and innovative opportunities potentially enabling organizations, leaders, teams, people, and customers to embrace the opportunity to change and learning in creative and inventive ways to shape our evolution and to co-create our futures, in ways that are:

  • Purposeful and meaningful,
  • Embrace speed, agility, and simplicity,
  • Scale our confidence, capacity, and competence through unlearning, relearning, and innovation.

Resulting in improving equity for all, resilience, sustainability, growth, and future-fitness, in an ever-changing landscape, deeply impacted by the technologies created by accelerated digitization, by putting ourselves into the service of what is wanting to emerge in this unique turning point and moment of time.

Forward-looking leadership

This is validated by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), who outlined, in a recent article the key strategies employed by most innovative companies in 2021 that “forward-looking leaders soon looked to broader needs affecting their companies’ futures, such as resilience, digital transformation, and customer relevance”.

Realizing, like the authors of Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future, the need to build the systemic ability to drive change, learning and innovation, by transforming their ambitious aspirations into real results through:

  1. Clarifying a clear ambition: that is meaningful and purposeful, compelling and engaging that aligns to people’s values and helps build “one team” mindsets.
  2. Building systemic innovation domains: that are strategically and culturally aligned, enabling people and technology to connect, explore, discover, design, and deliver the ambition through making changes and learning, collective and ecosystems approach that provides clear lines of sight to stakeholders, users, and customers.
  3. Performance management: that acknowledges and rewards collaborative achievements, results in transformational change and learning through smart risk-taking, experimentation and drives accountability, and celebrates success.
  4. Project management: that provides rigor and discipline, through taking a human-centered, and agile approach that allows people and teams to make the necessary shifts in assigning and delivering commercially astute, ambitious, radical, and challenging breakthrough and Moonshot projects.
  5. Talent and culture: by exercising leadership that brings people and teams together, collaborating by fostering openness, transparency, permission, and trust so people can safely unlearn, relearn, adapt and innovate. By supporting and sponsoring change initiatives, by harnessing and mobilizing collective genius, by granting prestige to innovation roles and valuing radical candor, generating discovery and challenges to the status quo.

A Moment in Time

Some thirteen years later, in a recent Letter, Otto Scharmer, one of the original authors of the Presence book, shared with the global Presencing community, that it:

“feels as if we have collectively crossed a threshold and entered a new time. A time that was there already before, but more as a background presence. A time that some geologists proposed to refer to as the Anthropocene, the age of humans. Living in the Anthropocene means that basically all the problems, all the challenges we face on a planetary scale are caused by… ourselves”.

He then stated that “Being alive at such a profound planetary threshold moment poses a critical question to each and every one of us: What is my response to all of this, what is our response to this condition, how am I – and how are we – going to show up at this moment?

Showing up at this moment

Change and learning today involve people, developing their knowledge, mindsets, and behaviors, skills and habits. So, making a fundamental choice about how you wish to show up right now, as a leader or manager, business owner or employee, consultant, trainer, or coach, is crucial to making your contribution and commitment to shaping your own individual, and our collective evolution and our futures.

Taking just a moment

It may, in fact, be beneficial, to take just a moment – to hit your pause button, retreat into reflection, stillness, and silence and ask yourself Otto’s question – how am I, and how are we as a business practice, team or organization going to show up at this moment?

Drawing on my experience as an innovative start-up entrepreneur in Israel, people can either be forced to change and learn through necessity, conflict, and adversity in order to survive. Alternately, they can choose to change through seeing the world with fresh eyes, full of possibility, positivity, optimism, and self-transcendence, to innovate and thrive.

  • How might you develop the courage to make transformational and systemic changes and learning and innovation your key priorities to survive through necessity and adversity, or thrive through unleashing possibilities, optimism, and positivity?
  • How might you develop the compassion to focus on developing both customer and human centricity in ways that are purposefully meaningful and aligned to people’s values and contribute to the good of the whole (people, profit, and planet)?
  • How might you be creative in transforming your time, people, and financial investments in ways that drive out complacency, build change readiness and deliver the deep and continuous change and learning that equips and empowers people to deliver tangible results that are valued, appreciated, and cherished, now and in the future?

Not only to take advantage of the moment in time but to also use transformational change and learning to extend your practice or organizations future fitness and life expectancy, because, according to a recent article in Forbes –  “Half of the giants we now know may no longer exist by the next decade. In 1964, a company on the S&P 500 had an average life expectancy of 33 years. This number was reduced to 24 years in 2016 and is forecast to shrink further to 12 years by 2027”.

This is the final blog in our series of blogs, podcasts, and webinars on Developing a Human-Centric Future-Fitness organization.

Find out about our learning products and tools, including The Coach for Innovators Certified Program, a collaborative, intimate, and deep personalized innovation coaching and learning program, supported by a global group of peers over 8-weeks, starting Tuesday, October 19, 2021.

It is a blended and transformational change and learning program that will give you a deep understanding of the language, principles, and applications of a human-centered approach and emergent structure (Theory U) to innovation, within your unique context.  Find out more

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Re-Skilling and Upskilling People & Teams

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Re-Skilling and Upskilling People & Teams

GUEST POST from Janet Sernack

The pandemic has increased the pace of change in a digitally accelerated world, and at the same time, it is forcing organizations, leaders, and teams to become more purposeful, human, and customer-centric. Where managing both the future and the present simultaneously requires people to unlearn what has worked in the past and relearn new mindsets and behaviors as to what might be possible, useful, and relevant in the future.

This is crucial to enabling people to perform at their best, and it requires investment in reskilling and upskilling people to be future-fit to meet the needs of previously unheard-of occupations, newly emerging flexible job options. All of which are being transformed by the pandemic, coupled with technologies created by accelerated digitization. Where organizations, leaders, and teams can increase speed, agility and improve simplicity and strategically generate new ways of tapping into the power of and harnessing and mobilizing people’s collective intelligence.

To better enable them to balance and resource organizational digital, agile, or cultural transformational initiatives with the needs of its people, users, customers, and communities, and execute them accordingly.

Collective Intelligence

Collective intelligence is group intelligence that emerges from the collaboration, efforts, and engagement of diverse groups, tribes, teams, and collectives. Which poses a great opportunity, which is also critical to recovery, for organizations to attract, retain, manage and leverage talent  through reskilling and upskilling people to be future-fit by:

  1. Enhancing flexible work options

The recent World Economic Forum Job Reset Summit reported that – “in 2020, the global workforce lost an equivalent of 255 million full-time jobs, an estimated $3.7 trillion in wages and 4.4% of global GDP, a staggering toll on lives and livelihoods.”

McKinsey & Co in a recent article state that – as many as 25 percent more workers may need to switch occupations than before the pandemic.

This means that in a hybrid work environment, without the constriction of location, and with the ability to leverage connection digitally, at little, or no cost, there is a greater talent pool to draw from. Including, according to a recent Harvard Business Review article “What your future employees want most” untapped pools of talent such as the “home force” which includes bringing people back into the workforce including people who put their careers on hold due to raising children, caring for the elderly and retired baby boomers.

It also means that some people will be more likely to prioritize lifestyle (family and personal interests) over proximity to work, and will pursue jobs in locations where they can focus on both – even if it means taking a pay cut. Workers will be more likely to move out of cities and other urban locations if they can work remotely for a majority of the time, creating new work hubs in rural areas.

  1. Measuring the value delivered and not the volume

Designing people and customer-centric work experiences, roles gives people the space to unlock their full potential, maximize their impact by delivering transformative results that contribute to the common good and to the future of humanity.

It also encourages cross-fertilization of creative ideas through teaming and networking, maximizing the power of collaboration and collaborative technologies to create and capture value, through inventing new business models, services, and products that users and customers appreciate and cherish.

  1. Prioritizing continuous learning, reskilling and upskilling

At the same time, customer expectations and preferences are also constantly changing, giving rise and opening doors to new roles and opportunities, that may have never previously existed.

Organizations also need to discover and explore new ways of competing and future-proofing against uncertainty and disruption. They also need to invent new ways of boosting productivity and improving efficiency, through adapting and flexing to flow with the new reality and to ultimately grow and thrive within it.

There are also opportunities to solve complex problems by increasing reciprocity and collaboration through cross-functional partnerships, collectives, tribes, and ecosystems, designed to capture and deliver value co-creatively.

Continuous learning

Reskilling and upskilling people to be future-fit by maximizing collective intelligence require disrupting complacency and stagnation and creating an environment of continuous learning and trust.

Where people are focused on delivering a great customer experience and have the permission and safety and are “allowed” to:

  • Value and leverage differences and diversity in ways that evoke, provoke, and create new ways of being through unlearning, and through relearning to adopt a beginner’s mind, develop a paradox lens, and elastic thinking strategies to pivot quickly into new roles and structures as situations demand.
  • Challenge the status quo, by withholding judgment and evaluation, through developing vital generative questioning, listening, and debating skills to deep dive into and unleash creative and inventive ideas.
  • Continuously learn, to remain both agile and adaptive, collaborative and innovative, to discover, evolve, and grow talent in ways that are both nimble and sustainable.
  • Create lines of sight between strategy, structures, systems, people, and customers, identifying and maximizing interdependencies, through intentional collaboration where everyone knows that their efforts contribute to, and make a difference to the delivery of organizational outcomes.
  • Provide rigor, discipline by driving accountability and by constantly measuring and sharing feedback and results to allow for engaging people in continuous learning, iterative process, and real-life pivots.

Leveraging collective genius

Only by prioritizing reskilling and upskilling people to be future-fit organizations will leverage people’s collective genius and enhance their agility to survive and thrive, flow, and flourish in a VUCA world.

Organizations that are future-focused will create meaningful and purposeful hybrid workplaces that increase peoples’ job satisfaction and support.  That provides flexible work options, continuous learning, and focus on generating value delivery will build people’s loyalty and retention and lower hiring costs over time.

An uncertain future

According to the World Economic Forum Job Reset Summit – “While vaccine rollout has begun and the growth outlook is predicted to improve, and even socio-economic recovery is far from certain”.

Yet, with so much uncertainty about the future, there is one thing that we can all control and is controllable, are our mindsets – how we think, feel, and choose to act in any situation, especially in our communication, problem-solving, and decision-making processes.

All of us have the freedom to choose, to develop our independent wills, and create new ways of being, thinking, feeling, and doing – to meet the needs of a wide range of previously unheard-of occupations that are emerging, to provide more flexible, meaningful and purposeful job options.

To leverage the current turning point, which is full of possibilities and innovative opportunities for enabling organizations, people, and customers to be more equitable, resilient, sustainable, and future-fit, in an ever-changing landscape, impacted by the technologies created by accelerated digitization.

This is the next blog a series of blogs, podcasts, and webinars on Developing a Human-Centric Future-Fitness organization

Find out more about our work at ImagineNation™

Find out about The Coach for Innovators Certified Program, a collaborative, intimate, and deep personalized innovation coaching and learning program, supported by a global group of peers over 8-weeks, starting October 19, 2021. It is a blended learning program that will give you a deep understanding of the language, principles, and applications of a human-centered approach to innovation, within your unique context. Find out more.

Image credit: Pixabay

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Co-creating Future-fit Organizations

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Co-creating Future-fit Organizations

GUEST POST from Janet Sernack

In our second blog in this series of three, we opened the door to a threshold for a new kind of co-creative, collaborative and cohesive team spirit that catalyzes change through “innovation evangelism”. Focusing on building both internal and external talent, through empowering, equipping, and enabling internally cohesive and effective innovation teams.  They apply their collaborative and collective intelligence towards initiating open innovation initiatives co-creating future-fit organizations that are human-centric, adaptive, engaging, inclusive, collaborative, innovative, accountable, and digitally enabled.

Innovation evangelists are change catalysts who courageously experiment with different business models and processes, to crowdsource broad and deep innovation capabilities. Usually in new ways that breakthrough corporate antibodies and barriers and deliver sustainable, meaningful, and purposeful change.  Where, according to the recent Ideascale “Crowd Sourced Innovation Report 2021” “crowdsourced innovation capabilities have grown and innovation output indicators like implementation rate and time to implement have improved. In fact, businesses that were able to rapidly adapt and focus on innovation(in 2020) are poised to outperform their peers in the coming years”.

Innovation teams don’t innovate

The purpose of an innovation team is to create a safe environment that unlocks organizational and its key external stakeholder’s collective intelligence and innovation agility (capacity, competence, and confidence) to build the capability to change as fast as change itself.

Where the goal is to create a high performing, connected, and networked workplace culture where people:

  • Understand and practice the common language of innovation, what exactly it means in their organizational context, as well as exactly what value means to current and potential customers as well as to the organization,
  • Develop a shared narrative or story about why innovation is crucial towards initiating and sustaining future success,
  • Have the time and space to deeply connect, collaborate, and co-create value, internally and externally with customers, suppliers, and other primary connection points to build external talent communities and value-adding ecosystems,
  • Maximize differences and diversity of thought within customers as well as within communities and ecosystems,
  • Generate urgency and creative energy to innovate faster than competitors,
  • Feel safe and have permission to freely share ideas, wisdom, knowledge, information, resources, and perspectives, with customers as well as across communities and ecosystems.

How innovation teams learn and develop

Sustaining success in today’s uncertain, unstable, and highly competitive business environment is becoming increasingly dependent on people’s and team’s abilities to deeply learn, adapt and grow. Yet most people and a large number of organizations don’t yet seem to value learning and adaptiveness as performance improvement enablers, especially in enabling people and teams to thrive in a disruptive world.  Nor do they understand how people learn, nor how to strategically develop peoples’ learning agility towards potentially co-creating future-fit organizations that sustain high-impact in VUCA times.

At ImagineNation™ we have integrated the four E’s of learning at work; Education, Experience, Environment, and Exposure with 12 key determining factors for co-creating future-fit organizations that sustain high-impact in VUCA times through our innovation team development, change, learning, and coaching programs.

Case Study Example

  1. Educational customisation and alignment

After conducting desktop research and key stakeholder sensing interviews, we customized our innovation education curriculum specifically to align with the learning needs of the innovation team.

We aligned the program design to the organization’s strategic imperatives, values, and leadership behaviors, we reviewed the results of the previous culture, climate and engagement surveys, as well as the range of business transformation initiatives. We then applied design thinking principles to “bring to life” the trends emerging, diverging, and converging in our client’s and their customer’s industry sectors.

Focusing on:

  • enabling people to perform well in their current roles,
  • building people’s long-term career success,
  • developing their long-term team leadership and membership development capabilities,
  • laying the foundations for impacting collectively towards co-creating future-fit organizations.
  1. Experiential learning a virtual and remote environment

We designed and offered a diverse and engaging set of high-value learning and development experiences that included a range of stretch and breakthrough assignments as part of their personal and team development process.

Focusing on:

  • encouraging people to engage in a set of daily reflective practices,
  • offering a series of customized agile macro learning blended learning options, that could be viewed or consumed over short periods of time,
  • engaging playful activities and skills practice sessions, with structured feedback and debrief discussions,
  • providing an aligned leadership growth individual and team assessment process,
  • introducing key criteria for establishing effective team cohesion and collaboration,
  • linking team action learning activities and evidence-based assignments to their strategic mandate ensuring their collective contribution towards co-creating future-fit organizations.
  1. Environment to support and encourage deep learning

We aimed at creating permission, tolerance, and a safe learning environment for people to pause, retreat, reflect, and respond authentically and effectively, to ultimately engage and upskill people in new ways of being, thinking, and acting towards co-creating future-fit organizations.

Focusing on:

  • developing peoples discomfort resilience and change readiness,
  • encouraging people to be empathic, courageous, and compassionate with one another, to customers as well as to those they were seeking to persuade and influence,
  • allowing and expecting mistakes to be made and valued as learning opportunities and encouraging smart risk-taking,
  • reinforcing individual learning as personal responsibility and team learning as a mutual responsibility and establishing a learning buddy system to support accountability,
  • offering a series of one-on-one individual coaching sessions to set individual goals and support people and the teams’ “on the job” applications.
  1. Exposure to different and diverse learning modalities

We designed a range of immersive microlearning bots by providing regular, consistent, linked, multimedia learning options and a constantly changing range of different and diverse learning modalities.

Focusing on:

  • providing an informative and targeted reading list and set of website links,
  • setting a series of coordinated thought leading webinars, videos, podcasts, and magazine articles aligned to deliver the desired learning outcomes,
  • outlining fortnightly targeted team application and reinforcement tasks,
  • helping the team to collaborate and set and communicate their passionate purpose, story, and key outputs to the organization to build their credibility and self-efficacy,
  • designing bespoke culture change initiatives that the innovation team could catalyse across the organization to shift mindsets and behaviors to make innovation a habit for everyone, every day.

Collectively contributing to the good of the whole

Co-creating future-fit organizations require creativity, compassion, and courage to co-create the space and freedom to discuss mistakes, ask questions, and experiment with new ideas. To catalyse change and help shift the workplace culture as well as crowdsource possibilities through open innovation.

In ways, that are truly collaborative, and energize, catalyze, harness, and mobilize people’s and customers’ collective genius, in ways that are appreciated and cherished by all. To ultimately collectively co-create a future-fit organization that contributes to an improved future, for customers, stakeholders, leaders, teams, organizations as well as for the good of the whole.

This is the final blog in a series of three about catalyzing change through innovation teams, why innovation teams are important in catalyzing culture change, and what an innovation team does, and how they collectively contribute toward co-creating the future-fit organization.

Find out about our learning products and tools, including The Coach for Innovators Certified Program, a collaborative, intimate, and deep personalized innovation coaching and learning program, supported by a global group of peers over 8-weeks, starting Tuesday, October 19, 2021.

It is a blended and transformational change and learning program that will give you a deep understanding of the language, principles, and applications of a human-centred approach and emergent structure (Theory U) to innovation, within your unique context. Find out more

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

Innovation Teams Do Not Innovate

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Innovation Teams Do Not Innovate

Guest Post from Janet Sernack

In our first blog in this series of three blogs, we reinforced and validated the importance and role of collaboration. We then described the range of emerging new, inspirational, and adaptive models that lean into complexity and catalyze and embed sustainable innovative workplace culture change. Where some organizations, like Alibaba, Disney, Google, Salesforce, and GE, developed their future fitness by courageously investing in catalyzing, igniting, and leading change through innovation teams.

Innovation teams are teams that don’t innovate!

Conventional team collaboration performance and development approaches are still relevant and foundational to long-term organizational success.  And, a new range of organizational needs are emerging in our fast-changing and disruptive world, that complement conventional team development processes including the importance of:

  • Providing a unified and holistic and systemic “collective mind” focussed on adding value to customers,
  • Being agile, focused, and in charge to make faster decisions,
  • Sharing resources and insights to reduce costs,
  • Working interdependencies to improve efficiencies and productivity,
  • Shifting focus from being competitive towards co-creating ecosystems to solve bigger, more complex problems, to lead, embed, and sustain value-adding change in a disruptive world.

According to the authors of Eat, Sleep Innovate, an innovation team is formed to develop “something different that creates value” and do this best in a culture where such behaviors come naturally.

These behaviors include:

  • Curiosity
  • Customer obsession
  • Adeptness to ambiguity
  • Collaboration
  • Empowerment
  • Accountability

Purpose of innovation teams

The purpose of an innovation team is to create an environment that unlocks an organization’s collective intelligence (capacity, competence, and confidence) and builds the capability to change as fast as change itself.

Usually, through providing mentorship, coaching, and learning process in ways that align, engage, enable, equip and leverage peoples’ collective intelligence to:

  • Adapt to higher levels of ambiguity and uncertainty,
  • Challenge the status quo and help break a conventional business as usual habits, leadership styles, and comfortable ways of working,
  • Provoke future “fast forward” (horizon three) thinking,
  • Support the implementation of digital and organizational transformational efforts,
  • Collectively and collaboratively drive innovation across organizations pragmatically and make it a reality,
  • Leverage synergies across ecosystems to solve complex problems and deliver increased value to customers.

Ultimately, to provoke and evoke future “fast forward” creative discoveries and experiment with new platforms and possible future business models to help guide future renewal and reinventions.

Delivering these, as smart and multi-disciplinary teams in ways that are timely, agile, and disciplined that potentially support and bring significant value to customers, the market, and to the organization.

Unconventional stretch collaboration requires connection, cognitive dissonance, and conflict

Experimenting with, iterating, and adapting new collaborative models, enables organizations and their leaders, to shift their focus – from being defensively competitive towards being creatively constructive.

Where the goal is to create a high performing, connected, and networked workplace culture where people:

  • Have the time and space to deeply connect, collaborate, and co-create value,
  • Maximize differences and diversity of thought,
  • Generate the urgency and creative energy to innovate,
  • Feel safe and have permission to freely share ideas, wisdom, knowledge, information, resources, and perspectives.

Innovation teams create discord and generate conflict

At ImagineNation™ we have found that the best way for innovation teams to perform is through building safety and trust, whilst simultaneously being safely provocative and evocative in creating discord and conflict to disrupt peoples conventional thought processes, behaviors, and habits.

To engage people in maximizing differences and diversity to generate creative ideas, and experiment with inventive prototypes, that ultimately solve big and complex problems and deliver commercially astute, innovative solutions.

By connecting, networking, and focussing on co-creation and emphasizing collaboration, inclusion, and mutual accountability, and not on being competitive.

Dealing with the organizational blockers – Innovation teams

At ImagineNation™ our experience has enabled us to understand and reduce the range of key common blockers to transformational and innovation-led change initiatives.

Where we support clients identify, and resolve and remove them by enabling and equipping innovation teams to:

  • Develop agile and innovation mindsets: building capability in safely exposing and disrupting rigid mindsets through customized mindset shifting, behavioral-based, skills development programs.
  • Understand the impact of the organization’s collective mindset: supporting teams to develop an empathic understanding of one another, then shifting how they feel and think to act differently, and cultivate the discomfort resilience when facing the challenges and failures in the innovation rollercoaster ride.
  • Enable leadership development: through educating, mentoring, and coaching leaders to grow their adaptive, collaborative, engaging, and innovative team leadership and membership capabilities.
  • Foster the development of an adaptive and innovative culture: by applying the cultural assessment and diagnostic processes that result in pragmatic culture change initiatives.
  • Ensure strategic alignment: sensing, perceiving, and developing a mutual focus, common language and understanding, and a collaborative networked way of working, that bridges the gap between the current and desired states.

Setting up an innovation team – the critical success factors

At ImagineNation™ we have also helped our clients identify, and embed the critical success factors, that enable innovation teams to drive and embed innovation-led change and transformational initiatives by ensuring:

  • Alignment to the mission, vision, purpose, values.
  • Strategic allocation of resources.
  • Leadership team sponsorship and mentorship.
  • Investment in team members and leader’s capability development.
  • Thinking big and focussing on clarifying and delivering future “fast forward” far-reaching solutions to highly impactful challenges.
  • Organization engagement and enrolment in implementing changes and creating, inventing, and delivering innovative solutions.
  • Lines of sight to stakeholders, eco-system players, and customers, taking an empathic value-adding perspective at all times.

Innovation teams – an unfreezing opportunity to co-create future-fit organizations

Embracing this type of collaborative approach creates an unprecedented opportunity for organizations, who have been upended as a result of the Covid-19 crisis, to develop a sense of urgency toward unfreezing and eliminating their corporate antibodies.

Empathizing with the range of challenges leaders are facing right now, where many are slowly waking up to a post-covid world, where there is an unprecedented and urgent opportunity to co-create a “new normal” that is well-designed to lift any of the emotional barriers to teamwork, locked-down relationships and online fatigue.

Opening the door to a new kind of co-creative, collaborative and cohesive team spirit that allows and encourages people to re-imagine, re-learn, reinvent and co-create new, fresh future fit, adaptive and innovative, people and customer-centric systems, structures, business models, and ecosystems.

All of which are mandatory for delivering future “fast forward” strategies for applying the collaborative and collective intelligence required for increasing value in innovative ways that people and customers appreciate and cherish, in ways we have not previously imagined, that connect with and contribute to, the good of the whole.

Find out about our learning products and tools, including The Coach for Innovators Certified Program, a collaborative, intimate, and deep personalized innovation coaching and learning program, supported by a global group of peers over 8-weeks, starting Tuesday, October 19, 2021.

It is a blended and transformational change and learning program that will give you a deep understanding of the language, principles, and applications of a human-centred approach and emergent structure (Theory U) to innovation, within your unique context. Find out more

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

Overcoming Resistance to Change

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Offering Strategies and Techniques for Identifying and Addressing Resistance to Change, Ensuring Smoother Transitions

Overcoming Resistance to Change

GUEST POST from Chateau G Pato

Change is inevitable in any organization, and yet many leaders find themselves battling resistance when attempting to implement new initiatives. Resistance to change stems from a variety of reasons, including fear of the unknown, lack of trust in leadership, and perceived threats to job security. However, with the right strategies and techniques, leaders can effectively identify and address resistance, leading to smoother transitions and increased organizational success. In this article, we will explore two case study examples to provide practical insights into overcoming resistance to change.

Case Study Example 1: The Sales Department’s Shift to Digital Platforms

In a mid-sized retail company, the sales department was reluctant to embrace digital platforms for customer engagement, despite the clear advantages it offered. Many sales representatives were comfortable with traditional methods and feared that digital adoption would render their roles obsolete. To address this resistance, the leadership implemented the following strategies:

1. Effective Communication: The first step was to communicate the benefits of digital platforms for both the company and sales representatives personally. Leaders explained how digital tools could enhance sales efficiency, generate more leads, and open doors to new markets. Additionally, interactive workshops were conducted to alleviate concerns and answer questions, creating a safe space for open dialogue.

2. Training and Support: Recognizing that resistance often stems from a lack of knowledge or skills, the company provided comprehensive training on digital tools. This training empowered sales representatives with the necessary skills to navigate the new platforms confidently. Ongoing support, including real-time troubleshooting and feedback sessions, further fostered a sense of security among the sales team.

As a result of these strategies, the sales department gradually embraced digital platforms, and their sales performance improved significantly. Representatives recognized the increased potential that digital tools offered, leading to a more harmonious transition and a boost in overall productivity.

Case Study Example 2: Restructuring for Agile Project Management

In a large software development company, a resistance to change emerged when transitioning from a traditional hierarchical management structure to a more agile project management approach. Some employees were skeptical, believing that the new structure would lead to increased workloads, decreased job security, and diminished autonomy. To overcome this resistance, the company employed the following strategies:

1. Empowering Leadership: To gain employee buy-in, the leadership openly communicated the reasons for the change, emphasizing the benefits of increased collaboration, faster response times, and greater innovation. Leaders ensured that team members felt involved by seeking their input and incorporating their ideas into the new structure. This approach helped build trust and alleviate concerns.

2. Pilot Projects: Instead of an immediate, company-wide implementation, the company initiated pilot projects in selected teams. This allowed small groups of employees to experience the benefits firsthand and share their success stories within the organization. By highlighting positive outcomes and lessons learned, the resistance began to diminish.

By effectively overcoming resistance through these strategies, the company successfully transitioned to the agile project management approach. Employees experienced increased job satisfaction, stronger teamwork, and the ability to adapt quickly to changing client needs. The organization as a whole became more responsive, competitive, and achieved higher client satisfaction rates.

Conclusion

Overcoming resistance to change requires proactive strategies to address the fears and concerns that accompany transitions. By implementing effective communication, training, support systems, empowering leadership, and pilot projects, organizations can achieve smoother transitions and garner employee support. The case study examples provided demonstrate the effectiveness of these strategies in tackling resistance to change. Leaders who implement these techniques will not only increase the likelihood of successful change implementation but also foster a culture of adaptability and growth within their organizations.

SPECIAL BONUS: Braden Kelley’s Problem Finding Canvas can be a super useful starting point for doing design thinking or human-centered design.

“The Problem Finding Canvas should help you investigate a handful of areas to explore, choose the one most important to you, extract all of the potential challenges and opportunities and choose one to prioritize.”

Image credit: Misterinnovation.com

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Virtual Keynotes and Virtual Workshops Now Available

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Virtual Keynotes and Virtual Workshops Now Available

The coronavirus (COVID-19) has inflicted untold pain and disruption on individuals, families, businesses and economies all around the world.

But, now that we all are obtaining a clearer understanding of what it means to live and work amongst the reality of COVID-19, people are going back to work (even if still remotely) and companies are turning their attention increasingly back to the future.

Now is the time for event producers and innovation leaders to restart their content pipelines to inspire and empower audiences and employees to stoke their innovation bonfires, plan their transformation journeys, or chart their course for change.

People are more ready than ever to engage with virtual content, and you can save on travel expenses at the same time. Whether we’re speaking about inspirational keynotes or empowering workshops that create new capabilities in the audience or bring teams together to co-innovate using design thinking and other tools, frameworks, and methods.

I would be more than happy to create and deliver a customized keynote or workshop to any audience anywhere in the world, on any of these broad topics:

  • Change
  • Innovation
  • Design Thinking
  • Digital Transformation

Or if want to do your own workshops inside your organization but need a little help transitioning these to the virtual world, I would be happy to assist you with this as well.

For more information, please see my speaker page or contact me.

Keep innovating!


Accelerate your change and transformation success

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The Role of Employee Training and Development in Enhancing Customer Experience

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The Role of Employee Training and Development in Enhancing Customer Experience

GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia

In today’s highly competitive business landscape, delivering exceptional customer experiences has become the key differentiator for organizations across industries. To achieve this, companies are starting to recognize the pivotal role that employee training and development play in enhancing customer satisfaction. A well-trained and motivated workforce can provide better service, build lasting relationships with customers, and create advocates for the brand. This article will discuss the significance of employee training and development in enhancing customer experience, supported by two case study examples.

Case Study 1: Zappos

Zappos, an online shoe and clothing retailer, excels in customer service and is often cited as a prime example of how training and development initiatives can revolutionize the customer experience. Zappos believes that happy employees lead to happy customers, and they invest heavily in employee development programs.

The company’s onboarding process is unique. New employees undergo an immersive four-week training program that covers Zappos’ core values, culture, and customer service philosophies. Call center employees receive intensive training on active listening, problem-solving, and empathy techniques, enabling them to address customers’ concerns effectively.

The training doesn’t stop after onboarding. Zappos follows an open-door policy, allowing employees to access support and training resources whenever needed. The company encourages collaboration and learning through continuous coaching, mentoring, and workshops. By prioritizing employee training and development, Zappos has created a workforce that is genuinely passionate about delivering exceptional customer experiences.

As a result, Zappos receives numerous positive customer reviews and boasts an impressive customer loyalty rate. The company’s success is a testament to the impact employee training and development can have on enhancing the customer experience.

Case Study 2: The Ritz-Carlton

The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company is renowned worldwide for its impeccable customer service and luxury experience. The organization firmly believes that delivering outstanding customer experiences starts with investing in employees.

The Ritz-Carlton takes a unique approach to employee empowerment through a program called “The Ritz-Carlton Mystique.” The program encourages employees to take ownership of their roles and empowers them to make decisions that enhance the guest experience within specific guidelines.

To ensure that employees understand the company’s service values, all new employees, regardless of their position, attend an intensive onboarding program known as “The Ritz-Carlton Experience.” This program instills the service philosophy and standards expected of employees to deliver exceptional customer experiences consistently.

The company also emphasizes ongoing training and development to enhance skills and knowledge. Employees have access to various learning opportunities, including on-the-job training, mentoring, leadership development programs, and continuous performance feedback.

Through these initiatives, The Ritz-Carlton has created a culture that cultivates excellence in customer service. Empowered employees who possess the skills and knowledge to handle any situation efficiently elevate the overall customer experience, leading to exemplary guest satisfaction and loyalty.

Conclusion

Employee training and development play a critical role in enhancing the customer experience in organizations across industries. The case studies of Zappos and The Ritz-Carlton provide compelling evidence of how investing in employees’ skills, knowledge, and empowerment leads to improved customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Companies should recognize that training and development should be an ongoing endeavor, with emphasis placed on understanding customers’ needs, effective communication, problem-solving, and a customer-centric mindset. By prioritizing these aspects, businesses can create a workforce that is equipped to deliver exceptional customer experiences, resulting in a strong competitive advantage.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Braden Kelley’s Problem Finding Canvas can be a super useful starting point for doing design thinking or human-centered design.

“The Problem Finding Canvas should help you investigate a handful of areas to explore, choose the one most important to you, extract all of the potential challenges and opportunities and choose one to prioritize.”

Image credit: Unsplash

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Four Key Skills All Futurists Must Have

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What is a Futurist?

GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia

In the ever-changing world of modern technology, being able to adapt to new trends is essential for success. Futurists are individuals who study the implications of current technological developments, and predict how these technologies will shape the future. As technology continues to advance, the skills that futurists need to remain ahead of the curve are becoming increasingly important.

1. The primary skill of a futurist is the ability to think critically and analytically.

They must be able to analyze data sets and trends, and draw conclusions on how those trends could affect the future. They need to understand the complex relationships between various technologies and industries, and recognize how certain developments could impact the world. Additionally, they must be able to identify emerging trends and technologies, and anticipate how they could alter the landscape in the near and long term.

2. Futurists must also be well-versed in a wide range of topics.

This includes not just technology, but also economics, sociology, psychology, and politics. Understanding the nuances of these topics is important for predicting the future, as all of these fields are inextricably linked.

3. Futurists need to be able to communicate their ideas effectively.

This includes being able to present complex data and analysis in an accessible way, and engaging in dialogue with stakeholders from a variety of backgrounds. Furthermore, a futurist must be able to think outside the box and come up with creative solutions to difficult problems.

4. A futurist must have excellent problem-solving skills.

They must be able to identify potential issues before they arise, and develop strategies to mitigate them. This includes analyzing the potential consequences of certain technological developments and making decisions that will benefit society in the long term.

As technology continues to advance, the skills needed to be a successful futurist will only become more important. By developing these skills, one can stay ahead of the curve and shape the future.

Does your organization employ a futurist?

Bottom line: Futurists are not fortune tellers. They use a formal approach to achieve their outcomes, but a methodology and tools like those in FutureHacking™ can empower anyone to be their own futurist.

Image credit: Pixabay

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Ten Skills Every Futurist Should Have

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Ten Skills Every Futurist Should Have

GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia

As the demand for futurists grows, so does the need for the right skill set. Futurists are employed to provide strategic advice and insights into the future of a particular industry, organization or region. They must be able to assess trends, analyze data, and make predictions about the future. To be successful in this field, a futurist must have a wide range of skills.

Here are ten skills every futurist should have:

1. Problem-Solving: Futurists must be able to recognize and solve complex problems. They must be able to take a “big picture” view and develop strategies to address the issues at hand.

2. Creativity: Futurists must be able to think outside the box and come up with creative solutions to problems. They must be able to think of innovative solutions and approaches to address the challenges they are presented with.

3. Communication: Futurists must be able to effectively communicate their ideas and findings. They must be able to explain their process and results in a manner that is understood by their clients.

4. Research: Futurists must be able to conduct detailed research and analyze data in order to identify emerging trends and patterns. They must also be able to synthesize data to form meaningful conclusions.

5. Networking: Futurists must be able to build strong relationships with stakeholders and industry experts. They must be able to form a network of contacts who can provide relevant information and insights.

6. Interpersonal Skills: Futurists must be able to work with a variety of people. They must be able to collaborate with colleagues, clients and stakeholders to achieve desired outcomes.

7. Business Acumen: Futurists must have an understanding of business principles and processes. They must be able to apply their knowledge of the industry and the organizational context to their work.

8. Critical Thinking: Futurists must be able to think critically, analyze data, and identify patterns. They must be able to draw conclusions and make informed decisions.

9. Adaptability: Futurists must be able to adjust to changing circumstances and environments. They must be able to think on their feet and come up with solutions quickly.

10. Resilience: Futurists must be able to handle failure and setbacks. They must be able to stay focused and committed to their mission despite the challenges they face.

These skills are essential for any successful futurist. By honing and developing these skills, a futurist can become an invaluable asset to any organization.

For more information on what a futurist or futurologist is and does, check out my other articles here:

Bottom line: Futurology and prescience are not fortune telling. Skilled futurologists and futurists use a scientific approach to create their deliverables, but a methodology and tools like those in FutureHacking™ can empower anyone to engage in futurology themselves.

Image credit: Pixabay

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Now Available – Charting Change™ Facilitated Change and Project Kickoffs

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Help Yourself to Successful Projects and Change Initiatives

Too often change management is seen as a subset of project management, causing the people side of change to be an afterthought. Stop it!

Architecting the Organization for Change

Successful organizations plan for change, and so I am extremely excited to announce that people can now get help powering their project or change initiative to a strong start with a facilitated Charting Change™ kickoff event requiring only a very small financial investment that will deliver a large return.

Charting Change™ Facilitated Change and Project Kickoffs include a package of products and services, valued at up to $460,600, for a deeply discounted introductory price:
(contact us for pricing)

  1. Change Readiness Audit (part of Day 1 of 3 on-site) – $5,000 value
  2. Change Saturation Heatmap (part of Day 1 of 3 on-site) – $5,000 value
  3. 20 autographed copies of Charting Change – $600 value

    4. Change Planning Toolkit

  4. Two-Day Guided Change Planning Session (Days 2&3 of 3) – $25,000 value
    • Day 1 – Introduction to the Change Planning Toolkit™
    • Day 1 – Set up the room
    • Day 2 – Conduct the change planning session
    • Day 2 – Change Planning Toolkit™ Q&A
    • Day 2 – Wrapup
  5. Certification of Change Planning Toolkit™ instructors (post-event certification exam)
  6. Change Planning Toolkit™ license (free for six months) – Up to a $425,000 value

TOTAL VALUE = Up to $460,600 for a deeply discounted introductory price
(contact us for pricing)

As part of the package I will fly to your location, work with you to facilitate a change planning or project planning session using the tools from the Change Planning Toolkit™ introduced in my latest book Charting Change, so that your next project or change initiative can be a roaring success and you and your team can become certified Change Planning Toolkit™ practitioners (if desired). If you’d like additional help with your project or change initiative beyond the Charting Change™ Facilitated Kickoff, we can stick with you to provide additional assistance via on-site or virtual support.

FOLLOW-UP SERVICE OFFERINGS

  1. Additional on-site support – by the week
  2. 100 virtual hour support package
    • Can choose a 1-day on-site for the equivalent of 30hrs
  3. Certification Exam

So invest a little in taking a more visual, more collaborative, and well, human, approach to planning your next successful project or change initiative and contact us.


Accelerate your change and transformation success

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