Author: simongterry

Change Management Institute – CMI Disrupt Conference 11-12 November

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The following Q&A was prepared for the CMI Disrupt Conference in Sydney and London on 11-12 November

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Conference Speaker – Simon Terry disrupts

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What does the future of change look like?

The power of digital disruption is in its power to leverage learning at scale and speed. If we consider our stakeholders as individuals, who we work with and learn from, things change radically. We need to start to apply these new ways of working throughout our organisations.

Are we being replaced by robots?

Automation and mechanisation have been disruptive throughout human history. But in the past, people were only considered inputs to production. But now we have real alternatives. Enabled by digital tools, we can focus on creativity to realise human potential. That’s shifting the game, from one of simple mechanical efficiency to human effectiveness.

How do we change our approach?

Start small. Start now. Start at the edges, with change agents, positive deviants inside and outside the organisation. Look out for rapid and dynamic influences which force change. Adapt and be accountable. Work with and through your people.

JOIN the conversation on Twitter #cmidisrupt

The Network Always Subverts the Hierarchy

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Human relationships are flexible and driven by shared information, influence, trust and other personal dynamics. These dynamic relationships will subvert any formal fixed hierarchical relationships.

We see the fixed relationships of the hierarchy. We obsess about their nominal power. What we don’t see is how the network wins slowly through human relationships. Networks of information, influence and trust shape how the hierarchy behaves:

  • Want a positive decision from the CEO? You know who to lobby to influence his or her opinion.
  • Want to know why some customers can get what they want? Look for their networks and connections into your organisation and into competitors.
  • Why do all employee emails leak within minutes? Look for the gossips and informal relationships outside the organisation.
  • Want to know why some are promoted over others? Look for the networks of previous experiences, trusted relationships and reputation helping careers along.

As soon as a new hierarchy is created or control processes are tightened, human nature starts subverting its effect in the name of relationships of information, trust and influence. The rational slowly yields to the relational. The network wins in the end because it leverages the human social process of decision making. 

Fighting the influence of networks makes life less human. Embrace them as a part of any hierarchy.

Partisan

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‘Noun: strong supporter of a party, cause, or person…adjective: prejudiced in favour of a particular cause’. Oxford dictionary

Increased connection can bring us together with diverse others. However, they can also make it easy to find and form cliques with those who think like us. Networks can make it easier to be partisan.

The difference between the two outcomes comes down to our willingness to test our ideas and to learn. If we seek confirmation of our views from networks, we will find a niche of other like minded folk to act as echo chamber. The reinforcement we receive runs the danger of causing greater disconnect from reality as we become surer in our beliefs.

If we want the benefits of networks to make us more effective we must be prepared to learn and put our beliefs out for testing in action. Networks that simply confirm our knowledge and beliefs will rarely add value other than a smug sense of satisfaction. We will rightly question the value of participation.

We need to be open to new facts and new experiences in the network. If we respect the views of others and seek to understand, we may not change our opinions but we will be open to changing our prejudices and remaining connected to others and reality.

The Self-aware Self

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A key part of the value of the quantified self is awareness. We know how to coach ourself when we give ourselves enough purposeful attention.

I’ve been travelling for work recently. Being away from home has put out my usual diet. I just didn’t have my usual options or as much ability to cook. Feeling the effects, I decided recently to start tracking my meals using the Fitbit app. I wanted to know what I was eating.

There were three quick lessons from this experience:
– the Hawthorne effect works: just being aware I was recording my meals ( with no cheating) helped me make better choices.
– after a few days I realised I didn’t need to know the data. If I concentrated on what my body was telling me, I knew whether I was hungry, when I had enough and what I shouldn’t eat. If I listened closely to those messages I could make better decisions without data.
– I enjoyed eating more, because I noticed what I was eating.

A big part of the value of the quantified self is helping us become more self-aware. We all benefit when we step out of busy distracted mode. There can be great value in novel insights from data. Usually, our problems are much simpler. We don’t need machines to tell us things we know but don’t do. We need to learn how to be more present and how to better coach ourselves.

Expertise in the Way

Posted on by simongterry in Learning

Clients often say something to me along the lines of ‘I don’t want to offend you, after all, you’re the expert, but I think we might need to change this recommendation’. I am not offended. I am relieved. I can’t possibly know everything about their problem and circumstances.

Their ideas and knowledge improve mine. I am learning. We are learning together. We can’t let expertise get in the way of mastery.

The advantage of Big Learning approaches in organisations is that they break down the barriers that form around expertise. When an expert says no, trying to move forward can be hard because of both the reactions of other less expert stakeholders and because the expert has now invested ego in blocking.

Shifting the focus to gaining new external perspectives, testing ideas in practice, learning more or experimentation can be a great way to validate all opinions but judge on results. The learning from the tests will move everyone forward. Momentum is your friend.

An expert who doesn’t want to pursue mastery used to be an expert. Never let expertise get in the way of learning more through work.

The Mindfulness of Working Out Loud

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‘Pay attention in a particular way – on purpose in the present moment and non-judgementally’ – Jon Kabat-Zinn 

Reinforcing loop

Mindfulness and working out loud go hand in hand. John Kabat-Zinn’s definition of mindfulness echoes many discussions of working out loud. We need to be purposeful. We suspend judgement. We focus on what we are doing now. Working out loud is one practice that helps bring a mindful approach to work. 

Working out loud can bring many of the same benefits of mindfulness practices too. In addition to helping us to learn, working out loud improves our openness, generosity, acceptance and curiosity by keeping us in this moment and asking us to practice these very challenges. 

Working Out Loud to Be More Mindful

 
Challenging ourselves to be purposeful in work and to share that purpose with others can help our mindfulness as we go about work. 

Being present in the moment through working out loud helps us to see new opportunities. We begin to see limits to our expertise. We see the value of others. We are guided to see the doors we fly past in the busy challenges of work.  

Sharing that which is incomplete takes a willingness to surrender judgement. We need to turn off all our past issues and our future concerns and share now. Focusing on being present without judgement in our work offers powerful opportunities to learn, to adapt and also to connect to others with new depth.

In busy work lives, mindfulness that can keep us present, open and connected is important to our health and success. The habit of Working out loud can be a part of that practice.

Execution is a Big Learning challenge

Posted on by simongterry in Future of Work, Learning, Strategy

‘Vision without execution is just hallucination’ Thomas Edison

Vision & strategy is nothing without execution. Execution is often presented as a challenge of discipline. However the discipline at the heart of great execution is learning. Organisations need to use Big Learning systems to adaptive lay execute their strategy

Vision & Strategy are Hypotheses

The PowerPoint deck might land on the desk with a reassuring thud. The tables of data, the charts and the pictures explaining the vision and strategy are impressive. No matter how excited your strategy team is their plan is just still a guess.

Competitors don’t sit still. Customers are fickle. You underestimated the effort. You over estimated the upside. Reality is always different when you execute a strategy. Local leaders need to adapt the strategy to the reality they must tackle.

Organisations have tried to enforce stronger execution discipline to prevent this adaptation. They worry that the fragmentation of approach will cause issues. However a disciplined execution of a strategy that is not fit doesn’t add any value and can be disastrous. The learning opportunities for the organisation are lost.

Learning and adapting in coordinated ways throughout the organisation is the art of Big Learning. If your vision and strategy can’t adapt to reality, it is still a hallucination, no matter how widely it is shared. Organisations need to focus less on the discipline and more of the coordination of learning throughout the organisation. Finding effective adaptations and proofs of the strategy at work, changing to align and sharing them widely is what brings a vision to life.

Break Patterns

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Humans are a pattern making species. Give us a chance to do something twice and we will make a pattern of it. These patterns influence how we see the world. Rote pattern following causes us to miss opportunities and insights. 

Break your patterns. You will discover a new world. 

Walk a different way. Reorder your icons. Adopt a new habit. Change your diet. Start from a different perspective. Ask a new question. Change the order of steps or drop one. 

Break patterns can be disconcerting and uncomfortable. That feeling is called learning. 

The biggest threats and opportunities are in the grey where the patterns no longer apply. Test yourself there it is where you add most value. 

The Four Capabilities of a Social leader

Posted on by simongterry in Collaboration, Future of Work, Leadership

Senior executives need new mindsets and new capabilities to be effective in the networked work of the future. Four capabilities will help e executives make the most of their networks:

Personal Knowledge Management: Personal Knowledge Management gives executives the personal learning skills to manage the flow of information and to deepen their personal networks. As executives personally learn to Seek>Sense>Share they develop critical digital skills for network leadership.

Working Out Loud: Working out loud is a practice that helps surface the value of work and learning in networks. Leaders are already the focus of attention. Making their work in progress visible to others is a highly valuable step because it accelerates trust and learning.

Leading in Networks: Network leadership requires leaders to surface shared purpose, build trust and influence and enable collaboration. Expertise, rank and orders are replaced with adaptive leadership techniques that manage learning, tension & alignment.

Creating Value in Networks: Leaders need to be able to set a strategy for their and their team’s engagement with networks. They need to be able to accelerate the maturity of value creation in those networks as they develop through Connect>Share>Solve>Innovate.

Developing leader’s practice of these key capabilities will enhance their effectiveness in enterprise social networks and the future of work.