The (12) choices of today, will shape the organization of tomorrow!

'The 12 Ingredients of Agile Organizations’ can help you to develop towards more organizational agility, more meaningfulness & relevance and foster people & value-centric leadership. Especially now -in the middle of the COVID-19 turbulence- is a good time to change the fundamental building blocks of how we organize work.

Here is some food for thought in ‘bite size’ chunks: I will add one of the 12 ingredients every so many days, so this is a living document.

"The choices that we will make today, will shape the organization of the future"

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AGILE WAYS OF WORKING

Ingredient 1: "Stick to the Plan” or “Adjust Along the Way”?

As our circumstances changed drastically, it seems silly to stick to strategic plans, goals & targets drafted in the beginning of 2020, to cling to work procedures designed in the pre-Corona era or try to translate offline work habits 1-on-1 to online (like running from meeting to meeting).

Check for yourself which activities really make sense, add value and work well. What will you definitely bring with you to the 'new reality', what can you better stop doing and what new things will you start doing?

This can be large (shifting direction to stay relevant) or small (stop 'sitting in' meetings/projects where you have nothing to add).

Be brave and clean up the waste in your work habits, processes and 'let go' of things if it prevents you from being relevant!

How often do you ‘adjust along the way’ or do you prefer to 'stick to the plan'?

Ingredient 2: “One big release” or “Small steps & short feedback loops”?

As we are suddenly in uncharted territories and we do not know yet what’s to come and what works well and what doesn’t, we can’t rely on GOOD or BEST practices from previous experiences! Instead we need to be courageous & curious and explore what the NEXT practices are in our new reality.

Working in small steps, a feedback/reviewing moment after each iteration helps us to adjust timely to changes and react on new information & insights. Also: if ‘good is good enough’ are you courageous enough to stop at for example 80% (because the last 20% does not add value to the customer needs)?

Be brave: let go of old ways of working when it does not make sense anymore, assess if the situation asks for ‘the new’ and embrace agile ways of working in your search for what will work and what doesn’t.

Are you working towards one big release (tadááá) or in iterations & short feedback loops?

Ingredient 3: “Top-down Communication“ or “Level Conversations”?

Especially now that we work remotely, it is important that we pay extra attention to clear and intentional communication: is everybody is in the loop, understands what is going on and can speak up what’s on their mind.

A (psychological) safe environment is crucial to this, and is fostered if everybody...

> gets equal speaking time (turn taking);

> feels free to speak up (or is encouraged to do so);

> is listened to/heard (also if you represent the voice of the minority);

> pays attention to the state (of mind) of the other (social sensitivity).

Tip: Do a daily check-in with your team (cameras on!) and ask these simple questions:

* What did you do?

* What are you planning to do?

* Do you need help?

* How do you feel today?

Are you ready to foster a safe work environment with level conversations?

Ingredient 4: "Rely On Best Practices" or "Discover Next Practices"?

Many of us find ourselves in a situation we have never been in before. This can make us anxious and wanting to hold on to what we know. But that is exactly the problem in entering uncharted territories: in many instances holding on to best practices (that worked well in a different context), blocks us from realizing that we might need something emergent, still to be discovered. In these instances experimenting helps: we don’t know yet, so we have to find out!

Tip: Select an obvious topic that needs to be redesigned (e.g. Performance Management), gather a multi-disciplinary team, start with a small step, see what worked and what didn’t by using small feedback loops, learn from that, and take the next step.

The 5-steps of design thinking* (empathize, define, ideate, prototype and test) can help and give you a jump start in experimentation!

Are you ready to take a step into the unknown? ??????

FLEXIBLE ORGANIZING

Ingredient 5: Work with "Functions & Departments" or "Roles &Pizza Teams"

During the first wave of COVID-19 we demonstrated that we are very well capable of quickly and effectively (re)group ourselves in multidisciplinary (pizza) teams: organized around issues that needed immediate attention.

There was no room for sub-optimization, project tourism, and other irrelevant ways of working that we embraced and accepted as ‘normal’ in working in hierarchical structures.

Talent was distributed (top-down) or people distributed themselves (self-organizing) to those ‘pizza plates’ where they could best add value. We did what needed to be done and made bold and brave decisions!!

How can we hold on to working in these connected, agile, multi-disciplinary pizza teams?

Tip: Start small, encourage people to work part of their time in pizza coalitions, slowly making this the preferred way of working.

Do you take this opportunity to redesign the organization?

Ingredient 6: Is your organization governed by "Hierarchical Leadership & Decision Making" or "Contextual Leadership & Consent Decision Making"?

If we want teams to respond quickly and adequately to changes, hierarchical leadership & decision making can cause loss of speed. You might not only loose precious time, you also miss the opportunity to have the best person in the lead, loss of ownership from team members (there is always somebody higher up in the organization who has the final responsibility) and potential ‘blind spots’ that may lead to less effective decisions/outcomes.

How to ‘fix’ this?

? Work with Contextual Leadership > Depending on the context - type of work, phase of the project, stable/unstable environment) somebody else will lead;

? Listen to the Voice of the Minority > Use the voice/wisdom of the minority (Deep Democracy) to sharpen/complement the decision of the majority (so no crucial information is overlooked and everybody is included);

? Embrace Inclusive Decision Making > Autonomous teams need alternative forms of decision making (non-hierarchical), for example Consent Decision Making (not to confuse with Consensus: Consensus= everybody agrees, Consent= nobody disagrees).

Tip: Check this explanatory video about Decision Making in Sociocracy.

Is the governance in your organization designed for the future?

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Ingredient 7: Personal Connections & Digital Tools will follow soon!