Creating and Using Positive Turbulence

Stan’s book Positive Turbulence yields a deep dive into the concept and dynamics of PT and includes strategies for increasing receptivity to Positive Turbulence, developing Positive Turbulence in teams, and managing Positive Turbulence. In this sections, we extract what we call the top ten tips for creating and using Positive Turbulence.

A company can’t be creative when it employs a group of homogenous people. Creativity and innovation come from putting unlike people (and their ideas) together. To compete globally, our people must seek out different perspectives.

– R. Sohlberg, VP, Norsk Hydro 

1. Pay Attention to the Periphery. Most organizations have a natural boundary that exists between what we consider to be part of the organization and what we consider to be outside the organization. This boundary helps demark the periphery. What is going on outside your organization by definition comes in contact with your organization at its periphery. The periphery is outside the firewall of your organization and is the source of advance information on the trends of change. Residing out on the periphery of the awareness of individuals, teams, and the organization are ideas and experiences that have the potential to revolutionize what is within. In our experience, the amount of time spent out on the periphery is proportional to the amount of creativity and innovation you find. You can be intentional about increasing the interchange of ideas and flow of information across organizational boundaries to create Positive Turbulence. For individuals, this can be stimulated simply by reading outside your field of expertise, traveling and living in new countries, or driving a new way to work in the morning and in each setting being truly open to what you experience and harvesting insights. Out on the periphery leaders must move from an analytic mindset and framework to one of pattern recognition and blended intuition. When framing this information know you must take low amplitude, low frequency, static filled signals from the periphery and give them the potential for meaning and usefulness in the organizational context. We should not dismiss this turbulence as disruptive and tipping you out of your comfort zone – you ignore this information at your peril. Further on the organizational level, we can work to ensure groups and individuals are open to off-center perspectives, seek to open innovation and strategic thinking to outside influence and collaboration, and broaden knowledge and experience through formal and informal learning programs and experiences.

2. Encourage Nonlinear Thinking. While linear thinking is predictable and controllable, it works against the benefits of Positive Turbulence. We suggest that individuals and organizations explore, encourage, and reinforce broader ways of thinking to include design thinking (a fresh approach to problem solving and innovation), orbital thinking (an indirect way of learning associated with the arts), storytelling (especially from other cultures), and other kinds of nonlinear thinking. We know for example, that children are natural nonlinear thinkers, and that much of our schooling is designed to shift them from more novel and unexpected ways of seeing the world to more expected and “correct” ways to think and behave. Some of the most creative children share experiences and perspective growing up that we should consider as re-training ground for Positive Turbulence in our organizations. These include early granting of unusual freedom, frequent moves living in different cities and preferably around the world, an abundance of effective adults around as role models, and the expectation that children will act independently but responsibly. What are the adult parallels for our own organizations? To further encourage nonlinear thinking in our organizations, we should encourage cross-fertilization in teams, create safe spaces for encouraging free-ranging Ideas, and find ways to fund travel and diverse experiences.

3. New Patterns of Communication. There are many forces that act to insulate our organizations and drive us to predictable patterns of thinking and behavior and we know that the periphery is a source of turbulence to help disrupt complacency and expected thoughts and behaviors. Much of this is driven by the communication patterns that we establish and reinforce. By paying attention to communication and making subtle changes, we can enhance Positive Turbulence. Combining communication and the periphery, we can facilitate the flow of outside information inward by utilizing outside experts, and in the emerging gig economy, employees that are more transient and less grounded in any on organization or team. Both kinds of individuals carry with them new ideas, new ways of thinking, and new skills that can disrupt patterns that can be less helpful. Broadly, we can implement and reward structures that compel managers and employees at all levels to communicate with each other and inject novelty as appropriate. We know that workers in our new economy are more mobile and while this threatens knowledge management and corporate secrets and IP, this flow has advantages. We can enhance the flow within reason by systematically recruiting people from other companies and industries to introduce other perspectives. Even further, training programs in diversity and interdisciplinarity helps drive Positive Turbulence. Finally, elevating creativity in our cultures signals open exchange of novelty and fresh ideas. When creatives rub up against traditional organizational cultures and bureaucracies, it limits communication, expression, and idea exchange. We should find places for creative people and support them in their efforts, even if at times their work and outcomes may not perfectly fit traditional expectations.

4. Embrace Change and Diversity. There are so many forces in our organizations that induce regularity, stability, and norms and while they help organizations function, they dampen the benefits of Positive Turbulence. We tend to select and train our organizational members based on sameness, fit, and matching skill sets with needs. These processes, while supportive of functions and specific job duties, all limit diversity and protect us from change. The natural processes of growth, evolution, and change help our organizations evolve and respond to new conditions, markets, and technologies, yet we more often act to suppress these considering them instabilities or negative forces. By seeking to maximize diversity and embrace change and use it to thrive, we can reap the benefits of turbulence. On the individual level, we should help others develop their powers of receptivity and reciprocity. Over time, the cumulative effects shift organizational culture and help us foster tolerance of ambiguity and invite multiple perspectives. From the richness of a culture open to change and desirous of diversity, we can create a environment ready for and embracing of Positive Turbulence. 

5. Open Flow for the Arts and Technology. As a culture, we are biased toward the latest and greatest technologies and tools, but deep down we know that our tolerance for new ideas is not as great as it could be. Adoption of new ideas, tools, and technologies starts slowly and as word spreads and success mounts, growth accelerates until the need starts to saturate. Over time, the adoption of new ideas, tools, and technologies slows dramatically and a saturation point arises, eventually the desire for the ideas or technology wanes and slows to a trickle or stops. We can use our knowledge of these adoption cycles to enhance Positive Turbulence. Our work should be targeted at both ends – first at the beginning of the cycle, we can help open our organizational systems and individual members to new technologies and fresh approaches by lowering the cost of entry, supporting risk and failure, and opening flow from the periphery. Then at the other end of the cycle where we see ideas saturating, we can find ways to repurpose tools and thinking, or to expedite their exodus from our systems, creating opportunity for replacement by new ideas, tools, and technologies. A complementary approach is to leverage the arts and blend the methods and mindsets from the creative fields to help aid our tolerance of risk, how we tell stories and use metaphors, and see the future (for more on this see The Role of the Arts in Strategy Crafting). By using and combining the arts and technologies, we can better open our cultures to turbulence and keep it producing positive outcomes.

6. Bring Positive Turbulence to Teams. One of the most valuable and effective approaches for Positive Turbulence, and a great starting point for the novice, is to bring PT to teams and working groups. For the team manager or leader, there are some recommendations for building and growing teams: maintain a diverse membership, promote informal information exchanges, and seize opportunities for cross-fertilization. Positive Turbulence in teams can be stimulated further by breaking up long-term membership of teams by inserting members with new experiences, personality types, skills sets and disciplines, and roles. We have found that there are four key points of leverage for Positive Turbulence in teams. Freedom: Do people have time to discuss new ideas? Is there a perception that ideas will be considered? Is there a framework for including the initiatives of groups and/or individuals? Is there an expectation to be creative? Challenge: Do people feel responsible for thinking of better ways to do their jobs? Does management know what motivates employees? How satisfied are people by the work they do? Is the task intrinsically motivating? Encourage: Are people encouraged to take risks even if they may fail? Think of the last time someone made a mistake - what happened? When something goes wrong on a project, what is the first reaction of those on the responsible team? How frequently and for what purpose does senior management visit with individuals and/or groups? Resource: Do the resources available provide a competitive advantage? How easily are budgets approved? Does anyone have discretionary funds available to try new ideas? To what level down in the organization do these funds extend? Have groups and/or individuals ever asked for and received special funding after a project began?

7. Keep Turbulence Positive. We have learned that since turbulence is unavoidably dancing in every organization’s periphery, why not stir the turbulence around you into your organization as an agent of self-renewal and constructive change? Be proactive. Renew your industry and your organization by using the turbulence around you to create the capacity to continually renew and keep turbulence positive. Just as turbulence can light our individual and organization fires, it can douse the flames just as easily exposing us to the negative effects of turbulence. Keeping turbulence positive is a three step process that never seems to end. Initially, we need to become adept at recognizing turbulence (step one) and then learn how to continually connect cause with effect (step two), qualifying the outcomes of turbulence along a spectrum from wholly negative to positive. The final step is becoming a co-creator of turbulence and favoring the positive kinds, while suppressing the negative kinds. This is no simple feat and we do not have a recipe. It is an art as much as a science, a pathway that you choose to walk down. It get easier the further you journey and share your stories with others.

8. Manage the Intensity of Turbulence. What are the structures or processes that can be put in place that allow all levels of the organization – the individual, the team, and the organization – to interact with novelty? Assume the individual or the team knows his or her area of expertise and that expertise just needs to be exposed to novelty. This marriage produces a novel association and therefore a creative idea for the person or team or an innovation in the case of an organization. All of these interactions have a degree or intensity as experienced by the individual and the team. Too much turbulence and we tend to get more negative than positive outcomes. Not enough turbulence and we can see so effects at all. Managing the intensity of turbulence is an even finer art than simply keeping it positive, but the two interact. Every organization at every time has a certain amount of turbulence it needs to capture and utilize to make successful progress towards its destination. Our challenge as leaders or agents in our organizational systems, is to try to create the right amount, to manage the intensity, and to keep it positive. The good news is that we have some simple levers to help us do this. For our leaders, we can seek to balance their training and development with both creativity and management skills. In our processes, we can seek to balance balance idea generation, with prototyping, with implementation and ensure we have ways to learn about each along the way. In our physical and virtual working spaces, we can seek to balance the simple with novel, create informal meeting spaces, and be open to surprise.

9. Ensure Periods of Renewal. Positive Turbulence creates an environment that upsets the status quo of an organization and that results in change. The paradox is to invite an energizing, disparate, invigorating, unpredictable force into your organization so that you can use its chaotic energy to direct patterns and cycles of continuous change and renewal. Change is difficult and it has consequences on individuals, teams, and the organization as a whole. While necessary to maintain alignment with the broader ecosystem in which we are embedded and operate, constant turbulence can be intolerable and lead to the demise of our organization. To fight this fatigue it is critical to promote continual health and ensure periods of renewal. Renewal can be resting, taking a break from change, in the form of vacations, retreats, and simply a period of time where things are not changing very fast. However a more sophisticated form of renewal is enhanced and accelerated learning. One approach is to embed a feedforward learning cycle in the organization. We are all aware of feedback, being reflective about past experiences and using this awareness to guide future behavior and outcomes. The feedforward learning cycle is a method for Positive Turbulence. This involves pre-sensing emerging futures and working to respond, assimilate, and accommodate possibilities that are not yet fully apparent in our organizations and our environments. This is a fundamental concept in the Futuring method and using PT for strategy. More on this later.

10. Be Intentional About Positive Turbulence as Strategy. Few but the most crafty leaders and organizations have formal processes in place to create and manage Positive Turbulence. We advocate, however, that all organizations become practiced and intentional about using Positive Turbulence as a strategy for organizational development and change. This likely happens in stages and initially the early stage is simply, and playfully, experimenting with the recommendations we offer here. Beyond the initial experimentation, a characteristic of more robust strategy is evidenced by sparking synergy among employees. Stage two, sees organizational members starting to do it on their own, either intentionally or unintentionally. It is a sign that the culture is beginning to be impacted. Latter stages may include more formal organizational structures such as establishing channels for overseeing turbulence, solidifying managerial support for Positive Turbulence, and eventually setting up the Office of Positive Turbulence (ok, we are completely kidding about that last one). In the end, we know, like it or not, in today’s organizations we create what we measure. Positive Turbulence can be tracked in organizations measured by these four (or more) elements: 1) difference, breaking out of the status quo; 2) multiple perspectives, inviting divergent viewpoints and nontraditional interpretations; 3) intensity, keeping the speed, volume, and force of the turbulence at an optimal level for change; and 4) receptivity, by providing mechanisms for individuals to thrive in an environment driven by Positive Turbulence.