Ignite better organizations through "Change" - new book by Simon Powers

Organization change and transformation programs are painfully hard because it requires a relentless commitment at all levels, and time-to-market can takes years, lack of flow causes stress and low engagement. Since hundreds of thousands organizations are facing challenges. For over an decade, I can't help myself asking the following:

Q1: "is there a better way? there must be a better way!"

A1: "yes, there is."

My aha moment happened one day in Jan 2016 during my Talent Development Program Assignment in Singapore. It was a group of people including business, IT and customers. We talked about the new product strategy, new processes and market feedbacks, where the next day people came up with ideas how to solve customer's problem, it was creative, engaging, fun and fast. At office, feedback loops were closed instantly, a real experience how agile product development works in small teams.

Figure 1: celebrating lunar new year in Singapore with colleagues

In large scale however it becomes less obvious and often with layers of communication, long queue waiting time and hand-offs, during initial phase of scaling agile implementation the year after, I started to doubt if processes or tools are sufficient to drive long lasting change. Here comes the second question:

Q2: "is it enough by installing agile practices and frameworks to drive change?"

A2: "not enough, in order to achieve sustainable business outcomes, we must put people at the core of execution, they must first learn before act when a new concept is introduced"

Thanks to the inspiration of Malte , I started to become interested in ICAgile program. From Dec 2018 to Dec 2021, I went through a 7-step learning journey while practicing at work to become an ICE-EC (ICAgile Certified Expert - ENTERPRISE COACHING). At every phase there were great trainers, but the most inspirational one, was undoubtedly Simon Powers, who is one of the co-creator of the ICE-EC program.

Figure 2: exploring thoughts on AWA Playbook with Simon

Simon is an award-winning world class system coach, leadership coach, trainer and facilitator, he has worked in many industries including banking, financial services, retail, manufacturing, charity, oil and gas, and public sector. He has taught thousands of Coaches, Leaders, and Managers how to make meaningful change. He has helped set the bar for an entire industry of Enterprise Coaches and change agents.

Simon is one of the most amazing people I have ever met, with unbelievable depth of knowledge and great personality. We talked a lot about from cultural mental models to Spiral model.

Figure 3: Simon explained a 600 years of human history on what the key ingredients are for a major shift in organizational redesign in Berlin ICE bootcamp in 2019

Q3: "do organization have the knowledge and competence to outperform by switching to agile ways of working?"

A3: "people have the knowledge, but to unlock the competences and skills, it requires an organizational redesign, and incremental experimentation, change is not telling people what to do, be aware of your bias and ego, act as mirror"

At end of August 2022, he has published the book "Change - A Practioniers Guide To Enterprise Agile Coaching",

Figure 4: New book "Change" - a practioniers guide to enterprise agile coaching

In this book, he has disstilled the essence of"what is agile, what is agile mindset, through the agile onion", article here , so far the best summary that I've seen.

Figure 5: agile onion

In this book, Simon shares his pioneering and original approach to people-led organisational change with innovative new models and tools. By combining Systems Thinking, Systems Coaching, Professional Coaching, and a deep experience of how people face change, Simon offers a way to move forwards with less or no resistance and none of the usual arguments over frameworks and approaches. In the book he took us through 600 years of history and puts into context the current challenges faced today and provides relevant and actionable steps to emergent solutions that empower and include everyone in creating fantastic work cultures that everyone would be proud to work in.?

Q4: "how to guide leaders to change in this journey"?

A4: "leaders are facing cognitive dissonance and tend to make decisions that fit within past beliefs and experiences, but might be?contra productive for?future“

Cognitive dissonance is the state of mind that occurs when you are simultaneously entertaining two or more opposite ideas. This situation is stressful for your brain, so it wants to quickly pick an option to resolve the conflict. Your brain then tries to rationalize the option you chose so you can feel like you made a good decision.

Figure 6: cognitive dissonance by "simple psychology"

The nature of emergence requires us to try things and see what difference they make. We call these experiments, but they are very different that scientific experiments. The book explained the core engine of change is the experiment and what experiments are. Implementing agile through agile ways of working, such as how Newton Cradle works, pick a whole slice of the organization end-to-end and incrementally scale.

Figure 7: Newton Cradle

I would recommend this book to anyone who want their organization to thrive in the face of change but don’t yet know how to do it. It is tailored for enterprise and agile coaches, scrum masters, leaders and their coaches, department heads, HR staff, and any change agents who are fed up with battling for change and instead want to find a collaborative and meaningful approach to create better organisations. This book provides you with guidance, so that you can design the change that help your organization outperform.

Thank you very much to Simon who ignites many people worldwide for creating better organizations through "Change".