Business Agility is a Process of Graduated, Collaborative Creative-Conflict

For organizations to be able to keep transforming in response to or in anticipation of environmental change, we need a culture of business agility. Business agility is co-learning and co-creating with people who bring unique perspectives for the purpose of really understanding the situation (exploring), developing options to solve that problem (experimenting), and then implementing relevant solutions (exploiting). This is a process of creative conflict.

Schumpeter called this entrepreneurial process ‘creative destruction’, or dismantling the status quo to make way for innovation. Business agility and entrepreneurship do not need to ‘destroy’; however, changing something, or creating something new isn’t passive or quiet. There will be conflict. However, conflict can be managed so it is creative and valuable for all stakeholders. We can gradually increase the diversity of perspectives so we can really challenge our individual and collective ways of seeing, being, and doing.

The process of creating valuable, profitable, self-perpetuating growth (WiseGrowth) can be hard, frustrating work. But it can also be a lot of fun if we know how to engage effectively.

Table of Contents

1. Creating Change is a Process of Creative Conflict
2. Creative Conflict is a Graduated, Collaborative Process
3. Developing Collaborative Creative Conflict Competencies
4. Conclusion

Creating Change is a Process of Creative ConflictTo create valuable, profitable change, we need to leverage diverse perspectives so we can challenge ourselves, individually and collectively, for the purpose of generating new insights, more effective ways of doing things, and then finding ways to bring those discoveries to life. This is a process of constructive or creative conflict.

“Breakthrough ideas rarely emerge without diversity of thought and conflict.” 

Linda A. Hill

According to Harvard’s Linda A. Hill, the most innovative companies rely on creative conflict to leverage diverse experiences, thoughts, and expertise. She defines creative conflict as an iterative process based on a ‘healthy culture of listening, inquiry and advocacy’ that includes:

1. Creative-abrasion (exploring) is necessary to challenge and generate ideas, to test beliefs and assumptions so we can uncover root problems. At this stage, it is most important for leaders and teams to build and maintain psychological safety and effectiveness at individual, team, and systems levels.
2. Creative-agility (experimenting) is experimenting, reflecting, and adjusting our ideas to create relevant options that may be completely unexpected.
3. Creative-resolution (exploiting insights) is the selection and implementation of the chosen solutions.

Transforming ourselves and our organizations in response to or in anticipation of environmental change is a process of entrepreneurship – or creative conflict. It challenges the status quo, perspectives, beliefs, identities, expectations, etc, for the purpose of understanding, learning, and creating valuable and profitable evolution.

Creative Conflict is a Graduated, Collaborative Process

Even in well-managed creative conflict, and even with growth mindsets and well-developed competencies, the tensions can get high. To leverage as much diversity as possible, and to create the greatest opportunities for learning, a graduated approach should be taken to involve stakeholders. By gradually expanding the people and perspectives involved, the conflict can be leveraged more effectively, generating greater value each time.

In his HBR article, Robert Verganti suggests graduating the developing and testing of ideas from an ‘inner circle’ to an increasingly broad range of stakeholders.

1. Innovation starts with individual reflection to develop new ideas rationally and intuitively.
2. The ideas are then tested and developed with ‘sparring partners’ who think differently.
3. ‘Radical circles’ are then engaged for group exploration, learning, and alignment.
4. And finally, ideas are explored with outsiders or people who each have unique perspectives relevant to the discussion.

Therefore, each iteration of the entrepreneurial process becomes increasingly challenging.

Developing Collaborative Creative Conflict Competencies

The entrepreneurial process, or creative conflict, is a stressful process, that can also be highly engaging. To ensure we and our stakeholders can engage constructively in the process, we need to focus on developing individual and organizational willingness and abilities.

At the individual level, we need to ensure our interests are largely aligned and engaged with the interests of the organization and other stakeholders, and that we are open and able to engage in the process of transformation by developing our competencies and mindsets including:

• cognitive and body-based competencies are essential so we can learn and unlearn/let go of competencies and personal characteristics (ie identifies, beliefs, etc) that no longer serve us;
• holistic, entrepreneurial, growth, and collaborative mindsets so we are able to engage in creative conflict and transform.

At the organizational or system level, we need to develop a culture of business agility, a culture of collaborative entrepreneurship that is guided by a shared vision, and is supported by resilient leadership and psychological safety so stakeholders are able and willing to working together to create something of value.

Conclusion

Creating valuable, profitable growth requires an entrepreneurial approach or business agility. This is a process of creative conflict: understanding the situation, challenging the status quo and developing approaches that create desired outcomes, and then operationalizing those approaches. It is a very stressful process. Therefore, it is more effective to gradually increase the number of people involved in the process, and to gradually increase the diversity of thought.

Transforming our organizations in the face of change, or in anticipation of change, requires business agility, or a graduated process of creative conflict. This is an entrepreneurial process that we should repeat with an increasingly diverse range of stakeholders.

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How do you develop your ideas? What works for you?

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Breaking through unseen barriers at the individual and organizational levels to improve sustainable performance can be accelerated by working with someone who knows how to navigate the process effectively. Please connect with me to explore how I might be able to help you generate your sustainable competitive advantage so you can create your breakthrough results.

Catarina von Maydell, MBA, works with leaders, individuals, and teams to facilitate sustainable breakthrough performance improvement and growth.

Other articles you might be interested in:

Mindsets:

• Entrepreneurial, Growth, Holistic, and Collaborative  Mindsets

Collaborative & Entrepreneurial Competencies:

• Effectuation, Creative Conflict,  Graduated Creative-Conflict, Creating Collaboration, and the Creator-Coach-Challenger Paradigm

Personal Super-Powers:

• Body Wisdom, Mitigating Bias, and Generating Better Solutions

Leading Change and Transformation:

• Project Management Best Practices, Understanding Our Systems, Thinking Beyond Simple Metrics, and Deming’s 4 Factors of Change 
• Business Agility is About Humans, Human Dynamics in Organizations, 3-Levels of Leadership, Motivating Humans, Fostering Collaboration, Leadership and Resilience, and Psychological Safety