Behaviour

Resilience and agility

Por Viver

Change and biomimicry: dealing with uncertainty in an organic, natural way. Changing is the one certainty in a setting ruled by uncertainty, where developments follow hard on each other's heels. For 70 per cent of people, unfortunately, changing is no fun — and that often brings loss of motivation, resistance, high absence rates and the rest. Resilient organisations make change part of the daily run of things for everyone.

The 5 O change model helps identify the social behaviour of a group, and that behaviour determines which method of change fits. The method gives managers a handhold for empowering staff without running large risks. Communication is tuned to the group doing the work, and standard templates for communication are avoided.

What sits at the centre is the behaviour of staff within a group and the speed at which they act. The 5 O change model sets the frame managers need to understand and influence the roles different people play. Self-organisation is the key to success: that is how everyone stays motivated.

Behaviour

Changing means adapting. Every group or department has its own social system, and within that system people respond to particular stimuli. Biomimicry Consultancy uses the animal model to bring out which behaviour dominates, so the right means can be used to get the group moving. Through Theory U, and by making the experience of change enjoyable, resistance falls away.

The Fun Theory

Modern leadership

Continuous change calls for modern leadership. The leader is subordinate to the result, and facilitates and coaches the people doing the work. Egocentric behaviour gives way to ecocentric behaviour. That changes how reward systems, role profiles and thinking about organisational structure are put together. Above all, leaders step away from risk-averse behaviour, and performing to one's ability sets the tone.

BBC

Flexibility

Changing means flexibility, for processes and systems too. What customers want, what suppliers want and what production systems do will keep shifting faster. Responding to ever more available data, to new techniques and to better ways of communicating calls for a modular approach to change. People are the only ones capable of being agile and resilient. Putting people to work as an asset of the company is what determines the organisation's resilience.

Future Technology

Our approach

Depending on your brief, we go deeper with you and your staff to understand the drivers underneath the question. We call this the exploration phase. What it produces is an analysis of the problem and a plan of approach.

The next step is agreeing the overall design with senior management: what is the intended goal? Once that phase is complete, staff are involved in building the prototype and working the goal out in more detail. As a final step, staff set down a playbook covering who does what, when and how. Each phase has an end product that senior management assesses. That way you keep your grip, while your staff are directly involved from the start — which keeps motivation high and sees resistance fall away.

We work with proven techniques too, of course: brown paper sessions, lean analysis, process flows and so on. What we do differently is involve your staff from the outset, so that they determine how the road is travelled and at what pace. There is more about this approach in the book Firm of the Future 3.8: the resilient organisation.

Examples

We have devised and run a range of change programmes. Here are a few examples:

• At large national and international companies we brought social behaviour and the approach to change into line with each other. As a result, programmes were completed quickly and successfully without resistance worth the name.
• At an independent public body we defined the requirements of modern leadership together with management and drew up a plan of approach. By guiding that step playfully and inventively, using the values compass, the shift was made without insurmountable problems.
• At an energy company we helped think through setting the process up modularly and optimising the separate systems, with people's strengths used to the full.

Would you like to know more about us or our approach? Do get in touch.

Other services

Alongside consultancy we also offer masterclasses and programmes in the field of change:

In-company masterclasses on change and social behaviour, and train-the-trainer formats. Together we put together a programme that fits. Do get in touch for more information.