If you ever walk in your local park at the weekend, you might notice something remarkable: many dog owners resemble their dogs, or dogs seem to take on the characteristics of their owners. A heavy, slow-walking dog almost invariably accompanies an older person walking heavily and slowly through the park. This is matched by branded athletic gear-clad younger people fast walking or running through the park with their slim, lithe dogs dancing at their heels. This is somewhat inevitable. If you spend enough time in the company of one another, dogs and owners begin to acquire each other's characteristics.
In much the same way, people take on the cultural characteristics of the organisation they work for. Employees begin, unconsciously, to absorb the values, behaviours, language, or dialect of their chosen employer and exemplify everything that the employer stands for. This can be very positive, but it can also be harmful because bad behaviour gets amplified, or a lack of agency becomes passive acceptance among employees.
If people have been told that their views don't count, when there is a crisis, they will sit back and wait for something to happen or for someone to tell them what to do. In a proactive and semi-autonomous culture, the same workers spring into action without hesitating and try to resolve the problem.
In the face of this onslaught of challenging complexity, we need a new kind of leadership and a new response from the workforce.
Work in a BANI world
We now talk about the BANI world. Our society is brittle, anxious, nonlinear, and incomprehensible. While this expression has replaced VUCA, it hasn't replaced the characteristics of a VUCA world. The randomness of BANI has just been added to the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity! This is a lot for individuals and their organisations to handle.
In the face of this onslaught of challenging complexity, we need a new kind of leadership and a new response from the workforce. This renewal is necessary not to boost profits and accelerate the business away from the competition, but a fundamental paradigm shift for survival. Any organisation that does not take this required shift seriously or thinks it won't impact them is operating on borrowed time.
Solving your organisation's wicked problems
These changes manifest at the government level, reflecting global shifts in political allegiance, political systems, and instability in the world order. They subsequently cascade down into local uncertainty, tariff impositions, and general malaise.
Organisations find it challenging to determine where they will be in five years. What types of individuals will a reconfigured organisation require, and how will they cultivate the necessary skills? What core competencies will they need to acquire moving forward? These questions cannot be answered merely by using data or projecting the present into the future. They present challenges so complex they are often referred to as ‘wicked problems’. A wicked problem is one that lacks a clear, correct, or best answer. At times, attempting to resolve a wicked problem creates even more difficulties in its aftermath.
This is where the power of connectivity, productivity and organisational trust come to the fore. Wicked problems are best solved by diverse groups of people, empowered to work together, to share ideas and agree on the best strategy in a climate where every decision is an experiment, and every experiment has to be reviewed.
This is about iteration, being sensitive to external data, and applying an awareness of early warning signs and weak signals. No CEO on this earth has the power or capacity to deal with all these issues on their own. An endeavour like this is a collective responsibility requiring the collective intelligence of the whole organisation, which not many organisations are well-equipped to tap into.
Wicked problems are best solved by diverse groups of people, empowered to work together.
The Great Reset
My book on organisational learning, "The Great Reset", attempts to address this issue and points to the necessary structural changes for organisations to remodel themselves to cope in this different age. I would argue that nothing could be more critical or urgent.
These are big, sweeping generalisations, and the tasks at hand may seem overwhelming. What should you do if you recognise the challenge but do not know where to start? This article is the start of an answer to that question.
If you rebuild an organisational culture it will eventually result in workplace behaviours, attitudes, and reactions that enable an organisation to adapt to any circumstance.
So, those people and their dogs in the park on a Saturday…? They do not point to a depressing, fixed worldview where we inevitably end up in a particular place with particular ways of working. But they do highlight that any necessary change will take consistently applied effort over time. We need to know how to cope with this new environment and build organisations that remain fit for purpose despite these changes, and it starts with people.
Reflect on these 10 questions to begin your journey to resilience
These 10 reflective questions will help you form the basic building blocks for moving forward.
- How can you empower teams as well as individuals?
- How do you make asking for help a key part of learning, and an acceptable part of the culture?
- What strategies can you use to get small groups working on the organisation's critical problems?
- Do you have online and/or face-to-face spaces where small groups can quickly coalesce?
- How much autonomy do you allow? Could this be increased?
- Have you asked your people what gets in the way of them doing good work?
- Do you know what the fundamental irritants in your organisation are that slow down productivity?
- What can you offer to make work more varied and interesting?
- What are the leading indicators that will demonstrate the organisation is moving forward?
- Have you done enough fieldwork in your organisation to know the answers to questions 1 - 9?
Based on comprehensive research and fieldwork, the ethos of The Great Reset puts people at the heart of all systems. Engaged people are more productive, and connected people are more resilient and can come up with potential solutions faster.
