Articles

The U Journey: Running the Foundation Workshop

This is Part Three of our series on the ‘Explore’ phase of The U Journey to guide an organisation through a transformation.

In Part One we looked at how to set up the Foundation Workshop for success. We considered its purpose, where it fits in the overall U Journey and some social processes required to have the kind of rich conversations which support powerful movement towards the desired future. Now we dive into the activities themselves.

The Foundation Workshop works best when run over two nights and three days. Starting immediately after lunch on day one, the first order of business is to get everyone deeply present in the room. (more…)

The U Journey: Preparing for the Foundation Workshop

How do you mobilise a leadership team around a new way of thinking that will take the organisation to its goal? The process is the U Journey and the springboard is the Foundation Workshop. This article within a series on Theory U looks in more detail at what’s involved in the Explore phase. It all starts with the right preparation.

When you consider the future you would like to bring into being, what is the bedrock on which it rests? To use a construction metaphor, what kind of a building are you creating? How high can it go up, how long will it last and what will be the quality of experience for those building it and then living in it? A strong foundation is the basis of a confident step forward into the unknown frontier of the future you aspire to bring into being.(more…)

How to change: Introducing Theory U

Bringing about deep change in an organisation is hard. Legendary management consultant W Edwards Deming claimed that transformation was simply not possible without profound knowledge: appreciation for a system, knowledge of variation, theory of knowledge and the psychology of people society and change.

With my engineering background, I appreciate the systems view, understand variation, and work within a methodology to come to know what I know. But perhaps the greatest hurdle preventing change is the people part of Deming’s framework. We’re the real challenge. Deming, who died in 1993, was prescient. The last twenty years has brought a revolution in the study of behaviour and motivation and increasingly we’re using hard science to come to understand why we do what we do. But that’s a subject for a whole book. So for now let’s consider the need for change. Is it real? Is it urgent? (more…)

Springboard: The One Thing

The latest in our series that uses the ‘book review’ format as a springboard into a wider conversation about the world of work—and how to do it better.

The ONE Thing, Gary Keller with Jay Papasan
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In my last article, I quoted from the movie City Slickers in reference to how leaders should focus on what they need to do to make a transformative difference to their organisations. In some ways, that was a preview of forthcoming attractions. In this piece, I highlight some pragmatic and inspiring points from a book that will help you focus on what cowboy Curly was pointing to.(more…)

Change up to a Critical Chain Operating System?

In the movie City Slickers, cowboy Jack Palance is riding with Billy Crystal who’s slowly shrugging off a midlife crisis. He asks if Crystal knows what the secret of life is. ‘No, what?’ The old-timer raises his index finger and, pausing for dramatic effect, says, ‘One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and everything else don’t mean shit.’

‘That’s great,’ says Crystal. ‘But what’s the one thing?’

Palance’s reply is classic. ‘That’s what you’ve got to figure out.’
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Here’s a thought experiment. Imagine an organisation about to embark on a major transformation. They’ve done exceptionally well in breaking away from their iconic parent. Liberated from ancient bureaucratic processes, they’ve gone helter-skelter for growth and profits. Their mantras are ‘agile’, ‘can do’ and ‘one team’. They believe in the idea of self-directed teams and celebrate their structure which is much flatter than their parent organisation, although processes are not so much engineered as strung together in a frenzy of ‘fit to ship’. (more…)

Springboard: Leaders and Misleaders

The latest in our series that uses the ‘book review’ format as a springboard into a wider conversation about the world of work—and how to do it better.

Leaders and Misleaders by Andre van Heerden
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Most of us can recall those few gifted teachers who really made a difference in our lives. I was lucky to have Andre van Heerden as my history teacher. For the first two years of high school, he taught me everything from Hammurabi to Napoleon and his way of teaching made any era come to life—in fact, he made learning come alive. Back then, while he was teaching and I was learning, we were both enduring a civil war that saw the end of the racist regime of Ian Smith in what was then Rhodesia and what is now Zimbabwe. One of the great pleasures of 2017 was reacquainting myself with Andre.(more…)