Creativity, Gardening And Cookery – Envisioning The Future

The traditional change process excludes creativity

Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter said “a clear destination is necessary to guide the journey of change. Many change efforts falter because of confusion over exactly where everyone is expected to arrive.”

Of course, we don’t always know what our final destination is. However, answering a series of questions can help us decide where we want to go and provide easy steps for getting there.

What problem are we trying to solve?
What’s the current situation?
What are our ultimate objectives?
What needs to change to meet your objectives?
What process should we employ?

Stop right there!

There is a better way

Can you see something wrong with this course of action? It is a traditional change process that has been taught on many a management course over the last 2 decades or so. The above was actually billed as ‘envisioning the future’ but in reality it is simply ‘bending the organisation to fit’

So what about the future, how do we envision it, create it and share it? There is a longer article in the pipeline but here is a summary.

The traditional methods imply a big change, going from here to there, a long or tough journey that not everybody feels is worth it. Also the journey is often forced upon us. In the embryonic creative organisation there is no journey, except through time. Instead of steps we are building an environment (think of a children’s den as a metaphor). We think of capability and opportunity and have a feeling about our new environment, but we have no concrete objectives. Because we value capability we visualise what can be done, not what engineering can be done on our organisation to make it fit our ideas for the future.

We are living in a world full of ambiguity here. What are our values, do we have a structure, have our roles changed? The only constant is change – but not as we know it.

And finally what process do we employ? A mixture of cookery and gardening!

The Workplace of Tomorrow

Is there an ideal workplace?

Despite all of the predictions of a futuristic workplace we all seem to inhabit vastly different offices and factories. So will there ever be a workplace where everything is ideal? What actually will the workplace of tomorrow look and feel like? The answer is probably not because of the compromises that must exist. But it is likely to offer flexibility and empowerment to the people that work within it. Such a place must try to accommodate the requirements of the business (usually in line with commercial stakeholders) and those of employees (and social stakeholders).

These fall into 3 main areas:

1. The organisation, Leaders and Managers
2. Employees
3. Working environment

Roles will change

Leaders and Managers will find their roles changing. They will be the ‘senior citizens’ of the organisation and will no longer exert influence through power and hierarchies. Influence will be through their experience, knowledge, wisdom and vision for the future. These senior citizens may very well have portfolio careers (a term used often by Charles Handy). They may work for more than one organisation. They will exert influence but with less cost than the full time management of old.

Employees are the citizens, still able to contribute knowledge and experience but not to such an extent. Contracts of employment may very well be zero hour i.e. employees will not be contracted for a minimum period of employment per week. Instead, their efforts will be summoned on demand. Perhaps 30 hours one week and 40 the next (or none). This will give businesses flexibility but could also leave employees some freedom to create valuable IPR in their time off as a trade off for the new contracts.

The working environment

The working environment is perhaps the thing that we are currently closest to. Efficiency dictates some sort of hot desking, perhaps hot desking with feeling so that the immediate working environment is not sanitised and can be decorated or personalised. With a distributed workforce, a certain amount of sickness absence and site visits, we no longer need the amount of office space that we did in the past. Making such environments ‘modular’ also means that we can add or subtract capacity easily.

The name of the game in the future is compromise and flexibility on the part of all parties.

Undercover Boss – would you try it?

Many readers will have seen either Undercover Boss or Undercover Boss USA where the boss goes undercover, working with frontline staff to see how the business is really performing. I’m sure that these companies are selected for their entertainment value but they do throw up some real issues.

In many cases the businesses are not performing but the bosses seem not to be playing the blame game. They realise that in many cases head office is a little out of touch. What they do seem to get though is that if they support their staff then they will get the best out of them. They then stand a fighting chance of beating the recession.

So, you’re the boss. Do you dare to go undercover and find out what is really happening? How will you react when employees do not worship your photograph. What do you suppose they say about you? Do they like their pay and working conditions? What will you do when you find that front line staff are abused, spat at or are targeted by armed robbers?

You’re not the boss. Is your the sort of business where the boss would come and find out how you are doing? If so then great, if not then how can you attract his attention? If the boss (or bosses) is not interested then I recommend you look for a new and better job right away!

Finally, no bosses should be going undercover anyway. Employees should know who the boss is and how to contact them (about important issues). They should be able to equate those at the top with company vision and values. Bosses should also have their finger on the pulse and have a much better idea of the workings of their business and the opinions of frontline staff. Sounds like a call for a cull of middle management – make up your own mind about that!

Good Boss or Bad Boss?

Do you identify with any of the following?

You have criticised an employee openly in public
You have taken credit for the work of others
Your employees are anxious in your presence
You expect employees to do what you tell them without question
You believe employees should automatically know what to do without guidance
You shout or scream at others in the workplace
You publicly belittle employees as a method of punishing them
You have favourites amongst your employees and you make this known
You dislike or fear delegating
You constantly check the work of others and micromanage constantly

The more of the above statements you identify with, the greater the chance that you are a ‘Bad Boss’.

Think about the last time you had a ‘Good Boss’. I bet that they:

Were humble about their own achievements
Showed integrity
Were knowledgeable
Allowed people to work unhindered
Provided support when necessary
Were keen to try new things

And if you had a ‘Bad Boss’ they probably:

Were never there when needed
Wanted to know what you were doing and why
Usually said ‘no’ when you suggested new ideas
Made you feel as if you were not trusted
Looked glum most of the time
Talked about themselves a lot and listened very little

I think that you get the idea. Now which type of boss are you and what are you going to do about it?

Do You Ask The Right Question?

To get the right answer we need to ask the right question. Consider the scenario where your sales are falling. You ask the question ‘why are our sales falling?’ and get an answer like ‘because our sales people are rubbish’.

Before we fire our sales force let us try a different and more in depth style of questioning.

Why are sales falling? – Because customers don’t like our products

Why don’t they like our products? – Because they are outdated, not as cool as this year’s model

Why are our products outdated? – Because we have not developed any new ones for 5 years

Why have we not done this before? – Because the boss has not allowed us

Why has the boss behaved in this way? – Because they have no spare time to spend

So our sales are falling because the boss (potentially us) needs a lesson in time management. Not only do we need to ask the right question, we might need to ask more than one in order to inform our decision about which course of action to take.