Tag Archives: focus

March 19, 2018

Key Roles for Dialog in the Modern Organization | frame for #orgdna #futureofwork 3/26/18

By Chris Jones

Across the corporate landscape, our silo-based cultures tend to force dialog along the chain of command. Look at your work emails. Instructions and permission are top-down. Ideas have to move up and down the chain. You see these patterns every day.

What will it take to change the rules? Can ideas and information flow seamlessly across silos?

This is a timely topic for the #futureofwork.  Open communication is critical for shaping change.  Ideas are all around us.  We don’t need to wait for holacratic, flat, or teal frameworks to start having the important discussions that lead to new thinking.

What are some key roles required to spark and sustain cross-functional conversations?  In my book, I introduce 12 collaborative roles (with definitions posted here).

Food for thought.  But there’s much more to the puzzle: how do these roles interact?  Much depends on group size, focus, skill sets and mindsets.  Holding context can be a challenge.  And that’s quite a bit to juggle.  Part of the magic in collaboration is creating visibility to the core elements for success, and keeping that model in view.

Here are some of those factors:

Key Roles for Collaborative Dialog

Exploring 12 Key Roles for Foster Dialog. Sparking and sustaining cross-functional conversations can require many roles. Contributors often play many at once, without realizing it. Adapted from The DNA of Collaboration (2012), Ch. 14, Fig. 20.

 

For our next #orgdna #futureofwork chat, let’s unpack the key roles that can shape better dialog, as we consider:

  • Q: How do Roles like these transform the nature of dialog in the modern organization? What is their unique power, and how do they work together?

Our regulars know a normal #orgdna Twitter chat has 4-6 questions, which often come too fast to process.  We’re going to slow that pace down a bit, as we seek to drive deeper insights, and more critical thinking.

Let’s do this.  Join us for the live chat Monday, 3/26 at 9 pm ET. Additional details for the chat appear below.

It should be a great conversation, about fostering .. better conversations.  I hope you’ll join us.

–  Chris Jones @sourcepov in Charlotte NC

 

 

ABOUT THE GROUP.  Since 2012, a self-selecting band of OD thinkers has been discussing the future of the organization, using hashtag #orgdna. The group continues to evolve, with 20-25 active contributors.

ABOUT THE TWITTER CHAT. On any given month, 5-10 of us come together on Twitter for conversation, which is open to all. For the chat itself, we recommend a tweet streaming app like TweetDeck. Just add #orgdna to your tweets, and we’ll start to exchange ideas at the appointed hour. We’re now running 2-hours to accommodate time zones; just join for any part that you’re able.

ABOUT THE TOPIC. Much is being said on “the future of work” and its unfolding dimensions. See Deloitte’s Tom Friedman interview, Use #futureofwork in your tweets for additional cross-over engagement.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR. Chris Jones is a thinker, instigator, and explorer of edges, unpacking the forces inside organizations for over 30 years. Look for more here on the #orgdna blog, on Medium – or for the deepest dive to date, over on Amazon.

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in collaboration, roles

January 12, 2017

Peter Block: Better Questions for Orgs in 2017, moving from How? to Why?

By Chris Jones

We’re kicking off our #orgdna conversation for 2017. For me, there’s no place better to start than a focus on the top questions facing orgs and their leaders. For that, there’s no better thought leader to tap than the purveyor of the better question himself, Peter Block.

In late 2012, on the heels of getting my first book out, I read both of Block’s successful primers: The Answer to How, is Yes (2002) and Community: The Structure of Belonging (2009).

Together they create an excellent structure for online conversation.

Block introduces key elements of collaborative dialog, and methods to frame social change, in general. We conducted a Peter Block book disussion at our #k12 #ecosys chat in April 2013. On reviewing it, I found the frame excellent for our next #orgdna. Let’s reuse the basic structure, with focus on the first book. Here’s an excerpt of the 2013 #ecosys frame:

Block’s ideas are 100% congruent with what I’ve seen in a variety of social Twitter-based communities. Careful question framing changes our ability to recognize new possibilities. Better questions lead us to a dialog on what matters most.

I’ve updated the #ecosys questions just a bit for #orgdna, focused more on the modern organization (noting that public schools remain “in scope”):

  • Q1. Block argues “How?” bypasses questions of intention. Agree? Why?
  • Q2. The right questions, Block says, are those that get us to focus on what matters. What are some examples?
  • Q3. Flexible Structures. What are source/means for adaptive behavior?
  • Q4. Learning Organizations. Inspired by Senge, how does this happen in +2017?
  • Q5. Updated Guidance. Much has happened in OD since 2002. What would Block and others add to this dialog?

Food for thought, without a doubt. And we’ll use our takeaways to fuel follow-on frames.

Please join us on Twitter.  The discussion will be MON 1/16/17, 9pm EST. We’ve been going about 90 minutes, as we work to accommodate multiple timezones and west coasters. Simply add #orgdna to your tweets. We recommend a streaming tool like TweetDeck, to follow the conversation.

There will be more book-based #orgdna discussions in 2017. Besides, Block, we should look at Margaret Wheatley again, and most certainly others. Please weigh in on a proposed sequence. The only requirement is to keep the discussions practical and accessible. It’s okay to tap theories, as long as we don’t get stuck there.

Hope you’re excited for the new year with #orgdna. Let the conversations and deep learning resume.

Chris (aka @sourcepov)

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in organizational development

August 22, 2015

Possibility and the Connected Thinker: On Hashtags, Change & the Cultural Imperative

By Chris Jones

For people to connect, they need a space to come together. It must be a distinct place, familiar to those who gather there and welcoming to visitors who may have the chance to join. Visualizing such places in the world of brick and mortar is not difficult. The corporate conference room. The town square. The coffee shop. The water cooler.

In the context of internet spaces, we must rely a bit on our imagination to craft that common space. We might use blog sites like this one on wordpress .. which we refer to as our “framing site” .. to post our ideas and frame problems to be solved.

Twitter is where we talk it out. And that demands a versatile hashtag.

The #cdna community, with this site as it’s home base, is finalizing a new hashtag for the next 3-years of conversation. Why 3 years? It makes the decision important enough to invest some time, and transient enough to allow for mistakes. On the internet, of course, nothing is permanent. Our current tag “#cdna” is 3 years old this month. As discussed last month, it’s time for a change, a new hashtag that’s more intutive in describing what we’re about. But in spite of some ambiguity, something manages to bring us back each month, bridging conversations with insight and energy, going beyond simple social media aquaintance.

Part of the equation is personal relationships, no doubt.

But another part is harder to define, because it is more capability or capacity than a tangible action. It is a breeding ground for ideas.

We might to choose to call it possibility. It’s what happens when thinkers come together, bringing a small but willing supply of insight, energy and a little focus.

To date, #cdna dialog has been about organizations at large, including how they seek to tackle change, and how they contemplate learning. It may seem a broad set of brushes, but we’ve used the rich palette of our experience to help us paint (re-paint, and paint anew) the complex problems and possible solutions that face leaders of all industries, spanning for-profit and non-profits alike, taking on the large and the small, the global and the local. For complexity theorists, a strong thread of social complexity is at work here.

Bruce and Alice said it well earlier this week, helping me define the kind of community we are talking about:

On Monday, 8/24, at 9:30 p.m. we will bid adieu to #cdna the hashtag, and finalize our go forward nom du chat from a small list of alternative finalists:

  • Q0. Which hashtag best represents #cdna interests for the next 3 years? #orgchange (or #orgchg) #orgdna #futureorg (or #futrorg) #21cOrg #nextorg (we’ll accept these and other nominations from the virtual twitter floor, but these have provided the most traction so far) ..

Care to vote on this? Try this poll, courtesy Poll Daddy:

With new hashtag in use, we’ll embark immediately on our next conversation: the notion of “Cultural Imperative” using the following frame:

  • Q1. If “Cultural Imperative” is a firm conviction that an org must have and embrace a healthy one, where do we look for it? #culture
  • Q2. How do we define culture beyond a collection or roll-up of behaviors? #strategy
  • Q3. What can happen to organizations when culture is ignored? #leadchange
  • Q3. Can leaders improve and/or shape their organizational culture, and if so, how? #leadership 

Note the crossover tags listed. These may prove important in the conversation, as we seek to further contextualize our ideas and their impacts in broader, related domains.

More on culture? Have look at my original 2010 org culture series.

Ok. Hashtag change is ambitious. Brands are rarely if ever able to pivot and survive. Can an online community pull it off? Let’s give it a go. We will continue to meet each 3rd or 4th Monday of the month at or around 9:30pm ET, to afford our west coast members a chance to get home at 6:30pm PT.  We’re still trying to solve for the global chat equation. Stay tuned on that one.

For now, we’ll look for you Monday .. let us know your hashtag preferences !!

Chris (aka @sourcepov)

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in community, culture

April 15, 2014

Making Waves: Learning to Innovate in the Flow of Insight

By Chris Jones
Are we losing insights in the flow?

Insights flow past us, faster than we dare notice; what are we leaving behind?

[Note: This original content has also been posted at http://innochat.com/ with permission of the author, to facilitate a conversation at the #innochat hashtag on THURS 4/17 at 12pm ET.]

CHARLOTTE, NC. April 2014, by .  Classic innovation practice tells us to catalog and rank our ideas. It’s a time tested way to surface newer, more creative means for getting a job done. It’s a sensible approach. The big ideas should, by all rights, float to the top.

But what happens when the currents of change are strong? What if the rules for success become fluid?

At a minimum, we’ll struggle to keep our bearings. At worst, we’ll lose momentum, leave our best ideas stranded, and fail to achieve our innovation targets.

I’ve been reflecting on an alternative approach to learning and innovating that is at once more simplistic and more complex. In a word, it involves “flow” .. and it starts with suspending judgment, refocusing, and listening. This approach allows raw insights, not shrink-wrapped ideas, to flood our thinking spaces, using notions like cross-over and edge-exploration to mix things up. Patterns replace processes. Simple rules replace best practices.

And we change the currency. Insights are the gold standard for innovation and creative learning, not ideas.

The ability of the human mind to perceive and solve problems is vast. Effective collaboration serves as a multiplier. Put some of those strong minds together into small teams. Help those thinkers to focus and frame and communicate and synthesize in real time. Pay attention to roles. Seed the group with an iterative, adaptive framing model. Then stand back. Powerful things begin to happen. 

New ideas emerge; we find we’re innovating in the moment.

Of course, the modern organization provides a host of formiddable barriers to this. These include all those cultures, behaviors and silos that seek to control. We find orgs that are consumed by process or paralyzed by aversion to risk. And at times, we aren’t helpful: our hyper-structured methodologies serve to put our best thinking into boxes. No surprise that our latest innovations seem like breakthrough candidates from the past: we use the past to classify them.

When trapped in structured models, there is limited or no flow of insight. Innovation will consistently struggle. It’s time to let the insights flow. Consider the notions pictured here:

 

FIG 9. Visualizing the Flow of Insights, in "The DNA of Collaboration" (2012)

FIG 9. Visualizing the Flow of Insights, in “The DNA of Collaboration” (2012)

What can we make of this?

I think there are several important questions that could help us suspend our assumptions about innovation practice, as we discuss new ways to approach old problems:

  • Q1. How do ideas differ from insights, and why does it matter?
  • Q2. In terms of innovation process, is flow a better metaphor than structure? 
  • Q3. When does collaborative innovation or OI move of us toward flow, and when does it not?
  • Q4. Can “flow of insight” be viable for driving new thinking re: new capabilities?

Let’s discuss these questions at #INNOCHAT on Thursday 4/17 at 12pm ET. I look forward to exchanging insights with you. Maybe we’ll make some waves.

I hope to see you online!

Chris aka @sourcepov

ADDITIONAL READING

Ideas come from many places, and some of the concepts discussed here had their roots in Twitter conversations. I’m grateful to the many #INNOCHAT, #SMCHAT and #CDNA thought leaders who contributed to these (and related) concepts about collaboration and social learning.  For more reading, here are some references from The DNA of Collaboration :

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November 9, 2012

Synthesis in the Collaborative Flow: Why Process Matters (Ch.16)

By Chris Jones

As we move toward team dynamics that are based less on structure and more on flow, we face a dilemma. We gain the benefit of new thinking, serendipity and emerging ideas, but isn’t there danger that we lose focus?

The short answer is yes.

We must explore the need for balance points. We’ll also need a flexible lightweight process that allows us to navigate the challenges we’ll encounter. In my experience there are several ways we can enable the benefits of collaborative flow without losing our way. In today’s Book Review topic, as we explore The DNA of Collaboration Chapter 16 on Process, let’s take apart some of the most important contributing factors:

  • Step 1. Framing. We need enough structure to support a dialog, but space for it to evolve. How can we shift our facilitation thinking away from control?
  • Step 2. Guidelines & Introductions. Who is here? Why? How is this going to work?
  • Step 3. Context. We often plow into collaboration w/o thought to relevance. What are the challenges of changing context in real time, during the conversation? When should context be set? held? changed?
  • Step 4. Brainstorm & Dialog. How will we interact?
  • Step 5. Patterns. Looking for Patterns is like “mining for gold”. What practices can make this easier, more intuitive, more common?
  • Step 6. Synthesis. Aka “curation,” it’s about capture, prioritization of outcomes, and teasing out the value. Why is this so difficult? How can we get better at it?

Many who participate in the most established Twitter Chats will notice some of these elements. I believe they have evolved into their current form due to social collaboration in action. In fact, we continue to explore these dynamics at #smchat (social media), #ecosys (k12 edreform) and of course here at #cdna (collaboration practice).

Share your thoughts. Which aspects of these steps resonate? Which of these do you use most frequently?

Looking forward to our conversation. See you online.

Chris aka @sourcepov

3 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in booktour, context, control

September 8, 2012

Collaboration DNA: Are We Listening? (Ch.8)

By Chris Jones

Collaboration starts with the ability to listen. That’s also where it often stops.

Amid a deluge of information and a proliferation of ways to get it, it’s no wonder that we tune out to so much of what is happening around us. But it spells trouble when we try to solve problems together.

I’ve addressed active listening as a core, foundational element in The DNA of Collaboration because so often it’s where we run off the rails. For years we’re programmed to speak up, take a stand, and broadcast our ideas. So what do we do in meetings? We wait for our turn to broadcast. If there’s spare time in between soliloquies? We use it to polish up the next one.

Collaboration doesn’t work that way. True communication requires give and take, focus, and our full awareness of others around the table (virtual or otherwise). It’s amazing how many f2f meetings and virtual chats I attend regularly where people don’t listen in the slightest. They might as well be wearing headphones. Some of them actually are. And there’s that whole fiddling with email on the smartphone routine.

For true engagement that leads to valuable collaborative outcomes, we need to change our approach.

Let’s look  at some key CDNA discussion points our next Virtual Book Tour conversation, SAT 9/8 11aET:

  • Q1. Bias for Respect. Do you value the input of others? How do you show it?
  • Q2. Bias for Trust, aka ‘benefit of the doubt’ means leaning into new interactions. Do you do this? Have you been burned, and if so, did you bounce back?
  • Q3. Active Listening. What steps can you take to be present, in the moment?
  • Q4. Empathy. Is this a natural trait, or a skill that can be learned? 
  • Q5. Positive Outlook. Do we come poised to win the debate, or to learn? What are the signs? How can we influence mindset?
  • Q6. Goal Orientation. We’ve said our intent is key. Why does it impact our ability to listen in the moment?

To me, collaborators must be willing to listen. It seems so intuitive. But how often do we try to do it? How often are we successful? Join us, as we discuss this important thread. To join the conversation, click here.

– Chris Jones, author, @sourcepov

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