Why
This is the first short article of a 7-article series on change, that I will post along the month of September.
The purpose is quite simple: share, through case studies and examples, an approach that I used in my prior activities joining technology and change, and focusing on the change itself.
Prior series (e.g. GMN2009) were more focused on the “content” (what) of change, while this one will focus on the “process” (how).
And, as any introduction, I will keep each article short: between 500 and 1000 words per article.
More detailed articles on the process of change will follow in the future, posted on the website PRConsulting.Com, and will also include links to the documentation (either on the same site or other sites).
But the main purpose of this series is to be practical: an “how to” built on case studies- focused on the potential impact of technology on environmental and social issues.
The series contains an 8th article: a list of “suggested readings”, that will be published in October.
What
My approach (and I consider change a learning experience- always) is based on using what you know or experienced as an interpretation framework to position any new event, information, or decision: a pattern.
If you search online in Google “pattern”, you will get more hits that you can possibly bother to read (112 millions as of 2010-08-31); my definition is much simpler: whatever you do or learn represents a chain of actions and information received, transformed, sent, that you use as a way to be able to select you path when you are again in a similar situation.
With this simple definition, patterns become a way to expand your knowledge faster- as children (or grown-ups when relocated in a new environment) do.
My favourite example? Watch the movie “The 13th Warrior”, and see how Banderas learns to speak a new language during his travel: you constantly use what you know to “frame” anything new coming your way.
Using patterns as a learning and living tool implies also a constant trial-and-error, to evolve your knowledge; but patterns are also a powerful cooperation tool, as it is easier to focus on the big picture, before quarrelling on details- and “pattern-based negotiation” wasn’t what Europe did in the 1950, starting with few shared interests, and then expanding?
More than one year ago, as part of a discussion on the potential evolution of society, I was sent to a model built as an example of a systemic approach- society as a plant, with pipes etc: worth recreating a global Gosplan (the central planning: 5 million employees in USSR, if I am not wrong), probably with the same interestingly side-effects on economic vitality.
I prefer a more resilient model, built on degrees of freedom, and exchanges between components based on shared patterns (including information, interfaces, constraints, etc), as my experience in organizational design is that, however wonderful your communication and organizational model, it involves people.
While individuals mostly passively integrate within an environment, people as an aggregate have to “transform” their environment- i.e. you will have evolution within each component; look around you- and you will see that wherever humans move in as a group, they modify the environment.
Working through patterns, you can focus on the “exchanges”, and accept some “entropy” within each structure- provided that the communication and cooperation with the others will continue.
Overall, you will still need to share some “principia”, inspiring your overall organic evolution, so that the impact of any innovation inside the organization can be easily assessed (or forecast).
The internal degree of freedom will allow also to experiment with innovative approaches in some parts of the organization, and to follow the usual “glocal” (think globally, act locally) mantra.
Best practices developed autonomously in one part will be easier to migrate and adapt, improving also the chance of success (a best practice has to be “contextualized”- it is not a one-size-fits-all).
Also negotiations between organizations are easier if based on patterns: once a common framework (the aim) is set, you can focus on identifying shared patterns, or identify equivalences, before discussing details.
It is only apparently more complex to manage a change as a series of shared patterns, and communication between different patterns, as it implies that the communication approach has to be adapted to each interlocutor (or “stakeholder”)- but the alternative is ignoring the differences (never a wise choice).
Moving forward
This article is barely scratching the surface, and introducing the main concept: change based first on pattern-matching, to “evolve” your organization (a “learning organization”).
Patterns can be easily related to your experience- and more experience allows to either add new patterns (e.g. understand the chain of events that generated a success or a failure), or reconsider existing patterns within a new environment.
My approach in pattern-definition is certainly based on my experience- plus what I observe and collect from everybody else.
This is an important issue: to be able to understand your patterns you need an external perspective- and nothing is better than trying to train/coach others on your patterns.
Instead of scouting for patterns, I usually strongly advise to focus on studying “closed communities” that write a lot about themselves- and are observed extensively (political parties, military organizations, institutions, “subcultures”), by supporters and critics alike.
The risk of focusing on patterns from your own industry or environment is twofold: at best, you are going to be a follower (a common issue in consulting), and at worst you remove what makes your own organization so unique and appealing.
A book series, a movie, a TV serial (and the “semiotic ecosystem” that they generate) can be a surprisingly good source of innovative patterns to transpose to your own issues- as discussed in the next article, also information technology can be a powerful enabler- but if used within the scope of your own patterns.
Tags: change, Change2010, entropy, innovation, learning, organization, pattern