Revisiting ‘wholehearted’

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Agendashift’s strapline is “the wholehearted engagement model”, and I’ve been reflecting again on just what we mean by wholeheartedness. That in turns leads me to revisit how I introduce Agendashift – what it is, what differentiates it, and why we do what we do.

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Starting with my reflections on that word, I’m drawn to two clusters of qualities:

Engagement, commitment, and purpose(fulness)Alignment, integration, integrity, and wholeness

For an organisation to be wholehearted, both sets of qualities must apply. Crucial to developing and sustaining them are participation and outcomes:

Participation, because 1) people disengage when they’re denied the meaningful opportunity to influence on how their working environment operates, and 2) you can’t have integrity and wholeness – or for that matter self-organisation and other hallmarks of the modern organisation – when the organisation’s parts don’t relate both between and within themselves frequently and richly enough.Outcomes, for the simple reason that they’re what people align on, and for the more subtle reason that it’s easy to destroy engagement when solutions are put ahead of outcomes. Keep outcomes in the foreground (and not a rationalisation or afterthought) and you create the opportunity for acceptable, effective, and often innovative solutions to emerge at the right time, no imposition needed.

With all of that in mind, Agendashift is best introduced as the wholehearted, outcome-oriented engagement model. Unpacking that backwards:

The term engagement model is our preferred shorthand for the kind of thing that Agendashift is, a framework for agents of participatory change and transformation. The framing there is deliberate; we find it necessary to keep a certain distance from the failed solution-driven change management models of the last century and don’t wish to be numbered among them! Neither is Agendashift a model only for continuous improvement, a process that while necessary is not a substitute for strategy.Agendashift is outcome-oriented to such an extent that this is its defining feature. It’s “outcomes all the way down”, dealing coherently, humanely, and strategically with everything from the most aspirational of goals to the impact of the smallest experiment. With outcomes generated, organised, and developed through participation, agreement on outcomes follows naturally; solutions come as they should on a just-in-time basis, lightly held as hypotheses to be tested until some other approach is understood to be safe.We – Agendashift’s founders, partners, and supporters – are wholehearted in our commitment not just to participation and outcomes but beyond those to the wholeheartedness of the organisations with which we work. We strive to develop all the qualities identified above, building organisations that create meaning continuously, through both their discourse and their ability to anticipate and meet needs.

We’re in the business of building wholehearted organisations. Are you?

RelatedAgendashift as framework (April)Making it official: Agendashift, the wholehearted engagement model (January)Towards the wholehearted organisation, outside in (May 2018)Engagement: more than a two-way street (September 2018)Upcoming workshops

With yours truly unless otherwise indicated:

04 June, one 2-hour session, EMEA-friendly timing:
Strategic Mapping with Outcomes (EMEA) 8-9 June, 2 days online, EMEA-friendly timing:
2-day Agendashift Deep Dive: Coaching & leading continuous transformation (EMEA)
Mike Burrows ,  Kjell Tore Guttormsen ,  Halldor Kvale-Skattebo 17-18 June, one 2-hour session, Americas-friendly timing:
Learning the language of outcomes (Americas) 25 June, one 2-hour session, EMEA-friendly timing:
Stories, Hypotheses, and A3 (EMEA) 22-23 July, 4 online sessions (2 per day) of 90-120 minutes each, EMEA-friendly timing:
Core Agendashift: Facilitating outcome-oriented change 27-30 July, 8 online sessions (2 per day) of 90-120 minutes each, Americas-friendly timing:
Agendashift Deep Dive: Coaching and leading continuous transformation 4-5 August, two 2-hour sessions (1 per day), EMEA-friendly timing:
Learning the language of outcomes (EMEA)
Julia Wester

For some brief commentary:

Workshops in June

And for the latest, check the Agendashift events calendar.

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