The Light and Fast Organisation: A New Way of Dealing with Uncertainty

by Patrick Hollingworth

We can choose to continue to do things like we have always done, and climb the face in a

traditional manner (it's called expedition style, it's heavy and slow, and we'll learn more about it later). We may still get to the top, but it will take us a long time, and we probably won't survive the storm.

Or, we can choose to flip conventional thinking on its head and, following Steck's lead, take a new approach and climb light and fast to help us get through the maelstrom. If we do choose to take this approach (and to be honest, we don't have any other option), there will be difficult times a...

Speaking about the post–World War II era, cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead once wrote, ‘All of us who grew up before the war are immigrants in time, immigrants from an earlier world, living in an age essentially different from

anything we knew before'. We are again immigrants in time, as our perfect storm is reshaping society, business and institutional thinking.

the world has become flatter, more transparent and more accessible than ever before.

VUCA stands for: volatility

uncertainty complexity ambiguity.

understand change prepare for change leverage change to our advantage.

Greek philosopher Heraclitus once told us, the only thing constant in the world is change.

Rather than trying to manage change in the workplace, you and your organisation need to move with the change.

The three-stage framework is to understand: that change is happening that change is happening faster the exact nature of change.

In a nutshell, the way we adapt to change is related to our perception of it. The better we understand this, the better our ability to adapt and succeed in a world that is essentially made of change.

Building something based on past history does not necessarily mean that it will be suited to future events, and that goes for our organisations, too.

For most of us, comfort in life comes from: stability certainty simplicity clarity.

Long-term change for good brings short-term pain.

When faced with its impact, it's not surprising that we don't understand it. We react with: dissonance entropy disengagement.

Cognitive dissonance occurs when the brain struggles to interpret new information that does not correlate with or confirm the existing knowledge or beliefs that the brain already possesses.

We have the option to craft our future.

As Ray Kurzweil says, ‘An invention needs to make sense in the world in which it is finished, not the world in which it is started'.

Structured in a hierarchical fashion and fit for a linear world, the

organisations were designed to be robust and resilient to change, but not adaptable to change.

Fixed strategies and plans have a tendency to do that: working towards fixed expectations makes you blind (to both opportunities and dangers).

Managers in the 20 per cent of organisations that are the most complicated by unnecessary bureaucratic layers and structures spend 40 per cent of their time report-writing, and between 30 and 60 per cent of their time in meetings.

2012 Harvard Business Review article ‘Accelerate', John Kotter

pesquusar

Because the reality of the new world order is that the most important asset of any organisation will be its people.

Because organisations should serve people, not the other way round.

Harvard Business Review article ‘The Living Company' that the reason many companies fail is because managers focus exclusively on producing goods and services, and forget that the organisation is a community of human beings.

Author Daniel Pink in his book Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us talks about the three vital ingredients that comprise motivation: autonomy, mastery and purpose.

Any potential new employees who don't show this basic level of commitment and passion shouldn't make it through the door.

They will want to know what other mountains are out there for them to climb.

Alpinists seek uncertainty and ambiguity.

What is most impressive about their climb is that after coming so close to losing their lives on their direct line attempt only a few days earlier, Whimp and Lindblade were able to quickly compose themselves and refocus their attention on the alternative objective. This speaks volumes about their drive, determination and resilience and their

commitment to one another: most people who had survived such a violent ordeal would probably walk away from the mountains, vowing never to return.

if the circumstances change, and the initial plan doesn't work, come up with a new plan. Don't sit around and mourn what could have been; rather, have an open mindset, keep moving and forge a new path.

‘share a passion for climbing combined with the ability to exert their will and pay attention to both internal and external conditions'.

interdependent Focus Attention in and out — they are always keeping a check on themselves, their team members, and the surrounding environment

Remember, an open-plan office complete with brightly coloured sofas and an in-house coffee shop does not an alpine-style organisation make!

Sensemaking is the process where we develop plausible hypotheses of the unknown, test the hypotheses and then either keep them (if they are correct) or discard them (if they are not).

being plausible, rather than accurate.

an accurate map, and the signals that we needed

as with many things that we do as humans, just because we've been doing it forever doesn't mean that we are doing it to the best of our abilities.

We have a bias for action, and for getting started on things straight away.

We need to go back to the box, get out the instructions, and sit down and read them. And make sure we actually understand them.

In the VUCA world, with collaboration, transparency and community, ‘interfacing' is a constant.)

book The Back of a Napkin.

According to Roam, there are four main steps to visual thinking: looking seeing imagining showing.

So, sensemaking has five steps: looking seeing imagining showing acting.

all-out push.'