Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl Purposeful change in organisations Monday

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl Strange and Shirine Strategy and Change in organisations Network of interventionists and change accompanists (not management consultants) Organisational solutions start to be solutions at the moment new behaviour is visible Organisational problems or concerns occur in interactions, not at an individual level. Patterns of interaction can be enforced or weakened by the way things are organised.

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl Front and back of an organisation Front of an organisation: what is stated at your website and in the reports Back of an organisation: what you see and hear when people in the organisation act  Movie on values In 3 groups: When did you perceive these values (with your own eyes and ears) in the last month?

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl Telling stories Tell each other a story about an event that happened in the last month that typifies your company and your company’s culture (in groups of three).  Try to be precise  Try to use observations  As if a camera was following you showing us the story What in this story makes you proud about your company? What in this story makes you ashamed of your company?

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl Accepted stories What makes your stories unique? How do I know that I’m dealing with a gold mining company and not with a factory in cookies or a hospital? What similarities can you discover in the stories? What are apparently accepted stories that you tell each other? What should happen to make the accepted story change?

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl Variation in context Tell about your company in terms of (in groups of five): 1. Craftsmanship and gaining knowledge 2. Means to make money 3. Safety and security risks 4. Creating communities 5. Creating a future for the South African society

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl So, OC&D* is about… 1. Variety Front and back Different contexts Different perspectives So new ways of looking at a situation can occur 2.Telling stories and changing the stories that are being told 3.Content and process: two sides of the same coin * = Organisational Change and Development

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl Assignment 1. Describe your organisation in three different ways. Make sure that all three the descriptions are true, but are almost contradicting each other. 2.Read “know your organisation”.

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl Purposeful change in organisations Tuesday

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl What I want to learn about OC&D 1.Make 2 circles: the inner and the outer circle face each other 2.Outside circle: What I want to learn about OC&D is… Because… The question, that puzzles me most, is… 3.Inside circle: What you want to learn about OC&D is… The question, that puzzles you most, is… What touches me in your story, is…

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl OC&D – the individual perspective Discuss in pairs: 1.What is the title of your function? What does this word literally mean? 2.Why does this function exist? What question was this function an answer to? 3.What could you do to make this function redundant?

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl HRO High Reliability Organising Weick & Sutcliffe, Managing the Unexpected Basic idea: Mindfulness in stead of perfect organising

13 HRO-conditie 3: Redundancy HRO-condition 1: Informed culture HRO-condition 2: Shared references High performance culture Hallmarks: 1. Preoccupation with failure 2. Reluctance to simplify, 3. Sensitivity to operations 4. Cultivation of resilience 5. Organising around expertise. High performance through reliablity and quality Capacity to manage the unexpected or unwanted Mindfulness: stay aware and alert Basic conditions Interventions HRO-condition 4: Heedfull interactions

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl HRO 1.Preoccupation with failure 2.Reluctance to simplify 3.Sensitivity to operations 4.Cultivation of resilience 5.Respecting expertise

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl We postpone our interpretations and judgments We do that by including multiple perspectives And by asking participants to tell their story in terms of observations We do not look for guilty parties that contributed to the unexpected event The Blame Free Principle

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl We postpone our interpretations and judgments We do that by including multiple perspectives And by asking participants to tell their story in terms of observations We do not look for guilty parties that contributed to the unexpected event The Blame Free Principle

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl We assume that patterns of interaction will make anyone act in the same way, making the same mistakes as did the person in this specific situation So it is about changing the patterns, and the conditions in which these patterns can excist, not about changing the person No one is to blame for

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl Judging enables you to make a decision If it is not necessary to make a decision, you can postpone your judgment By postponing your judgment, you can start observing and renew your observations and interpretations concerning a certain event Postponing your judgment

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl One observation can be interpreted in ten different ways Ten interpretations can be valued in hundred different ways Connecting the who’s and the what’s enables you to see multiple perspectives Including multiple perspectives

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl In pairs: Tell me about a specific moment in a project of yours that you experienced something you did not expect? Where were you at that time, who was there with you, were you sitting or standing? What did you say, in what way did you move? And then? What happened then? And then? Avoid tours in the mind!!! Storytelling in observations

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl ‘Critical’ means ‘of importance’ to the outcome ‘Weak signals’ – Events that in itself are not that important, but that were in effect the starting point of something much bigger The question you can ask: knowing what I know now, what were weak signals that could have made me realise that this and that was going on? Weak signals ask for strong reactions! Critical incidents

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl The Hero Exercise Greek mythology: stories of hero’s falling from their pedestal 1.If you had to choose a hero, which one would your partner be? 2.In what part of the story he was that hero? 3.At what moment would the hero lose control and fall from his pedestal?

Hero’s

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl So, OC&D is also about... 1.Varying your own perspective Choice between consuming and co-creating Choice between function and person Searching for multiple possible interpretations Change the image of who you are from time to time 2.Not simplify – being curious and keep asking questions

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl Assignment 1.a. Describe why your function is important to the company. What question is your function an answer to? 1.b. Describe in what way your functions are related to each other. 2.a. Describe your greatest concern. What are the perpetuating factors that prevent you from solving the problem? 2.b. Do you recognise similarities in your concerns and perpetuating factors? 2.c.In what way do organisation and context produce these concerns? 3. Read “Building a team that works” and “Why transformation efforts fail” (Kotter).

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl Iceberg method Symptom What symptoms can I see? Problem What problems do these symptoms represent? Cause What caused these problems to occur? Perpetuating factors What pattern or mechanism prevents us from solving this problem?

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl Purposeful change in organisations Wednesday

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl Iceberg method Symptom What symptoms can I see? Problem What problems do these symptoms represent? Cause What caused these problems to occur? Perpetuating factors What pattern or mechanism prevents us from solving this problem?

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl Making causal maps In the same couples: Round 1: Make a causal map Round 2: Think about: Can I understand this problem, relating to the organisation and its context described earlier? How does the organisation produce this problem? How does the context produce this problem? Round 3: Consult each other Round 4: What did you discover?

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl Separating means and goals - Solution : we will introduce the ISO quality system - Problem : if we don’t have that, we do not get permits - Problem behind the problem : our production lacks quality - To what stakeholder is this a problem? Introducing ISO is not a goal, it is a mean. Most of the time there are several possibilities to reach a goal

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl Making a sociogram Relating the who’s to the what’s: 1.Who are you related to? 2.Describe per person: Their greatest desire Their greatest concern What he would benefit from What urgency he experiences

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl OC&D – the team perspective When can you call a group of people a team? Check your sociogram. Did you mention all the people that are in your team? Who did you forget and why? What makes your team a team? And what do they need to become a team even more?

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl Why transformations fail Kotter: Error 1: No sense of urgency How do you make people experience the problems? Error 2: No powerful guiding coalition How do you seduce the right people to participate? People only start to cooperate if there is a necessity to do so. How can you create content based necessity?

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl Back to the Iceberg method... Symptom What symptoms can I see? Problem What problems do these symptoms represent? Cause What caused these problems to occur? Perpetuating factors What pattern or mechanism prevents us from solving this problem?

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl Using conflict in teams Conflicts: 1.Functional or Dysfunctional 2.Apparent or Silent 3.Social, Content, or both Social: intervene on a content level Content: intervene on a social level Both: you have to work your way around it

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl An appreciative dialogue 1.Think back of a conflict that enriched your life. Tell us about how this conflict was provoked and how it developed. Tell the story as if we can see a motion picture. 2. What were the positive results of this conflict? What did you appreciate in this conflict situation? And what were the conditions that made this possible? 3. It is January You take a look back at the conflicts you dealt with in the past year. How did you turn those conflicts into enriching experiences?

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl An appreciative dialogue 1.What did you instantly agree on? 2.What question would have created tension in your conversation and was not asked? What would you gain if you decided to ask this question anyway? 3.What judgment or finding you did not say out loud to your partner you just talked to? 4.What possibilities did you thereby exclude in your conversation? 5.Talk some more and find more variety…

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl Some reflections Talk to each other about: Where there is no longer space for variety in your working environment and silent conflict is present How you could introduce variety in an appreciative manner? How you could deal with the tension that will arise?

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl What we cannot see immediately Seducing strategies Non intervention agreements

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl Seducing strategies & Non intervention agreements Discuss in groups of three: 1.How am I easily seduced? 2.What non intervention agreements am I part of? 3.So what dysfunctional pattern am I contributing to? 4.Can I understand these seducing strategies and non intervention agreements looking at the organisation and the context?

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl So, OC&D is also about… 1.Possibilities instead of truths: connecting the who’s to the what's 2.Appreciating and using conflict 3.Recognising seducing strategies 4.Recognising non intervention agreements 5.Dealing with tension

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl Assignment 1.Describe in what way your team is a team and in what way your team is not a team yet (do this for your ‘home’ team and your ‘class’ team). 2.Describe the silent conflicts, the dominant seducing strategies and the dominant non intervention agreements in your team. 3.Describe what you could do to break the dysfunctional patterns of your team. 4.Read “Cracking the code of change”, “The psychology of change management”, “Culture, cognitive dissonance and the management of change”, “The ladder of inference”.

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl Purposeful change in organisations Thursday

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl Changing culture There is not such a thing as ‘culture change’. A culture can be observed in the behavior of people and is enforced by the way things are organised. You can change the way things are organised and you can practice new behavior.

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl Provoking change If you want people to build a boat, make sure they are longing for the sea

Provoking changeMaking change Mission and goals Excellent resultsOrganisation KPI / Results Managing Expertise LP Conditions LP = Leading Principles Picture of the future

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl Why transformations fail Kotter Error 3: lacking a vision Error 4: undercommunicating the vision Error 5: not removing obstacles to the vision Experience that touch and make a difference!

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl From theory to practice In four groups: Think back of your greatest concern. What did you try already to get to a solution? In what way did you make change happen and in what way were you provoking change to happen? What can you do that you did not try yet?

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl Negotiating the conditions In four groups, choose 1 concern: What problem is your project an answer to? Who experiences a sense of urgency? Which people and therefore perspectives are included? What cannot be questioned or touched?

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl Breaking through patterns 1.How do I get stakeholders to feel their dreams, hopes and desires so that they ask me what they really want? 2.How do I make crucial stakeholders care about this project? 3.How do I create space for variety, where there is no space at the moment? 4.How do I seduce stakeholders and secretly touch what I cannot touch or discuss? (how can I give them a sense of security and of control?)

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl Meeting a manager h5 min presentations 13.15hIntroduction concern guest + what he expects from Albert in solving this concern after Albert finishes his training 13.25h3 min questioning our guest 13.35hpreparation offers 13.40hmeeting with the consulting firms 13.55hchoosing the best offer

1. Determine (ambition and picture of the future) 2. Creating meaning (leading principles and conditions) 3. Translating (making the leading principles useful in practice by acting on them) 4. Anchoring (organising processes in a way that conditions are met) Pyramid of strategy development

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl Why transformations fail Kotter Error 6: Not creating short term wins Error 7: Declaring victory too soon Error 8: Not anchoring change

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl Back to your organisation In three groups discuss: 1.Mission and leading principles are set. What do they mean to you? How do you act upon them? What conditions are necessary to live up to these leading principles? In what way are the conditions anchored? 2.How could you make your team experience these leading principles and give your team the opportunity to give meaning and translate these principles to their daily work?

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl OC&D – making the connections Context Organisation Team Individual Organisational problems or concerns occur in interactions, not at an individual level. Patterns of interaction can be enforced or weakened by the way things are organised. Context and organisation and team are agreed upon in interaction. Remember that those agreements are not true, just chosen out of all the possibilities

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl Organising less... Zero based organising... A flock of birds... If you had to start over this company and there were no rules, what one rule or agreement would be necessary and enough?

Strange | Strategy and Change Shirine Moerkerkenwww.shirine.nl So, OC&D is... Not so much about changing the world around you... Or the context, the organisation, the team... But is about changing the agreements we’ve made in organisational contexts