Beyond Teams: How To Collaborate Amidst Constant Change

The current mantra goes, empower your teams and everything will be alright. However. . .

image from Link to Leadership

Constant reorganisations and the raising complexity of work means teams tend to be increasingly short-lived and projects require input from external experts as much as internal ones.

Moreover, a growing proportion of workers demand flexible engagement or operate exclusively as freelancers. To survive, organisations will have to learn how to engage and coordinate a more fluid workforce. An executive of a global healthcare organisation puts it this way as quoted in the California Management Review:

“Increasingly, we don’t have teams here so much as groups that need to form, get their work done, and disband or move on to the other three teams they are on. This flies in the face of a lot of the advice on building team harmony, vision, and other things that we just don’t have time for. It’s like we call them teams but they aren’t really in the conventional sense of the word. . . we need new ways of working with these groups.”

In my work as an organisation designer, I have had the pleasure to research and collaborate with innovative organisations who embrace these trends and whose mindset and practices can serve as case studies moving forward. One such company is Startup Guide. They publish guides about the startup ecosystems in different cities, naturally leading them to engage with a large number of local partners and freelancers. In fact, the company’s workforce is 45% freelancers. As a rapidly growing company, coordination is a constant challenge, and the leadership was concerned with the alignment and commitment of their freelancers. Instead of investing in more oversight or contracting protections, the company decided to invest in the quality of its relationships. They invited the freelancers to join them on a three-day corporate retreat and participate as if they were full-time members of the organisation.

The words by the CEO at the end of the retreat encapsulate their approach. “When I was in university, they used to say we were a family, and I always felt uncomfortable with that. Families care for each other, and I never had that feeling. However, now I am tempted to use the word. We promise you that we won’t let you down but, when things get tough, we ask that you stand by us and don’t let us down either”.

The crowd replied with cheers and a few tears of emotion. Startup Guide has moved away from a paradigm based on static teams, and instead focuses on creating a broader community of collaborators that bridges outsiders and insiders. Their strategy relies on nurturing a common culture and sense of belonging, increasing trust and alignment, and thus making it easier for teams to quickly form and gel.

They are not alone in this approach

Cocoon, an innovation consultancy, has taken it even further. Since 2012, they have been operating with an alternative management system, which among other things, doesn’t have a recruitment process in the traditional sense.

Instead of creating job adverts, reviewing CVs, and carrying round after round of interviews, they allow anyone to join the organisation by participating in one of their governance meetings. The only requirements are reading a few documents explaining the management system and having a chat with one of the members where the new person can ask questions.

Anyone adding value in a governance activity will receive compensation. However, the sums are not particularly large. To earn a proper salary, new-joiners need to gain the trust of other members and get invited to take part in the individual client projects. This process gives everyone involved an opportunity to gradually meet one another and decide how deeply they wish to collaborate.

At Cocoon, membership in the organisation is not binary but rather a pipeline going from strangers to core members. This setup allows them to leverage a wide range of expertise and have the flexibility to organise around projects.

For their approach to work, Cocoon leverages collaboration infrastructure that equips members to navigate a networked organisation. It includes a sophisticated information system with transparent data, including the projects members are working on, the payouts given to every member, a calendar of open-door meetings, and a decision-making toolbox. Their organisation design is that of a platform, with different tools and services available on demand to the community of collaborators.

Culturewise, there are also significant differences

In the team-focused paradigm, members may not see themselves as linked with the organisation-wide intent or supported by its infrastructure, creating barriers to inter-team collaboration. When the teams and team members change regularly, relationships become purely transactional and turnover increases, while cooperation and innovation suffer.

Instead, companies organised as community platforms use teams, but the primary affiliation of members is to colleagues at large, the firm’s mission, and client service. To encourage such a culture, they actively work on their company values and behaviours and design their budgeting practices, communication infrastructure, and reward systems accordingly.

An exciting company in this regard is Satalia, an artificial intelligence solution provider. To decide salaries, they collect data from emails, calendars, and chat platforms, among other sources, and create a map of interactions between the members of the organisation. Each employee decides his/her salary for the next cycle and then receives feedback from the colleagues with whom he/she interacted. The feedback is weighted according to the intensity of each interaction and then presented to each employee before further rounds of adjustment. Their system purposefully ignores membership to individual teams in favour of enterprise-wide interactions and contributions.

These companies and their systems can give us an idea of what is to come; however, we do not need to start with such a radical approach. Every company can take steps to improve enterprise-wide collaboration and engagement, thus improving the quality of work in fluid teams and its ability to respond to rapid changes in the market.

A good place to start. . .

Is by defining and embedding a company culture and vision. When we ask employees, we find most often that companies lack a consensus on what they stand for, what values they uphold, and what purpose they pursue. The culture was defined top-down in some document, and then quickly forgotten. Taking a bottom-up approach and periodically reviewing a company’s culture and vision ensures buy-in and brings clarity, two essentials requirements of high performance.

Then, to sustain that clarity and buy-in, the different systems of an organisation need to be designed accordingly to the stated culture and intent of the company. For example, instead of setting team-level goals from above, they should be collaboratively discussed and evaluated against the values, mission, and vision. When done well, the time invested in these discussions is recovered many times over thanks to increased alignment and engagement.

However, these efforts will do little for inter-team collaboration if employees find it hard to understand what is going on in other parts of the organisation. Creating a map of the company that goes beyond the traditional organisation chart can do wonders in this respect. A living document that showcases the operating model, as well as decision-making authority, allows full-time employees and part-time collaborators to navigate the networks and collaborate across silos.

Shifting away from a team-focused approach and into one based on community platforms is no easy feat. However, executed well, the steps above are a significant move forward. They will not only create an environment that is more conducive to innovation and collaboration, but also one that is more welcoming for those with an entrepreneurial mindset. Going beyond teams is accepting change as a partner rather than an enemy.

How to scale an organisation and not lose your job trying

Most founders fail to scale their companies — and that is not because of competition (only 19% of cases) or cash (29%). Rather, they fail to realize that growth is not linear and companies must change between stages. This roadmap can help you understand the evolution of your organisation from its Conception as well as giving you an idea of what it takes to lead through the transitions.

According to a study by N. Wasserman, 50% of founders get replaced as CEOs within the first three years of a company’s existence; less than 25% make it to an IPO. Retaining control of the board, however, can be self-limiting too, as keeping the majority of the shares but getting less investment typically makes for a less valuable company.

The key to avoiding being caught off guard resides in understanding what is most likely to come next. We define three initial stages any organisation goes through — Conception, Formation, and Delegation; as well as a six-step transition process to help you on this journey.

The first stage is Conception: a company enters a market and starts developing an offer and operations. The way you and your team approach sales, production/delivery, sourcing, hiring, etc. must be invented and reinvented as the product-market fit is still being explored. If everything goes well at this early stage, the company will make a few sales and start learning what works and what doesn’t. Hitting a few milestones should encourage you to slowly grow the team.

However, as the complexity of the business increases and the team grows to 8–15 employees, you suddenly find it difficult to coordinate and process tasks without involving several people on every decision. As a result, the operation will often turn chaotic and you will feel frustrated with simple tasks not being executed smoothly. This new challenge marks the end of your Conception stage.

We all know that the start is chaos. It’s also energy. But, when you begin to grow, things get complicated. How do you avoid a crisis? And not turn neurotic in the meantime?

To move forward, the ad-hoc practices that allowed to kick-start the business need to be turned into clear processes. This means answering questions like “what are the steps to complete a sale?”, “how do we evaluate new suppliers?”, “what is our process for onboarding?”, and even more important, “when do we say no?”. As the team organises to channel their creative energy, the roles will become more defined and operations will get smoother, signalling a successful transition from the Conception stage to the next one, Formation.

In the Formation stage, a company is still small enough for you to be aware of every process. With luck and tenacity, the relevance of the offer and the effectiveness of operations will improve and, as the company develops, a sense of product-market fit is achieved.

Now, it is time to scale the organization. Recruitment goes into overdrive. Employees multiply, individual roles grow into teams, and there is a rapid surge in communication. You will have too many messages to respond to, and your involvement will be expected in way more decisions than you can handle. Suddenly, all your processes need to be redesigned to handle larger volumes.

In a case we worked with recently, employees regularly came to see the Founder CEO with questions ranging from a choice of Christmas gift wrapping to the brand of soap for the office’s toilet.

At this stage, the lack of skilled employees can be an issue but rarely the main barrier for growth. Rather, the tension originates from the lack of a structure to coordinate people and tasks at scale. Newly-formed teams don’t yet know how to work together and collaboration between teams leaves a lot to be desired. Under these conditions, you can easily spend more time firefighting than working on the company’s future. Your options seem to be either giving away all control and risk damaging the quality of offer (and hence losing customers), or being involved in every single decision, giving up on sleep, and alienating the team. Naturally, neither option is desirable nor sustainable.

Many founders, exhausted by the pressure to balance cash flow between growth and operations, don’t realize the problem is escalating. I had the sad occasion to witness such crisis in a well-funded startup. As the organisation grew, disengaged employees multiplied, and backstabbing replaced the camaraderie of the early days. The number of people and processes had grown beyond what the leadership could manage directly, while a new leadership arrived too late to save the business.

Adapt your leadership style, learning to “let go” of the feeling of ownership. Instead, make sure the team as a whole can create a vision, culture, and organisation that supports the different parts of the company. Easier said than done, but it is essential for a smooth transition into the next stage, Delegation.

The Delegation stage requires an organisation design that limits bureaucracy and maintains customer focus, streamlines operations and reinforces alignment, creates a safe space for innovation and constant learning, and allows the leadership to consider mergers and acquisitions and other high-value items. Moreover, the new organisation design should define communication channels and rhythms to avoid information overload. Developing all these capabilities requires a major overhaul.

The same logic applies to the different departments within one company. They will start with ad-hoc practices, gradually develop processes, and, as they continue to grow, require a new organisational design to coordinate at scale.

For a company or department to make a transition, avoid imposing a new way of working from the outside or from the top-down, as is often the case with the traditional consultancies. Such approaches look good on paper but are problematic to implement. Instead of stopping micromanagement, they reinforce it; employees feel disengaged and resist change. A new structure has to be a collaborative design, involving all parts of the organisation.

I have developed a six-step process that I know will enable the organisation to transition.

First, it is necessary is to get everyone on the same page to speed up decision making, make delegation easier, and ensure you grow the right culture. We work together with our clients on this objective by clarifying and codifying the identity, the vision, and the strategy of the organisation.

Second, we need to know what is missing to make collaboration smoother and stop firefighting. I help my clients map their processes into a structure that visualizes all the essential functions that a system needs to perform. It gives everyone in the team a shared understanding of what needs doing and allows them to navigate the organization as a network.

Third, we look at communication. There are many software tools that can be helpful, but I often find that improving the quality of meetings and managing their frequency has the biggest impact. It allows leaders to feel comfortable delegating and the team to design all the new processes.

Fourth, we need the different parts of the organisation to keep learning and improving how they operate. After all, we live in an era of constant change, and further growth will require the structure and processes to be constantly redesigned. I have experimented with different methodologies to achieve this, and find that fast iteration and Design Thinking are must-haves.

Fifth, we seek to create a funnel to bring in new ideas. Cross-pollinating with other industries will harness the momentum from the previous steps and spark innovation.

And finally, at the sixth step, we can shift our attention to designing platforms that will encourage communities of practice and advocacy, thus growing brand awareness, loyalty, and collaboration beyond the walls of the organisation.

Founders can anticipate transitions, leading their companies through Conception, Formation, and Delegation. First, transforming ad-hoc practices into processes, and then developing a structure to coordinate at scale. Such a process is best carried involving all parts of the organisation.

Beyond Design Thinking: The Systemic Design Thinking Framework

Design Thinking is a fantastic tool but it encounter its limitations in complex problems with numerous stakeholders. Systems Thinking methodology can support this need, but how to mix the two remains largely unclear. To approach this challenge, I have explored combining both into a single framework: the Systemic Design Thinking Framework. The result is an 8 step process that allows both to approach complex challenges and discover new possibilities in apparently simple ones.

In a recent article, Amy Ahearn offered a comparison of both frameworks in terms of their focus.

As we can see, it is not a case of better or worse, but rather a strategic decision to prioritize either a core group of “users” or “the system”.

However, each framework has important weaknesses, even in its own territory. Focusing only on the core group of users can blind us from spotting alternative solutions or important barriers for implementation leading to unintended consequences, this is called “system blindness”. On the other hand, focusing too much on the system can lead one to feel overwhelmed or lose focus, resulting in paralysis or disappointing results (decisions by committee anyone?).

To explore how the two frameworks can be combined to mitigate their weaknesses, let us look into the specific mechanisms.

Design Thinking

Design Thinking divides work in different steps that focus on either divergence or convergence. The divergent steps orient the team towards generating a wealth of possibilities, either through research or ideation. The convergent steps aim to facilitate selecting among those possibilities.

Creating a specific occasion for each type of logic stops the team members from blocking each other.

A second important mechanism in Design Thinking is iteration. Instead of relying on a one-off high-stakes process, Design Thinking relies on multiple cycles. The aim is to accomplish each cycle fast and prioritize learning over perfection. Doings so reduces the barrier to try new or risky ideas and allows to quickly incorporate the learning from the previous iteration, effectively reducing the risk of innovation.

Design Thinking also provides integration. The first generation of design processes assumed a group of ‘designers’ would pass on a set of instructions they had never tested, ‘the design’, to a separate group of who would, in turn, fabricate it. Unsurprisingly, this leads to many clashes in between both groups over the root cause of any subsequent problem.

In contrast, the second generation of design thinking involves a single group of people that goes through quick iterations of the whole process, reducing miscommunication and culture clashes while accelerating the speed at which a design can be improved and produced.

However. The separation between designers and users, and specially the disregard for other stakeholders or causal chains, can lead us to implement solutions with unintended consequences. As a framework, Design Thinking is not well suited to manage the complexity that multiple stakeholders bring.

Systems Thinking

In contrast, Systems Thinking is based on multiple perspectives. ‘Designers’ are not separated from ‘users’, as multiple stakeholders are invited to the design table. The interactions between stakeholders are facilitated with the use of tools that allow for multiple viewpoints or perspectives to complement and nuance each other, such as System Maps. This results in easier consensus building and buy-in as stakeholders feel listened and taken into account.

Moreover, by focusing on relationships and connections, the tools for System Thinking allow the team to identify chain reactions, feedback loops, or tipping points. This knowledge is key to navigate complexity, avoiding negative consequences and identifying the most effective “leverage points”, where a small force produces a large change.

The Systemic Design Thinking Framework

Blending both approaches, we can generate a process that, like Design Thinking, alternates the focus between convergence and divergence to smooth team interactions, quickly iterates to reduce risks and accelerate learning, while also includes the perspectives from multiple stakeholders and exploits the best leverage points.

As a structure, I have taken the 5 steps Design Thinking Framework as starting point:

1. Empathizing with the user
2. Defining the problem
3. Ideating
4. Prototyping
5. Testing

Then, I bring in the System Thinking contributions:

In our combined framework, the users are multiple, and as such we need to start by figuring out who they are and inviting them to the design table.

Next, we work with them to loosely define “the problem” or challenges we are trying to advance on. This step serves as an anchor and reminder of what originally brought us to look into the system and ensure we don’t get carried away trying to solve too many things at once. When done properly, it is about identifying common needs before moving into the individual needs, which is precisely what we do next by “mapping the system” with all its moving parts and relationships. Systems Thinking has several tools for this purpose, such as flow diagrams, systems maps, and causal pyramids.

Then, we could jump into ideating, but the complexity of the system can easily prove paralyzing or lead to misunderstandings. To solve this problem, we add a convergent step where the team can identify the best leverage points to focus their energy on. This is perhaps the most critical step, and it is essential that enough space is given to everyone involved to reflect on their situation and voice their perspective.

Then, we can resume to ideating, prototyping, testing, and evaluating the results before another cycle of the process that incorporates the knowledge gained, potentially bringing new stakeholders to the table.

Which leads us to:

1. Deep dive into the realities of users and others who come in contact with the challenge to understand who is affected and invite them to the design table.
2. Define the challenge or challenges the team aims to prioritize.
3. Create the space for the multiple stakeholders to give their perspective and generate a map with all the different interconnected parts and actors of the system.
4. Identify the key points for intervention where actions will have a strong leverage and minimize negative consequences.
5. Facilitate a process where the different stakeholders ideate possibilities for a future state of the system where the mess of interconnected problems has been dissolved.
6. Prototype possibilities.
7. Test the prototypes.
8. Evaluate the results and incorporate the knowledge gained into the next iteration.

3 Layers of Company Culture You Need to Know About

When an organisation is born, its culture comes from its first parents — the founders. With each decision made, the identity of the child is moulded. However, culture soon takes a life of its own in the behaviours of the team, the values we state as important, the choices we have made, and the underlying assumptions that inform all of the above.

Designing and orienting the culture is one of our primary responsibilities as leaders. From the layout of the office to how we conduct meetings; from the way we allocate salary to how we divide into teams; cultural expressions determine the fate of an organization.

Let us approach culture beyond buzzwords and lazy definitions. According to Edgar E. Schein’s (former professor at the MIT Sloan School of Managementand a notable contributor to the field of organisational development):

“The culture of a group can now be defined as a pattern of shared basic assumptions learned by a group as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, which has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems.”

This definition implies that our behaviour and that of our team is as a statement of the culture, of “the correct way to perceive, think, and feel”. And so are the communication processes, reporting structure, job descriptions, office layout, and other artefacts designed or curated by the team.

Meaning that, if we want to affect culture, we can not simply force a change on what people do, (the tip of the iceberg). We must also deal with the fundamental assumptions that led the group to the current artefacts and behaviours, (the big mass under the surface.)

One of the main tools we have to affect this system are the “company values”. As a statement of what is important, they lie in-between the visible part of the culture (choices in artefacts and behaviours) and our subconscious worldview (assumptions).

When values are defined properly, they inform and align choices across the organization, be it marketing campaign, on-boarding processes, or strategy. They can make assumptions conscious, avoiding disputes and facilitating delegation. However, if the values statement is rarely used and if our choices in artefacts and behaviour showcase a different picture, the stated values will be quickly forgotten by the employees.

Another risk is that people frequently misunderstand value statements. For instance, for person A, collaboration might mean to comment and debate each topic regardless of each’s area of expertise; for person B, it means that teams should “collaborate” by giving the experts sole control of their specific area. Words out of context have multiple and often contradictory meanings, so we as leaders must take action to avoid conflicts and disappointments.

The key to a useful values statement is striking a balance between defining them close enough to reality to have concrete definitions and ensuring they are slightly aspirational. The ideal values statement includes both the key characteristics of our “best self” and relevant examples.

Consider the following possibilities with different levels of completeness:

Now, what if, after defining our values statement, we find that too often we embark in counterproductive behaviours and our “best self” feels like an exception instead of the norm?

First, we must include the team in defining this challenge, as without participation, people tend to resist change. The case of Aena, a Fortune 500 healthcare provider, illustrates this principle. 3 CEOs attempted top-down culture change and failed. The board quickly replaced them. The 4th CEO in 5 years used a different approach, taking the time to visit and understand the perspective of employees. The cultural change succeeded and, in half a decade, the company went from losing $300 million to an operating profit of $1.7 billion.

In Aena’s case, as well as numerous others, change starts with discussions. However, it is not enough to make a values statement for a whole organisation to adopt a new pattern of behaviour. For example, if we say that we need to become more “entrepreneurial” but our organization’s past success had been attributed to careful planning and control (an assumption) and, in consequence, our bonus system was designed to reward only those who hit annually defined targets over those who innovate or generate learnings (an artefact), we will encounter that employees will resist taking the risk associated with being “entrepreneurial”. It doesn’t matter how much rhetoric we use or how much skill training we provide; culture change also requires redesigning artefacts.

Moreover, if we don’t take the underlying assumptions of a group into account, we risk driving problems underground instead of fixing them. For instance, in a manufacturing and retail company I consulted for, employees were found taking naps in a storage room while clients waited at the counter. Management instituted financial penalties for those found sleeping and put in place a system of random checks by a supervisor. But a few months later, a complex scheme between supervisors and line workers developed to cover for those sleeping during their shift. Instead of solving a problem, the initiative further degraded the culture by normalising not only sleeping during work hours but also scheming.

A better approach to culture change relies on, first co-defining the challenge, then co-creating a map of the culture and identifying leverage points for change, and finally ideating and testing initiatives.

When we applied this approach, in the case above, we found that “solidarity among colleagues” was a fundamental cultural trait. The employees perceived the leadership’s top-down approach as an attempt to extract more work from them, instead of a sensible request, and, naturally, united to resist the change.

We had to reframe the conversation by creating a positive and desirable vision for customer service (defining a value in the process), and then collectively ideating solutions (redesigning artefacts) to reduce employee fatigue by leveraging the same assumption of “solidarity among colleagues” . Employees stopped taking naps while clients waited, and the leadership found a few months later that outcomes were improving further thanks to spontaneous peer to peer mentoring.

Our external viewpoint was useful to map the culture, and our careful facilitation of the process contributed to success. But what really made the difference was the co-creation approach and careful consideration of the full system of culture: the stated values, the choices in artefacts and behaviours, and the underlying assumptions.

Brands in a polarised society: from celebrities to philosophies

Most aspects of our lives and society are evolving fast, and brands are no exception.

Brands were originally based on a function or location. For a restaurant that would mean having a name like L’Aubere du Pont Collognes, while for a musician that meant their performance was “The Court Ball at the palace of Emperor Josef II”. No mention whatsoever of the performer’s name or the master at work in the kitchen.

Over time, functions and locations started to fade away. Mozart (who played for Emperor Josef II) became one of the first musicians to command his own audience and royalties as an independent in the late 18th century. The restaurant L’Aubere du Pont Collognes was renamed Paul Bocuse after its patron and chef Paul Bocuse grew popular in the late 1960s by heading the Nouvelle Cuisine movement. Beyond the arts, we can see a similar case with brands such as McKinsey being founded in 1926, Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) in 1947, or Boeing in 1916, all named after their well-known and respected founders. Celebrity branding further helped to humanise companies, making them relatable and trustable.

However, past a certain point, celebrity owners or figureheads often tend to struggle to keep up with the creative and innovation demands required for brand longevity today. For example, Heston Blumenthal, the British celebrity chef, collected accolades and fame thanks to the innovations developed at his first restaurant (The Fat Duck) but, as the company expanded, he increasingly relied on an innovation team to supply him with new ideas.

Most celebrities or founders linked to “their own brand” require a certain degree of familiarity with and a sense of ownership of the innovations to feel comfortable implementing them as their own. Otherwise, where’s the authenticity that we all crave today? For example, McDonald’s, the hamburger chain, was founded by the McDonald brothers who led the first wave of innovations but were indisposed by further growth, much to the chagrin of their franchise partner, Ray Kroc. The tension was eventually solved when Mr. Kroc bought them out and proceeded to implement a new wave of innovation that allowed the business to grow to what it is today. Founders and celebrity public faces can become a bottleneck for innovation as they are pulled between creative work and public appearances, like in the case of Heston, or between their personal wishes and the brand’s needs, like in the case of the McDonald brothers.

As markets have grown further connected and the pace of change continues to accelerate, the limitations of celebrity branding for innovation have paved the way for a new type of brand to emerge — the philosophy brand.

Philosophy brands aim to reach past the association with a certain location or founder and tap into evocative brand names and propositions informed by well-defined values. Think for example of the FMCG drinks company Oatly. They have experienced extraordinary success using their philosophy to inform strategy, operations, marketing, and even HR.

Image from Oatly

Internally, a well-articulated philosophy helps to align and mobilise the efforts of a whole organisation. Externally, research shows that bold philosophies are rewarded in social media as strong opinion and emotionally arousing content commands the most likes and shares — and ultimately, increases sales and profit.

Perhaps for this same reason, most western democracies have become increasingly polarised, and brands that would have previously preferred to avoid controversies are finding it increasingly difficult to keep a middle ground. You might remember that the #DeleteUber campaign took-off when Uber continued operations while New York taxi drivers were protesting against the Muslim ban. Or that, First National Bank in the US was forced to cut ties with the National Rifle Association as it became a popular target for social media boycott campaigns after the school shooting in Parkland, Florida.

A polarised society is a difficult landscape for brands to navigate. Delta CEO Ed Bastian announced that the airline would stop offering discounts to NRA members, receiving praise from pro-gun-control activists. However, Georgia lawmakers retaliated by killing a tax break that would have saved Delta millions of dollars. Polarisation forces brands to make difficult commercial tradeoffs.

Polarisation, however, also incentivises coherence. Patagonia, the California-headquartered outerwear company, has remained true and vocal about its environment protection philosophy. The company audits all its suppliers on sustainability metrics, campaigned for their customers to reuse old clothing instead of buying new products, created a VC arm to back environmentally-friendly startups, committed 1% of sales to environmental causes, and even went as far as fighting the Trump administration on protected areas policy. As a result, their profits tripled between 2008 and 2014 and continue to grow today.

Brands who put posturing above coherence take a major risk. For example, Audi faced a flurry of critical press in 2017 after airing a commercial on gender equality while having an all-male executive team. And H&M faced a backlash after it emerged that their feminist marketing was coexisting with practices in some of their factories that didn’t allow pregnant women time off work.

Companies can do well by moving past functional or celebrity brands and adopting an ethos that is relevant to the communities they serve, from customers to employees and beyond. In polarised societies, they might not even have a choice if they want to survive and thrive, but importantly, brands must not forget that coherence will dictate their failure or success.

Governing Complex Collaborations: a Framework

Anyone who has ever worked in a team knows that collaboration comes with many challenges but can also be deeply rewarding. The extreme cases, both in the challenges and reward potential, are collaborations with large groups of people (such as communities) or between deeply different actors (such as tri-sector engagements). Over the past years, I have had the chance to explore and advice a number of such collaborations, which has led me to experiment and refine a framework and approach for tackling one of the key challenges:

How do we make decisions and govern trade-offs between stakeholders or teams who have a lot to win by working together, yet have their own individual needs and objectives?

Before diving into the framework, let me give you a bit of context on four of the experiences that have informed its development, so as to highlight both its potential and use cases.

Use Cases

One of the first complex collaborations I got involved with was Crossmodalism — a community aiming to bring together artists, scientists, designers, and entrepreneurs to encourage collaborative projects leading to cross-pollination and innovation. Crossmodalism is a self-governed community, meaning that the community gathers around a platform put up by a core group of its members that is open to participation from the community at large.

The challenge here had two main dimensions. 1) The core group, reflecting the community, was deeply diverse. It encompassed a chef, a pianist, a perfumer, and an experimental psychology researcher, among others. The degree of diversity in world-views and values (especially related to money), made it particularly difficult to drive consensus or even consent for key decisions. 2) There was a strong desire to serve the will of the community, and a such, transparency and community-wide input became additional operational requirements.

Then there is Sandbox — an international members association and community with over 1500 members spread across more than 50 countries. Sandbox has a complex history around governance, where the community was at some point re-established under a separate brand and leadership only to regain its name a few years later. Since that episode, and for the past 3 years, Sandbox had been governed with a very traditional structure composed of a Chair, a Treasurer, and a Secretary. This structure presented numerous challenges as it concentrated a tremendous amount of responsibility in a small and under-resourced group of people, and offered little guidance for which decisions the leadership could make on behalf of the community and which decisions required community-wide input. Both challenges eventually led to the collapse of the leadership team and governance structure and a subsequent project to redesign the governance model for the community.

The third case is Convergencia — an initiative to develop a depolarising agenda for Colombia by gathering business, social, political, religious, and community leaders to identify the key topics their communities care about and, within all the discrepancies of opinion, identify the points of convergence. Convergencia was launched by 6 influential leaders including United Nations’ director for Colombia and the ex-Minister for the Environment. Their challenge was finding a viable option to give a voice and a vote regarding the future of the project to all the leaders who participated in the workshops to ensure buy-in and be consistent with the project’s values of participation, dialogue, and bottoms-up organisation.

And finally, we have the Human Centred Co-Innovation Forum (HCCIF) that was discussed between LSEE (a consulting arm of the London School of Economics) and Good Rebels (a multinational digital consultancy). HCCIF aimed to create a neutral ground for 10 to 20 organisations to gather and discuss how consumer-centrism can be expanded to include the wellbeing and alignment with co-creators (i.e. employees) and the communities where the different organisations operate. In this case, the main challenge was around creating a decision-making framework for the founding members and later joiners that would ensure an appealing value proposition by reducing risks for reputational damage and capital loss and facilitate a fruitful collaboration.

These four cases have commonalities around involving multiple stakeholders with different and occasionally polarising objectives, and the possibility for mutual benefit should collaborations be achieved. However, they all had significant differences in terms of the expertise of their members, the capital resources available, the number of stakeholders, and the ultimate mission of the groups.

The Framework

Far from being a panacea, the following framework and approach, however, does offer a powerful system to articulate the relationships between stakeholders in complex collaborations.

The approach starts by developing a common understanding of the shared identity and vision. This is accomplished through structured dialogue between the multiple participants, in convergent phases where concrete definitions for history, purpose, values, and finally vision are developed by a small group, and divergent phases where these definitions are shared with the wider group for input and feedback. Initially, this process is rather intensive as multiple quick iterations are accomplished, until a sense of general consensus is achieved. At this point, the process does not stop but rather can be made less intensive (less frequent) and we can move to step two.

In the second step, we look at the wider operating model and governance framework. Similar to the first step, the essence of the process happens in alternating phases of convergence and divergence, where dialogue is facilitated by bringing tools from Systems Thinking’s field of Cybernetics (the VSM), traditional management (RAPI, RAPIDEST, and related), and more recent research from the field of Political Science on Poly-Centric Governance of the Commons (the works of V. & E. Ostrom are an excellent reference). These tools allow the group to differentiate between and concentrate their attention on the essential areas where decisions need to be taken. By separating between multiple areas for decision-making, which have different requirements (e.g. deciding on tactics vs vision vs strategy), the group can develop a process with the optimal amount of complexity or speed by centralising (e.g. through delegation) or decentralising (e.g. by allowing each autonomy), and varying the degree of involvement and need for consensus (e.g. consensus vs democratic voting vs consent). This process, as well, should become a recurring mechanism where the group can iterate and enable constant improvement.

In the third step, we focus on developing the capacity of the team to manage the frequency and optimise the format of the multiple structured discussions from steps one and two to continue happening. For this, I find facilitation protocols to be quite useful(including format inspiration from proven self-management systems such as Sociocracy 3.0 and Holacracy, as well as Design Thinking). Essentially, in this step we want to enable the group to optimise its own time between the multiple areas that are required for effective collaboration and high performance.

After completing the three steps, the group has in place all the necessary mechanisms to self-organise, avoid major governance risks, and constantly improve. However, there are two slightly more granular areas that still require a considerable amount of attention and to which I have occasionally been asked to contribute to encourage coherence and continuity:

• Embedding the principles developed during the discussions of step 1 (Identity) into the criteria and process to include new members into the group.
• And accompanying the process to develop a public interface coherent with the governance and operating model the group has developed.

The Outcome

As previously mentioned, this framework does not aim to solve all the challenges of a complex collaboration (anyone claiming that a single framework can is delusional). However, several stakeholders of the multiple initiatives that have gone through this process have manifested profound satisfaction, primarily in the following areas:

• The process to develop a shared identity and vision sped up decision-making, was key to find a solution in numerous subsequent discussion, and also led members to face their challenges with a sense of shared purpose and community.
• Segmenting the areas for decision-making brought clarity on the role that each stakeholder was able and expected to play, thus reducing misunderstandings and unpleasant surprises, and facilitating a collegial mood and efficient work.
• Bringing further attention to the structure itself of the discussions made the stakeholders grow in self-awareness and changed their standards for what an effective meeting should feel like. It kick-started a journey of improvement.
• Opening up a discussion about rhythms and cycles led to a realisation of how disorganised, and often ineffective, some of them had been. This realisation led to multiple experiments and iterations with both formats and frequency until better combinations were reached.

2 Simple Hacks To Delegate and Avoid Miscommunication

Imagine the following scenario: Jane asks Paul to design a poster that showcases a new product. Paul goes away, makes the poster, and then comes back to show the result, proud of delivering ahead of schedule and under budget.

Instead of congratulating him, Jane says that he should have checked with another department before deciding on the colour palette and that now the poster has to be redone. The project goes over time and over budget.

Delegation is one of the skills with the broadest range of applications, yet we rarely practice it consciously. Seldom we take into account the steps we could have taken to prevent the miscommunication from happening in the first place.

Below are 2 simple, yet powerful, mental tools that you can use to improve outcomes. The first, one addresses the structure of the communication. The second one addresses the content.

The three-step communication process:

In any conversation, it is hard to judge when your counterpart is actively listening. They might be giving an automated response or suffer from self-confirmation bias (a mechanism through which we privileged information that confirms our current world-views and ignore what contradicts it). And to complicate things further, we can often attribute different meanings to the same words.

The three-step process bypasses these problems by constantly bringing the attention of your counterpart back to the conversation and using multiple wordings. When executed with confidence, it shows professionalism and saves a considerable amount of time and pain.

As the name implies, it has 3 simple steps:

1. Person A explains ‘the thing’ to person B and asks for them to rephrase

e.i. “I would like you to [do X]. Could you explain to me how you see that happening pls?”

2. Person B rephrases and summarizes their understanding to person A

e.i. “yes, I will [rephrase], correct?”

3. Person A confirms* what person B just said

e.i. “yes, I’m glad that we are on the same page with [rephrase again]”

Of Course, if A doesn’t agree with the summary made by B, it is essential to restart the process.

Dilbert

The 5 elements of any task:

The next step is to make sure that no part of the content is left unaddressed.

For that, we divide content into 4 categories (each with the most common questions) that you can use as a mental or physical checklist:

The Fundamental Question: What is the underlying question/need this seeks to address? Why is this important?

The Method and Constraints: Is there a defined process or values? Is the person being delegated to completely free to choose his/her own? Deadlines? Budget? Risks? Any other constraints (e.g. place, legacy systems, dependencies)?

The Vision: What does success look like? What concrete outcome or characteristics would a “job well done” have?

Reporting: When should the topic be discussed again (e.g. upon choosing the method, upon achieving a milestone, upon completion, only if there is a problem)? Who, when, and how needs to be informed?

By combining the set of questions with the 3 step communication process, you get the best chance of success from the start. Just make sure the answers to the questions are not forgotten! (next article on effective note-taking coming soon)

Ethical Disruption is possible

Most industries are being disrupted, with the privileged benefiting while the vulnerable suffer. But it is possible to solve or at least lessen the problem. Here’s how.

An example of a disruptor is Bodega, founded by ex-Googlers and backed by First Round Capital, Forerunner Ventures, and Homebrew. Bodega aims to replace corner stores with an automated, more cost effective alternative. If successful, it will make it easier to purchase last minute items.

But the problem is that mom and pop stores, and the families that depend upon them, will suffer as a result. The venture is even appropriating their cultural capital by adopting the name ‘Bodega’, a term popularized by the Caribbean-Hispanic communities who often run these establishments in the U.S.

The company doesn’t seem concerned by the negative impact that it will be having on these communities, and people are resisting. Here are some of the headlines around the furor:

Fury at ‘Bodega’ tech startup that aims to put corner shops out of business — The Guardian

Startup Bodega apologizes for upsetting everyone — CNN

Bodega Isn’t Just Bad Branding, It’s Bad Business — Eater

With all these bad vibes, good people will be put off from working for or with Bodega, to say nothing of investors and, in the long run, customers. Bodega could have done things differently. Their model’s financial projections look attractive on paper, but they failed to take humans into account.

If you want to be an ethical disruptor, you need to address the issue head on. Bodega could, for example, have offered to donate a small fraction of its shares to a foundation dedicated to training bodega owners with new skills. Instead of putting them out of business, it could have given them a path into the digital economy of the future.

People who felt inspired by that philanthropic purpose, or reassured by the company’s social responsibility, would have an incentive to buy from the company. The conflict of interest is acknowledged and mitigated, and the company softens and humanizes its image, finding a way into the all-powerful heart.

Unfortunately, most companies have not been designed taking into account the communities they operate in and impact, and the consequences are dire.Uber is a recent example, where focusing on nothing but customers at the expense of everyone else has cost investors $10 billion and the CEO his job. Not caring is bad business.

In contrast, companies that care generate goodwill. Elvis & Kresse make bags out of recycled firefighter hose. By donating to firefighters charities, they ensured a community of advocates, plenty of good press, and even a free supply of raw materials.

But it’s not enough to throw money at any old cause, as BP discovered when people started to protest against its donations to the Tate Museum in London. Ethical disruption is at its best when the negative impact of a venture is acknowledged. A leader in this space is Patagonia, where generous donations to charities, logistics, and advertising, are designed to reduce the damage to the environment. They harmonize their customers’ love for the outdoors with the products they sell, generating goodwill to the tune of 25% sales growth during the 2008–2009 crisis.

Ongoing support is much more powerful than prizes or grants. Warby Parker trains locals in deprived areas to deliver eye tests and sell low-cost glasses. As their website says, ‘It’s a sticky fact of life that kind-hearted gestures can have unintended consequences. Donating is often a temporary solution, not a lasting one.’ Rather than risk a flash in the pan or create a culture of dependency, their approach leverages their core competence to empower local communities.

If it is not Bodega, someone will someday disrupt the old-school industries. The technology is there, so why not seize the opportunity and become an ethical disruptor? Just be sure to assess and acknowledge your wider impact when designing your organization, investors and society will thank you.