Category: COVID19

Now is the time to think about what is next after what is next

Updated and improved on 18 April 2020, Originally published, March 19 2020

I have found the past month a bit surreal, to say the least. When I travelled through an international airport at the end of January I saw paramedics treating a person who had collapsed. The paramedics were not wearing masks and gloves, while a gaping growing crowd gathered to watch, despite the fact that they already knew about the Covid-19 virus. That was the moment when I realised that I would have to suspend my travels for a while.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve received many calls and emails from business and government leaders asking me to help them to think through their options. Some even asked for scenarios. First, let me explain why just jumping straight to scenarios is not a good idea right now with all the contradictory information we are being inundated with.

With all the uncertainty and confusion right now, public and business leaders need some vision of the future to work towards. Hence the image of this blog is a meerkat looking away from whatever the others are occupying themselves with. But different leaders have slightly different motivations. While some people require very little information to make decisions, others need lots of evidence and data. The first group are most likely the innovators and creators of new markets and business models, while the second group may be those that are more focused on incrementally improving what already exists or what is in place. I will refer to the first group as the innovators and the second group as the system optimisers.

We need both innovators and system optimisers to create the future, but they are driven by different motivations and often take different paths if you do not get them to explore a shared mental map. The first group, the innovators, needs a problem to explore and space to try new things, while the system optimisers need a target to reach and sufficient authority over resources to get there. The system builders will look at the facts and data and will think you are crazy if you want to talk about a post-crisis positioning strategy. The innovators will go nuts if you ask them to improve the system when they feel that the way the world works is being questioned. You need these groups to work together – one shared picture, and different yet complementary skills.

So if I had to help your team think about the options right now, a first step would be to think of what could possibly happen next. Yes, it is that simple. Maybe it takes only a few minutes. But this gives us some possible trajectories, and we can explore the ups and downs of each. At least we then have some options to choose from.

I agree that looking at the immediate options is not enough. That is too short term. So we have to ask a second round of “what’s next?” questions and try to explore the decision branches from the previously identified possibilities. Now the innovators can start thinking about new arrangements, new connections, new formulations of what already exists. The system builders will most likely already be a little frustrated with all the hypothetical talk, so they need to be enabled to start thinking of what must be decided or put in place to go down certain paths while avoiding others.

I know this is very simplistic, but my experience right now is that it is very hard to ask people to think six months or three years in advance. But for us to shape what is coming, we have to get more leaders thinking about what is emerging and what is emerging after what is next. This is hard to type, but it is even harder to ponder.

I know that some of my mentors, like Dave Snowden, will baulk at me even proposing a two-by-two matrix as the basis for a scenario exercise, so I hope he will not see this post. Using a simple matrix is a straightforward way to get people to think of alternatives that they struggle to consider if you don’t take them on a structured thinking journey.

Here is a simple scenario matrix that I have been using this week to guide some of my clients. They are all facing a lot of uncertainty about how to make decisions in the next few weeks.

On the Y-axis at the top is “Change initiated by us”, and at the bottom is “Change initiated by others” (Yes, I know that looks as though it is the past tense, but just humour me). On the X-axis on the left is “Past orientation, focused on evidence and recent data” and on the right “Future orientation, focused on what is possible next … and next”.

Yes, again the immediate focus. My sense right now is to think shorter term just for a few days. Just get your team to start building a shared mental map. Then you can push further into the future.

Let us now think through these quadrants. Simply combine the statement on the Y-axis with the statement on the X-axis. You can start in any of the quadrants. I find it easier to start on the left in the past, combined with changes initiated by others. This is what we have to respond to.

Here is a write-up of a telephone conversation I had with a client today. It was surprisingly similar to a conversation I had yesterday with another client in the Not-for-Profit sector. You can skip this if you want to.

We started at the bottom left (which made sense to me because he felt that his hand was being forced, even though he understood that based on the evidence the government was probably making the right decisions). We spoke about the self-isolation of his team, the rapidly worsening statistics, and what it would mean for his organisation if the government (and others he depends on) made the obvious decisions. We explored which data was reliable and valuable enough to track.  Next, we moved to the top-left quadrant. Based on the data and evidence, what decisions should he be making? He immediately realised there were some pretty obvious decisions that he simply had to announce. We also reflected on what he had already done and explored how he knew that he had made the right decisions. 

Then we moved to the bottom right quadrant. We started to consider what changes might be made by others next. And next. He realised that we might move to complete quarantine if the government felt it was necessary. He realised that he would be forced to close large parts of his business, so he could explore with his team what they would need to keep some operations viable. He realised that if his suppliers closed, he would be in trouble, so he had to remain in close contact with them to know what their plans were for the next few days.

In the top-right quadrant, he realised that he had to consider a “dry run” to practice with his team to work together even when they were not together. Some other ideas were also explored. At this point, he could take it further. He had enough ideas to work with. I still wanted to explore the “what next” after the “ what next”, but he said we could talk about that the next day.

These are some notes of a long conversation that I had with a client. At the end of the conversation he could already sense that he could move from being responsive to being pro-active, and how he could involve his team in this exploration.

Please let me know how you are working with your team to build and maintain a shared mental map of your situation and your options. Do not be shy, use the comments block below!

Thanks to Harald Jarche, who is always reminding his readers rather to share half-baked ideas than to try and perfect them. All the errors are my fault, not his.

How to use remote team collaboration

This is a grammar edited and improved version of an earlier post.

I am supporting teams that are using Slack, MS Teams or other remote collaboration applications. Some of my clients also use Viber or WhatsApp.

In our company, Mesopartner, we’ve been using Slack for a few years. It’s not my purpose here to review these different applications, but rather to share some insights on how we and some of our clients have configured channels for conversations.

I like to look at remote collaboration tools not only as communication and coordination tools but as an essential element of strengthening knowledge development and as a learning environment. 

Wherever I am supporting teams to improve their shared sense-making and innovation cultures, I ask them to create the following channels:

#Reading and listening – here people can share what they are reading and listening to.

#Working out loud – here people can check in and explain to the rest of the team what is currently foremost on their mind. The intent is not only to inform others, but also to help the person making the post to increase their own coherence or narrative of what they are devoting their attention to and why.

Now, with the COVID-19 virus, more and more people are working from home. In our own company, we have created a channel called #Coping-with-Corona where we can all share our experiences of being in different stages of self-isolation.

We have also created groups of channels. For instance, we have a group of channels where the names all start with “support” followed by the topic. So in our “#support_mac” channel we help each other with tips, problem solving and advice, while in the “#support_blogging” channel we encourage and assist each other with blogging. 

We have groups of channels for projects and important topics, and to coordinate our internal company functions such as publications, etc.

Sometimes team leaders struggle to understand the value and function of the informal banter that often takes place in the different channels. This informal exchange is important because it makes it possible for teams to weave together explicit knowledge from the misformed or semi-thought-through statements, the half-baked ideas, the intuitions and the sarcasm that give expression to tacit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is often hard to express. Furthermore, tacit knowledge is often revealed when doubts or confidence are expressed, like when somebody replies “I am just not so sure about your approach”, or “Yes, you should try that, in my experience that always works”. Tacit knowledge often develops iteratively during many conversations.

The real challenge with encouraging people to share their tacit insight is that we all prefer to share our feelings and insight only with people whom we trust, or people whom we believe will be able to use our ideas. That is why reducing the chatter to only factual and precise formulations is not helpful. Often individuals will share their advice when they feel that others have shown in the past that the shared ideas are useful.

A final point. These remote collaboration tools are so useful because we can create channels when we need them, or we can close or archive them when they have served their purpose. Rather make more channels, and tolerate some cross-posting, than to have a few channels that are so busy that people fall behind in a day or two. Encourage your team members to reduce internal emails and to use the remote collaboration tools and you will immediately see an improved culture of sharing, deliberation and joint sense making.

Supporting your team from a distance during self or imposed isolation

This is a grammar edited and improved version of an earlier post.

I have been receiving many messages from clients and friends asking for advice on how to work from home. I have organised the requests into three groups.

The first group has been asking me how I manage my time.

What works for me is to organise my day into half- or quarter-day blocks of time during which I focus intensively on one topic. I try to schedule the more conceptual or tougher mental tasks for the mornings, and phone calls, Skype calls and admin for the afternoons. Also, I found that dressing for work helps me to stay focused. I don’t necessarily dress as formally as I would when attending a meeting, but I generally try not to look like I am going to spend the day on the beach.

The second group has been asking me how they can keep their teams connected while everyone is working from home.

This is a little harder. If your team is doing knowledge work, then I would check with them what kind of information and knowledge exchange they need to do their work. Don’t just have web meetings to stay in touch (although there is a need to remain socially connected), use meetings and platforms such as Slack or MS Teams to exchange views and ideas on what really matters. I have seen some of my clients doing daily check-ins and half-daily updates of what everyone is doing. I don’t really think this helps unless everybody’s tasks are clearly defined. Most people, even when they are at work, are overwhelmed by all the information streams that appear to be important, although this does actually help people to make better decisions or do their jobs better.

During this time when people are working from home it will also become apparent which team members are truly independent and able to build their area of work without your direct supervision. Some of your team members will love this, and will find the “freedom” to work at their own pace exhilarating. However, some people will also feel insecure, and they may even feel distressed and need more direction from you. But please, whatever you do, do not treat everybody the same. Give those who can self-direct their work the space and the freedom, while spending more time with those that need direction. 

Lastly, it is not possible to remotely keep all your people working productively. There are all kinds of distractions at home: kids, pets, snacking and other comforts. It takes a lot of discipline to work from home, I know! Some people will simply not perform as expected. I suggest you focus on the key team members who are critical to keep your organisation going and try to support them as best as you can. Give those doing operational or administrative tasks clear instructions. But don’t expect everybody to perform.

The third group of clients having been asking me how they can use this abnormal situation to re-think areas of their business from a strategy and innovation perspective. 

Most of our thinking is shaped by recency bias. We tend to think of the issues that dominated our conversations and attracted our attention in the last week or two. This bias makes it hard for us to reflect on what we are not paying sufficient attention to, or what else may be happening but which we may be filtering out. 

Right now, everyone is talking about COVID-19. A few weeks ago everyone in South Africa was talking about the pending rating agency downgrade and the state of our economy and the poor state of our state-owned companies. I guess that in your workplace these topics are also taking up mental bandwidth, like the financial year-end and many others.

I suggest that you use this time away from the watercooler and the coffee machine to think beyond the dominant and recent topics that almost magnetically drew your attention. What are those issues that often do not get enough mental bandwidth? Some suggestions are the following:

  • What have you postponed thinking about simply because it feels like a lot of effort to do while there is so much else that requires your attention?
  • How innovative is your culture in your organisation really? Is this culture widespread or dependent on just a few individuals who are willing to try new ideas and make fools of themselves?
  • How strong is your team and organisation at making sense not only of what is happening, but what is emerging?
  • How much time are you spending imagining how things could be in the future and then finding ways to go and fetch those stuck in the present or the past?

Let me know what you are trying, and what seems to be working for you and your team. Your comments and suggestions are useful to all my other clients and friends who are reading this blog.

Don’t waste time holding out for “normal” to return

Like you, I am spending hours each day in video calls with clients, friends, family and people I am trying to encourage during the COVID19 lockdown.

Have often do you hear people say “in two weeks this will be over?” or, “I think I am coping well under the circumstances?”.

How often do you hear people exclaim “when things get back to normal then…”?

In my mind, I cannot imagine us going back to normal.

In our country, too many poor people and small enterprises would have been affected by the pandemic. Even if no virus comes anywhere near them, their worlds have changed. Savings may be depleted. Suppliers and clients may not re-open. Governments resources to support the economy may be greatly reduced. All of this will not be undone on the day or the weeks after the lockdown ends.

Yes, I know that some things may also change for the better. Maybe some new entrepreneurs will grow the confidence to start their ventures. Hopefully, the inadequate infrastructure and the lack of basic services in large parts of our country will not be forgotten in the next planning cycles. I believe many new champions in essential services and goods will be tempered during this time. I understand that not everybody will be affected to the same extent.

I know this all sounds very gloomy. My question is, why settle your hope on getting back to normal?

What is normal anyway?

Do we really want to go back there? A few months ago, we were all complaining about how terrible the “normal” was. Just think back to the headlines about Brexit or the local politics. Just think back to how busy you were, of the things that bothered you. I can recall conversations with many of my clients about how they never have time to read or think, or how disempowered their staff were.

I urge you to set a higher standard than “the normal”. I beg you to use this time to purposefully design and build the kind of enterprise and innovation culture that you and your team desire. Start forming the new habits, routines and patterns right now.

When you plan, don’t (only) plan for the days after the lockdown ends. You have to think about how the world has changed. Carefully consider the state of the people that you depend on, in your organisations, your suppliers and your clients. Think of fundamental shifts that you have to respond to, but also ponder the things that you can influence or change. While imagining the new normal you want to shape, be mindful of the physical and emotional states of the people that you have to work with. It may take some extra effort to encourage and lift up the people around you.

Above all, you cannot now afford to only think in the short term. You cannot only think of your local context. During this COVID19 pandemic, we could hear and see daily reports of how our countries are interdependent. Our own socio-economic well-being is tied to what is going on in the rest of Africa and the world.

Lastly, don’t be selfish. Think of your organisation’s role in the communities all your people interact with, of the society and the environment you are part of. Make sure, that as far as possible, your organisation is unleashed to make this space that you work in better.