Joakim’s Reflections - CW2514 - ScanAgile25

It is the first day of the week following a fantastic conference in Helsinki, Finland, namely, ScanAgile. Truth be told, I had never heard of, or at least cannot recall having heard of, ScanAgile before. However, the more I talked to people, the more I started to understand the good reputation and high standing the conference have. Had I known this beforehand, I doubt my expectations would not have been exceeded anyway, it was a great experience. Read someone saying it was all about the people, to which I do not disagree. Adding to that, it was just the complete package. The attention to detail made it just that little extra. I will not continue raving about it, I can only highly recommend that you go next year if you have the opportunity. As well as I sincerely hope I will get invited back as a speaker.

Mandatory speaker-badge-selfie.

Meta-Reflection

The thoughts started to come to me already early on day two. The pessimistic side of me thinking loud and provokingly, “why are we still have the same problems in organizations, it has been f****ng decades at this point and in some cases even close to a century!?!?!?”

The optimistic counterpart, on the other hand, calmly retorted, “well, we already have all the tools, frameworks and theories that we know work against these issues.”

Practicing my hypnotizing hand-gestures on stage.

When Hit With Reality

Having spent a decade in consulting now, my experience seems to hold true for most people I encounter. That when hit with reality, our tools, frameworks and theories crumble. At least in the eyes of dogmatism. I have been thoroughly deep in dogmatism myself, a criticism to my previous self that I fully embrace and acknowledge, in retrospect. It is not so much that the plethora of change agents that we all come across in organizations do not know that a dynamic and responsive adaption of whatever tool, framework or theory is needed, it is just that the most common approach to implementation is grounded in a linear process of trying to convince the other side. That a cause-effect relationship must be established so we can reason around the soundness of what we are trying to do and how we are trying to do it. I do this myself, a lot. When you are done reading, a valid criticism is that this text is doing just the same on a meta-level. So, what am I proposing if I seemingly cannot avoid doing the exact thing I am accusing the broader change agent network of?

A change-agent seen in the wild, not a flock-animal.

Research-Informed        

I lost count of how many times I have been called too theoretical when working with or interviewing for different organizations. Initially, I took it as criticism towards my lack of experience. Even many years later, this was the feeling I had. Nowadays, however, I am more equipped to deal with such opinions. I like to see myself as research-informed, and I can quite pragmatically extract take-aways and learnings from research and apply to my own situation and experience. A counter-opinion I hold is that, if you cannot explain to me what you are doing through the lens of a theory (or idea, concept, framework, …), you are simply ignorant and firing blindly around you, essentially running without a direction. In your defence, you are likely working in an organization that does not value thinking as part of performing your duties but rather emphasize action.

Directionless?

What I am saying is that there is a balance to be had. You should not blindly do what someone else is saying or even doing. You should also not close your eyes to what is going on outside of your organization. You must be research-informed!

Research-Informed Practice

Some light reading on the plane.

This is specifically for leaders and change agents. The people tasked with changing the behaviour of others, mainly through influence. In scientific research there is quantitative research. The most common example is a classic A/B-test, where you tweak one parameter at a time and measure the result with the intention to be able to replicate and predict future behaviour. There is also qualitative research, where replication of results is a near certain impossibility. If that is the case, why even bother? What good could possibly come out of a qualitative research approach?

The former is highly attractive in a predict and control paradigm, the latter is much more powerful when the dominant paradigm must be sense and respond.

Self-organized or by design?

Complexity

All organization are complex-adaptive-systems (CAS). In a CAS, the only thing you can do to influence the outcome we will see tomorrow, is sensemaking in the now. Asking the question – “what is currently happening?”, while simultaneously observing the actions and documenting what you see and hear. It is only in retrospect that you (collective you) can make sense of the situation and how it unfolded.

This is called participatory action research, and more specifically, using narration as a tool for sensemaking.

Action research is when the researcher spends time in the actual environment where the work happens. In the real world and not in a controlled environment.

Participatory has to do with the fact that the researcher is an active participant in the environment where the work happens. Taking part in the conversations and discussions while simultaneously advising and influencing the very subjects of the research.

I have been doing this for the past decade. I only started because I was trying to make sense of my own thoughts and observations. I did not know that what I was doing was research, less so that the approach it eventually evolved into is a very impactful way to increase complexity awareness in organizations and accept a non-linear approach to change in presence of said complexity.

Lead by Example

As a change agent, I want to encourage you to acknowledge that you are a researcher in the first place. You are treading unknown ground. No one has been here before you. You are taking part in the change as it happens, while simultaneously influencing the direction. The most powerful thing you can do is to document your observations together with your thoughts, emotions and actions as they unfold. Accept that you will not be able to make sense of them in the moment, and that is not the point. The point is to return to your research notes once more information has revealed itself and more events have unfolded. First then can you engage in collective sensemaking.

A not so complex structure.

The sad truth in the end is that you cannot sell this. No one wants to buy a transformation where you clearly state that the result is impossible to know. The dilemma lies in that unless you embrace the uncertainty that is inevitable in the presence of complexity, you will not reach any goal that you would consider success to begin with. This is nothing new, it is even stated in the Agile Manifesto – it is in doing the work that we learn about the work that needs doing.

What I want you to take with you is the cliché, it all starts with you! As a change agent, embrace that you cannot make sense of things as they happen, but do take the time to document what is going on. Engaging in retrospective sensemaking is the most important practice I have found over the past decade.