Following a number of recent events and round table discussions I attended so far this year regarding the incredible changes we are seeing in the way we work and the impact of technology, it’s clear that leaders will need to adapt to accommodate the future of work.
Are we as leaders ready to adapt? Are we equipped to make the changes needed?
The Current Situation
Organisations are facing unprecedented change, technology, work and people are changing. The future of work is fiercely debated in light of emerging forces and the new world brings new opportunities for technology, work and people.
In the popular business press, or just view the landing pages of consultancies, universities or industry associations, and you can see the same set of issues being debated. Whether it’s about enterprise agility, customer connection, being purpose driven or simply breaking out of old hierarchical patterns, global businesses are triangulating around a common target, which is ultimately about increasing their relevance to both their employees and their customers.
70% of business leaders believe they need new talent and skills.
75% of fortune 500 companies will use crowdsourcing by 2020.
57% of jobs today are vulnerable to automation
- 17% of global execs are ready to manage a workforce with people, robots and AI working side by side
Moving forward in today’s digital age involves a complete shift in mindset, culture and operating philosophy. However, the collective immune systems of many global businesses are increasingly brittle and may easily crumble under the enormous weight of technological disruption and rapidly shifting consumer expectations compounding the challenge, especially if they don’t have the talent or experience in the organisation.
Today’s management systems, structures and talent strategies tend to be outdated, designed for an era when size and enduring stability defined competitive advantage. Organisations that once benefited from a size‑and‑scale strategy have rapidly disappeared from the S&P 500. And today, just 14% of CxOs report a high degree of confidence in their ability to make the changes that the digital revolution requires. Beyond the C‑suite, employees’ trust and confidence in business and government is at the lowest levels in decades.
*Read Mark Braithwaite – Leadership Disrupted
Amidst these changes a new breed of successful organisations are emerging in this fourth industrial revolution (Robotics) that is shifting away from command-and-control cultures towards management practices that harness diverse crowds of people who are engaged, energised and focused on surprising and delighting customers, unencumbered by excess bureaucracy and pursuing both personal and business goals with purpose.
*Read my blog on The Future of Leadership
The technology start‑up offers a model for understanding how to become an Adaptive Organization (AO) that can flex to market developments, while energising teams to deliver breakthrough products and solutions. The factors that help make these fast-scaling workplaces irresistible can also unlock a new way of leading, enabling, working, and organising.
The Adaptable Organization
Organisations thriving in a complex world of uncertainty show bold disruption and continuous innovation. Relying on the human desire for resilience and reinvention, these organisations embrace change and rapidly morph to respond to shifting customer, environmental and market needs. Adaptable Organisations remove the belief in scarcity, structure and control and replace it with an ecosystem that learns from the past and adapts accordingly to help ensure survival of the overall system. In this sense, Adaptable Organisations are living and breathing enterprises organised around networks based on how people work and behave, distributing and maximising human potential.
In a world where the future is uncertain, organisations should consider shifting stable and predictable characteristics to adaptable ones.
Considered another way, Adaptable Organisations do business inclusively. Diversity is not how an organisation does its work or how someone leads. D&L is part of the ethos of a company – inclusion/inclusive behaviours is how the CEO and everyone else leads and connects. This thinking enables it to listen to new voices, adapt in real time to each new individual it employs, and leverage methodologies to foster richer, more innovation solutions.
A few years ago, an organisation’s desire to become more agile and innovative was an indicator of success; now it is an imperative for survival in unstable markets. Organisations that are not directly impacted by increased market pressure and that often appear stable on the surface, such as government or not‑for‑profits, are also searching for adaptability.
Five layers of an Adaptable Organization
Based on Deloitte’s experiences over the last few years, they have summarised what they view as five fundamental layers of Adaptable Organisations:
The Ecosystem
The Organization
The Team
The Leader
The Individual
Just as the cell is the building block of all living things, in the Adaptable Organisation a team composed of versatile leaders and resilient individuals is the building block for adaptability. Latent human potential is driven through each layer of the organisation and throughout its culture.
The Adaptable Organization can be viewed at five layers from an adaptive ecosystem down to the individual.
The Ecosystem – How the work ENVIRONMENT Operates. Adaptable Organisations exist in purpose driven ecosystems with defined customer focused missions.
The Organisation – How work is ORGANISED. They organise capabilities away from deep hierarchy and silos towards a network of multi- disciplinary organisations.
The Team – How work is DELIVERED. They enable high performing teams by adopting connected ways of working and an adaptable culture.
The Leader – How work is MANAGED and LED. Leaders are inclusive orchestrators versus technical task masters in order to unlock the full potential of diverse skill-sets
The Individual – How work is EXECUTED. Unlock resilient individuals through adaptive talent programs to enable how people want to learn, grow and develop
Taking the steps to adaptability
Trying to solve today’s complex, industry‑reshaping challenges can seem formidable. An Adaptable transformation doesn’t necessarily deliver customer intimacy or product/service excellence on its own, but it improves your organisation’s chances of discovering those breakthroughs by purposefully creating a symbiotic relationship between your customer, community or citizen goals, and your internal choices against the 5 layers highlighted above. Below are considerations to kick start your journey.
Being Adaptable is up to you – You don’t need to be a start‑up or a small organisation to be adaptable. The Large multinationals, from oil & gas super majors to global banks and consumer giants are beginning to challenge outdated management philosophies and practices. Many are experimenting through pilots and only in the areas where it’s required. An Adaptable Organization does not mark the end of functional design, shared services and large scale divisional of labour. It just calls for a bolder approaching parts of the organisation where customer pressures and disruption are particularly intense.
Becoming Adaptable is safer than you think – In fact, Adaptable Organisation transformations are safer than your typical large-scale transformation or conventional. Historically, these initiatives have been highly “waterfall” and all about placing a “big bet” based on the latest management fad, or benchmarks that have little relevance to your own organisation. In contrast, as we looked through the 5 layers, Adaptability is achieved through incremental changes that nudge the organisation forward through a test and learn mindset that builds confidence as each month of the initiative passes.
Adaptable is not about doing what others are doing – Well documented digital and technology organisations and other pioneers were bold and experimented with early forms of adaptability. Unfortunately, both clients and consultants alike are guilty of “cutting and pasting ”the practices of others against their own operating environment. This should be avoided at all costs. Adaptable Organisations work when they have been designed, led and implemented ground up and customised to the unique needs of the organisation. It may sound obvious, but it’s one of the most common mistakes that Deloitee has observed over the last few years.
Adaptable is more than theory – After consuming articles and presentations on the reasons to make your organisation more flexible, agile, resilient or adaptable its important to understand that becoming adaptable is all about changing ways of working and ways of thinking about work, which takes time. We often see the urge to declare “mission accomplished” too early in the journey to be Adaptable. This can significantly undermine progress that has already been made. Follow through is essential.
Adaptable is not just architecture – Many organisations start with organisation design because it’s often a visible symptom of larger adaptability challenges, but it’s only the tip of the Organization architecture is a platform for the individual people that will make adaptability successful. Creating the right environment for those people will take a lot longer than redesigning the team composition.
Adaptable is about team before the individual – Do not confuse Adaptable with the approaches from the past. Every conference presentation or workshop inevitably raises the same question – “haven’t we already tried this with tiger teams, or quality circles?”. While it is true that aspects of adaptability have been experimented with over the last 30‑40 years, the fundamental gap has been a lack of systems thinking to genuinely connect how structure, ways of working, leadership, and behaviours link with customer missions to activate autonomous teams to work with purpose.
Adaptable is about leadership everywhere – We have seen some organisations adopt adaptable practices like Networks of Teams or Agile ways of working, but then hesitate when it comes to “leaders letting go” and allowing teams to make decisions (and make mistakes). Unfortunately, because AO is based on a systems thinking, unless you have the resolve to follow through fully, you will not get the full benefits that others Again, you can still be iterative and pilot in parts of the organisation, but in those selected initiatives you have to go all the way.
Adaptable is co-creation – There is no better design or change when everyone is involved (and in the case of AO, been led by) the very people it is looking to positively to impact. While the CxO may trigger the transformation and set the broad vision, AO works best when it is led ground up. It takes some courage to let go as an executive, but can yield real results.
If you are in an industry that is in the cross-hairs of disruption, but are reluctant to take the leap into Adaptability, consider the opportunity cost of not acting, and take an experimental mindset into your next meeting. Many incremental steps towards being Adaptable (taken together) will lead to the fundamental shift in operating philosophy that i believe AO can deliver at a time of significant disruption.