business agility and organisational learning

The capacity to learn is a gift; the ability to learn is a skill; the willingness to learn is a choice. Brian Herbert

Business Agility & Learning OrganisationLAST Conference 2015, Melbourne

Structure

Business Agility & People

Engagement

Structural Issues/Culture

Learning Disabilities in Organisations

Challenges Learning Disciplines

Shoaib Shaukat

Principal Consultant @ AZRALeading Agile Adoption @ Citi Power

Leading Continuous Improvement Program @ Citi Power

Sense Respond Business AgilityAdapt

Business Agility -‐> Competitive Advantage

27% Almost one-‐third (27%) of respondents say that their organisation is at a competitive disadvantage because it is not agile enough.

Source: Towers Watson 2012

To be successful we want people to be fully enthusiastic and involved with the work!


Nearly 65% of the global workforce is disengaged with the organisation!!

Nearly 90% of the executives surveyed by the Economist Intelligence Unit believe that

organisational agility is critical for business success..

Yet most companies admit they are not flexible enough to compete successfully!


Excellent contribution when highly engaged!

Impact of under-‐engaged employees on the performance of organisation??

Despite recognising it as important consistently spending on people development programs why organisations are failing to engage their workforce?

We are running 21st Century businesses with 20th Century workplace practices and programs, and 19th Century Mindset!

1880 1900 1930 1940 1990 2000 2010

F. Taylor

1960 1970 1980

TPS Developed

TSM Developed TSM in use

TPS in use

Taichii Ohno Deming

Toyota Production System

Theory of Scientific Management

One best way of doing the job

“First Class Men” to do each job

Pay per piece

Duties of Management

Total Quality Management

Just In Time

Avoidance of waste

Jidoka -‐ Automation

Flexible ProductionCustomer Focus

Evolution of Systems and Practices

Evolution of Management Practices and Mental Models

Cost Accounting Performance Management

TargetsPlanning

Service levels Economies of scale

Lean System Thinking

Cycle times Pull

Peter Senge’s

7Learning Disabilities

Source: Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline p. 17-‐26

Lack of big picture

Passing on blame

Reactivity is mistaken as proactivity

Short term goals

Slow Reaction

Overreliance on experience learning

Skill incompetence

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1st DisabilityI am what my position is: (Lack of big picture)

2nd DisabilityThe enemy is out there -‐ Passing on blame

Associated with a state of mind that is used to be suspicious of the others and on passing blames.. [Lack of accountability].

3rd DisabilityIllusion of taking charge:

Proactive-‐ness can really be reactiveness in disguise. True pro-‐activeness comes from seeing how our own actions contribute to problems.

4th Disability -‐ Fixation on Events:

Associated with focus and engagement in events and details .. Distracting the focus of the organisation .. The focus is on the problem and not on the causes and consequences..

In this disability the organisation is unable to connect things to each other focuses on short term and neglects long term

targets.

4th Disability -‐ Fixation on Events:

5th Disability -‐ The parable of the boiled frog:

Appears when an organisation overlooks small but constant changes .. And get used to neglect minor changes, which may lead to aggravation, threatening it overtime.

Can you put a frog in a pot and cook it without causing it to jump out of the pot?

Can you put a frog in a pot and cook it without causing it to jump out of the pot?

Scientific experiments have shown that if a frog is placed in a pot with water, and you lift the temperature slowly but continuously the frog will get used to the

change and will not feel the danger until it dies.

6th DisabilityDelusion of learning from experience

Associated with dependency on previous experiences and personal intelligence to deal with situations.. we develop experience through trial and error but do you reckon that past experiences will yield same results in different times, places and people?

7th DisabilityMyth of Management Team

Associated with management’s desire to appear as a cohesive group that is pulling in the same direction.

Do you see the challenge coming?

Forces of Change

New Disruptive Technologies

Government and Legislative changes

Continuous Improvements

Social Media

Rising Customer Expectations

Global Competitiveness

The law of learning is the same in all parts of life.

The starting point need to be: the establishment of a workplace culture that addresses organisational learning disabilitiesand supports positive energy, and thus positive learning.

Key Challenges

In this triad of People, Process and Technology; process

optimisation and technology deployment is given a lot more importance and

organisations are largely driven by this.

Key Challenges

Learning starts with people.

Diligence

Obedience

Passion

Creativity

Initiative

Intellect

Human Capabilities (Source: Gary Hamel – Future of Management, 2007)

Commodities

Value & Engagem

ent

Learning Disciplines for Business Agility

people who are passionate, creative and take initiative to make an impact.

allow people to define purpose and have the independence to work around what they enjoy.

enable continuous learning and discovery by allowing people to align their purpose with

customer needs.

organisational support programs for people to unlock their potential (e.g. job tailoring).

Organisational Learning

Personal Mastery

System Thinking

Mental Models

Shared Vision

Team Learning

Learning Disciplines for Business AgilityWe are linear thinkers in a non-‐linear world. Here lies our limitation as a System Thinker.

Real world is a complex interdependency of people, processes, technologies and

environments.

Continuously expand the horizon of learning by brining various teams to collaborate on customer

needs.

Blur functional boundaries.

Opening value stream analysis to enable wider learning.


Personal Mastery

System Thinking

Mental Models

Shared Vision

Team Learning

Learning Disciplines for Business AgilityThey are deeply ingrained assumptions, generalisations, experiences or images that influence how we understand the world and how we take actions.

Promote critical thinking, constructive criticism and debate as part of the dialog process that allows the teams to look at their work objectively and align with purpose.

Experimentation & recovering from failure.

Cross functional collaboration on work activities allows people to see big picture and adjust their mental models gradually.


Personal Mastery

System Thinking

Mental Models

Shared Vision

Team Learning

Learning Disciplines for Business Agility

Shared vision -‐> organised pursuit of success

• Values and behaviours• Helps engage business units and

functions.• Linking streams of work to business

strategy.• Rethink functional boundaries and

organisational structure.


Personal Mastery

System Thinking

Mental Models

Shared Vision

Team Learning

Learning Disciplines for Business AgilitySuccessful teams understand their limits and

opportunities.

• Individuals learn more in groups and when there is a culture of knowledge sharing and trust.

• Enable dialogue, the capacity of team members to suspend personal assumptions and enter into a genuine thinking together mode.

• Promote trust, team work and collaboration.• Individual KPI/Targets -‐> Team Purpose• Career paths consistent with cultural objectives.


Personal Mastery

System Thinking

Mental Models

Shared Vision

Team Learning

Scrum

XP

LeanVisual Management

Continuous Delivery

Kanban

Agile toolset is a mean to advance business agility.

MVP Spotify

Holacracy Others

Sense Respond Business AgilityAdapt

Recap

Learning starts with People

Change starts with few people.