Categorie: Entrepreneurability

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Entrepreneurability Generations on the workfloor

Rethink offices: Less distractions, more collaboration

While writing this post you are probably working from home. Or many of your colleagues are. I hear from many people that working from home makes them (feel) more productive. They have more focus and less distractions compared to being at the office. Now more organisations are slowly opening their doors. Maybe it’s time to rethink the use of our offices and maybe save some money along the way.

Distractions in offices

Before COVID-19 put everything to a standstill, offices were the place people would spend most of their day. And all of them struggle with the same challenge of not being distracted by others to actually get some work done. It doesn’t matter if you work in cubicles (hello 80’s) or in these large open offices where the number of desks available is less than the amount of employees. There is always distraction, birthday celebrations, Town hall meetings, coffee machine gossip. You can spend the entire day talking to others and not do the work that’s needs to be done. This is especially challenging if you are a person who thrives on social interactions. Most of us will probably have to spend a portion of your evening to get our work done.

No meeting rooms available

A totally different type of distraction is meetings. Somehow, managers and specialists tend to spend most of their day at the office in meeting rooms. If they are available. Since we need to fit a maximum amount of desks into the office. Also need some meeting rooms, organisations end up with a little bit of both but never enough. You probably have seen them. Groups of people 5 minutes past the hour waiting outside the meeting room arguing with the group inside the room. Both claim they booked the room. The horror and the amount of money lost!

When working from home, meeting get even worse since they tend to drain our energy dus to a lack of eye contact (you cannot look someone in the eye while videoconferencing). So now that we are slowly moving back to the office. Now might be a good idea to rethink our office spaces and see if we can be less distracted and are able to collaborate more.

What do consultancy firms do?

Good thing is, we can learn from the practices many consultancy firm have. They have their consultans over at customers mostly four days a week. On the fifth day they would get back to their own office. To share knowledge, develop new services, meet and collaborate.

I have worked for two consultancy firm that had quite a different office then the average organisation. The offices were designed to facilitate collaboration and work is done elsewhere. These offices had numerous meeting rooms and large multifunctional rooms. These could easily be converted from hosting events, trainingscourses or large companywide meetings. This worked great and I believe this might work for every knowledge intensive organisation. To do your work, you can work from home or where ever you can be most productive. To collaborate, you can go to the office. Your organisation might probably need less office space and being at the office is a socially engaging event.

Succesfactors

These consulting firms did not only have different offices focused on collaboration. They both put a lot of emphasis on creating a strong company culture! From the onboarding of new employees the focus was on embedding this strong culture, sharing stories about the company history, their vision etc. Both organisations had specific rituals and roles. They weren’t dancing and singing in circles, but habits and specific meetings that evolved over time and was embedded in the organisational culture.

Second, they both had a great amount of transparency on the state of the organisation. This way the employees could frequently inspect and adapt to the effects of their actions and behaviour as an organisation.

Rethink offices

If your employees or colleagues feel more productive, now that most of the work is done from home. And you have a severe lack of meeting rooms in your office. Now might be the time to rethink the design and use of your office space.

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Business Decision Making Take initiative

Rethink modus operandi before corona crisis ends!

rethink

Now that we are a few weeks into this global corona crisis. Most organisations have found a way to deal with the operational challenges it comes with. I hope that leaders in organisations that are economically affected by this corona crisis, are shifting their focus. Strategising what will happen after this lockdown or other restrictions are lifted. I believe that it’s not an option to return to business as usual.  If you are a leader, you should not be micromanaging the current crisis. Your employees know very well what can or cannot be done at this moment. Do not feel the temptation to invest a lot of your time and energy in optimising your business for the short term. Shift your focus towards the long term and how to restart your business.

Necessary actions are taken

The longer this crisis and the restrictions are upheld. The more likely we have to fundamentally rethink how to run our organisations. It would be naive to think we could just pick up where we left off. 

Maybe in the last couple of weeks you and your organisation have restructured your processes to be able to deliver the best possible value to your customers. Many organisations have decided to let their flexible workforce go, cancel training courses and stop all non essential investments. These are relatively easy and logical actions taken to create room to breathe on the short term. And because the economy is in low output mode, the remainder of the workforce can deal with the remaining work at hand.

Once restrictions are lifted, you customers won’t automatically return. You probably don’t have the funds or work to hire new employees. Or make too many investments. I would expect leadership teams are already thinking about what can be done to restart their organisations. Think about what will likely happen. Which approach might help and how this situation can be used to rethink their current method of operation. If not? Keep reading!

Before the corona crisis

Since the industrial revolution, we have been trying to optimise our value creation processes. We have created an impressive number of ways to govern it. The variables below used to be extremely influential in determining how successful we are able to do this.

The primairy factors triangle
Three primairy factors to be successful

Those who were able to control and utilise the three primary factors (resources, labour and capital) were successful. Large corporations dominating the markets because competitors are unable to obtain the natural, monetary and labor resources. To maximise these rewards we adopted numerous ways to optimise them.

When the restrictions to manage the spread of the coronavirus will be lifted. The scarcity of resources will not have changed. Maybe the oil prices are lower at this moment, but they will eventually rise again quickly. Organisations have probably used a significant amount of their financial reserves to prevent them from going out of business. They might not have the funds to (re)hire the flexible workforce they have let go. Organisations will resume their operations with less capabilities than they used to have. That might feel like a disadvantage. But in fact it’s an opportunity to do ‘things differently’, be more effectively with less.

Entrepreneurial Abilities

When these three primary factors are scarce, the entrepreneurial abilities of an organisation can make the difference.

Entrepreneurial abilities triangle
Entrepreneurial abilites

The ability to optimise the utilisation of the production factors is entrepreneurship. This involves five elements:

  • Taking initiative – Action oriented and driven by forward motion
  • Strategic business decision making – Based on a clear vision and strategy being able to make decisions
  • Innovation – Exploring and experimenting
  • Bearing risk – taking the consequences of the previous three elements regardless the outcome.
  • GUTS!

Focus on maximising outcome!

The last couple of months, I have been working with my clients to focus more on maximising outcome delivered. Many organisations tend to focus primarily on maximising the output. Being extremely efficient to deliver an assumed outcome. If there is no crisis at hand, you might get away with this. However, in a couple of weeks or months from now (who knows when). You will be restarting your business. Probably with fewer people available and with limited (financial) resources. The worst thing you could do is resume to the state before the corona crisis. Following the same procedures etc. I predict the outcome will be significantly lower. 

The restart of your business will provide you with the opportunity to rethink your modus operandi. How you can maximise the outcome with the capabilities you currently have. And the only thing you have to do is to involve your employees and tap into their entrepreneurial abilities. 

Inspect and Adapt

As a leader, you will have to set clear goals (outcome or even impact) and clear boundaries. Also, you might want to adopt an empirical approach to inspect and adapt. To navigate uncertainty (maybe you are have been using frameworks that assist you on that). This way you can reinvent your organisation in small iterations. Rethink all the things you used to do if these is necessary (procedures, protocols, documentation, sign-offs etc). Do these actions add value to your customers? Or can you achieve the same results with a different approach. Give your employees the freedom to change things without compromising on quality or safety. Most organisations have been practicing this approach for the last couple of years. For example, adopting the Scrum Framework or attempting to ‘transition’ towards more agility. 

The time will come to really put all these investments into practice. We will be facing a time with a lot of uncertainty. So, the only way to deal with that is to set up your organisation to frequently inspect and adapt the value it delivered. And how to get better at doing this with the limited resources available. 

If you are a leader, you should not be micromanaging the current corona crisis. Your employees know very well what can or cannot be done at this moment. Do not feel the temptation to invest a lot of your time and energy in optimising your business for the short term. Shift your focus towards the long term and how to restart your business.

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Bearing risk

We’ve gone too soft on soft skills

Over the last couple of decades we have been training our management in developing so called soft skills. There is an entire industry that provides managers with new ‘skills’ like ‘emotional leadership’, ‘coaching from your personal life’s mission’, ‘inspiring productivity through storytelling’ or ‘emotional hopping towards your annual plan’. I am just making these up but I can imagine you have attend a training like this. While there might be some value in such courses. What is lacking in day-to-day practice is actual leadership. That means you don’t have to nice all the time. Or have to create a fluffy world filled with unicorns for your employees. I believe we have gone soft on the soft skills. 

Don’t be nice, be clear!

Being a good leader doesn’t mean you have to be nice all the time or need to be liked! At home I lead when I take the horses outside or when I walk the dogs. They all have learned the few rules they need to obey. A set of clear boundaries they need to stay within. For example, always walk behind me or no pulling the leash. If they break one of these rules, I will let them know this is not accepted. Sometimes I only need to make a sound and raise my voice a little and that’s is enough. We move back to the required state and continue. That is how I am able to walk with 5 horses holding them in one hand. Leading them! 

A true leader is fair, is clear about what’s expected and takes decisions when needed. Take a look at a clip from a well known Dutch basketball coach, Ton Boot.

What do you think, did this player make it to the team? No, he didn’t! Not because he was a bad player, on the contrary, he would have been the best player on the team. But he did not meet the rules laid out at the beginning of the training. These rules apply to all team members. These were clear and if not met, there are consequences to it. That’s leadership! Even if it means you have to let the best player go.

A positive spin to something bad

When I show this clip during a training, many people feel uncomfortable. They are not used to this. They feel bad for the player and don’t like the coach very much. And that is what is wrong with today’s leadership from my point of view.

We are so focussed on the people, on developing our soft skills that we have gone soft! 

One day I received a question if it would be possible to spin a bad outcome in a positive action for a leader? If someone broke the rules, if we could frame that in a positive way?

No!

Why would you? There has to be a consequence to a bad outcome. We don’t do it when it’s the other way around, do we? Downplaying a huge success, we never do that!

So, why should we spin a bad thing into something positive? It’s not fun, and you should not like to do that as a leader. But you are obligated to do it, your role is to have your employees improve. Not to harm them or just to make them feel bad. But to provide them with the ability to learn from what happened. We have all fallen down many times before we learned to walk. There is no other way or slide deck with a 5-step-approach to teach you that! So toughen up a little, will you?

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Entrepreneurability

As busy as I want to be, having these principles

Last summer during a social event at Agile 2019 in Washington D.C. I had an interesting conversation with a fellow entrepreneur about being busy. This conversation started with telling each other what we were working on and from both sides it sounded like a lot! The question that came up was: So, how busy are you?

As busy as I want to be!

Having two companies and being the eternal (unpaid) intern at my girlfriends’ company, may seem very busy. But on average I work about three days a week. Work that I am being paid to do. One of these companies focuses on Agile training and consulting and this service is what pays the bills at this moment.

However, I made a deliberate choice not to fill my entire week with providing service. Of course, I could do that since Agile is a big thing in the industry now. I believe, I could have earned a lot more over the last couple of years. But I didn’t do that. I decided to limit the amount of time I spend on doing work so I can free time to work on new areas like entrepreneurial ability, working with four generations and the voice of the system. To make this happen I take up new assignments following these principles.

Maximum 24 hours a week

I do not believe a consultant should be present for more than 24 hours a week. An organization needs time to get work done, practice and internalize new insights. 

Once in a while, you need to close the oven door, so it can warm up!

This means that I spent no more than 24 hours at an organization and this not the same as 3 days! If it means I need to spread the 24 hours over 5 workdays at this organization to make an impact, I will do so. That is the risk I take as an entrepreneur. 

You pay when I am there.

I only show up at the organization if I believe I can add value. Being there for 8 hours just because my contract say so is bad consultancy in my opinion. The organization only pays for the hours I actually spent and the hourly rate is a little higher than they are used to. But when I am there, something is happening. If not, they don’t have to pay.

Longer engagements are more expensive

This principle feels counterintuitive for most organizations. They assume a consultant is aiming for long term engagements (and most consultancy organizations do believe that). A long assignment is predictable revenue. So organizations know this and expect a lower hourly rate for longer engagements since consultancy firms value steady revenue. I believe it should be the other way around. The longer the assignment takes, the higher the (hourly) rate. As a consultant, I add value based on the knowledge I have and share and the experience from many different environments I bring. So, if you hire me for a longer period of time, I take myself off the market for a longer period of time. Only gaining experience at one organization, decreases my value for future assignments.

Would you rather hire a consultant with experience from one organization or several?

Therefore, a longer engagement has to be compensated so I am able to invest in additional knowledge gathering, training etc. 

You do the work!

There is a huge risk being a consultant that an organization starts to depend on you. Everything is fine as long as you are there. As soon as you leave, things fall apart. From the first day I enter an organization I say:

I want to leave this organization as soon as possible!

The only thing I do is to teach the organization to be able to do things themselves. You do the work! I will help you, guide you along the way but change is up to you! For example, I have set up a course at one of the organizations I worked with as a consultant. This course is designed for a couple of talented employees to teach them what I do. Over the next couple of months, I will work with these five people so they will become the experts on Agility. They will learn and put it into practice at the same time. This way the organization will build their own capabilities to change and I will guide these experts along the way. They do the work, I will guide, coach and teach them. So I can leave as soon as possible.

Scary sh*t

Applying these principles work very well in being as busy as you want to be, freeing up time to invest in learning new things. But it is scary as well. You do not have long term assignments, you might end up working 5 days a week and only get paid for 24 hours. So money might not be as good as it could have been. And since your approach to the work you do is to teach organizations to do it themselves, might make you start looking for a new assignment sooner than you expect. But so far it has worked great for me. I am as busy as I want to be.

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Entrepreneurability

3 things to make a giant leap towards Agility

picture by Gerd Altmann

I believe there are three things you need to do regardless of the framework, methodology or program you are embracing with your organization. If you don’t take decisions, focus on the outcome and get things done? Your transformation program, Agile Way of Working implementation, Lean initiative or whatever you do, will end up with all those other frameworks you have tried to apply before. You will never achieve the agility that was promised to you (by those expensive consultants).

Get ready for a free, simple and honest piece of advice. You might not like it. It might be a little painful. But it can save you a lot of money, frustration and people leaving, just by reading this post. Let’s start off with some statements that might sound familiar:

“Our organization is doing Agile”,

“We adopted the Agile way of working”

“We do some elements of Agile”

as said by many leadership teams or recruitment agents

I have no idea what these statements mean! I have no clue what ‘the Agile Way of Working’ is. What I do know is when I start a conversation about Agility with these companies. They don’t do any of three things I will describe in post. And to be honest. It doesn’t have anything to do with Agile. 

Take a decision

There is scarcity on almost everything. Resources, budget and people, there are never enough available in organizations when looking at the amount of work to be done. This forces organizations to take decisions on which things to focus. On paper this task should be done by leadership. In practice, no decisions are taken! Therefore not chance of agility! Let me describe the average response I get when I train people.

Too much to do

Let’s say you have the capacity to work on 5 items. But, there are 8 items to be done. You need clarity on what needs to be done first. However, if you don’t have clarity on the order of the work that needs to be done, how can you ever be successful?

Ever wondered why so many people are burned out? This is why! People feel very responsible for the work they do. Are committed to deliver the best results possible and will go through great lengths to achieve that. A workaround many people use is to just work harder, put in more hours to try and finish all 8 items. This puts pressure on quality delivered but especially on the people. What people need from their leaders? Clarity on what needs to be done first and what later!

You have other things to do?

And I know, as a leader you a very busy too. Your agenda is overbooked, you run from meeting to meeting! So there you have it, there is your problem! If you are unable to decide on your own agenda, what does that say about your ability to take decisions for you organization? 

Outcome over output

I want an app! We need to create a platform for that! They want a decision tree!

said no one ever

That’s not what your customers want! These all define an output. Your customers need an outcome, something they really want to be able to do. 

Below three examples:

Log in

A classic, the ability to ‘Log in”. Not a single user to any system ever wants to log in! Log in is an output. What a user actually wants is they enter a secure environment, where they only see information that is relevant to them and not anyone else’s information. That is what they want! An output to achieve this outcome is creating the ability to log in.

Brakes on my car

I do not want to have breaks on my car, that’s an output. I want to be able to reduce the speed of my car. So maybe deploying a parachute or throwing a big rock out of the back of my car will give me the same outcome…it will slow down my car. 

Agenda for a training

When organizations ask to provide a training course or workshop, they ask for an agenda. I never provide an agenda! I always reply with this question: What would you like to get out of this training. What result would you like this training to have? That is what is really important! A student or customer should not care on how I would deliver the training. But they want something else! With their response I can determine if, with the time available, I can achieve the desired outcome or how much time it might take to achieve the outcome. 

Practice

This is a very difficult concept to grasp and requires a lot of practice. But, if you are able to define the desired outcome, it will create a lot of freedom for the specialists in your organization to deliver this outcome with the least amount of output. 

Get stuff Done!

The amount of unfinished work in organizations is overwhelming. Since we work on as many things at the same time as inhumanly possible (burning out people!), we hardly get the opportunity to finish stuff. We care more about maximizing the output we deliver than we care about the outcome delivered. 

Ask yourself, does your organization care more about getting 4 things almost done (maximize output) or finishing 1 thing (maximize outcome)? 

Meanwhile, many metrics, KPI’s or triggers we have within our organization focus on maximizing the output. How many hours did you make this week? How many projects do we deliver within scope, time and budget? What is the number of issues solved last week? All output metrics. Not that they are not important to look at, they are but if you are able to save your organization 5 million with 5 minutes of work. Who cares what you do the rest of the week?

Raw chicken

Finishing stuff that are of good quality. Not delivering a predefined output, but the outcome desired and that includes quality! For some reason, we are not ok when we get raw chicken served in a restaurant. But as an organization, we are fine with delivering bad quality, as long as we meet the deadline or stay within budget. Let’s stop doing that!

In short, having clarity on what needs to be done first creates focus for your organization. Knowing the desired outcome and only asking for this, creates the freedom for your organization to deliver the outcome with the least amount of output. However, this comes with an obligation to the people in your organization to get stuff done (that also includes quality). Then it doesn’t matter anymore if you use Scrum, Kanban or Prince2. They will all work!

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Take initiative Vlog

Hoe je gedrag in organisaties wel kunt veranderen!

deladdervlog

Het boek dat ik op dit moment aan het lezen ben is ‘ De Ladder’ van Ben Tiggelaar. Een boek over verandering en dan met name van gedrag. Wat mij aanspreekt is de randvoorwaarde voor succesvolle gedragsverandering is het inrichten van support. In het geval van organisaties praat ik dan vaak over het veranderen van de context. Dit is iets wat je wel kunt beïnvloeden als je gedrag in jouw organisatie wilt veranderen. Deze korte video gaat over verandering, verhuizen en dus context.

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Business Decision Making Vlog

Magic Estimation Matrix – estimating effort and value in 15 minutes!

1-Three-Points-Welcome

The best way to negotiate is with torsos angled, often at 90 degrees to one another. This avoids the face-to-face confrontational element whilst also allow looking at the other person’s face. This position enables having an open conversation. What we thought, would this approach also work with large group estimations on effort and value? But without the time-consuming conversations, and here is the magic estimation matrix.

There usually is a (un)healthy tension between those who are passionate about the value of features on a product backlog and those who have a slight idea on the effort involved in creating this feature. One of the techniques frequently used to create an initial estimation on the effort for an entire product backlog is Magic Estimation.

Using this technique you get a quick feel on the perceived effort of the items on the product backlog. In a nutshell this works as follows: Get a Scrum team together and have the Product Owner print each product backlog item on a separate sheet. The development Team does the estimation and without talking or non-verbal communication they have 15 minutes to estimate the entire product backlog.

We have often used this technique also for stakeholder to collaboratively create an initial insight in the priority of product backlog items. Since stakeholders tend to like talking even more (most of the time it’s what they are paid for), this has proven to be a great technique for filtering those items they all agree upon, this saves tremendous amounts of time.

Together with Ron Eringa, we thought if it would be possible to do this exercise simultaneously? Why not? This is how you would do this:

Preparation

  • Product backlog items, each on a separate post-it or page in hard copy
  • Plenty of space to move around and place items on the floor
  • A sheet with the sequence of numbers inspired by the Fibonacci sequence for effort. For value add an extra zero, just to make it look important(see the image below what this could look like)

_0_magicestimation

Workshop

  • Briefly explain the rules of the game
    • Stakeholders and development team plays, PO watches
    • Spaced out estimation cards one axis for effort other for value
    • The Development team members each get a set of PBI’s
    • Rule 1: No talking
    • Rule 2: No non-verbal communication
    • Each participant’s estimates by placing item @ points. The Development team starts and as soon as there are about three items estimated the stakeholders will plan on value
    • Each participant checks estimate and if necessary re-estimates
    • Product Owner marks fall-outs
    • Discuss fall-outs until agreement is reached

This way you have a great initial estimation of your product backlog on both value and effort. And as a by-product stakeholders and development team get to know and understand each other a little better.

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Entrepreneurability Voice of the System

Forget building trust, focus on psychological safety

Imagine this, you are at the weekly company meeting in a room of 60 people. All of them are co-workers who you have been working with for several years. You feel engaged and committed to the goal set by your company. And there has always been a feeling of openness, respect and the ability to discuss new or other ideas. You feel there is safety! While the CEO is presenting a new idea, you feel this is not a good idea. You feel it is in conflict with the company culture. So, like you have always done, you raise your hand and speak up. Unlike similar earlier situations, your comment gets waved away, followed by a reprimande of the CEO in front of the entire group:

“I don’t like your negative attitude , this idea has been thought of long and hard. I am sick of you constantly asking about ‘why this decision is being made’ and you proposing other ideas, reopening the discussion. Stop doing that!”

How would you feel?

Shocked, humiliated and heartbroken. That’s how I felt. In complete shock because I was under the impression I worked in an psychologically safe environment. We were enabled – and even expected – to speak up when we had different ideas. That’s what made it a great company. But somewhere along the way, things had changed and I hadn’t noticed there was no longer a safe environment. Actually, there was psychological safety, from my own team. During the break right after the incident, while I was sitting at a table looking down, feeling embarrassed, humiliated and fighting against tears. My team sat down, forming a protective circle around me. No words were spoken, but it felt very safe. After that moment, safety was gone and hardly anyone spoke up with a different opinion during those company meetings for a very long time.

Feeling safe

A few weeks ago I found a movie shared by Simon Reindl, also a Professional Scrum Trainer, about Psychological safety. This movie made an huge impact on me. I wasn’t aware of the concept but I could relate it to my experience described above. Please take a few minutes to watch this video.

We have all been in a situation where it didn’t feel right or safe to speak up. Or to ask a question. We all have had those gossip-ish discussions at the coffee machine after the presentation of the new 5 year strategy, while you had a 5 year strategy presented last year as well. Or one of those useless team retreats. Take the next step as a team, where a lot of post-its are spilled with ‘world peace’ like phrases. In the future we want to improve our communication, speak up and be proactive. A day not having to work, get a free lunch and go back to doing the same thing we were already doing. Not feeling safe to address the elephant in the room.

Psychological safety

Psychological safety is the belief that no one will be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes.

It is a group-level construct, meaning that is something experienced by the entire group. As a group, each individual perceives that the group will give them the benefit of the doubt when they take a risk. Opposed to trust, meaning that I as an individual give my fellow team members the benefit of the doubt when I take a risk. Do I trust my fellow team members enough they will back me up is an individuals. Basically making a 1-1 economic risk assessment trying to figure out how a certain action will impact my position in a group.

Trust is a “conscious calculation of advantages, a calculation that in turn is based on an explicit and internally consistent value system” (Schelling, 1960: 4; ref in Kramer, 1999). With trust we focus on others potential actions and trustworthiness to protect ourselves. When we look a psychological safety, it is slightly different. Do others give you the benefit of the doubt based on your actions?

Not trust but safety!

Over the last couple of years I have referred to the 5 dysfunctions of a team by Patrick Lencioni in many of our training courses and workshops. And when working with teams, one of the first items on the agenda was building trust. But trust is the wrong thing to focus on and more difficult to influence on a team level. Psychological safety is a group based characteristic based on the level on interpersonal safety each of the members of the team experience. They often hold similar perceptions of psychological safety. Because teams have many of the same influences and experiences together. For example, they often share the same manager, go though the same hiring and review procedures.

The presence or absence of psychological safety tends to be experienced at the group level of analysis (Edmondson, 1999a), unlike trust, which pertains primarily to a dyadic relationship –whether between individuals or collectives such as firms (as in supplier relationships).

Amy Edmondson, 2003

How to build psychological safety

Even Google has learned that their best teams had psychological safety. It’s the first step towards great teams, it enables innovation, risk taking, group decision making and much more. Amy Edmondson described three things you can do as a leader to enable psychological safety.

  1. Frame the work as a learning problem, as opposed to an execution problem
    So the work we do nowadays is so complex that we cannot know the precise outcome and which path to follow upfront. However, we have been modeling our work is such a way. This is why in the past 10 years we are focus more on agility and this is why the Scrum Framework is so successful, since it accommodated collaboration in a complex environment. Acknowledging that we know less then we do know frames the work as a learning problem. Look into the Cynefin framework
  2. Acknowledge you own fallibility
    Acknowledge you don’t know everything and inviting people to come to help. For example, when people use TLA’s (Three Letter Abbreviations), ask what they mean instead of mindless nodding you pretend to understand. You’ll be surprised how hard people need to think about what they actually mean.
  3. Model curiosity by asking a lot of questions
    The best model on the market to start modeling curiosity is the Scrum Framework. A lightweight framework with focussed events where asking questions and engaging in conversation is facilitated. Or like I did once with a team that tended to assume the customer thought of everything. I asked the team: “I can think of at least three things that are unclear and I will ask them, I expect at least three question from you.” Worked great and over time they started asking question by themselves.

There are more steps to take but these are the first and very difficult to do. Start creating psychological safety in your organizations today! Or you might end up with an organization where bad things happen for you, for your team members or customers.

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Entrepreneurability Generations on the workfloor

Employer branding verschuift van “voor wie werk jij?” naar “met wie werk jij?”

Uitzendgigant Randstand, brengt op 26 april haar jongste onderzoeksrapportage uit:”Onweerstaanbaar voor talent, met de kracht van employer branding”. Ruim 5.000 bedrijven uit 30 landen geven in het onderzoek hun visie op de markt en werknemers geven aan wat een organisatie aantrekkelijk voor ze maakt. Entrepreneurability deed haar eigen onderzoek en komt op 15 mei aanstaande met onderzoek dat het verschil tussen werven voor gen Y en X inzichtelijk maakt. Wat zegt Randstad in de sneak preview over aantrekkelijkheid van organisaties? 

Directeur arbeidsmarkt van Randstad, Marjolein ten Hoonte schetst wat werkgevers zorgen baart: ‘Organisaties staan voor een grote opgave. De huidige economische groei maakt het aantrekken en behouden van talent uitdagend. Ook wordt van werkgevers verwacht dat ze uitdagingen op het gebied van technologie en digitalisering het hoofd bieden. Hoe pak je employer branding aan in een markt die volop in beweging is?”

Verandering in organisatiestructuren

Om snelle ontwikkelingen in markten en bij afnemers/consumenten bij te houden, veranderen organisaties hun structuur, zo blijkt uit het onderzoek. Bij dit ‘design for adaptability’ verlaten organisaties oude hiërarchische organisatorische structuren om te schakelen naar een model waar werk gedaan wordt in wisselende teams, projecten en rollen. Dat heeft ook gevolgen voor medewerkers. “De voortdurende druk op organisaties om zich aan te passen leidt tot een behoefte aan agility. Oude structuren worden steeds meer vervangen door netwerken van mensen en teams. Dit vereist een goed begrip van de vaardigheden van elke medewerker. De verhoudingen waarin mensen werken, veranderen nadrukkelijk ook. Van ‘vóór wie werk jij’ (traditioneel), naar ‘met wie werk jij?” 

Employer branding

Verder is het onderzoek een warm pleidooi voor employer branding. “Uit LinkedIn- onderzoek blijkt dat een sterk employer brand een bedrijf 10% loonkosten kan besparen; ook de kosten per werving liggen 46% lager in bedrijven met een sterk employer brand. Ook is het verloop van medewerkers in bedrijven met een sterk employer brand gemiddeld 28% lager”, zeggen auteurs.
Hoe dat moet? Een ‘goede employee experience’ creëren? Daarvoor geeft Randstad wel wat tips. Deze employer value propositions (evp’s) geven al een klein beetje richting. Op 26 april komt het onderzoek uit.

Bron: Randstad. (2018, 5 april). Onweerstaanbaar voor talent , met de kracht van employer branding.. Geraadpleegd op 6 april 2018, van https://www.randstad.nl/werkgevers/kenniscentrum/employer-branding/over-de-randstad-award

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