There is mounting concern that organizational groups and teams often fail to learn from their past experiences. It’s pertinent to address this issue as groups and teams are often the main ways that work gets done in organizations. In this course, we examine the main reasons that groups and teams are often ineffective, which include: • The lack of organizational structures and support for teams and groups • The lack of understanding and emphasis on learning • Misaligned reward structures So, what can be done to create an enabling learning culture in teams? This course emphasizes practical and impactful ways to begin to address this state of affairs. Through the use of stories, scenarios with actors simulating different team issues, examples and dialogue, you learn how to: • Understand teams in their larger organizational context • Diagnose the learning strengths and barriers to learning on teams • Identify ways to develop a team and group that continually learns and impacts the larger organization positively • Create an organizational environment that encourages learning and innovation
Liberating Structures: Examples of Team Exercises
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Creating a Team Culture of Continuous Learning
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Week 4 : Fostering Innovation in Groups & Teams
Thank you for staying with and being a part of our emergent conversations. If you have accompanied us through weeks 1,2 and 3, we are now at the closing end of our on-going discussion around learning in teams - in this section, we'll focus on Complex Adaptive Systems and structures that foster and accelerate engagement, learning and team conversations. Come join us.
Conheça os instrutores
Alan Barstow, Ph.D.Director and Senior Scholar
Organizational Dynamics
Dana Kaminstein, Ph.D.Affiliated Faculty
Organizational Dynamics
Ramya Kumar, MSOD, PGDHRM, SHRM-SCPSenior Consultant - Organizational Learning, Development & Change
Organizational Dynamics
Amrita V. SubramanianExecutive Coach & Senior Consultant, Doctoral candidate (Ph.D. 2019)
Organizational Dynamics
Next, we want to introduce you to a couple of concepts that
we think will help you understand some
of the newer forms of structures that are emerging in organizations.
One of the concepts is one that Hackman,
one of the most prolific researchers on teams and groups, coined.
It talks about Enabling Structures.
Enabling Structures in organizations are one that support teams and groups working.
An example would be to have a structure
that rewards the team rather than individual members of the team.
We've unfortunately seen some examples of organizations
that have put a lot of people into teams but continue to
reward the people on the teams individually
rather than for their collaborative or collective work.
And so I think you're going to talk about some other structures.
Yeah. Enabling Structures gets us a fair way into thinking about how to
promote, facilitate, foster exchange.
Another set of concepts,
which I will attribute to Keith McCandless and Henri Lipmanowicz,
is called Liberating Structures.
Maybe this goes a little further in saying that we can invite people into the container,
into the space, onto the team,
but that doesn't mean they're going to exchange and talk to each other effectively.
We need ways to engage them,
to get them to engage, to exchange viewpoints.
And as we've said in previous courses,
modules in this course,
we need to get people to step back, slow down,
to think about things,
to changing their own patterns of thought and
behavior because that's where their powers are,
controlling what they do,
not telling others what they should do.
These Liberating Structures are ways that
can encourage the complex adaptive system to adapt,
to be resilient, and to learn.
What are some of the ways that we can do that?
Well, it's interesting that you triggered my thought along these directions.
Recently, one of the examples that I had to witness
was a situation where the team was not as
engaged and they tried a Liberating Structure principle to work that.
I think making it an example which is
concrete would give you a sense of how this actually works.
If we had questions such as,
I want my customers to be highly engaged with me,
or I want my team members to take over responsibility,
be engaged and do their part,
treat each other with respect,
or I want meetings where we are highly engaged and we're looking forward to meetings not,
"Oh no, not another meeting."
If we were to do that,
one of the things we try is called Impromptu Speed Networking. How does this work?
All you have to do as a facilitator is think of
one or two provocative questions that are pertinent to the meeting.
It could be about the situation you're in,
the problem you're trying to solve.
But the idea is to level the playing field,
to make all voices heard,
and to get everyone to be engaged from moment one.
How do we do that?
Get everyone into an open space, that's the container.
Everybody should have a bit of elbow room if there are tables,
small tables, so that there is plenty of space to move around.
This is how it works. There would be a bell.
The moment the bell is rung, the facilitator says,
"Think silently for a minute or two,
gather thoughts. This is individual.
On the question that is in front of us.
How do we get our customers in?
How do I get my team member engaged?
How do we increase productivity? Whatever be the question.
After you've thought of it,
the bell will ring the second time,
then you look up and look around the room and
spot the one person that you know a little less.
Reach out to that person and have a conversation which might be five minutes, 10 minutes,
and then the bell is rung again,
and then you move around,
no more than two or three rounds.
And at the end of it, we all sit together to
ask so what did you discover about the question?
What were some of the insights that came out?
What do you now think about it?
How did your perspective change as a result of so many conversations and all of it?"
The funny part is, that everyone says we jumped right in.
Everybody got airtime.
It wasn't who had the rank who got to say,
and the best part is you can use it for
a more complex format like the 1-2-3-4 Ramya you're going to talk about.
Yes, Amrita. This is very similar to
the 1-2-4-ALL technique that I wanted to share with you on.
First, the participants in the meeting.
I mean, this can be done in organizations for a variety of aspects,
with or without the bells and whistles.
Right. So, you give them a chance to reflect,
an opportunity to reflect on some questions that they may have pertaining to the context,
or the situation, or the problem at hand.
And then they pair in twos and discuss about these questions, and then it moves on.
Once they have discussed their questions,
it moves on to a larger group,
maybe foursome group, moves on to
a larger group where they are also trying to discuss questions and answers.
I mean, what are the various perspectives that we bring to the table?
And then, this gets discussed in the whole group.
Now, what does this really help with?
Remember, I spoke a bit about creating small safe places.
This really helps provide--,
not everyone might be willing to talk in a meeting.
There are some people who may have questions,
questions that are very relevant,
and questions that can push the discussion forward,
but for some reasons they don't want to ask questions.
This creates a safe space for all those
questions to be asked and for others to listen to,
and if they already have answers.
Unlike a traditional meeting where you have someone,
a facilitator or a manager,
in an organization who are just,
okay, so what are we discussing about?
What are the questions we have?
And then there are some questions asked,
there are some questions not asked,
there are some perspectives shared, some not shared.
This helps break those barriers and get all voices heard,
and you get engaged from the beginning because you're part of the process.
You don't sit back and type on your laptop,
or do something, or get the face down.
It also helps create a discovery space because,
you spoke about diversity and inclusion,
so when you're diverse in a crowd,
when we do have these small spaces and we
do have our voices heard and discuss in small groups,
I think it opens out new possibilities,
new opportunities and create the discovery space which is so very
important to explore these new options and--.
Yeah, I think that's a very powerful tool.
The first being just the pause.
Before anybody says anything,
there is the reflection of getting your thoughts together.
We've all been in meetings where some alpha person
takes over or takes the whole process hostage,
and by asking the first question claiming the airtime,
so this prevents that.
There's another tool that's about Q storming or questioning,
and that is when you are taking questions,
don't just take them one,
two, three, four, take four or five questions
and then that gives you some options about how to thread those together,
or maybe ignore some if they're off point.
But we've all seen this,
and I think you're right,
if you break down the large meeting into
this ones and twos and fours, whether it's introverts,
extroverts, whether it's pecking order or hierarchy,
it breaks the frame of a lot of that,
and everyone has to participate.
If you're in a meeting be there.
You can't just hide out.
You can't be there physically, but not mentally.
You have to be engaged. Those are great tools.
I looked at these examples
of Liberating Structures and there are a few things that happened,
and I remember Dana you touched on it,
that everybody got a chance to say things that they disagreed safely.
The voice of dissent found ease.
Conflict was averted because it was no longer repressed.
It was significantly different from what the consensus was,
but there was a container.
These exchanges that took place with
such myriad lenses was transforming because now I could no longer hold the same opinion,
same idea when I'm exposed to so many.
And that idea becomes shared so many ideas become shared,
and then it's not death by PowerPoint where you see thousand slides in an offsite,
but these are conversations that empower you to do something and take it to a new place.
There's one I'll just mention.
There are many of these Liberating Structures.
If you go to the website that either Keith McCandless and Henri Lipmanowicz have,
or the Plexus Institute in Lisa Kimball's work in Group Jazz,
some wonderful resources out there.
There are many of these tools,
we've only illustrated a few.
One I will mention is called TRIZ,
it comes from a Russian term and it almost seems like it's the opposite
of the appreciative strength-based approach we've talked about in the past.
Here the group talks about, well,
what's the worst possible outcome we can imagine?
What do we absolutely not want to happen?
And then what would cause that to happen?
You get people to think about that,
and then after a break you say, okay,
and after sharing that you get them to say,
"What are we doing that is very similar to what would produce the bad outcome,
and let's get rid of that," because just saying we're going to
do new things without getting rid of the other things, the old behaviors,
is a very conscious way of discouraging some of the old disabler activities,
the behaviors that get us into our inability to break frame or to learn.
That's an interesting tool and you might play with that one, as well.
I can see it very applicable when you spoke about defensive routines.
I'm thinking of a group that I worked in the past, senior management,
who just don't want or don't like discussing what's not working well.
If you were to discuss with them,
or if you were to work with the group and start with what's working well,
believe me they'll be more than happy to share what's working well.
But in this particular group that I'm talking about,
there was no reference of anything that's slipping by,
targets not being met.
It's almost as if they just--,
they were not blindsided but they just were
resistant to talk about what's not working well.
I see TRIZ really opening up,
breaking that barrier and saying,
and that forces them to not just think about what's working well,
but what worse can happen, what has happened.
Enabling them to talk
about things that sometimes normally don't come up in conversations.
That sounds very similar to a technique that's become more popular,
it's called a premortem.
I'm sure you've heard of it,
where very similarly you start with a question of,
if things go horribly wrong,
where will we end up?
And then you work backwards from there to see the things that
you're already doing to make a disaster.
Yeah, it may seem counterintuitive just listening to it or thinking,
"Oh, how can that fit into my environment?"
But imagine having a meeting without an agenda led by the questions,
whether it's around TRIZ or any of the other tool or premortem.
But Alan you were about to say something.
My thought here is that this is the perfect assignment for you,
Enabling Structures, Liberating Structures,
we want you to take one of these.
You can use one of the examples we've given or you can learn more
about it at the links that we give you in the reference materials,
find out one of these,
take one of these Liberating Structures and put it to work in a group,
a team, an organization that you're a part of.
And then report on,
sort of write the journal entry,
the diary entry of how that worked,
and what worked well,
or what didn't work well.
So that's your assignment for this week.
Take a Liberating Structure,
do your best to apply it in a group or a team that you're part of,
and see what kind of results you get,
and then share that in one of the discussion groups.
Yeah, don't forget to mention what surprised you.
True.
And though not an assignment,
we would also like to hear from you on what are
the Liberating Structures you're seeing being used in your organization.
What do you use it for?
We're very fascinated to hear about,
what's working there in your space,
and what you want to see more of,
so do share that, as well.
Though it's not an assignment, we'd love to hear from you.
That's innovation and breakthrough,
a new Liberating Structure.
We could all learn from that.
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