Examine the patterns around you to identify new creative freedoms to add value – Create do-differently matrices between activities and goals
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Why take this challenge?
Take better control of the structures that surround your thinking
Identify simple strategic opportunities for improving performance
Apply the benefits of design thinking within your team
Structures are immensely useful things. Essentially a structure is the means of positioning something at a point where it can be most effective. Structures enable people and things to leverage and position their capabilities to achieve their purposes.
And structures can also be thinking tools which model that logic to improve effectiveness and reduce stress, such as business canvasses, flowcharts and organograms.
But structures can also be the walls that constrain our thinking, and inure us to the need to move on to something new. They can be routines that have outgrown their usefulness. Shortcuts that lead us into situations that are no longer really helpful. Comfort zones that protect us from the realisation that we are increasingly out of step.
who or what is in control?
If your structures are in unconscious control of your thinking, they can become the prison bars that both hold you back and drug you with a false sense of security. But if you are in conscious control of your structures, then they can represent a climbing frame for your potential to reach higher than is possible without them.
The subject of this week’s adventure is a simple tool which puts us back in control. A simple matrix to look at how your structures are enabling you to leverage and position your capabilities to achieve your purposes.
Please be aware however, that this is a bit more involved than previous adventures, but it is a good way to refocus your thinking following the August break
+ Green track - taking it in your stride
+ Blue track - a bit of a workout (click to open)
+ Red track - stepping up to bat (click to open)
You may find the following resources helpful in tackling your challenge or in gaining further benefits from the skills and insights you develop
- Brief helpful case on using matrices (then termed QFD) to improve organisational performance
- Longer paper looking at the practical experience of Emerson in using matrices (then termed QFD) to engage everyone in designing their World-Wide Supply Chain
- Looking at best practice use of matrices 20 years on (and now termed Strategic Engagement Matrix)
- Article in our series on improving mental health at work looking at the benefits of matrices
- Relevant case studies on applying matrix-based thinking
- Instant whiteboard for basic matrix analysis by individuals or teams
To catch up on past adventures you may have missed, feel free to browse our Adventures Library
Let us know how you get on.
Share your experience, your insights and your observation using the comments section at the bottom of the Linkedin post.
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Useful links:
Adventures to date | I did it, but it didn’t work very well | How do I know if it is working
Bringing this thinking into your meetings | Adventure & Mental Health
Leading by Adventure community | Explore Strategic Support options