Facilitation Skills Training for Facilitative Leadership

Case study logo - picture of open file and magnifying glassCase Study: How client-driven development led to effective facilitation skills training for leaders, for customer success, and for hybrid working.

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Some years ago, a client approached us with a request. He said that he had been reflecting on the range of learning experiences he had been through in his long career. And one had stood out most for him, in terms of its impact on him, and his enjoyment of it. That course had been facilitation skills training.

The need for facilitation skills training

He went on to explain that, he had been reviewing his next level of senior managers. Wherein, he identified that there was still a strong tendency to be directive and autocratic. Particularly when under pressure. And he had realised that much of this was to do with a lack of awareness, skills, and confidence in practical alternatives. Alternatives that he himself had found through the facilitation training he had received two decades earlier. Training that had changed his approach and his career.
We had led that training, and he was asking whether we could do the same for his leadership team.
Twenty years is a long time. We had delivered that training as part of a Total Quality Programme which required major investment. And the training alone had cost currently unthinkable amounts of money and time – 6 weeks per trainee. Everybody’s thinking had moved on since that time, including ours.
But he was right. When the pressure is on, and the outcomes have to be right, people will resort to practices they know well and can count upon. If they have not: been equipped with facilitative approaches; applied them under pressure; and built their own confidence in them delivering a better outcome, they won’t use them. They will resort to more direct methods to get their way.
Also, reflecting back, we were confident that we had a much broader range of understanding, insight and resources. We could now do much better with far less time. And we could make the course more efficient, more intensive for all concerned, and more experiential.

Defining the facilitation skills required

Visualising adventure - discussing future trends in small teamsWe started by interviewing members of his senior team in some depth. Exploring the situations where they had been directive. What they were trying to achieve. And what they saw their options as being. We asked what they had seen in the leaders they most admired and what they wished they could emulate. (In this, they frequently cited our client.) And we explored what they knew and what they didn’t.
As a result of analysing the interviews, we clarified that we needed to develop the groups skills and confidence in:
  • Understanding what facilitation is and why it is used
  • Supporting a group in determining clear objectives, and the process to achieve them
  • Guiding a group to keep to the process & redevelop that process as needed
  • Coaching new skills & attitudes (behaviours) in individuals
  • Knowing when facilitation is appropriate (& the options to it when it isn’t)
  • Adopting and adapting current business processes to better utilise facilitation
  • Evaluating and assessing their own and their teams’ facilitative performance
  • Driving further understanding of facilitation in themselves and in others
And of course that they should enjoy themselves in learning and employing all of this.

Designing an efficient programme

We decided, early on, that the course should run in two blocks approximately six weeks apart. This would give the attendees a period in which to apply and experience the facilitation skills for real. And then, in block two, to formally learn from their experience. With an optional third block after six months to pick up further learning.
We also decided that the length of the training should be five days. This would be three days in the first block and then two in the second. This reflected a good balance between the ‘cost’ of the programme, and the change that could be achieved within it.

not training but facilitated group learning

We structured the programme as intensive, interwoven experiences and self-discovery. It was not so much a training course as facilitated group learning. As a result it needed precisely 12 candidates to be at its optimum. But the result was that people learned at multiple levels all at the same time. They learned facilitation skills from the content, from experiencing facilitation, and from enacting it themselves. In fact the programme almost ran itself.

Programme performance

Picture of using facilitative Leadership around a set of sticky notesAnd the reaction of the candidates was better than we could have hoped. We used a scoring scale where 4 represents ‘expectations completely fulfilled’ and 5 represents ‘expectations exceeded’. The course averaged 4.6 across the 12 participants and over seven criteria.
Although the interviews were all from the first client’s organisation, we repeated the training programme for several other clients in other organisations, and discovered that the course itself applied equally well to all. The feedback scores were consistent across all courses.
In the intervening ten years, this course has remained our staple approach to equipping people with facilitative leadership skills. Over the years, we have improved it, and accommodated a number of new ideas.
We have also adapted it into two other variants to meet the needs of an evolving facilitation market.

Customer facilitation

The first has been the development of a more flexible two-day version aimed at equipping client staff to facilitate their own customer workshops.
With the growth of cloud based services and the goal of better consumption, we have seen the emergence of Customer Success professionals as a core strategy of software organisations. The role of these specialists is to help their customers ensure they rapidly realise the full benefits of their software purchases. It concerns facilitating the customer in: developing a vision for those benefits; understanding the behavioural changes requires to realise that vision; establishing a programme to bring that about; measuring progress and keeping things on track.

facilitating customer success

Image of group enthusiasm and engagement and an example of ownership culture and shaping cultureOf course, the Customer Success professional has no authority within the customer space, so their success depends on constructing questions and debates that enable their customer’s leadership to self-discover a change management strategy which will most rapidly deliver the results they both want. And facilitation is the core skill in enabling this to happen.
Two things were clear at the outset. The first was that the world of software vendors is more volatile than most organisations, and their paradigm for spending time on training is more restrictive. However, the level of skills to be transferred is significantly less than for facilitative leadership, particularly where the customer engagement process is clearly defined.
Our first client was a well known Global software business in the vanguard of Customer Success thinking. The courses we ran for them averaged 30-36 people per course, working in groups of six. They proved very successful, and helped sustain the reputation of this client in this field.

Online facilitation skills

The second emerged in response to the restrictions occasioned by the Covid pandemic. This accelerated people’s use of online methods to collaborate, communicate and manage at a distance.
We originally developed our offering of facilitation skills for online meetings a decade previously, but take-up had been poor. Back in 2008, people tended to seek to recreate their experience of physical round the table meetings in their virtual equivalents. As a result, people saw little need to change the nature of what they did – only the vehicle for it. Accordingly, only some of the more enlightened organisations took up our offer.

new environments bring new possibilities

Inspiring interaction and participation in virtual meetingsHowever, a new environment brings new possibilities, and successive lockdowns have meant that there has been a much greater take up and use of online meetings and virtual collaboration software. It has also provided a greater challenge in ensuring engagement of people at a distance. And it has opened up new ways of thinking about working in this way: better global partnerships; wfh and hybrid working; digital nomads; …
We have taken the opportunity to adapt a combination of our successful facilitative leadership programmes into a four-day digital programme.

better than physical meetings

Image of massive whiteboards used to support online facilitation skills developmentUsing best-practice online facilitative approaches, participants are more absorbed and stimulated than they commonly experience, even in physical meetings. As a result it avoids the fatigue and disengagement typical of virtual meetings. Because of this, we can deliver it in full day, which makes it more efficient and easier to schedule into peoples calendars.
The programme is highly visual. It uses ten vast virtual whiteboards (similar to the one on the right) to both engage participation and to provide a lasting reference to the learning experience. The boards created in the programme are available to participants after the programme completes as a resource for recall, for extending their practice, and for their own meetings and teamwork.
These programmes are all delivered on a client by client basis. If you are interested in discussing how you might adopt the programme for your own business, please contact us.
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Relevant Links:

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Patterns of collaborative excellence – Rediscovering the lost wisdom of design.
Prescient emotional knowledge management – do you have what it takes?
icon representing case study of using insight landscaping to reflect social digital twin

Insight landscaping to create social digital twins

Case study logo - picture of open file and magnifying glassCase Study: Three examples of using massive online whiteboard templates to create social digital twins of relationships and organisations

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Technically, IBM describes a digital twin as “a virtual model designed to accurately reflect a physical object”. The object in question is often a piece of engineering, or a technical system. And the purpose of the digital twin is to enable people to explore how it will work, and try out different ideas. It enables people to experiment before physical investments are committed.
But what if the object were a social concept? For example a team, an organisation, a partnership, a way of working? Could we create a digital twin to reflect that also? Could we use it to simulate what might happen in the real world? And to make decisions regarding goals, policies and actions on that basis?

a social digital twin

True, the answer wouldn’t be so automated, but the model could still help our thinking, our designs and our discussions. And we could easily return to it to refresh our understanding, adjust things, and try out new ideas.
Over the last few years, we have been using insight landscaping to effect exactly this purpose, but as part of other projects. So this is not so much one case study as a short catalogue of three other case studies which best illustrate this approach. And links to read more on each of the social digital twin examples.

Digital twin of a partnership

Image of Information Landscaping as the basis for Dynamic Partnership WorkshopsIn our case study on partner engagements we explain how we used very large Klaxoon templates to recreate the journey that the partnership would work through together. Firstly, with learning a bit more about the people involved. Then, secondly, developing a shared aspiration for the difference they wanted to make together. Thirdly, how that was clarified into more specific measureable outcomes. And fourthly, developing clear proposals for projects to deliver those outcomes. Finally, clarifying the ownership and the timescales for the priority elements, and agreeing how oversight will work.

modelling the journey of partnership

The journey was worked through, capturing all of the ideas and logic at each stage. In this way people could see how the conclusions developed. And people could follow their own ideas and contributions in developing those outcomes. And, perhaps most importantly of all, the visual cues enabled them to re-access the emotions they experienced as they worked this through.
The landscape for this project carried all of the data for the partners to imagine and understand how the partnership would work in practice. At the end of each section were yes/no panels.

evaluating success

Here people were asked to weigh up all of the data that had been incorporated in that section of the landscape. And then to confirm their confidence (or not) in it working. This enabled the team to revisit what needed to change to increase that confidence.
The landscape enabled people to model the reality in their heads and make adjustments in the model before committing their investment. In this it worked very much as a social digital twin.
The picture above right shows the insight landscape for this case study, which can be read about in more detail here.

Digital twin of an organisation

The overall organisational design sprint process laid out on the whiteboardIn our case study on organisational design sprints we look at how we used massive Mural templates to map the organisational design sprint process. Thereby, replicating in a virtual sense Jake Knapp’s vision of a ‘sprint room plastered with notes diagrams print outs, and more’ Taking advantage of our awesome spatial memory. The room itself becoming a sort of shared brain for the team.
The five day template utilised the maximum 60000 by 60000 pixel space available in Mural. Enabling everyone to zoom out to see the overview. And then to zoom in to work with individual contributions at 400x magnification.

overview to ‘up close and personal’

People were able to map multiple perspectives on the current situation. Develop and modify a wide range of possible alternative organisational options. Understand their likely impact and opportunities in respect of their process goals. Evaluate them, test them with each other, and improve them. Then work these up into clear proposals which they wished to take forward. They were then able to communicate these in the form of prototypes, and to test these with their colleagues.

a lasting accessible record

And the whole flow and history of explanation is perpetually available to them. Reinforcing the quality of their decisions, and providing an agile thinking environment. One which enables rapid evaluations of changes to keep the process in tune with its evolving role. A social digital twin.
The picture above right shows the insight landscape for this case study, which can be read about in more detail here.

Digital twin of a spiritual retreat

In our case study from an online spiritual retreat we look at how we used infinite Conceptboard templates. The lockdown of 2020 meant that our planned physical retreat was unsafe. And so we proposed creating a social digital twin to facilitate spiritual reflection.
The intention was to encompass emotions, humanity, and spiritual components. We wanted to recreate all of the experiences of the physical retreat, but online. In particular, group sharing, listening prayer, reflective walks, and discussions.
Spiritual Retreat Meeting Space on a whiteboard as a social digital twinTo achieve this, we created three main areas. Firstly, a circle area, which represented the circle of chairs in our normal meeting space. This allowed people to imagine that location in their minds, and to post notes and images in the space around themselves and in front of others. Notes and images that reflected their current situation, and blessings they wished upon each other in response to sharing. Secondly, a small groups area for listening prayer, and for dealing with more personal aspects of our own journeys. And thirdly, a walking area.

a literal spiritual pathway

Spiritual Retreat walking and reflection area on a whiteboard as a social digital twinWe populated the walking area with important images from the attendees of times and situations when they felt closest to God. These were curated into a representation of a physical landscape. Meadows, mountains, hillsides, rivers, lakes, coastline, gardens created a backdrop for collections of images, scriptures, songs and blessings. People spent hours in that space, zoomed in, following the pathways, and dwelling where they chose.
The social digital twin was surprisingly effective at modelling its physical twin, and in recreating the connections we make on retreat.
The pictures on the right show the insight landscape for the retreat, which can be read about in more detail here.

Daily re-restructuring for agility? How adaptive structures maximise agile engagement.
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Facilitating mental wellbeing – The power of adventure in keeping our minds fit & healthy.
Patterns of collaborative excellence – Rediscovering the lost wisdom of design.
Prescient emotional knowledge management – do you have what it takes?

Organisational Design Sprint empowers agile self-reorganisation

Case study: How a team designed, planned & agreed their own reorganisation in 5 days using agile and organisational design sprint methodology

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Every cloud has a silver lining, so they say. But sometimes it can be difficult to see it. Until you change your perspective.
As we get busier and busier in our roles, it seems that everything has to be done quicker and quicker. And I, for one, have been doing all I can to push back against this. Like most of us, I have seen the consequences in bad decisions, poor preparation, stress, and inefficiency.

The organisational design sprint perspective

5 chevron image of design sprint methodology that was applied to organisational design sprintHowever, recently I have been involved in an experience that has turned this upside down, in one regard at least. Earlier this year,
I applied the principles of Jake Knapp’s Design Sprint process (illustrated above) to one of my normal Organisational Design workshops.
The client, an international process control company, is an adopter of Agile approaches. Thus, with their agreement, it seemed the right fit. As a result, I discovered that ‘too little time’ can have an amazing catalytic effect on engagement, creativity, commitment, ownership and even the quality of the outcome.

time constraints can have a catalytic effect

That said, this wasn’t just a matter of halving the time to achieve the same outcome. It definitely wasn’t about doing more with less. And it is here that the shifts in perspective come in.
The first shift in perspective is that the outcome of a Design Sprint is not actually the design. It is a team of people who can readily deliver the design many times faster than would otherwise be possible.

the people are the product

The second shift in perspective is to deliberately not take things too seriously. This is in order that the discussion doesn’t get bogged down in debate. This was reflected in two key principles: “80% right is good enough” and “We are ‘tourists’ into a range of potential futures”
3 minute quadrant timerThese shifts in perspective meant that timeboxing the activities (e.g. “Off the bus, you have 3 hours to do Florence – go!”) forced strategies which prioritised and covered a lot of ground quickly.
We used a lot of timers (like the one on the right) and the process actually felt Agile.

Utilising our collective unconscious

From this it will probably be obvious that the early decisions were not taken as a result of rational analysis and detailed evaluation. ‘Gut feel’ and intuition played a big part in the selections being made.
Therefore, there is an act of faith implicit in this approach: That people’s collective unconscious knows more of the situation than they realise. This is particularly true given the design team included the customers of the design. This close subconscious understanding (in the right mix, and with the right tools) will naturally develop alignment to viable answers.

the unconscious knows more than we realise

To many reading this, this will be an anathema, even heresy. And yet, much of recent management wisdom is recognising the importance of our unconscious and emotions in dealing with the emergent complexity and uncertainty of the future.
Furthermore, the result is not totally dependent on ‘feeling’. There are checks and balances applied within the later stages of the process. The resulting conclusions are thoroughly tested and evaluated through more-obviously-rational processes.
And the surprise is, they pass!

Creativity not conflict

In addition, we notice that by proceeding at pace, had other Agile advantages. Debates that would have cost a lot of time in the early stages are often rendered moot by insights from later work.
Idea touring ideation within the agile design sprintBy ‘touring’ into possible futures, we can suspend early decisions. We can hold them open to a point where we have the data and insight to resolve them. And by holding solutions lightly, we can maintain our options, and our speed.
This tends to highlight the irony in the idea that our
normal, protracted debates are somehow more rational than the Design Sprint process. The fact is, as everything becomes more complex, we rarely have all of the facts. As a result, the entrenched debates we find ourselves in often owe more to opinion and emotion than we may be willing to admit.

The power of paradigms

To be fair, adopting this approach was actually not as big a step for me as it might at first appear. I was already more than half-way there on the ‘people are the product’ thing. As past articles on the purpose of meetings, and their role in developing potential will attest.
However, the interesting thing about paradigms is that the roots can go far deeper than we realise. I thought I truly believed in the product being the people. And yet I now realise that I still clung on to the safety blanket of securing proven tangible outcomes.

when we release paradigms we release potential

Once I had let go of that safety blanket, amazing things were released alongside it. And in this I have to commend my clients, whom I have found to be astonishingly open, forgiving, and enthusiastic in embracing the possibilities of things. Agile by nature. Without that, my fear of the potential consequences of failure would not have allowed me to fully let go of a sense of responsibility for the tangible.

Transformational impact

The Organisational Design workshop was conducted with a fairly junior team. Many of these were opposed to change at the start of the workshop. But by working in the ways described above, they:
  • defined cleaner slicker processes and committed to a major reorganisation of reporting structures to achieve it
  • designed multiple practical changes to support this, and developed the skills to replicate this approach
  • tested the ideas with their colleagues, included their feedback, and gained their approval and support
  • shocked the MD with how much their attitudes and understanding had changed from Monday to Friday
  • felt empowered, confident, trusted, successful and proud of what they had achieved and who they had become
As a consequence, we did get ‘proven tangible outcomes’. Actually, more of them than I would expect from my normal workshops. But these outcomes arose naturally out of people’s growth and development. Which, I guess, is sort of inevitable in hindsight.
However, I do feel obliged to repeat that this was not driven by seeking to do more with less. This was about seeing time constraints as a tool, as a catalyst, with the requisite thinking to make it so. It was not driven by seeing time as a cost to be minimised.

Efficient design-thinking processes

In reality, the team actually spent more time on thinking, but they did not dwell on things, or get entrenched on isolated details. Each ‘too little time’ episode was part of a greater thinking strategy. A strategy which ensured a more systemic and efficient consideration of the whole issue and its context.
This was rooted in proven thinking tools. Without such tools it is all too easy for the mind to revert to its hidden biases. And for teams to disappear down rabbit-holes of debate.
The overall organisational design sprint process laid out on the whiteboardIn fact, most of the activity and discussion took place within or around visual thinking tools of one type or another. These enabled people to better see the details within the context of the wider picture. And thereby to regulate their own input. Furthermore, the visual element enabled people to see their own ideas within the flow of the overall process, and their part in the conclusion. And it created a permanent structured pictorial record of the journey to get there. A record that can be used as a digital twin of the organisational changes.

as humans our short term memory is not all that good but our spatial memory is awesome – Jake Knapp

The picture above illustrates the overall process and the wide range of thinking tools used. However, for reasons of client confidentiality it conceals the detail. It may look complex, but it is worth noting that many of the people who took part in this workshop held junior administrative roles. And yet they used the layout to win their colleagues  over to the proposed solutions.

A creative environment

The five days were help in a state of the art conference facility. It consisted of a central room with a U-shaped table, enabling easy facilitation. This was surrounded by four comfortable breakout rooms, each with their own screen. The facility was light and airy, with a lot of glass and white uncluttered walls. Ideal for putting up flipcharts and templates for teams to work on. And yet the walls remained largely unused until the last day.
Mural whiteboard visible on laptop screenInstead, all of the group work, plenary sessions, sticky-note generation, and moving things around, took place on a virtual whiteboard. Every member of the team was equipped with their own laptop. These they took with them into breakouts, and brought back into plenary. All of their ideas and exploration was conducted through the laptop, empowering everyone to contribute at once. Discussions took place face to face, but input was captured and assimilated via the whiteboard.

the best of virtual and physical combined

Everyone could see all aspects of what was emerging for themselves. But to aid discussions, breakout leaders could project their view onto a large screen, as could the facilitator in the main room. The overall result was the best of both worlds. Easy activity and engagement with templates and visual content. But with physical proximity and human contact.

Agile self-reorganisation

The conclusions arrived at by the team in just one week have been quickly accepted and implemented. This illustrates the speed and power of the design sprint process. And it also demonstrates a number of Agile principles applied to self-reorganisation. In particular: Delivery in 5 days; close daily co-operation; motivation and trust; co-location; energising pace; good design; prioritisation and focus; daily reflection; and (quite literally given it was the intended outcome) self-organisation.
Furthermore, the process and the designed outcome are a living electronic document (whiteboard). This enables the process and the outcomes to be easily reviewed and repeated. See insight landscaping.

tools are key to constructive thought in a complex context

The tools and the layout have been key to ensuring that everybody was able to contribute constructively and efficiently.
But all this still required that act of faith. So, perhaps I should leave the final words to the wisdom of St Augustine, who said: “The act of faith is to believe what you cannot see. The reward of faith is to see what you believe.” I have a sense that this idea is going to become increasingly important to all of us as our collective future unfolds.
Helpful Resources: Virtual Flipcharts | Timers | Participation Hacks

Does your vision inspire adventure? If not, you may be missing something very important.

Daily re-restructuring for agility? How adaptive structures maximise agile engagement.
Culture eats strategy for breakfast – but what sort of strategy are you feeding it?
Facilitating mental wellbeing – The power of adventure in keeping our minds fit & healthy.
Patterns of collaborative excellence – Rediscovering the lost wisdom of design.
Prescient emotional knowledge management – do you have what it takes?

Icon based metaphor for customer maturity model showing orb and a scale

How Maturity Models drive consumption and customer benefit

Case study logo - picture of open file and magnifying glassCase Study: Using maturity models to support customer success managers engage customers in better accessing & utilising product potential

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The reality in so much of our lives, both at work and privately, it that we have standards we aspire to, but the reality is that we struggle to meet them. Voltaire captured this sentiment in his line ‘the best is the enemy of the good’.
The result can be a level of confusion and inaction. For some it may be a reason not to explore the ideal and the potential learning around it. For others, it can stop them appreciating the real progress that may be made.

Maturity models balance the ideal with the pragmatic

Maturity model steps iconThe power of maturity models lies in the way that they can maintain a picture of the ideal, but allow for people to determinedly pursue more practical goals within that.
This structured contention between the ideal and the practical can be really powerful in building commitment for making progress. Our article on Maturity Models looks at how this can be used to make organisational culture more tangible, and equip people to actively manage culture shift.
But maturity models can also be used with a more specific focus, and their target audience does not have to be within your own organisation.

Understanding customer adoption and consumption

One of our clients, a large international software organisation, quickly recognised the potential of these options. Their concern was for helping their customers access and utilise more of the potential of their products.
Excerpt from Cultural Maturity Model used for shaping culture through insight and planningThe client had experienced the power of our Maturity Models in transforming the culture in different areas of their own organisation. In particular, how it inspired people to take practical ownership in making things happen.
Furthermore, they recognised the parallels in their customer’s adoption of their software. On the one hand, their customers were not ready to commit to the steps needed to access the full potential of what was available. But on the other hand, their customers’ lack of ownership of any other targets, meant that progress was weak.
As a result, they began to talk to us about the potential of creating a Maturity Model for their products. One that defined the ideal practice and benefits on a number of dimensions. But which also provided interim levels on that journey. Levels which inspired commitment and action in their customers. And thus generated a faster rate for achieving the benefits.

Building a customer maturity model

Customer Maturity Model development workshop for customer success managementTo explore this, we pulled together a number of key implementation perspectives in the client staff. Then we began to define their view of the ideal – an unrealistically perfect customer who did everything perfectly. This helped us to both define the dimensions of our proposed Customer Maturity Model, and to determine the highest level for each.
The dimensions that emerged initially were: Clarity of strategy and goals; Quality of change management; Technology roadmap; Programme governance; and Operational disciplines.
The next step was to understand the steps that might represent valid progress toward those ideals. The workshop we designed had a number of useful tools to help with this. And over the period of a day, the body of the maturity model took shape.

Maturity-centred customer success management

The client wanted to make the resulting Maturity Model the pivotal component in the Customer Success Management programme. And they asked us to help them design such a programme.
We began by understanding the perspectives people had on customer relationships currently, and how people wanted to see them improve. We then created a workshop within which people could think creatively about how the Maturity Model could support more productive and successful relationships. And to build around that the other elements of Customer Success Management that would be needed to enable it.

The result was the ‘Journey to Success’ programme, which was immediately (and successfully) piloted with a number of key customers.

Benefits of the approach

The impact of the maturity model based approach totally changed the dynamic in the relationship between vendor and customer in a number of ways:
  • The customer staff developed a much better understanding and appreciation of the whole implementation journey
  • As a result, the Customer Success Manager could more easily establish themselves in a coaching role
  • The model enabled customer staff to make sensible trade-offs between benefits and commitments
  • Consequently, the Customer Success Manager could facilitate customer staff in taking full ownership of the implementation
  • The resulting plan enabled the Customer Success Manager to massively increase consumption, and thereby impact and revenue

Growing and sustaining customer relationship

Furthermore, the Maturity Model served to help the customer to understand they were on a journey. In other words, that there were still further benefits and steps for them to take after the current phase. And it also enabled the customer to feel in full control of their own choice in what those would be.
Picture of Customer Success Manager using facilitative Leadership around a set of sticky notesConsequently, it has helped simplify and clarify the role of the Customer Success Manager . It has helped the Customer Success Managers to establish their focus as a coach. Thereby defusing the tensions associated with being seen as a salesperson. In other words, it has enabled them to adopt a more effective stance as a trusted and critical friend.
The customers too have come to understand the power of the Maturity Model in taking ownership of culture: In clarifying the choices available; In building ownership and in changing behaviours; and in supporting productive dialogue around that.

What next?

To explore this topic further, feel free to contact us. We find our own thinking is continually sharpened and enriched by the questions people ask, and by the discussions that emerge from it.

Does your vision inspire adventure? If not, you may be missing something very important.
Daily re-restructuring for agility? How adaptive structures maximise agile engagement.
Culture eats strategy for breakfast – but what sort of strategy are you feeding it?
Facilitating mental wellbeing – The power of adventure in keeping our minds fit & healthy.
Patterns of collaborative excellence – Rediscovering the lost wisdom of design.
Prescient emotional knowledge management – do you have what it takes?

Visioning Case Study - person gazing into the future thoughtfully

Visioning – Investing in Britain & Ireland’s Industrial Future

Case study logo - picture of open file and magnifying glassThis case study illustrates the use of visioning techniques to draw out and deploy a compelling vision through the organisation

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The power of questions

Image metaphor for visioning - looking into the future and visualising adventureComing up with the right vision is primarily about asking the right questions. We all have ideas that excite us, dreams that make us feel more alive. But most of us sadly do not spend a lot of time in that space, particularly in the office. And after a while it is easy to forget that we do. So sometimes it can take a bit of time to find the questions that can help people re-cross that threshold. To access corners of their thinking that link to hope and aspiration. And to inspire a belief that they can make this a everyday reality in their work.
Unfortunately, it seems that many business visions are developed without accessing that space at all. The results are usually uninspiring, pedestrian, and eminently forgettable.
Conversely, spending time getting back into that space can make all the difference to confidence, commitment, culture and overall performance.

Approaches to generating a vision

Vision exploration using modelling and metaphor - visioning case studyIn our work, we typically use four main ways of accessing that space:
  • Interviews (individual or group) using visioning questions to pull people’s thinking up and into an ideal future
  • Visioning flipchart walkrounds where people engage with paradigm shifting questions and build on each others ideas
  • Modelling and drawing to access and explore subconscious metaphors, sometimes preceded by guided visualisation
  • Walk and talk visioning
The first three of these are explained in more detail in the section titled ‘Other Visioning Examples’. However, this case study focuses on an example of the fourth approach – using a walk and talk method.

Leaving the office behind

Photograph of a misty morning walk It was a bit of a chilly, damp morning, and none of them really had the footwear for what they were about to do. However, tramping over the adjacent country park was going to prove far more conducive to what had to be done than sitting in a warm office.
Two of them were stepping up into a new joint role soon to be vacated by its current incumbent: An inspiring and well respected MD who had led the organisation into its recent success and acclaim. They felt ready for this, and really wanted to make their mark to prove worthy of the trust that had been placed in them. But the key question was, what was that mark to be?
The third member of the trio, a consultant, had been invited to help them think through their answer to this.
Photograph of forest and two people walk and talk visioningThere is something about walking that really helps these sort of conversations. The metronome pulse of the steps; the acceptance of silence as you think; the constantly changing scenery; the sense of forward motion. Even the idea that once you have the ‘answer’ you still have to walk back, and in that time you can discover a better answer.

Moving beyond the obvious

For the first hour, the conversation was fairly analytical. A lot of it was about extrapolating from where they were now. And thinking about what might be needed in their anticipated future. But there was no real energy to it. The conversation was calm, intelligent and reflective. There were some good ideas emerging, but nothing that brought excitement into their voices.
The consultant wasn’t worried, he was used to the need to cover the basics first, and to the time it takes to find the question that catches. There are lots of options for what that question might be, including magic wands, legacies, pride, … But the key is to sense what is going on underneath – to allow the right question to emerge into your unconscious. And in this case the question that emerged was: How will you feel in a few month’s time when you wake up on a working morning, and you think about delivering that vision?

Finding the spark

The other two pondered that question as they walked. The answers were pretty much as expected. But then the consultant followed up with ‘How would you ideally want to feel, if it was your choice about how you could feel?’ That clicked. The answers had more energy to them, and the heads lifted up from the downward reflective gaze. There were flashes of humour, and connection.
Visualising adventure metaphor in terms of a person striding a mountain topThen the consultant asked: “So can we think silently for a while about what difference you might be making that would be making you feel that way?” When they compared notes a few minutes later, the sparks flew, excitement rose, and something transformational took place between them.
There was nothing really special about that particular question. But it was right for them at that point. And it opened their thinking together at a new level.
There were clearly further questions required to test their thinking, and to refine it into something that could be shared and tested more widely: Does it meet the needs of the business? How will others engage with it? Can it embrace what you see as your responsibilities? Will it make a difference? How do you feel about it now?
The return walk to the office was full of energy and ideas and enthusiasm. Once in the office, it was possible to note it all down and to begin to refine it into something to take forward. And to think about the best ways to do that.

Expanding ownership for the vision

As far as could be practical, the two MDs wanted their people to experience what they had experienced (but with more appropriate clothing and footwear). They rightly felt that it would inspire far greater ownership if people could self-discover and build on the vision, rather than have it delivered to them.
Group walk and talk in pairs - developing the visionAccordingly, a two day workshop was convened for the leadership team and the consultant set about designing a process for it. One which would help people arrive at their own interpretations of the vision (by walking together). Which then enabled them to reconcile their interpretations together into something they felt inspired to achieve. And then to build on that in terms of the difference their own teams would make in delivering it.
The result was a huge up-swell in energy. The wording of the vision changed slightly to accommodate the new ideas. However, it lost none of its emotional connection for the two MDs. However, it now extended that emotional commitment across the leadership team.
The final step in the workshop was to help the wider leadership team with a similar process for engaging the hearts and minds of their own people as they cascaded it down through the organisation. The result has been an astounding success. The business continued to outperform its contemporaries. Culture and energy thrived. Their vision has in large part been realised (to the benefit of the wider UK). And the two MDs have progressed to new and more challenging roles within this global organisation.

Other Visioning Examples

Walk and talk can be very powerful, but it is not for everyone or for all situations. That said, we have used it to help people develop visions, or to align their own visions to an existing vision, in many different situations.
More commonly, we have used the techniques listed below – together with one specific application of each. Each of these approaches uses unusual elements to inspire and access people’s dreams and aspirations – even where they initially don’t think they have any.

Interview based visioning

Interview - Courtesy Gustavo Fring via PexelsIndividual interviews with each of the members of the leadership team. The interviews used questions to understand what particular achievements would make the next few years special for them in some way. These were included in a process where the team could adopt and refine the ideas for themselves. And then pull them into a shared vision. This has been the approach taken in developing compelling visions for the regional partnerships of the global software vendor explained in the partnership case study.  It is also the most common approach we use in supporting work around the Strategy Engagement Framework.

Walkround based visioning

Walkround visioning - adding ideas to flipcharts with inspiring and challenging questionsWalkround visioning where people engage with insightful visioning questions on flipcharts, and add their answers below. This can be a new train of thought, or building on someone else’s idea from the flipchart. This work is often preceded by relaxation and guided visualisation exercises to stimulate the thinking beforehand. It is brought together through further workshop sessions to highlight those that are most important to people, and to harmonise them into a complete vision. This has been used with a major retailer to break through into more ambitious and inspiring ways of thinking about their role.

Models and metaphors

Lego Serious Play System VisioningThe use of modelling or drawing to think and communicate in different, and usually more memorable, ways about what is to be achieved. This can be done in a relatively straightforward way – taking the ideas as presented. But it can also be further enhanced by exploring metaphors within the models to access creative insights from the subconscious. This is an important and powerful aspect of Lego Serious Play, one of the modelling techniques). The drawing approach has been used in many clients as an initial icebreaker exercise to open things up. The modelling approach has been used with a project management team in a medical devices company to great effect.
To explore this topic further, feel free to contact us. We find our own thinking is continually sharpened and enriched by the questions people ask, and by the discussions that emerge from it.

Deploying meaning to fully engage hearts minds and ideas

Case study logo - picture of open file and magnifying glassCase Study: How strategy engagement matrices aligned disparate groups behind a shared purpose

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In the past, water technologies had been a bit of a Cinderella industry. Working along in the background with limited investment. But over recent decades, growing ecological concerns have begun to bring water much more into the limelight.
As focus and opportunity shifted, one particular group of businesses came together to better engage with this.
They were the Water arm of a large multinational engineering conglomerate. Three separate businesses, with complementary technologies.

bringing businesses together

The newly appointed CEO wanted to bring the three businesses together. His intention was to create one business better positioned to engage with the emerging opportunities. The CEO was already familiar with the power of Strategy Engagement Frameworks from past experience. He believed, rightly, that it would help him better engage his new team in a shared purpose to make it happen. And he asked us to help.

Objectives of the Strategy Engagement

Hands together as metaphor for engagement in a shared goal through deploying meaningHe believed that the key to success for new Water Technologies organisation was to:
  1. Generate the level of growth and margin that the parent company looks for in its benchmark organisations
  2. Create a shared purpose, not only in terms of structure and process, but also in behaviours, attitudes and beliefs
  3. Develop synergies within the digital and other industries of the parent organisation. And to gain the cultural and performance (Agile and excellence) benefits of that approach
  4. Deploy meaning and develop personal senses of responsibility in all staff in order to: break down silo perspectives; take systematic ownership for achievements; and develop people and cross-functional teams to achieve their full potential
  5. Strategically engage with relevant elements of the parent company’s global portfolio to reduce the organisation’s dependency on municipal markets and their attendant 5 year cycles
The goal therefore was: to engage the energy, skills and motivation of the team in fleshing out what these things mean in practice for Water Technologies; to determine a common set of objectives in support of this; to define how those objectives will be fulfilled both in the near future and in the longer term; and to build commitment to deliver those plans together.
Pretty much what every company needs really. But with one key difference. The power of the Strategy Engagement Matrix in delivering and sustaining it.

Starting with where people are

Interview prior to Strategy Engagement Workshop - Courtesy-Gustavo-Fring-via-PexelsOur approach to this type of work begins with individual interviews of the leadership team. Transforming an organisation is always a journey, an adventure. Everybody changes. But to make those changes efficiently, we need to know where we are starting from.
Our interviews helped us develop a complete picture of people’s hopes and aspirations; their dreams and their concerns. Their ideas, and their blindspots; their passions and their dislikes; and their priorities and needs. From these interviews we could develop a complete picture of  key consistencies and differences in the collective view; particularly where there was consensus and where there was disagreement.

journeys start where you are

And we could begin to map out the most likely journey; a practical route for moving from the current situation to whatever success might mean. A means of building on consensus and resolving the differences to achieve coherence, a shared purpose, and an agreed way forward.
The interviews also helped us to build rapport and trust. A realisation that individual perspectives were valued and respected within the process. And a confidence that the outcome could be better for everyone.

Clarifying where they want to be

We then held a workshop to work this all through together. Beginning with an analysis of the start point, and confirmation that it reflected their reality.
From this we could begin to develop a shared picture of success. Success not just in performance and operational terms, but also in cultural and human terms. A picture that truly reflected what success meant to them and their responsibilities for the business.
Creating meaning - visioning process using a range of visioning tools in a workshopWe used a range of participative and visioning tools to pull individual proposals into a shared picture of success. One which was not only supported by everyone. But which everyone agreed would make them proud, and was worthy of the  investment of the next three years of their lives.
Furthermore, a picture that would fulfil the business expectations placed upon them. And be sufficiently robust to meet the needs of their changing market and context.

set goals that are worthy of your life

This picture fell into 6 main areas: Customers; Growth; Productivity; Sustainability; People; and Finance. We used metrics to further define these and describe positive progress for each area. And we set targets for each by means of the clothesline tool.

Configuring for success

Developing process models for the strategy engagement matrix - finding ways to better deploy meaningClearly, this picture of success is to be delivered by the different parts of the organisation working together.
But organisational structure is a choice, and some structural choices deploy meaning better than others. They provide better leverage over achieving the results.

organisational structure is a matter of design

With this in mind we asked people how they would define the different elements of the organisation required to deliver our goals. And then we asked how we could best group and configure those elements. How we might arrange them for maximum agility, impact and creative potential.

agile organisational structure is a matter of meta-design

Breakouts worked on different models, each with different strengths and weaknesses. We then selected a base model, and further refined its structure by borrowing strong ideas from the other models to address its weaknesses.
In the end, the titles given to the primary groups were fairly conventional: Sales and Marketing; Supply Chain; Execution; Product Management; Aftermarket and Service; Finance; HR and Support. However, the design and components within each one were new.

Engaging them within the Strategy Matrix

Working on the strategy engagement matrix to deploy meaning and promote creative solutionsThe workshop had deliberately been held in a very large room with extensive wall space.
The wall space enabled us to lay out the longest wall to represent the six goal areas as rows, and the seven primary groups as columns. Which created areas of approximately 30cm by 70cm at the intersection of each row and column.
Plenty of space to explore what each group needed to deliver if it was to ensure the success of each goal. The resulting matrix served as a means to deploy meaning from the top level goals into the primary groups.

deploy meaning systematically

We began splitting into seven groups. Each exploring what their group was capable of achieving currently in yellow sticky notes. And then adding in green sticky notes to reflect its further potential to leverage the goals.
Then we split into six groups, each taking responsibility for a goal area. And considering whether the proposed contributions would ensure the goals were met. Would they bet £500 of their own money on it. They then added further pink sticky notes of what was necessary to give them that confidence.

betting your own money accesses a different
level of thought

This gave us a complete picture of what would be required. Each cell reflecting responsibilities for each group in delivering each goal. The group then further refined these by looking at the the output as a whole, and soliciting further ideas and concerns. And then working through them together.

Prioritising innovation and improvement

People were asked about their confidence that the proposed leverage of the objectives could be achieved. That the workload would be manageable. This led to the realisation that we would need to prioritise on the most important things. We split again into breakouts, and used sticky dots to identify what was essential, and align it with what was feasible.

seeing the whole picture

For the first time, the leadership team could see fully what it was trying to do, and how it could configure itself to deliver it. It could see how the different parts needed to work together to achieve it.
The matrix clearly deployed meaning from the top level goals into each part of their strategy. Furthermore they could better see themselves as a team rather than heads of functions. They could see that it was ALL their responsibility, not just siloed bits of it.

Deploy meaning to expand strategy engagement

However, the leadership do not have all the best ideas. Nor is it sufficient to rely solely on their ownership.
The point about strategy engagement is to draw in the ideas and ownership of everyone. To deploy meaning right down through the organisation. So the next step was to use the big picture to engage those that actually do the work.
Teams were pulled together to take responsibility for each primary group (business area). Each had an appointed leader from the workshop.

to engage people harness their ideas

The role of the team was to understand the logic so far, and to translate this into clear goals for each of the business areas. To include their own aspirations and ideas for what might be possible.  And to formulate a proposal back to the leadership team.
In some cases, they developed their own strategy engagement matrix. Embracing their own vision of success for their group. Deploying meaning even deeper into the organisation. And being creative in considering the local structure to deliver it.

Harmonising the approach

A second leadership workshop was held to receive the proposals from the different groups. These were used to update the top level Strategy Engagement Matrix. The leadership team could then consider whether it wanted to make counter proposals. It could also use the information to reconsider the targets it was setting itself.

a living picture of how everything connects

The end result was a complete framework which linked everyone’s work back into the vision of Water Technologies. People could see clearly where they fitted in, and their potential to make a difference. Furthermore the framework provided a practical framework for holding together Agile teams.

Developing the roof of the strategy engagement framework - looking at x-team communication and collaboration

The final step, in workshop terms at least, was to ensure effective communications as plans progressed.
The Strategy Engagement Matrix includes for a half matrix looking at the interrelatedness of the teams. This ‘roof’ matrix enables the teams to meet together and understand whether their individual goals place them in conflict or synergy. It then enables them to work out what communication they need between them: Whether they need regular updates to avoid treading on each others toes; Or whether they would benefit from planning shared projects.

Empowering progress

Clearly, there were some role changes required in Water Technologies as a result of this work, but this was effected very easily. The purpose-centric definition of the new business areas, and the responsibilities therein, clearly helped in defining these. And by the ownership of individuals created as they defined their own roles and contributed their ideas.

the result was a transformation in Water Technologies performance.

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Relevant Links:

An early example from 1997: The Designer Organisation
Picture of clasped hands - metaphor for partner unity behind a shared aspiration

Transforming partnerships through a compelling shared vision

Case study logo - picture of open file and magnifying glassThis international case study illustrates a partnership workshop template which transformed energy and impact

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Engaging heart and spirit

We have been working with a well-known global software company and their equally well known international consulting partners to develop a process for moving beyond a transactional mindset using the Strategy Engagement Matrix. A process which is engaging more of the heart and spirit of their people in their regional partnerships. Heart and spirit that sets transformative goals for their work in better digitalising and enabling their joint clients .

The issue with transactional partnerships

Their previous partnership processes tended to be largely transactional in nature, centred around volumes of work, numbers of licenses, market share and target clients. Then each party would go and do their own thing within that, based on their respective strengths. But, frankly, it was ‘just a job’.
As a result, many clients only achieved a fraction of the potential that was available to them. And a large proportion of the licences were left unutilised. The evidence of this became more obvious as licenses shifted on-line and consumption became a key measure. People then saw the portion of the licenses that weren’t getting used. And realised that this meant an equal portion of the benefits were probably not being realised.

Inspiring partner aspirations

Partnership interview templateInterviews with key staff on both sides of the partnerships highlighted a number of factors:
  • The partner organisations both had a real heart for making a real difference to their clients/customers
  • The people involved had ideas and hopes for the transformative impact they wanted to have on their clients
  • There were issues, as you might expect, but there were a lot of priorities, and people were working hard
  • And they were meeting the numbers … or at least they were until someone added consumption
  • But they had never really got together to discuss the differences they really wanted to make – their hopes, their passion
When we asked what might be possible if both parties could realise their strengths and dreams, the interviews came alive. And the interesting thing was that both partners came alive on similar or complementary themes.

Aligning to a shared vision

Partnership shared objectives panelWith the help of key partner staff on both sides, we developed a new partner process. We created the space for people to define aspirational outcomes that would make them proud. And then to sell them to each other, explaining the benefits to both partners and the clients. Then we gave them a process to reconcile these aspirations into a set of shared intentions. Intentions that were “worthy of investing the next year of their working lives in achieving”. And we asked them if they really felt that way about them. Or whether they needed anything else included or adjusted to ‘get there’.
The result in each case was a set of really meaningful goals. Goals which emotionally engaged the partners. Which were redolent of empowerment, transformation, client growth, learning and success. Goals that were way in advance of what had emerged from their previous process.

Planning with energy and enthusiasm

Furthermore, once people saw that their ambitions were equally owned by their colleagues and partners, the collective energy became palpable. And the appetite grew for prioritising whatever was needed for each partner to play their part in delivering that vision, that adventure.
Mixed breakout groups containing people from both partners worked to shape up the activities and projects needed to support the goals. They then prioritised these, and people self-selected themselves onto which they wanted to take forward. Some applied directly to current clients. And some were about improving the processes between the two partners at the regional level. Finally, they pulled these together into a practical schedule. And people confirmed their belief that they would succeed in delivering these using the $500 bet.

Insight Landscaping as the basis for Dynamic Partnership WorkshopsA replicable partner process

The trialing of the new process took place across 6 world regions during the peak of Covid: India, Australia, South Africa, Germany, Middle East, UK. All were conducted remotely on a massive virtual canvas, which became a digital twin of each partnership. An insight landscape which visually reconnected the people with the commitments they made. And with the emotions they had felt from the start. The outcomes are making a big difference to the partnerships and their results.
The principles evident in this case study are applicable to virtually any strategic partnership. We have been privileged to help our clients develop more effective partner processes in industries as diverse as IT, consultancy, retail, manufacturing and distribution.

What next?

To explore this topic further, feel free to contact us. We find our own thinking is continually sharpened and enriched by the questions people ask, and by the discussions that emerge from it.
Does your vision inspire adventure? If not, you may be missing something very important.
Daily re-restructuring for agility? How adaptive structures maximise agile engagement.
Culture eats strategy for breakfast – but what sort of strategy are you feeding it?
Facilitating mental wellbeing – The power of adventure in keeping our minds fit & healthy.
Patterns of collaborative excellence – Rediscovering the lost wisdom of design.
Prescient emotional knowledge management – do you have what it takes?