Adaptive Organisation (I)

Announcing Adaptive Organisation part I (00:01:53)

Out now: chapter 3 of Adaptive Organisation, the fourth and final module of Leading with Outcomes. This latest chapter, Mutual Trust Building, completes part I, for which a certificate of completion applies.

Part I, Business agility at every scale covers the three overlapping “spaces” of the Deliberately Adaptive Organisation, an accessible, “start where you are”, and complexity-conscious rendition of the Viable System Model:

  1. Delivery, Discovery, and Renewal:
    • Inside value creation’s inner learning loop
    • Turning intent into progress, and experiments into intelligence and insights
    • Reconciling Agile and business agility
  2. Adaptive Strategy:
    • Making organising commitments, autonomy at every scope and scale
    • Understanding self and environment, creating and managing options accordingly
    • Actively maintaining coherent identity, purpose, and values 
  3. Mutual Trust Building:
    • Models of trust-building leadership
    • The systemic role of trust
    • Sensemaking – making meaningful progress in the presence of ambiguity

The Deliberately Adaptive Organisation as described in part I is already a fractal, “every scale” model. Nevertheless, when it comes to challenges of scale, there is still plenty to talk about that is not well covered elsewhere. What should be happening between scales? How can we think less statically about structure and process? How do we get the organisation engaged on all of this?

With all of that on the agenda, Part II, Between spaces, scopes, and scales should begin its rollout in the coming days, one chapter at a time:

  1. Between and across scales:
    • Navigating formal structure
    • Your organisation in 5 networks
    • Between and across scales: Structuring, connecting, translating, and reconciling
  2. Organising at human scale 
    • Thinking in circles – organising without reorganising
    • Teaming and re-teaming
    • The developmental organisation 
  3. Possibility and purpose
    • Conversations on organisation in the language of outcomes
    • Developing and pursuing strategy

Read on to find out how to access Adaptive Organisation!


Leading with Outcomes from the Agendashift Academy
“Leadership and strategy in the transforming organisation”

Leading with Outcomes is our modular curriculum in leadership and organisation development. Each module is available as self-paced online training or as private, instructor-led training (online or in-person). Certificates of completion or participation according to format. Its four modules in the recommended order:

  1. Leading with Outcomes: Foundation
  2. Inside-out Strategy: Fit for maximum impact
  3. Outside-in Strategy: Positioned for success
  4. Adaptive Organisation: Business agility at every scale (parts I and II, a certificate for each)

Individual subscriptions from £24.50 per month, business subscriptions from £269 per month, with discounts available on both kinds of plan for employees and employers in the government, healthcare, education, and non-profit sectors.

See below for public training events, discounted for subscribers.

To deliver Leading with Outcomes yourself, see our Authorised Facilitator and Trainer Programmes. Our next TTT/F training takes place in May.


Upcoming events

With me (Mike Burrows) unless otherwise indicated

*For the June events indicated with an asterisk, see Three days in sunny June, London – and note the recent date change!


Agendashift™: Serving the transforming organisation
Links: Home | Subscribe | Events | Media | Contact | Mike

Agendashift  Academy: Leading with Outcomes | Facilitator and Trainer Programmes

We help leaders and engaged team members at every level to gain fluency in the language of outcomes – developing and pursuing strategies together, innovating, learning, and adapting as the organisation renews and transforms itself from the inside.

Balance, constraint, and freedom

An inspiring taster of something big clearly brewing

Ryan Behrman, organiser of the Systemic Agility meetup

Thank you Ryan! That “something big” is the Leading with Outcomes module Adaptive Organisation: Business agility at every scale and the model behind it, the Deliberately Adaptive Organisation. By happy coincidence, chapter 2 of the module’s latest iteration (beta 2) is released today.

What prompted Ryan’s comment was a talk I gave last week at the abovementioned meetup – see below for the recording. It draws from chapter 4 of beta 1, which remains available to subscribers until beta 2 gets that far, which shortly it will. Thanks in no small part to the conversations that my talk spawned, I’ll be updating both the talk and the training module – the talk iterating towards a keynote I’ll be giving later in the year, the training material benefiting in the process.

The theme of “balance, constraint, and freedom” comes up both in the video and in a short interlude that follows chapter 2 and is released with it today. The module and its underlying model draw on two perspectives on organisation, namely complexity and systems, and it’s nice to bring the two together:

  • What does it mean to have things in balance with each other – in healthy and productive relationship? (In the talk I expand both what might be meant by “things” and what gets in the way of that kind of balance)
  • What does it mean to have the right constraints – constraints of various kinds that in combination keep us away from unhealthy and unproductive states and steer us towards more desirable states, maintaining our organisation’s coherence all the while?
  • And both the flip side of constraint and the product of those healthy relationships: what does it mean when we have freedom – freedom to do the right thing, freedom to collaborate creatively, freedom to find innovative solutions, freedom to reimagine who we are, freedom to redefine ourselves?

The complexity and systems perspectives each bring their own ranges of tools, but before we get technical, what does that right balance, constraint, and freedom feel like? Already, that’s a starting point for an interesting conversation. A more detailed and theory-informed conversation might be the next step, but don’t neglect the informal opportunities either – sometimes they’re the most revealing.

To the recorded talk specifically, if you detected the hint of a health warning in my mention above of updates and iteration, it is only that in this version I risk getting into more detail than I would want in a keynote. Not that it was a problem here – in fact the feedback was very encouraging. Not for the first time, I’m being told that I’m describing something that is both needed and timely – something that others have been grasping at but didn’t quite have the words for.

Watch to the end for a special offer, and watch out for later versions. I have a good idea already of what the next one will look like.

Stop press: see Upcoming events below, 27th April.

Between spaces, scopes, and scales: What the scaling frameworks don’t tell you

Related posts


Leading with Outcomes from the Agendashift Academy
“Leadership and strategy in the transforming organisation”

Leading with Outcomes is our modular curriculum in leadership and organisation development. Each module is available as self-paced online training or as private, instructor-led training (online or in-person). Certificates of completion or participation according to format. Its four modules in the recommended order:

  1. Leading with Outcomes: Foundation
  2. Inside-out Strategy: Fit for maximum impact
  3. Outside-in Strategy: Positioned for success
  4. Adaptive Organisation: Business agility at every scale (parts I and II, a certificate for each)

Individual subscriptions from £24.50 per month, business subscriptions from £269 per month, with discounts available on both kinds of plan for employees and employers in the government, healthcare, education, and non-profit sectors.

See below for public training events, discounted for subscribers.

To deliver Leading with Outcomes yourself, see our Authorised Facilitator and Trainer Programmes. Our next TTT/F training takes place in May.

Upcoming events

With me (Mike Burrows) unless otherwise indicated

*For the June events indicated with an asterisk, see Three days in sunny June, London – and note the recent date change!


Agendashift™: Serving the transforming organisation
Links: Home | Subscribe | Events | Media | Contact | Mike

Agendashift  Academy: Leading with Outcomes | Facilitator and Trainer Programmes

We help leaders and engaged team members at every level to gain fluency in the language of outcomes – developing and pursuing strategies together, innovating, learning, and adapting as the organisation renews and transforms itself from the inside.

Three days in sunny June, London (updated)

[Updated 2022-03-20 – dates changed to accommodate block bookings!]

London, UK, venue TBC. Three days, each available separately, each certified. Buy two consecutive days and save 20%. Buy all three together and save 30%:

  • Day 1. Tuesday, June 20th: Leading with Outcomes: Foundation
  • Day 2. Wednesday, June 21st: Adaptive Organisation (I): Business agility at every scale
  • Day 3. Thursday, June 22nd: Adaptive Organisation (II): Between spaces, scopes, and scales

Save a further 10-40% with the discount code shown on your Agendashift Academy subscription – see the What’s included page of your Welcome course in your Academy library.

Book your 1, 2, or 3 days here:

Just in the last few days, I’ve had some capacity free up in April; please get in touch if interested in hosting any of the above privately. I will throw in a free 3-month Agendashift for Business subscription for up to 25 people, and as mentioned in last month’s roundup, while the self-paced version of Adaptive Organisation remains in beta (see below) I will be glad to discount the in-person version substantially. Please note that my ability to travel outside the UK remains somewhat limited.

Happening this week:


Agendashift™: Serving the transforming organisation
Links: Home | Subscribe | Events | Media | Contact | Mike

Agendashift  Academy: Leading with Outcomes | Facilitator and Trainer Programmes

We help leaders and engaged team members at every level to gain fluency in the language of outcomes – developing and pursuing strategies together, innovating, learning, and adapting as the organisation renews and transforms itself from the inside.

Agendashift roundup, February 2023

I have had covid for most of the past week, and though I don’t feel seriously ill, coupled with the facts 1) that with my wife I’m part of a 24*7 care team for a vulnerable family member, and 2) that I’ve been called to jury service next month, I’ve had to make some changes.

So, in calendar order:

  • Next week’s Foundation is unfortunately cancelled
  • Next week’s webinar (with guests) and meetup are still going ahead – and I’m greatly looking forward to both
  • If you’re in India next month, don’t miss Karl Scotland’s Foundation
  • My next public workshop is in April, by the kind invitation of Gervase Bushe and hosted by the Cape Code Institute, details here
  • The May Train-the-Trainer / Facilitator (TTT/F) is now open for bookings – UK mornings, relatively APAC-friendly timings (less convenient for the Americas this time round)
  • The June Foundation has moved from mornings to afternoons

If you’re wondering meanwhile how this month’s TTT/F went, check this out.

Adaptive Organisation: Business agility at every scale

There has been some impact on the not-quite-finished Adaptive Organisation module too, but I’m seeing it very much as a blessing in disguise. As agreed at a Zoom call yesterday with trainers participating in its beta programme, I will:

  1. Release the existing videos to Academy subscribers as-is as “Beta 1” – without captions, workbook, or the final chapter
  2. Release a greatly improved Beta 2 chapter by chapter

I gave a preview of Beta 2 at this month’s TTT/F, where one participant described it as “all I hoped it would be”. Yesterday’s Zoom was similarly encouraging, and I’m confident that it will be worth the wait.

From April onwards I will have capacity for private training. While Adaptive Organisation remains in beta it will be available in multiple formats at preferential pricing – so shout now if it could be of interest.

Top posts

  1. Start where you are (February)
  2. Sell the pain, not the solution, the theory, or the blame (December)
  3. Your organisation in 5 networks (November)
  4. Between spaces, scopes, and scales (February)
  5. Leaders as keepers of context (September)

Agendashift™: Serving the transforming organisation
Links: Home | Subscribe | Events | Media | Contact | Mike

Agendashift  Academy: Leading with Outcomes | Facilitator and Trainer Programmes

We help leaders and engaged team members at every level to gain fluency in the language of outcomes – developing and pursuing strategies together, innovating, learning, and adapting as the organisation renews and transforms itself from the inside.

Upcoming events

With me (Mike Burrows) unless otherwise indicated

*For the June events indicated with an asterisk, see Three days in sunny June, London – and note the recent date change!

Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. ~Arthur Ashe

Between spaces, scopes, and scales

Perhaps you’ve been wondering where I’ve been going with posts like Your organisation in 5 networks and Start where you are. Well, just in the last few days the Systemic Agility community have given me the perfect opportunity for the big reveal. I’ll be speaking at their meetup at 17:30 GMT on Thursday, March 9th:

To set some expectations: Networks will of course play a role, but it’s not only about those. No, I won’t be ranting against any particular framework or against frameworks in general. Much more constructively, it’s about accessing some of the deep magic of organisation. Or should I say organising?

The previous day but in the UK morning for the sake of our Australia-based guests, it’s the next in our monthly webinar/AMA series The questions that drive us:

Note that 09:30 GMT is not 10am ET as previously advertised. Apologies to our friends in the US if you were misled – 4:30am is early indeed!

It will be a busy week – there’s more! The next interactive Leading with Outcomes: Foundation begins on the Tuesday. Three sessions of two and a half hours each on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoons (UK time) 7th-9th March, 14:00-16:30 GMT:

  • Session 1. (Tuesday 7th) Leading in a transforming organisation – introducing outcome-oriented change
  • Session 2. (Wednesday 8th) Meaningfulness, significance, and direction – two kinds of strategy and a virtuous circle
  • Session 3. (Thursday 9th) Moving into action – ideas, experiments, feedback, and learning

We’re having a lot of fun with Foundation right now in the February Train-the-Trainer/Facilitator and I’m already looking forward to doing it again. Join us! And don’t hesitate to ping me for a discount code – public or non-profit sectors, un/under-employed, participants in previous events, yada, yada, they all count, and that goes for the self-paced version of Foundation too.


Agendashift™: Serving the transforming organisation
Links: Home | Subscribe | Events | Media | Contact | Mike

Agendashift  Academy: Leading with Outcomes | Facilitator and Trainer Programmes

We help leaders and engaged team members at every level to gain fluency in the language of outcomes – developing and pursuing strategies together, innovating, learning, and adapting as the organisation renews and transforms itself from the inside.

Upcoming events

With me (Mike Burrows) unless otherwise indicated

*For the June events indicated with an asterisk, see Three days in sunny June, London – and note the recent date change!

Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. ~Arthur Ashe

A couple of changes for February

Quick one…. For reasons beyond my control, the February Train-the-Trainer / Facilitator (TTT/F) has moved a day or two. It is still four sessions over two consecutive weeks, but no longer the same two days each week. Now it’s Wednesday, Thursday, Monday, and Tuesday afternoons (UK time), 15th-21st of February.

Programme information and booking pages:

Sessions begin at 13:00GMT, 14:00CST, 8am ET, will be a maximum of four hours each, and include multiple breaks.

Before that I’m in Berlin on the 7th and 8th for a two-day in-person workshop focussed on leaders and leadership in transforming organisations:

This was first mooted as an in-person TTT/F so be aware of that change too.

Questions about those or anything else? The next free webinar/AMA is on February 2nd:

As for what’s happening in March, see the events calendar below. Hope to see you soon!


Agendashift™: Serving the transforming organisation
Links: Home | Subscribe | Events | Media | Contact | Mike

Agendashift  Academy: Leading with Outcomes | Facilitator and Trainer Programmes

We help leaders and engaged team members at every level to gain fluency in the language of outcomes – developing and pursuing strategies together, innovating, learning, and adapting as the organisation renews and transforms itself from the inside.

Upcoming events

With me (Mike Burrows) unless otherwise indicated

*For the June events indicated with an asterisk, see Three days in sunny June, London – and note the recent date change!

The new Leading with Outcomes: Foundation is out of beta

Leading with Outcomes’ updated Foundation module is 26% shorter, much better paced, and today it leaves beta. Academy subscribers who joined before today will still have access to the old one for the next few weeks, but for most people, the new Foundation is where Leading with Outcomes starts.

Today I recorded a new welcome video for the Leading with Outcomes: Foundation landing page (06:29):

What’s going live today comes in the format of self-paced training. There are live, instructor-led events too (it’s not unusual for people to take Leading with Outcomes multiple times and in multiple formats):

If you’re an Agendashift Academy subscriber, check the Welcome pages in your Academy library for your subscription plan’s coupon codes. If you’re not a subscriber, subscribe first and save some money!

Between those two paid events, this free taster event (the first of a monthly series) is open to all:


Agendashift™: Serving the transforming organisation
Agendashift  Academy: Leading with Outcomes | Facilitator and Trainer Programmes

Links: HomeSubscribe | Events | Contact | Mike
Resources: Tools & Materials | Media | BooksAssessments 
Blog: Monthly roundups | Classic posts
Community: Slack | LinkedIn group | Twitter

Agendashift roundup, October 2022

In this edition: November is Foundation month; December is TTT/F month; The questions that drive us (free webinar series); Coming to Berlin; A quick note from the department of administrative affairs; Upcoming; Top posts

November is Foundation month

Leading with Outcomes: Foundation that is, and in two formats.

The self-paced format first: Coming in at 1 hour 50 minutes in 25 short videos across three chapters, the next and greatly improved iteration of Foundation is 26% shorter, a year fresher, and much better structured than the one it replaces. It is currently in beta and goes fully live this coming Friday. If you plan to start your Academy subscription before then or you have one already don’t worry – we’d be glad to add you to the beta.

Later in the month, we’re running it as an online event. It is already well subscribed but there are still places available:

More:

December is TTT/F month

We’re running our second Train-the-Trainer / Facilitator (TTT/F) in December:

The later timing will be more convenient for the Americas this time round. Again, it is already well subscribed but there are still places available (3 at the last count).

The questions that drive us (free webinar series)

Starting December 9th, we’re starting a monthly series of free webinars, open to all. Initially at least, the format will be as follows:

  1. A short presentation on one of the three questions that drive both Agendashift and Leading with Outcomes
  2. Ask Mike Anything – in addition to the Academy-only AMA sessions (two of those per month), your chance to, erm, ask me anything

To that basic structure we will add guest appearances too in due course.

December’s question (book your place here):

In future months:

  • How do we keep bringing outcomes to the foreground?
  • Where – and where else – could we be developing and pursuing strategy?

Three questions, three principles, three ways in which leaders can help themselves be more effective in a transforming organisation.

For the big strategy occasions, for those everyday interactions, and for everything in between, we help leaders at all levels put those principles into practice:

  • Having the kinds of conversations that too often get missed, fostering authentic engagement on the issues and the opportunities
  • Helping their teams work backwards from key moments of impact and learning, innovation focussed on the right objectives, pursued in the right way
  • Engaging with their organisations in all of their complexity and potential

Coming to Berlin

For my first trip outside the UK since covid, I need to be in Berlin on February 9th. Thanks to my friend Markus Hipelli at Leanovate, we have a venue for a 1-day Foundation or 2-day TTT/F on the day or two immediately beforehand. If interested, let me know, and let me know which of those you’d prefer!

A quick note from the department of administrative affairs

Positive Incline Ltd has officially changed its name to Agendashift Ltd. The old company name is most prominent to mailing list subscribers (for annoying technical reasons it remains so for now); other details such as company number, VAT number, bank account, etc stay the same. The changes will take a while to fully work through but still it’s another nice milestone.

Upcoming

And as mentioned above, watch this space for a Berlin-based event in February.

Anytime (self-paced):

Top posts

  1. Better user stories start with authentic situations of need (October 2016)
  2. Leaders as keepers of context (September)
  3. A leaner, fitter Foundation (October)
  4. My favourite Clean Language question (January 2019)
  5. Meaningfulness, significance, and direction (October)

Agendashift™: Serving the transforming organisation
Agendashift  Academy: Leading with Outcomes | Facilitator and Trainer Programmes

Links: HomeSubscribe | Events | Contact | Mike
Resources: Tools & Materials | Media | BooksAssessments 
Blog: Monthly roundups | Classic posts
Community: Slack | LinkedIn group | Twitter

Meaningfulness, significance, and direction

As I mentioned last week, I’m busy working on a leaner, fitter version of Leading with Outcomes: Foundation. This updates the first self-paced study module at the Agendashift Academy and also makes it available in the form of interactive training, productised for use by other trainers.

Since last week’s announcement, I have renamed the middle session (of three). On reflection, “Aspiring to performance” seemed a bit generic – clichéd even. Its replacement, “Meaningfulness, significance, and direction” emerges quite naturally from the content – not summarising it exactly, but those three qualities do correspond nicely to the Ideal, Obstacles, Outcomes model – the IdOO (“I do”) pattern that is introduced (through hands-on practice) in session 1 and further developed in chapter 2 (again through practice).

The core of the model goes like this:

  • Ideal – envision a compelling future
  • Obstacles – identify what’s in the way of what we want
  • Outcomes – look beyond those obstacles to something better

As you learn to move easily between those elements, properly contextualise those conversations, and organise what they produce into something coherent, you’re getting better at strategy. This can be “everyday” strategy – quick conversations to clarify the thinking around everyday bits of work – or as the overall arc of the “set piece” strategy occasion – participatory strategy reviews and the like. It’s even a model for leadership!

And so to meaningfulness, significance, and direction. Not a new model, but capturing some of the intent behind the IdOO pattern and Agendashift more broadly:

  • Meaningfulness – outcomes not as metrics or targets, but things meaningful to us, identified and articulated through authentic dialogue. Often, we set this up in the Ideal part with stories of people making meaningful progress.
  • Significance – instead of falling into the trap of solving problems just because they are there, choosing our obstacles for what they represent and taking the trouble to frame them carefully
  • Direction – our direction is set by the outcomes we’re choosing to pursue, not by monolithic solutions (perhaps sold to us with outcomes), or by plans whose all-consuming execution comes at the expense of what’s meaningful and significant. Outcome-orientation, in other words.

As well as re-recording the self-paced study version of Foundation, I’m also hosting it in the form of participatory online training over the 23rd, 24th, and 25th of November. All sessions 14:00-16:00GMT, over Zoom, and highly hands-on. Price: just £195 + VAT. Ping us for a discount code if:

  • You have an Academy subscription
  • You’re an Agendashift partner
  • You’re an employee of a government, educational, or non-profit organisation, or are currently unemployed – we’re glad to offer significant discounts here
  • You completed September’s TTT/F or are booked on December’s – for you it’s free

Book here:

And if interested in teaching it yourself or in facilitating the related workshops:


Upcoming

Anytime:


Agendashift™: Serving the transforming organisation
Agendashift  Academy: Leading with Outcomes | Facilitator and Trainer Programmes

Links: HomeSubscribe | Events | Contact | Mike
Resources: Tools & Materials | Media | BooksAssessments 
Blog: Monthly roundups | Classic posts
Community: Slack | LinkedIn group | Twitter

A leaner, fitter Foundation

Big news: I’m switching the Agendashift Academy’s top two priorities. Instead of recording the next self-paced training module Adaptive Organisation: Business agility at every scale, I’m postponing that in favour of a leaner, fitter Leading with Outcomes: Foundation. If you were waiting for the former, expect that now in the new year.

In the coming weeks, as well as re-recording the self-paced study version of Foundation, I’m also hosting it in the form of participatory online training, 22-24 November, three two-hour sessions in the afternoons, UK time. The three sessions:

  1. Tuesday 22nd: Leading in a transforming organisation – introducing outcome-oriented change
  2. Wednesday 23rd: Aspiring to performance – two kinds of strategy and a virtuous circle
  3. Thursday 24th: Moving into action – ideas, experiments, feedback, and learning

All sessions 14:00-16:00GMT, over Zoom, and highly hands-on.

Compared to the self-paced study version, there is of course the experience of working with others in a participatory process. What makes this new version very much leaner and fitter:

  • We engage with the IdOO (“I do”) pattern (Ideal, Obstacles, Outcomes) much sooner, reducing the number of new concepts that need to be introduced as part of the bigger strategy conversations
  • We introduce inside-out and outside-in strategy together – one chapter instead of two
  • We lose the Adaptive Organisation chapter altogether; it gets a mention when the rest of the Leading with Outcomes curriculum is covered at the end

Compared to the self-paced study version, there is the experience of working with others in a participatory process.

The three sessions (or chapters, in the self-paced version):

  1. Leading in a transforming organisation – introducing outcome-oriented change
  2. Aspiring to performance – two kinds of strategy and a virtuous circle
  3. Moving into action – ideas, experiments, feedback, and learning

If you can identify in any way with the Agendashift Academy’s strapline “leadership and strategy in a transforming organisation”, then this is for you. And don’t worry if you’re not sure what that means! If you can imagine making a contribution to a strategy process that invites participation – whether that’s for your first-hand experience of your organisation’s challenges, your domain expertise, your sponsorship, your ownership of the change process, or your interest in the process as a facilitator, coach, consultant, or host – you’ll fit right in. And for prospective trainers, Foundation is where Leading with Outcomes begins; it’s your chance to experience it outside of the more trainer-focussed atmosphere of TTT/F.

Price: just £195 + VAT. Ping us for a discount code if:

  • You have an Academy subscription
  • You’re an Agendashift partner
  • You’re an employee of a government, educational, or non-profit organisation, or are currently unemployed – we’re glad to offer significant discounts here
  • You completed September’s TTT/F or are booked on December’s – for you it’s free

Book here:

While we’re here, yet more savings

I’m the opening speaker at The Study of Enterprise Agility Conference (SEACON) part 2 in London on November 7th. Offers:


Upcoming

Anytime:


Agendashift™: Serving the transforming organisation
Agendashift  Academy: Leading with Outcomes | Facilitator and Trainer Programmes

Links: HomeSubscribe | Events | Contact | Mike
Resources: Tools & Materials | Media | BooksAssessments 
Blog: Monthly roundups | Classic posts
Community: Slack | LinkedIn group | Twitter