Organisational Development and Project slides used by Carey and Jeremy to present their workshop at the SF Northern Chapter Meeting on 3rd April 2017.

1. Tradition or Complexity
Centralised or Self-Organised Systems

2. Centralised: Linear System
No Fares?
BOTTLENECKS

3. Self-Organised System: Networked

4. Adaptation….

5. How Should Your Organisation Be Working?
Can’t make many
decision
Wastes human
capacity
at the coal face
Can’t adapt speedily
to environmental
demands and client
need
Stuckness and
frustration
Can’t make so many
Decisions efficiently
Wastes human
capacity
at the coal face
Can’t adapt fast
enough to
environment
Stuckness and
frustration
SENIOR MANAGEMENT
COAL FACE
A
C D E
B

6. Self organising principles…..
1) Prediction is not possible.
2) Efficiency does not come from control.
3) Change does not start from the top.

7. Traditionally this is how we do change…
• Change programs are
• rational,
• top-down,
• expert-driven, and
• planned.
• Whole is best understood by
analysing parts
• Then plans and designs are
specified
• Doing this accepts the idea
that:
• Prediction is possible
• Efficiency comes from
control
• Change starts at the top

8. Where tradition is the way…..
This view works for a world in which things are or need to be:
• Stable – usually happens in a closed system
• Predictable – where change is slow, variability is low
• Where cause and effect are clearly predictable

9. But it is also true that : prediction is not possible,
change does not start at the top, efficiency does
not come from control…
The story of Elian Gonzales
November 21st, 1999, a boat carrying a
dozen Cuban immigrants trying to get
to Miami sank….

10. Getting the balance right between self-
organisation and control
The answer in the new world is to find the right balance for
YOUR ORGANISATION

11. In Complex Adaptive Systems…..
Traditionally held assumptions are false in fast-changing systems of today and tomorrow
Prediction is not possible
Individuals/systems are linked in complex ways. Small change in one
part of the system can have tremendous unintended consequences
far from the site of intervention.
Change does not starts at the top
Creative long-lasting change depends on the work of many
individuals at many different levels in the organisation.
Efficiency does not comes from control
Individuals in the system are trusted to examine long-held
assumptions and generate new creative local solutions. Order
emerges rather than being hierarchical.

12. Three Factors Shape Self-organising Patterns
Olson & Oeyang2008
1. Container: sets the bounds of the self-organising systems
2. Significant Differences: determine the primary patterns that
emerge during self-organising processes
3. Transforming Exchanges: from the connections between system
agents. These are the contact between agents of the self-organising
system.
A change in one condition
will result in changes in the other two conditions
Therefore can intervene in any of them

13. Assumptions About Change
Traditional
• Top down
• Group follows predictable
stages of development
• Clear goals and structures
• Values consensus
• Levels of intervention
individual, team organisation
• Defines success as closing
the gap with a preferred
future
Complex Adaptive System
• Depends on connections
between people
• People adapt to uncertainty
• Emerging goals, plans and
structures
• Values what is different
• Self similarity across the
system
• Defines success as fit with
the environment.

14. A different but useful way……?

15. SOLUTIONS FOCUS uses questions and ways
of thinking that
• Adapt to uncertainty
• Work with emergence
• Encourage difference
• Gather what’s working
• Is hyper-realistic
• Recognise people’s expertise
• Place people in the future
…speeds the process of moving forward

16. 2014 Autumn statement Chancellor of Exchequer:
• Major new projects strategic road network:
• 200% increase in schemes
• Major increase in investment
• BUT
• Unprecedented timescales
• Transformation as a legal entity
• The Divisional Director for the North was
Jeremy Bloom. We had been chatting about
Solutions Focus and complexity every now and then…

17. NATIONALLY……

18. ……the need to find a new balance was
already on his mind…..
“I wanted us to think beyond task which is how we traditionally operate
and focus on the real enablers. Of course we need to deliver on time, to
budget and to the right quality, but we realised other enablers were
important to get real change, we needed to focus on people, developing
relationships, behaviour and cultural change.
I didn’t want to work with top-down theories of change, because
making them real is so difficult. I was interested in what you said about
Solutions Focus making change realistic. Then when we talked about
complexity it made me realise it wasn’t going to be perfect, you start
somewhere and work more flexibly.”

19. Senior managers were grappling with knowing
they needed something different but what…..?
“A particular outcome for me would be to develop a picture of where we want to be,
by when. I think we also need to define/develop the Programme Manager role
further, and then these 2 will help us to really get the rest of the teams on board
with where we’re going and most importantly how we’re going to get there.
There has been a lot of talk about the need to do things differently, but nobody’s
quite sure what this means, so I think it would help now to define and own a vision
or goal, something that the teams can relate to, understand, believe in, own, and I
think this would help everyone to see how working differently will achieve this and
what we mean by this. It would strengthen the ‘can-do, will-do attitude we need.”

20. What else is already working?
The team liked interaction.
“if there was an issue I would go and chat with the person and keep the
manager informed. I wouldn’t just go through the chain”
Then over the first two sessions Jeremy expanded the Senior Team
from 3 to 12 for a Division of 80 people.
• Based on who was needed, not seniority.
• Included team leaders to get broader input.
• Included more junior admin staff because they managed other
people.
…WOW!

21. Impact....
• Co-create decisions effectively because had broader input
• Empowering clarity of purpose while distributing control more
broadly amongst the Division
• Enables individuals to adapt more readily to new information.
• Radically changed the rules – teams can be based on need rather
than grade.
• Faster, fewer rumours, real answers, establishes trust, keeps all
levels informed, values people not grades.

22. Driving Economic Growth And Customer Satisfaction In The North
Our Strategic Roads Will Underpin Future Wellbeing And Prosperity.
Delivery Resource Leadership Behaviours Supply Customer
Satisfaction
2
4
6
8
10

23. SF Questions are Different….
• What would you different stakeholders want to see
from you and, more specifically, how would they see it
in action?
• Describe a sparkling moment in your past around
leadership. How did you do that?

24. Or….
• Delivery
• Resource
• Leadership
• Behaviours
• Supply
• Customer Satisfaction
Efficiency does not come from control…..

25. “There has been a lot of talk about the need
to do things differently….”
ective on Strategic Planning
A now
Where do you want to be?
Where do you want to stay?
B preferred
future point

26. B preferred
future point
A now
Where do you want to be?
Where do you want to stay?

27. SF Questions are Different….
Imagine you are walking around
staff in the offices and out and about
in six month’s time what would you see at 10
100
Imagine you are on the road network in one year’s time
describe what 10
looks like from that vantage point as you drive around the
North.
100

28. “You tend to believe you are stopped from doing
things in organisations but maybe it’s a matter of
where you put your focus. Imagining you are walking
around seeing staff in six months’ time and describing
what you would see, imagining what good would look
like, how the team would be, worked.
It allowed us to see that there was a lot we thought
we could do which we hadn’t expected and we acted
on it.”

29. Shrinking the boundaries of the container…..
• You are as successful at making as much progress as you wish in 2 months on Sufficient Capability
to achieve the vision,
• What does that look like?
• What will have happened?
• What will you be seeing on a regular basis?
• What are the things we must have learnt to achieve in the next year.
• “Lets upskill in key areas
• Identify key knowledge areas and staff groups for each
• Roles and responsibilities for each pay grade….
• Identify key areas of knowledge and some to coach others……
• Eve on project support
• Rae and Patrick Phil Graham: Define assistant project manager and project manager
• Key areas in two weeks…..
• Buddying/Mentoring for someone new who starts…..
• Shigutta and Lauren….. Celise for Manchester, Eve in Leeds.”

30. Strong ripple effects
o Respected internal expertise it the business.
o Recognised the organisation held the
secret to success.
o Shared responsibility across many more
“system agents”
o Brought people together across the Division
creating a huge number of “transforming
exchanges”

31. What’s moved forward since we last met…..write
down 30 things…..
“Change was happening because of the little
things we were doing and the little steps we were
taking. Simply said our view was just do anything
that moved us in the right direction.”

32. “We wanted to be better leaders and a high
performing Division.”
• Identified 18 things giving the wider team confidence in their
leadership but
• Weren’t consistent enough or joined up enough
• Some had already cascaded Strategy Canvas to teams
effectively – extended it to all. It became currency.
• Wanted to work even more openly informally joined-up –be
more approachable, more ready to listen.
• Became the brand
Similar useful patterns bringing coherence – self-similarity….

33. DELIVERY: Pushing for Significant Differences
When staff were coming back with what they were going to deliver
they were pushing back, ultimately with effect, they observed
people starting to think differently.
The Project Control Framework
An Emerging Difference Adopted Nationally
Stretched The Boundaries
Of The Container

34. BEHAVIOURS: Shrinking The Boundaries Of The
Container
• One-off payment: hard work or going beyond the call of duty.
Use the award for BEHAVIOURS that were adapting the organisation to
its new environment and make it public.
• “I have never had so much good feedback from staff saying they really
lie this. Were previously staff would question why someone else go
recognition, it was now highly related to purpose. People could see
why we were doing things.
• Recruited to these behaviours: change and challenge rather than
process.

35. The major business of leadership is engaging with all system agents
to foster their interconnectedness but not to control these interactions.
DEVELOPMENT CONSTRUCTION
A lack of interaction would prevent a coherent system wide pattern for delivery from emerging

36. The Emergent Container….
Deliver faster
Stay within Highways England corporate rules
Live within your budget
Share with each other working collectively
Work in an unconstrained way
A CAS works better when a few essential elements are identified and
the rest is left to the system agents. Such a pattern emerged.

37. Results….
The Division took on 20 new projects in 18 months = 200% increase
with only a 15% increase in staff.
The annual people survey’s engagement sore was boosted by 20%
Strong increases for management
Strong increases for learning and development
Greater numbers seeing themselves working at Highways England in 3 years
The Division received a higher proportion of top appraisal scores and
feedback from external partners that the were more responsive and
collaborative.

38. Conclusion…..
Subtle differences in approach whether
•Solutions Focus and/or Complexity
Can create powerful differences in outcome