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We asked our clients about the evolutions and transformations that are on their radar. Here are six hot issues that cross sectors and industries and will have noticeable impacts on both operating systems and culture:
Data and information are allowing brands to target individuals in a bespoke manner; no more will we see the need for mass marketing such as TV and print advertising. Instead, tailored messaging across dynamic channels and based around the needs of an individual or business will become the norm. We are seeing it already online, but this will advance rapidly over the next few years. Organisations that develop frameworks to capture and analyse data will be best-placed to develop leading marketing and selling approaches in the future. This requires digital transformation in tandem with a reworking of traditional organisational structures and job roles that need to be addressed quickly in order to remain competitive.
Artificial intelligence is already here; from roboadvisers (Nutmeg, Wealth Wizards and Wealth Horizon) to voice technology (Alexa, Siri and Cortana) we are already affected by new technologies that are rapidly permeating our daily work and personal lives. Despite some push-back from consumers and organisations progress in these areas is inevitable and those that resist may well lose their competitive edge. No-one knows how much AI will impact our homes and workplaces and even Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google, admitted at this year’s Davos meeting that he did not foresee the artificial intelligence revolution that has transformed the tech industry. What’s clear is that organisations must still embrace and harness new technologies to at least replace mundane, time-consuming daily tasks that are not profitable or satisfying for individuals. This frees up its workforce to spend more time thinking innovatively and being more productive as echoed by Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google who said: “I would hope that, as some of the more mundane tasks are alleviated through technology, that people will find more and more creative and meaningful ways to spend their time”.
We’ve heard a lot about what Millennials want and how they are re-shaping the way we do business. Now Generation Z is bringing their influence to the global economy as they come of age . We know, for example, that Millennials are demanding more of their brands than ever before; from ethical sourcing and environmental considerations to real and deep & meaningful community activities. Basically, they want brands to hold relevant values and exhibit behaviours that meet their expectations like no generation has done before them, and this applies to the Brands they work with too. At Innovation Arts, we spend a considerable amount of time talking to our clients about how their brand can evolve culturally and strategically and we advise building in responsiveness and agility to allow for these shifting needs.
We’re not talking about the latest iPhone or Samsung iteration but a flexibile, nimble approach that allows organisations to constantly be on their toes responding to customers, consumers, their stakeholders and wider communities. This requires a new way of thinking and a corporate culture that is designed against a new model – maybe a model that we haven’t yet experienced. The organisations that puts innovation at its core will win; whether your sector is financial services, charitable, education or manufacturing.
Leveraging the creativity and innovation within your teams should be a priority. If that means a blend of at-home and office workers, then so be it. If your teams are scattered across the globe and speak different languages, then your organisation’s design must be able to effectively support and benefit from this. Modular working, part-time and flexible working will reinvent themselves. Your teams may already be thinking (and hoping) that you are planning and designing for an agile and flexible future!
A combination of artificial intelligence, a changing workplace and a redefining of roles should lead to a more productive life-work balance. But where does work and life start and end? Whose responsibility is it to support employees in eating well, getting fit, productive relaxation time, enjoying their family and friends? The lines will blur as employers and employees merge to support one another – look at Google whose sole job is to keep employees happy and maintain productivity. Their efforts may just be the start, but they go beyond a couple of bean bags thrown into a brightly-painted corner and free gym membership. Their offer to employees includes free breakfast, lunch and dinner, free health and dental, free haircuts, free dry cleaning, gyms and swimming pools, hybrid car subsidies, nap pods, on-site physicians and death benefits.
We believe that leadership teams should already be investigating, imagining and modelling for their own organisation in order to prepare for and capitalise on these issues. But the way we do that is changing too:
In the past, responsibility to reshape corporate culture, values and behaviours was the domain of the leadership team, and the leadership team only. From our experience of working with many leading global brands, your employees and teams are often one step ahead in their thinking when it comes to the future of their organisation. That’s why our Design Thinking approach is so effective at helping organisations to re-design their culture as it requires the wider team to design, model and iterate a brighter and more effective future. When strong leadership engages with all levels of the organisation, nothing can stop you. If you would like to know more about how our Design Sessions and Games Science can address issues around the future of work within your own organisation, please contact us for a free consultation at david.christie@innovation-arts.com.
A similar challenge faces businesses who employ workers with non-traditional relationships to the home office such as distance or home working, part- or flexi-time, or the project-by-project contracts so popular in today’s so-called “gig economy.” No matter where your employees are, they represent your brand. So how do you keep your employees involved and engaged when you only see them occasionally? Non-traditional work models are popular because they suit a mobile and flexible workforce, whether maximizing available skills, creating more opportunities, or just a good way to keep people working, consumers spending, and the whole economy moving. The gig economy has existed for a long time in the corporate world where freelance designers or IT professionals, too expensive to keep on staff, are frequently hired temporarily for their unique skills. However, increased connectivity and improved mobile services also mean that even permanent employees don’t need to come into the office every day in order to maintain links to the organization. For the first time in history, employees are in a unique position of being both their own and the company’s person, a state that can be difficult for any manager to cope with: they wear the uniform, but they’re out on the town. So even though a chunk of your employees enjoys a non-traditional career path, what’s the best way to engender values and behaviors across boundaries to ensure distance workers live and breathe your corporate culture?
At Innovation Arts, we rely on a talented network of freelancers to support and deliver the work we do. We value their individual expertise, their unique talents, and their ability to bring a distinctive point of view into our design events, which benefits the process of collaboration. We depend upon varied and deep experiences in order to bring the best ideas to life, so by employing contractors to help us out occasionally, we can add the specific skills our business needs to thrive. On any given event, you can be sure to encounter at least one, if not several, freelancers adding a particular spice to the Innovation Arts recipe. Our events are supported by pop-up teams of people who may have never worked together before, but who, from the moment an event kicks off, rely upon and trust one another to get the job done as intensely as in any hospital emergency room. What allows this to happen is a specific pattern language unique to our industry, our philosophy of self-reliance and self-determination, and a simple set of systems and culture that everyone accepts.
As someone who used to “gig” for Innovation Arts before I came onto its staff full-time, I can say there are downsides to a free and flexible mode of working. The unstable hours, feast-or-famine workloads, and don’t even get me started on accounting. However, as part of the extended Innovation Arts family, I always knew that if I accepted a freelance project I’d know exactly what I was getting into, specifically what the work would be, and precisely what role I was expected to perform. And that comes down to the values and behaviors Innovation Arts promotes, which are clear and easy to understand, rather than a restrictive management structure. Thanks to our values of “High Performance” and “Honesty,” I always knew my work was valued, I knew I’d be expected to make my own decisions and be honest about the work I was doing and if I needed help, to be collaborative and creative, so I delivered. Because iteration is a key part of our ethos, I knew that if I messed up I would have the chance to try again, to fail better. The unspoken laws of team-working never varied from gig-to-gig, manager-to-manager. And now that I work for IA full time, the same rules apply. By embracing a simple and clear values statement and promoting a desired mode of behavior, Innovation Arts has made working easy for me and other colleagues who have made the switch from freelance, both as full-timers and as contractors.
So how do you know if your company’s values are filtering down into a workforce you might only see occasionally—or in the case of app-managed Deliveroo, never—and yet who undeniably represent your organization? How can you engender loyalty and a sense of belonging if you only come in contact now and again? It comes down to the behaviors accepted and promoted for each person who answers to your company’s name. What behaviors do you expect from your employees, whether full-time or contracted, and how do those behaviors reflect your company’s values? We have worked with a number of organizations who have used our game Dilemma® to test how behaviors on the ground map back to the corporate value statement in the company’s lobby, and found that whether you are the CEO or a temp, the action should essentially be the same. By playing through the workplace scenarios in Dilemma®, employees have a chance to explore the preferred responses as well as the actions they might take if pressed for time or to deliver. We’ve discovered that companies who value “respect” will have employees who are respectful, no matter if they are in the home office or on a client site, and that those who embrace “diversity” will employ people who are diverse in ethnicity as well as in attitude. But, if your employees—no matter how entrenched with the company—can’t make sense of your values, or don’t know how the words on the plaque in the lobby translate to day-to-day actions, then you’re in trouble.
There can be a distance between the narrative surrounding labor and success, and the lived experience of workers. In our work with a variety of organizations we know that the culture envisioned by the leaders at the top of the tree can sometimes be very different from the culture lived by the employees at the bottom. In our experience, only a small percentage of companies are getting it completely right with respect to values, and that has a knock-on effect to distant parts of the company culture few leaders ever see. The gig economy is certainly working for the employers who want to have special skills on tap, but in order for it to truly work for the entire company, especially those temporary or distance employees who are a long way from head office; there must be something to sweeten the deal. Treating your workers—temporary, part-time, flexi or full—as you would treat the CEO is a small step, but at least it’s a step forward.
Given the torrent of new technologies driving product and process innovation and efficiency, for most companies maintaining the status quo is no longer an option.This is an era where roboadvisors will soon become the norm, where digital insights will change the face of marketing forever, where back-office administration will be transformed by technologies and where new products and services will develop at a speed never seen before.
To make things even tougher for established companies, not only is there hot competition from the usual places, technology has also removed barriers to entry, forcing incumbents to question their operating models and their hold over once loyal customers. But in this rapidly changing digital economy, could it be that the biggest threat to your business isn’t the competition but the organisation itself?
The disruption we are now facing on a massive scale requires organisations to transform in the fastest possible time. While many companies immediately look towards costly investments in hardware and software solutions in an effort to keep up, it is only the more astute companies that reflect on the organisation’s ability to quickly identify and evaluate relevant innovation and to rapidly evolve in response.
One thing that we have heard a lot in the past from large multi-national clients is that “unlike startups, here it takes a long time to turn the ship”. Our question is, is that lack of organisational agility an inescapable characteristic, built into the DNA of large organisations, or is adaptability a matter of choice?
Our Design Leads have addressed complex systemic challenges at both ends of the business spectrum, from startups to market leading incumbents. This work has certainly highlighted the characteristic strengths, aptitudes and behaviours of each: It will come as no surprise to readers that young, innovative companies tend to take more risks, are more reactive and more willing to fail; an advantage for sure, if harnessed effectively. They are also comfortable in emergent situations, which means that Innovation Arts’ approaches to problem solving – including Design Thinking and cross-functional collaboration – tend to already feel natural to the people who work there. This is not always the case in more established companies, whose cultures have evolved away from entrepreneurialism towards the need to protect and grow brands and meet shareholder expectations. But there is a reason companies cultures evolve as they do. When working with engineering clients who design and build aircraft engines, or the aircraft themselves, for example, we have not been shocked to find that a need for precision, caution and paramount safety have also influenced the way business processes are managed. Yet here too, digital transformation is an imperative, and leaders have found ways to exploit cultural strengths while still embracing new, accelerated ways of thinking and working that save thousands of hours of effort and rework.
Some incumbents choose to fast track their development of targeted innovation by combining forces. Our work in the Financial Technology sector has involved partnering with startups and established big names who, recognising each others’ strengths, search for symbiosis to exploit emergent Fintech markets. But even there, innovation cannot be kept distinct from the rest of the organisation and ultimately the ship still has to be turned. The question is how? At Innovation Arts we are convinced that the solution lies not in a book or a consultancy report, but within your existing organisation.
No matter who comprises your organisation, from millennials to experienced old-hands planning their retirement, every person within it will have lived through an extended period of highly intensive and accelerated change – as a child. Children face transformation constantly: physically, mentally, emotionally and in the expectations family and society have of them. Children are extraordinarily resilient and adaptable, and every new change strengthens them for the next. By drawing on this to recreate three key conditions that make thriving in change possible in your organisation, we can rediscover that strength:
Traditional hierarchical control and decision-making will not work. In some cases the more experience we have with things working well, the harder it is to access breakthrough thinking. Leadership teams must have the courage to acknowledge that we are in a new, unexplored era, and that their leadership requires resourcefulness – seeking answers from those who know, those who decide and those who do. This culture of trust and delegation will give employees in turn the courage to pose questions and offer suggestions they otherwise would have kept under wraps. Bring the right people together at the right time to answer important questions, and sometimes -in periods of intense transition – consider a temporary focal ‘hub’ to accelerate and align.
One of our core beliefs at Innovation Arts is that failure always precedes success. Modelling, testing and iteration are as key to Design Thinking as they are to technological advancements. If your company has a culture that punishes failure, innovation will never flourish; a learning culture is key to agility. You will also need to rethink cumbersome ‘traditional’ processes for decision-making, communicating and aligning/realigning – you simply don’t have time. A good design is never finished, but good enough for now can be good enough for now: operating models, action plans and communications strategies that meet immediate needs and can be iterated later are appropriate in this fast changing world.
If you can’t have fun with the problem, you’ll never solve it: If disruption is seen as a chore or something to be feared rather than as an exciting challenge then your organisation’s response will be lacklustre at best. Adopt collaborative approaches that engage employees and make working together on complex challenges tough but pleasurable. That doesn’t mean you can’t acknowledge employees concerns – people still need to understand what changes means for them. One thing that can help is keeping a constant focus on your values. Games Science can help you keep focused on who you are as a company even when you face a perpetually moving target.
These practical changes can tap into your organisation’s innate ability to adapt and embrace the opportunities that digital transformation presents for your business. Talk to us about how we can help you release the solutions within.