Growing Adaptive Organizations provides business agility content, including aspects of strategy, organizational design, and business agility.
It tries a new approach to communicate Business Agility. It started as an initiative inside the DACH30 groupbut has developed an independent life.
The Audience
GRADO covers the area of Business Agility, which leaves out most of the current practices at the team level. It wants to be a prime knowledge source for HR, Organization Designers, and C-level / strategy thinkers.
The Approach
GRADO is meant to provide orientation and provides a curated list of links that provide a solid entry point to the relevant topics.
ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL
When we acquire knowledge and competencies in a new topic, we have other needs than seasoned practitioners. There are quite a few theories and approaches to deal ideas to deal with this, e.g.;
shu-ha-ri: a vocabulary from Japanese craftmanship, where newbies (shu level) receive clear leadership most of the time as „demonstrate - imitate“ actions, while practitioners have incrementally more leeway to invent their own practices.
the Dreyfus model which claims that beginners can not use a „big picture“ effectively.
We tried to compose three steps in which we model knowledge acquisition models for different skill levels.
START SMART
The main aim here is to arouse interest and enthusiasm for the topic.
The tools of choice are
stories - storytelling is a proven concept to awaken interest and to avoid confrontative discussions. You can find some exemplary stories here.
- travel guides - a metaphoric overview of the landscape and example scenarios of solving typical problems.
DIVE DEEPER
travel map - a metaphoric overview of the landscape. What other approaches have been tried? Where could I initiate alternative initiatives?
playbooks - some blueprints to steal from. Blueprints come with a warning: they worked in a specific scenario, and there could be value in using them, but: copy them to your peril.
LOOK FOR SUPPORT
The Big Picture - orientation of the landscape and an opportunity to think about „what did I miss“.
Tapas, Nuggets, and Modules readily available when there is a situation or a need to find some specialized knowledge
Communities - experts typically learn most in discussions with peers.
What now
I just set up the new Website for GRADO. This does not supersede the Travel Community but concentrates on a more structured description of the content.
Stay tuned for more details.