I wrote a couple of days ago that the traditional model of change ‘A to Z’ or ‘destination’ is in itself a wasted opportunity to create ‘capacity for change’. It has low learning pay off and low building of long term capabilities. See here previous post The end of the One Off Change Management Method [1].
The high learning, high capacity for change-ability lies in ‘a platform’ in the sense we use in Viral Change™ .
A platform is more than a method, is a way of life, a concept of the 21st C organization in real life.
A platform, described here as the Viral Change™ Mobilizing Platform, is a set of
- Organizational principles (such as ‘peer to peer power is greater than hierarchical one’ for some aspects of organizational life)
- Behavioural rules, such how behaviours scale up via social copying and not training
- Types of people interactions and collaboration (for example the special role of the highly connected individuals within the social network)
- Crafted communications and narratives (for example, the link between a top down narrative and bottom up storytelling)
- A Leadership mode (such as the distinctive roles of distributed and Backstage Leadership™ )
that when combined and synchronized [orchestrated] creates
- An ecosystem of sustained ability to change. This ecosystem has its own ‘social algorithms’ ( when A, we do X) and ‘protocols’ (when to stop asking for more data, for example
- A type of company governance that is dynamic, agile, fast reacting and in high state of ‘readiness’ (‘capacity building’).Formal and informal organization work together in sync.
- A grassroots driven collective action that is not dependent on constant top-down hierarchical dictations
- The ongoing shaping and re-calibration of a particular culture. ‘Culture’ is never a destination achieved or even semi-achieved
- A way to solve any specific business challenges that require large scale behavioural and cultural change [‘method inside’].
The mobilizing platform, as is the case for a technology platform, is there ready (‘installed’) to absorb anything new, any new challenge, ‘change programme’, rapid acquisition, re-structuring, deployment of a new set of values, specific business targets ( such as becoming customer-centric, agile or, say, ‘culture of safety’) or anything big or small where the key is large scale mobilization of people for a purpose, particularly when a behavioural focus is prominent.
This concept of a ‘mobilizing platform’ is not the same as the ‘business platform’ in which consumers and producers meet under a set of rules (Uber, e-Bay, Airbnb, Paypal or even iTunes), something that is ‘neither a market not a company’ but both, as Kevin Kelly would put it (‘The Inevitable’, 2016). However, booth types of platforms share similar principles on how an ecosystem is organised, and, equally, the Mobilizing Platform is neitehr a methiod nor a rigid organziational structure.
The whole industry of ‘change management’ is uncomfortably disrupted, but there is no way back to ‘the method’ other than for the specifics of ‘project management’ which is somehow the grammar, but not the literature.
After 10 years of practising what we preach in the form of Viral Change™ programmes across two continents, several industries and consulting engagements involving anything from 500 to 50000 people at the time, we are enhancing the incredibly successful platform with everything we have learnt from our activists: high tech executives to pharma marketers, insurers, school bus drivers, manufacturing plants, oil and gas engineers, telecoms people, managers, leaders, blue collar and white collar…
There are incredibly universal laws of people mobilization, that we have now added to Viral Change™ 2.0 .
Love to have a conversation.