We've spent decades helping large and small organizations solve some of their toughest challenges. Over time we discovered and synthesized practices that most helped them see differently and solve brilliantly.
At the heart of our work are nine practices focused on Curiosity, Creativity and Collaboration. These profoundly human practices were developed over years working with teams of all kinds. They are proven to help teams reveal gifts, discover collective intelligence, and solve complex challenges.
Setting the stage for successful change that makes a difference is critical. This means identifying members of the partnership, taking time to prepare and reflect, and understanding the internal and external forces that impact change.
From evolutionary biology to social systems, it is well known that the initial conditions of a given situation profoundly influence the outcomes. Failure to be intentional about initial conditions risks failure.
Creating the conditions for teams to self-manage is responsible for most of their effectiveness. Leader-sponsors should be coached to express their belief in the team and clarify the teams latitude in problem solving. Build a cognitively diverse team and nurture inclusion, psychological safety, and clarify the explicit and implicit rules of their work. Intentionally prepare flexible work spaces that nurture ‘psychological ownership’ and encourage risk-taking, reflection, generative conversations.
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Hackman, J.R. (2011). Six Common Misperceptions about Teamwork. HBR.
Livingston, J. S. (2003). Pygmalion in management. Harvard Business Review.
Katzenbach, J.R. & Smith, D.K. (1993). The Discipline of Teams. HBR.
Pierce, et. al. (2003). The state of psychological ownership. Review of General Psychology.
We often fall prey to the mistaken belief that working faster increases creativity and productivity. It is an illusion reinforced by cultures that prioritize speed and quick wins.
When people's minds are slowed, they are more receptivity to new ideas improves. Enable deep understanding through reflection, and use well-timed incubation to help teams process information and uncover better insights. Cognitively diverse teams solve problems faster, so facilitate inclusion to help them go fast when the time is right.
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The “What” and “Why” of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs and the Self-Determination of Behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4).
Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Macmillan.
Dijksterhuis, A. & Nordgren, L.F. (2006). A theory of unconscious thought. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 1(2).
Reynolds, A. & Lewis, D. (2017). Teams Solve Problems Faster When They’re More Cognitively Diverse. Harvard Business Review.
Treasures and troubles lie in the hidden dynamics that can enable or disable a teams efforts. Adaptable solutions require that invisible dynamics be revealed so that the full picture of the challenge comes to light.
Facilitate teams to explore and tell stories about the invisible cultural dynamics that shape team dynamics and members’ behavior. Craft experiences to explore the underlying and unspoken assumptions that shape the challenge and potential solutions. Help teams visualize the interconnectedness of the broader ecosystem to understand its profound, and often unintended, consequences.
Coyle, D. (2019). The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups. Random House.
Grenny, J., Patterson, K., McMillan, R. Switzer, A., & Gregory, E. (2021). Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High. McGraw Hill.
Meadows, D. H. (2008). Thinking in systems: A primer. Chelsea Green Publishing.
Diverse teams solve problems better, but they are often dominated by forceful personalities that rob the team of the full teams perspectives.
Teams members feel valued and are more creative when psychological safety and inclusion are nurtured. Ensure that all voices are heard to nurture the teams collective intelligence. ‘Change the geometry’ to amplify participation by shifting sub-group sizes based on tasks and group energy. Purposeful rituals can create shared mental models and norms of how teams works together, including hearing all voices. Use story and metaphor to elicit insights and balance quiet and loud voices.
Amabile, T.M. (1998). How to Kill Creativity. Harvard Business Review, 76(1).
Woolley, A.W., Chabris, C.F., Pentland, A., Hashmi, N., & Malone, T.W. (2010). Evidence for a Collective Intelligence Factor in the Performance of Human Groups. J. of Science.
Gazi Islam, G. & Zyphur, M.J. (2009). Rituals in Organizations: A Review and Expansion of Current Theory. Group Organization Management.
Creativity is based on our ability to see what has been unseen. But our ‘educated incapacity’ can get us stuck in familiar, myopic points of view that prevent us from seeing broader possibilities.
Form cognitively diverse, multifunctional teams. This provides the diverse thinking critical for exploring a wide range of possibilities and solutions, and makes innovation more likely due to the intersection of disciplines and ideas. Create the conditions for teams to shift out of educated incapacity by crafting experiences that encourage seeing issues with beginner’s mind.
Dyer, J., Gregersen, H. & Christensen, C. M. (2019). The Innovator's DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators. Harvard Business Review Press.
Johansson, F. (2017). The Medici Effect: What Elephants and Epidemics Can Teach Us About Innovation. Harvard Business Review Press.
Suzuki, S. (1970). Zen mind, beginner's mind. Weatherhill.
Too often, we engage in 'self-oriented' empathy that draws on personal and 'tribal' biases.1 We often fall in love with preconceived solutions, hindering our discovery.
Facilitate experiences that build teams ‘other-oriented’ empathy that leaves personal preferences behind to understand others’ stories, feelings, and needs. Expand thinking to help teams fall in love with the opportunity and resist the ‘Einstellung Effect’ that blinds us to better solutions due to our bias for prior solutions.
Vugt, M. & Ronay, R. (2013). The evolutionary psychology of leadership: Theory, review, and roadmap. Organizational Psychology Review.
Decety, J. (2011). The Social Neuroscience of Empathy. Cambridge University Press.
Barlach, L. & Plonski, G.A. (2021), "The Einstellung effect, mental rigidity and decision-making in startup accelerators", Innovation & Management Review.
When teams lack true insight they feel little ownership for ideas, which cripples their ability to discover new possibilities and territories.
Facilitate honest conversations about teams’ strengths and weaknesses to help them self-regulate and persist through difficulties. Enable learning and sense-making with cycles of experience, reflection, and experimentation. Give teams greater control of their learning path to enable greater persistence and building of problem-solving skills.
Dweck, C. S. (2007). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Ballantine Books.
Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Prentice Hall.
Ryan, R. M. & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1)
Garvin, D.A., Edmondson, A.C., & Gino, F. (2008). Is yours a learning organization? Harvard Business Review.
Exploring unfamiliar territories can help teams discover new insights and possibilities. By nature, though, people naturally demonstrate a strong bias for certainty and an aversion to ambiguity.
Encourage teams to embrace ambiguity and explore new possibilities by fostering psychological safety and encouraging nudges. When we create the conditions and jump into ambiguity, our brains are forced to break away from habitual thought patterns, which promotes divergent thinking and the ability to generate fresh solutions.
Ellsberg, D. (1961). Risk, ambiguity, and the Savage axioms. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 75(4).
Edmondson, A. C. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2).
Beaty, et al. (2016). Robust prediction of individual creative ability from brain functional connectivity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(5).
Teams often get stuck in old ways of thinking that lack meaning and emotion. They need more nuanced ways of looking at the world.
We are literally wired to learn from stories so use storytelling early and often to bring depth and richness. Sharing stories causes neural coupling and emotional stories, in particular, trigger the release of neurotransmitters that builds trust, empathy, and compassion. Enable team bonding through personal stories and use story to build teams’ understand of complex concepts in meaningful and personal ways.
Gottschall, J. (2013). The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human. Mariner Books.
Stephens, G.J., Lauren J. Silbert & L.J., Hasson, U. (2010). Speaker–listener neural coupling underlies successful communication. PNAS, Vol. 107, No. 32.
Suzuki, W.A, Feliú-Mójer, M.I., Hasson, U., Yehuda, R. & Zarate, J.M. (2018) Dialogues: The Science and Power of Storytelling. Journal of Neuroscience, 31.