Design Thinking & Theory U : How Theory U practices enrich the design thinking application

There are many design thinking models. Some of the things that are common in almost all of them are the following 2 principles:

• User Centric &
• Learning by doing

User Centric is great, but people have limited abilities do get out of their heads and actually see the world from others eyes. Also while user centric is very important, it is not the end of the world. There are many other stakeholders (visible and not easily visible) that one needs to include in the thinking process – since we are living in an interconnected system.

This is one of the areas Theory U by Dr. Otto Scharmer of M.I.T is contributing. Some of the key principles of Theory U include:

• Systems thinking approach – Understanding the interconnect between the various stakeholders and the various factors at play in any system.
• Shifting from ego thinking (thinking within a small boundary of me & mine) to eco thinking (inclusive)
• Not looking only inside out but also looking outside in – seeing ourselves, our system, our organizations, process, results, impacts, behaviours from the eyes of other stakeholders.

How does one develop the ability to be user centric as well as eco-centric ? Dr. Otto points out that we need to develop 3 competencies :

• Open Mind
• Open Heart
• Open Will

Open mind is being able to identify our opinions and judgments and being able to suspend them enough such that we can operate with genuine and deep curiosity and a commitment to discover new and contradictory data points and view points from our current understanding of things.

Open heart is our ability to empathize by getting out of our context, and seeing the situations from the eyes of other people and getting why they see the current situation, experience it and think differently. It requires us to to open our heart so much that we can deeply connect with others and are expand our world view to include more and more view points.

Open will is about going beyond the fear. The fear of trying out new pathways. Letting go of the old and fixed ways of seeing , doing and acting and be courageous enough to try out new dimensions.

With the competency of open mind, open heart and open will; and with an eco intention, one can be very effective in the design thinking process starting with ’empathize’ phase itself. The effective use of tools like empathy walks, dialogue interviews, stakeholder interviews, sensing journeys etc., helps one open new worlds of understanding of the customers and users as well as of the various stakeholder groups involved.

Let’s look at the 5 Phases of the U Phases

• The co-imitation phase gets you to create a core team committed to address the issue at hand.
• The co-sensing phase gets you in the learning mode, seeing the situation from the eyes of all stakeholders, collecting data points and perspectives.
• Presencing is the special space where the team is connecting to the inner wisdom and tapping the intelligence of the heart and allowing some sparks of imagination and ideas to open up.
• Co-creating is the space of rapid prototyping and learning by doing while continuing to be in the space of deep listening and learning from the universe.
• Co-evolving is the space of scaling up and institutionalizing.

This is the access to deep listening, sensing and co-creating the future.

For more information on how you and your organizations can benefit applying Theory U and Design Thinking processes to business or societal challenges, feel free to connect with us. Manoj@managementinnovations.co.in ; http://www.managementinnovations.co.in ; http://www.emergingfuturz.com

Bringing Systems Change – Part 1

https://anchor.fm/manoj083/embed/episodes/Bringing-Systems-Change–Part-1-e1plvau

Whether we want to bring change in the society or change in the organization, this notes based on Theory U by Dr. Otto Scharmer of M.I.T can throw new light in your thinking process.

BACKGROUND :

First we can see the current reality. You can call it the Symptoms. The symptoms are in the form of the results, the impacts, the behaviors and experiences.

All these symptoms are in the background of the 3 Divides.

The 3 Divides are :

1. Ecological Divide: Human Beings are disconnected from Nature

2. Social Divide: Human beings are disconnected from each other

3. Spiritual Divide: Human beings are disconnected from themselves.

3 Divides

Ecological divide is about how we are disconnected from nature and as an expression of this disconnect we are using around 1.79 times the regenerative capacity of planet Earth. Of course, if everyone starts living the way U.S. citizens are living, we would need 5 planets to match up to our consumption.

Social divide is about how we have disconnected from each other under many pretexts – caste, creed, religion, education, geography, money, gender, politics and many more. Financially the inequality has reached the level that 8 Billionaires on the planet have more wealth than almost 4 Billion people.

Spiritual divides is about human beings being disconnected with them selves – their highest future possibility and that is leading to people living hollow lives, being addicted to one thing or the other, running after some thing or the other. Stress, fear, anxiety, loneliness, broken relationships etc., take a toll and around 800 K people are committing suicide every year. A number which is larger than the number of people killed by others as well as by natural calamities combined.

(The above data can be seen at https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-earth/state-of-the-planet/overuse-of-resources-on-earth)

The core issue behind the 3 divides is human beings operating from ego centric (thinking within a boundary) Vs eco centric (thinking from the whole).

We need to see the current reality of any system – whether it is the financial system, education system, healthcare system, education or any other system – with the background of the 3 divides.

4 Rules of bringing System Change:

From the 4 rules, one can understand that to bring a system change – one needs to transform the consciousness. How do we go about transforming the consciousness?

1. List down all the stakeholders of the current system. Look for the invisible, unheard, voiceless, ignored, peripheral stakeholders also. Any group of people who affect the system or affected by the system.
   • E.g. 1 : In an education system, students, teachers, parents may be some of the visible stakeholders; but grandparents of the students, teachers’ families may not be on top of the mind. Also the administrative staff, the education departments, the various companies working in the education field etc., can also be relevant stakeholders.
   • E.g. 2: In an organization, shareholders, top management, middle management, front line, workers, their families, customers, vendors are important stakeholders. Depending on the industry – the family members of the customers and vendors may also be relevant. Ofcourse, there also various kinds of competition, regulatory authorities, banks and financial institutions, and the neighborhood, society, state and country could be other important stakeholders.
2. Interact with them and start to see the system and its workings as well as impact through their eyes with open mind and open heart. No judgements.
3. Organize many multi stakeholder dialogues such that all stakeholders can see the current reality from the eyes of all other stakeholders.
4. The realization that one is looking for is OMG! We have collectively created this current reality! We have collectively created this mess; the unworkable situations and results/impact that we don’t want. It is not blaming, but a realization.

With this transformed awareness, new openings for thinking and acting will open up.

It will require the capacity of the people concerned to practice deep listening and suspending one’s opinions, judgement, cynicism and fear.

Please experiment on the above lines and you can write to us for further support.

Best Wishes – Manoj Onkar. Management Innovations & Emerging Futurz. http://www.managementinnovations.co.in ; http://www.emergingfuturz.com manoj@managementinnovations.co.in ; manoj@emergingfuturz.com

Bringing System Change – Part 1

Whether we want to bring change in the society or change in the organization, this notes based on Theory U by Dr. Otto Scharmer of M.I.T can throw new light in your thinking process.

BACKGROUND :

First we can see the current reality. You can call it the Symptoms. The symptoms are in the form of the results, the impacts, the behaviors and experiences.

All these symptoms are in the background of the 3 Divides. The 3 Divides are : 1. Ecological Divide: Human Beings are disconnected from Nature 2. Social Divide: Human beings are disconnected from each other 3. Spiritual Divide: Human beings are disconnected from themselves.

3 Divides

Ecological divide is about how we are disconnected from nature and as an expression of this disconnect we are using around 1.79 times the regenerative capacity of planet Earth. Of course, if everyone starts living the way U.S. citizens are living, we would need 5 planets to match up to our consumption.

Social divide is about how we have disconnected from each other under many pretexts – caste, creed, religion, education, geography, money, gender, politics and many more. Financially the inequality has reached the level that 8 Billionaires on the planet have more wealth than almost 4 Billion people.

Spiritual divides is about human beings being disconnected with them selves – their highest future possibility and that is leading to people living hollow lives, being addicted to one thing or the other, running after some thing or the other. Stress, fear, anxiety, loneliness, broken relationships etc., take a toll and around 800 K people are committing suicide every year. A number which is larger than the number of people killed by others as well as by natural calamities combined.

(The above data can be seen at https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-earth/state-of-the-planet/overuse-of-resources-on-earth)

The core issue behind the 3 divides is human beings operating from ego centric (thinking within a boundary) Vs eco centric (thinking from the whole).

We need to see the current reality of any system – whether it is the financial system, education system, healthcare system, education or any other system – with the background of the 3 divides.

4 Rules of bringing System Change:

From the 4 rules, one can understand that to bring a system change – one needs to transform the consciousness. How do we go about transforming the consciousness?

1. List down all the stakeholders of the current system. Look for the invisible, unheard, voiceless, ignored, peripheral stakeholders also. Any group of people who affect the system or affected by the system.
   • E.g. 1 : In an education system, students, teachers, parents may be some of the visible stakeholders; but grandparents of the students, teachers’ families may not on the top of mind. Also the administrative staff, the education departments, the various companies working in the education field etc., can also be relevant stakeholders.
   • E.g. 2: In an organization, shareholders, top management, middle management, front line, workers, their families, customers, vendors are important stakeholders. Depending on the industry – the family members of the customers and vendors may also be relevant. Ofcourse, there also various kinds of competition, regulatory authorities, banks and financial institutions, and the neighborhood, society, state and country could be other important stakeholders.
2. Interact with them and start to see the system and its workings as well as impact through their eyes with open mind and open heart. No judgements.
3. Organize many multi stakeholder dialogues such that all stakeholders can see the current reality from the eyes of all other stakeholders.
4. The realization that one is looking for is OMG! We have collectively created this current reality! We have collectively created this mess; the unworkable situations and results/impact that we don’t want. It is not blaming, but a realization.

With this transformed awareness, new openings for thinking and acting will open up.

It will require the capacity of the people concerned to practice deep listening and suspending one’s opinions, judgement, cynicism and fear.

Please experiment on the above lines and you can write to us for further support.

Best Wishes – Manoj Onkar. Management Innovations & Emerging Futurz. http://www.managementinnovations.co.in ; http://www.emergingfuturz.com manoj@managementinnovations.co.in ; manoj@emergingfuturz.com

Organizational Transformation Pathway – Part 1

There are as many pathways for an organization’s transformation as there are organizations. The pathway one chooses has to be a match for the organizational dynamics one is dealing with at the given moment.

First Steps:

1. List the big challenges as articulated by the top team of the organization.
2. Understand their analysis and assumptions on why these big challenges exist and why they are important to address.
3. What are the burning fires ? Issues which are causing existential challenges for the organization and the leaders?
4. From when have these problems started, when did they reach the critical levels?
5. What has changed in the last 6 months/ 1 year?
6. What is the Vision of the leader/ organization ? Is it well articulated? Is the core team aligned to it?

3 Dimensions of Organizational Transformation:

1. SENSING – Transforming Perceptions : How people perceive others, the job, the company, the environment, themselves etc.,
2. PRESENCING – Transforming Self & Will : Connecting to personal and organizational Vision and Purpose.
3. REALIZING – Transforming Action : Mastering the art and science of Co-initiating to Co-evolving.

Key Phases of Organizational Transformation inside of the first dimension of SENSING – Transforming Perception:

1. Find the team of top leaders who are committed to turning the organization around.
2. Create the process alignment on the broad spectrum of the way forward
3. Address communication and organization culture within the team and within the organization by training and coaching people in deep listening , empathy walks, stakeholder interviews, sensing journeys etc., That is the critical step for developing the ability to transform perception. Unless one learns and masters transforming perception, one is a victim of the inherited perception believing it to be a REALITY.
4. Get the company in the habit of getting out of their head and seeing the world from the eyes of the various stakeholders and also seeing themselves from the eyes of the stakeholders. Stakeholders including employees, associates, customers , vendors, families, government, regulatory bodies, industry and society at large.
5. With the transformed perception, the company, its leaders and key employees and associates can start looking afresh at their vision and purpose; their real, long term vision and purpose and start to look at what future they want to honour.
6. This would generally include taking a fresh look at their products, services, quality, pricing, staff, leadership and overall approach to business. Examples: 1. One company MD had to really confront that the customer service problem was not the problem of the customer service department and the department head; but it was his problem and the whole company’s problem. 2. Most Entrepreneurs discover that the work distribution method among the people have now lead to departmental silos leading to unimaginable inefficiencies. 3. Recently, a CEO discovered that he will have to let go off his belief that his customers will not pay for the extra costs that he will have to bear for getting the right quality; and confront that if they don;t have the right quality they are already paying heavily due to loss in branding, pricing, market share, credit terms, sales team motivation and performance and the overall culture of the organization.

Key Phases of Organizational Transformation inside of the second dimension of PRESENCING – Transforming Self & Will :

This is the phase of letting go and letting come. Discovering and Letting go of all the past based thought patterns that have been shaping the organization knowingly and unknowingly.

Some of the examples include letting go of:

1. Limited View of company from the personal perspectives, past based or otherwise.
2. Quality of staff that the company can have
3. Quality of products, services,policies, processes that the company can have
4. Market Positioning, Pricing, Branding and more
5. Business Models, Product and Service Range
6. Recruitment, people management, performance appraisals, R & R and much more
7. Innovation
8. Organization Culture
9. Role of leadership as well as that of supervisors and managers
10. Investments, sources of investment, cash flow management and more

Most importantly, one has to be willing to discover and let go every possible conversation that can be a barrier in creating a great organization in alignment with the vision and purpose.

Once, there is a substantial amount of letting go of the attachments to the past, then the team can start sensing and tuning in to what is the highest future opportunity that wants to emerge and start syncing themselves to that highest future opportunity.

A re-visualized organization.

Let the game begin.

Manoj Onkar, MANAGEMENT INNOVATIONS & EMERGING FUTURZ. http://www.managementinnovations.co.in ; http://www.emergingfuturz.com; manoj@managementinnovations.co.in ; lfef@emergingfuturz.com

Reality Vs Open Mind

If you know Reality, do you need an Open Mind?

If you don’t have an Open Mind, do you know Reality?

What if, we as human beings are not wired to see reality but we see what we are programmed to see and we think it is reality.

Most people seem to agree that we should have an open mind, but at the same time believe that what they know is reality : ) : ) : )

Our thoughts, opinions and judgements walk around as REALITY for us and we get seduced by them; and never distinguish their real nature as thoughts, opinions and judgements.

How to have an Open Mind?

Suspend your reality. Give up the addiction to your reality. And be willing to see it as what it is – a thought, an opinion or a judgement.

Once you give up the addiction to your reality and are willing to discover new dimensions/ new interpretations/new perspectives – one can see that there is no REALITY available for human beings. Each one is swimming in the ocean of their opinions and judgements thinking THAT IS THE REALITY.

What can one do, if you don’t know reality?

You can bring curiosity to see others perspectives, not to agree or disagree; but to just have muiltiple perspectives. If we have multpile perspectives, we can get unstuck from our old patterns of thoughts, beliefs and actions and we have the possibility of seeing something differently, hearing newly and acting (taking actions) differently resulting in a possiblity of different results.

Do others know Reality better than you?

Ofcourse not, they are also human beings and they have their world of opinions and judgements walking around them masquerading as Reality. But when you can share perspectives, each one can grow as a person and as a leader and may be create new envrionment in our families, new collaborations and create new realities.

A powerful tool for Deep Listening, Sensing & Sense Making is the concept of 4 Levels of Listening.

Since we don’t know reality, we can have an open mind. Not only open mind, we can also learn to have open heart and open will.

Dr. Otto Scharmer of M.I.T created this framework called 4 Levels of Listening as part of Theory U – a pioneering leadership and change management theory which address 3 transfromations – transformations of business, society and self.

Within the theory, it addresses 3 transformations – transforming perception, transforming self and transforming action.

Transforming listening is part of the first phase of transforming perception.

As explained in the image above, when we can notice and suspend our opinions and judgments, we can open our mind and see with fresh eyes – discovering data which might be even contradictory to our current world view, current perception of people and situation. This is called as FACTUAL LISTENING.

If we can notice our voice of cynicism – we can redirect our attention to why people are saying what they are saying and we can discover a new world view – a view from their eyes. It creates profound emotional relatedness. This is called as EMPATHIC LISTENING or open heart listening.

When we can let go of our voice of fear and our attachment to our views, past ways of doing things etc., we can practice open will listening – which allows new possibilities to emerge. This is called GENERATIVE LISTENING.

Ofcouse, all this is relevant only if you don’t know REALITY and can bring curiosity to discover different perspectives and always remaining open.

Best Wishes.

About Author: Manoj Onkar – an Organization Develoment Consultant. Part of MANAGEMENT INNOVATIONS and also EMERGING FUTURZ ( a team of associates operating from India, Thailand, Philippines and UK). Manoj and team have cumulative more than 100 years of experience in people and organizational transformation technologies. You can reach us at lfef@emergingfuturz.com

Creating New Realities through 3 Transformations – Part 1

3 Transformations for Creating New Realities

The first phase of any initiative of creating new realities – whether it is at organization level, community , family or at larger levels is *Transforming Perceptions*.

Transforming Perceptions has 3 aspects:

Transforming Perceptions

How does one transform perceptions? First we have to realize that no one, NO ONE is ever connected fully with reality. Whatever reality we are connected to, it is just a perception. A perception that gets treated as Reality – since that is the nature of the mind. Mind creates the thought or sometimes just gets the thought and then it relates to the thought as Reality.

We are all stuck with perceptions (lived as reality) about ourselves, about others, about the situations and challenges that we are dealing, about money, about life itself. The way out is to get out of our head and start dealing with life outside our world of perceptions.

That is why Open mind has 2 key dimensions: 1. Questioning the reality in your mind and 2. Holding multiple and seemingly opposites views together as possible realities.

Courses like the Leadership from the Emerging Future help you in developing muscle in transforming reality.

We learn to hear, see, feel and sense the reality from the eyes of other people.

Transforming Perceptions starts with having a breakthrough in our ability to listen deeply, listen with our mind and heart wide open. And to be able to connect with other human beings and their world views as equally valid world views.

If we as individuals and also as teams and groups can have a breakthrough in deep listening and sensing, then a new world of inter personal relationships, partnerships and co- creation would emerge, which is mostly not even dreamt of right now.

Dr. Otto Scharmer of MIT, the creator of Theory U; distinguishes listening at 4 levels as mentioned below:

Levels of Listening as distinguished by Dr. Otto Scharmer of MIT and Presencing Institute

Dr. Scharmer also did great research and discovered that our teams (including families) generally have 2 default fields of conversation i.e. Talking Nice or Talking Tough (Debate). When we can go beyond this 2 levels and create the conversational field of Dialogue (Reflective Listening) and Generative Flow (Collective creativity); then we create the foundation for new possibilities to emerge and be realized.

Thus, transforming perception includes transforming the individual and collective listening and sensing competencies and continual practice.

*** The next phase is *Transforming Self and Will*

(Read Part 2 and Part 3)

manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

Emerging Futurz (www.emergingfuturz.com) and Management Innovations (www.managementinnovations.co.in.

Your opinion : Is it really yours?

We get stuck in our opinions. Once we get stuck in our opinions, we get disconnected from others because they have their own opinions. Mostly they are also stuck in their own opinions.

Personally or Professionally, individually or collectively – most of the disconnect happens because we all have opinions and inadvertently some of our opinions are different than other people’s opinions.

This is the source of small fights, relationship breakdowns, business breakdowns, sabotage and can also lead to big community and global issues also.

As we get defensive about our opinions, we start to protect it from others. Part of protecting our opinion includes discrediting or damaging other opinions. In some extreme cases it also leads to destroying people with those opinions.

More people get stuck with one set of opinions, more people get stuck to the opposing opinions. We get stuck in one truth (which is of course our view) and deny/blind ourselves to other perspectives.

We differentiate between people as people who have opinions similar to ours and people who have different opinions, thus creating the silos of Us Vs Them.

Us Vs Them is the source of most of the misery on the planet – whether the divide is because of opinions or anything else like politics, religion, status, gender, age, money, language, geography and what not. This is what Dr. Otto Scharmer of MIT refers as ego thinking (thinking for the benefit of some and being blind/insensitive to others)

Is it really OUR opinion?

Or is it an opinion we picked up in the journey of life and then mistaken it as OUR Opinion.

How would it be if we all can move from it is MY Opinion to it is one possible opinion, one possible perspective?

When you can train people around you, family members, colleagues and other groups of people that you are involved with to relate to the opinions as opinions not my opinion or other’s opinion then a new space of possibilities can emerge.

There is also an advanced opportunity to build the discipline to fully understand opinions presented by everyone else without any pressure on self or others to give up their opinions and perspectives. This leads to expansion of paradigm for one and all.

Open mind is when your mind can hold multiple perspective about the same issue including seemingly opposite ones.

When everyone starts listening deeply to everybody’s perspectives, the barriers between our opinion and other’s opinion disappear and they show up as just opinions.

When boundaries around opinions disappear, boundaries around people start disappearing and we experience being profoundly connect to others – individually and collectively.

That is magic. That is peace. That is spirituality. That is progress. That is humanity.

So next time, when you are stuck to your opinion – ask yourself: Is this really MY opinion or is it an opinion that I am identifying with and getting stuck. Before we start some other war…

The future of the world depends on this shift : Is it really MY opinion?

Thanks for reading.

Manoj Onkar – Emerging Futurz (www.emergingfuturz.com) and MANAGEMENT INNOVATIONS (www.managementinnovations.co.in)

Leadership from the Emerging Futurz : https://bit.ly/LFEFCohort25

Characteristics of Real Leaders : Shifting from EGO to ECO

Leaders of the 21st Century:

They remove themselves from the center.

They create space for others.

They are good at listening.

They are good at holding the space.

They are good at attending to the whole.

They are good at helping people to connect to the edges of the system.

They are good at connecting with an emerging future potential and holding the space for that [conversation]

… Adapted form an article by Dr. Otto Scharmer, MIT

Warm Regards Manoj Onkar

Business Impact of LFEF

Some of the organizational benefits of having the teams participate in the ‘Leadership from the Emerging Future’ (LFEF) Intervention

Producing Results: Getting to the Source

• Deep Relationships with Customers involving in-depth understanding of the customers’ view of the following:
  • Their Important Objectives
  • What they expect from you
  • How would they measure your performance

•  Employee Engagement and Ownership:
  • Increased bonding between the team members across levels
  • Increased engagement and contribution from each person
  • Breakthrough in Team Productivity
  • Increased creativity and innovation
  • Increased effectiveness in Problem Solving

•  Culture of Innovation:
  • Practice of deep listening which leads to generating new insights and ideas
  • Better collaboration to nurture the varied ideas from various sources – not only from small group of people
  • Ability to test hypothesis rapidly and iterate the ideas

•  Increase efficiency in Project Implementation:
  • Open Communication
  • Collaboration
  • Problem Solving
  • Testing Hypothesis
  • Iterate Solutions

•  New Business Ideas:
  • Deep Understanding of Customer’s expectations
  • Better Collaboration within teams
  • Rapid Prototyping
  • Scaling and Evolving

3 types of Transformation

For more information contact Manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

For Level 1 Workshop: check brochure : http://bit.ly/LFEFCohort12

Transforming Business & Leadership

Leadership from the Emerging Future

3 Transformations as the foundation of this new kind of Leadership

• Transforming how you perceive others and how you perceive situations, challenges and opportunities that you are dealing with

• Transforming how you perceive Self

• Transforming how others perceive you

Identify your organization’s culture

A simple and powerful way to identify your organization’s culture is to identify how people behave in the meetings or any other group settings.

Most Common cultural dimension is PLAY SAFE. People choose to play safe when the organization’s culture doesn’t provide safety pro-actively.

Human beings are fast learners of social rules and very soon people figure out what are the social rules in the organization. What is really expected not just what is said to be expected ? What is safe and what is not safe? What behaviors ? what topics? what communication style ? What you can address and what you can’t address? etc., are promptly understood and also communicated informally across the system.

If there is any doubt – PLAY SAFE. If there is no doubt, still PLAY safe – because that has become the pattern, the way of life in the organization.

How does it look in a meeting scenario:

Situation 1: Boss has an idea :

People align with the idea without much resistance or even sometimes without much critical thinking. Whether it gets implemented or not, and how people contribute to it is a different conversation altogether.

Situation 2: A team member has an idea :

Not sure, what percentage of team members are actually engaged enough to think and have an idea.

If they have an idea, not sure what percentage of team members would actually share the idea.

Luckily, if someone is brave enough and they share the idea. 2 Things will happen. Boss likes the idea and then it becomes the boss supported idea or boss’s idea and then rules of situation 1 apply.

The other option is boss doesn’t like the idea. Then generally the idea will disappear from the conversation very soon.

This is the common culture in majority of the organizations including educational institutions, business organizations, government, family run enterprises and more.

Of course, there are other cultural aspects too, but this is likely to be found in 80% or more organizations.

For knowing what are the other cultural dimensions and also how to transform organization culture reach out to EMERGING FUTURZ at manoj@emergingfuturz.com OR manoj@managementinnovations.com. This blogpost is based on learnings from Theory U by Dr. Otto Scharmer of M.I.T USA.

Vision – how long is your long term thinking?

How long term do you think ?

Organization building can be thought as a long term game. 25 years and beyond. Next generation. Built to last. Of course it depends on the founders and the top management. What is the purpose and vision for which this organization is being built ?

Is it an ego vision or an eco vision ?Ego means you are thinking within a boundary, boundary of self or company or shareholders etc. It will include things like industry ranking, market share, revenue number or similar metrics. Eco means you are thinking holistically, aware of all the stakeholders, people, planet and everything.

If the Universe could speak, or if the planet could speak – would it be interested in your vision ?

Next phase is to look at how many people in the organization are aligned to the Vision? It is simple. Ask a sample size of people from your organization and key stakeholders to write down what they think is the vision of the organization in their own words. You can then read those inputs and see the level of awareness and alignment.

Connecting to ones’ individual purpose and collective purpose – specially of the core team, is a starting point for discovering and articulating the Vision.

Our workshops and connected coaching structure that enables the Visioning process includes the following:

1. Transforming Perception – Leadership from the Emerging Future
2. Transforming Self
3. Intention to Reality

For more information, you can write to manoj@managementinnovations.co.in. http://www.managementinnovations.com ; http://www.emergingfuturz.com

The deep end of not listening and thinking you are!

Most of us are trying to improve our listening or want to have good listening competency. But there is a barrier – the illusion that we already are good at listening OR we already know the truth.

 Absencing is Moving backward: It is a quite common response saying that the system is broken and that we need to orient ourselves backward. This response is much more radical than muddling through. It connects to the felt sense of frustration. But it operates on the closing of the mind, heart, and will, i.e., the amplification of prejudice, ignorance, hate, and fear. The five main behaviors of this cycle include:

Denial: Not seeing what is going on.  It blinds us to the various aspects of the current reality. It gets us more and more stuck in our head, in our opinions and judgments based on the past. Denial is ignoring or negating the existence of different data points, specially those which are contradictory to our current line of thought; something that would make us rethink and maybe even question our current judgments, decisions and actions. We live in denial of new data from all sources including spouses, children and other family members, colleagues, bosses, sub-ordinates, competition, people with different views on politics, religion, sports or almost any other topic.

De-sensing: Being unable to empathize with others. We label people or situations and once we label them, they seize to exist as real people or dynamic situations – they become just the label, for us. Once we are in de-sensing then there is no respecting of the people/ situations and it ends up in stock responses and behaviours – all triggered by cynicism. We just have to say ” She is _____.” They are ____”. It is ____”. Game over. Then you don’t have to listen, respect, consider them and it gives you the freedom from all rules of appropriate behavior; albeit only in your head but nevertheless that freedom breeds in the insensitivity and future isn’t bright.

Absencing: Losing the connection to one’s emerging future self—that is, getting stuck in the rigid identities of the past, getting stuck inside one’s ego boundaries: Me First! This is mostly the world of fear and then the triggered response to fear.

—-> <—- Blaming others: The inability to reflect on one’s own role. Blaming others deepens and hardens the dynamics of “Us vs. Them” and keeps us trapped in an architecture of separation. This is the world of silo thinking in the organizations and in the society. This is the end of oneness, togetherness and co-creation.

Destruction: The outcomes of this cycle result in the destruction of nature, the destruction of trust and the undermining and destruction of institutions that keep our societies together. Unfortunately, this is what we end with – in our relationships, families, organizations, communities and the world at large.

There is a cycle of destruction and self-destruction observable in many systems and sectors of our civilization today. In most global systems today we collectively create results that (almost) nobody wants.

WHAT IS THE WAY OUT ?

Simple: Put our attention back on our intention. The big intention. The eco intention.

Presencing is about Moving forward: leaning into the unknown to co-sense and co-create the future. This response is perhaps the most important and least familiar. This response attends to disruption by leaning forward into the unknown, by sensing and actualizing the future that wants to emerge.

What is your big intention for your life? for your family? organization? society? planet ?

To do that you need three critical capacities: 

1. listening and curiosity (an open mind), 
2. empathy and compassion (an open heart), as well as 
3. confidence and courage (an open will).

If you face a moment of disruption and you lack these critical capacities, you are easily thrown into the space of absencing—that is, into a self-reinforcing dynamic of separation and destruction.

Both cycles co-exist in society today.

We know both of them well from our own behavior.

They are separated only by the degree of openness in our minds, hearts, and wills as we respond to disruption.

This article is built on Theory U and related content by Dr. Otto Scharmer of M.I.T & Presencing Institute.

Happy reading. Contact for further information on our work for business and organization transformation, NGOs & Education sector and our Open workshops. Manoj Onkar – manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

Emerging Futurz Vision

VISION:

Individuals, families, communities and organizations through transformed awareness
creating SYSTEMS
that enable expression of higher Self
and extraordinary, sustainable quality of life for all.

Our Intentions:

Work with individuals, families, organizations, and societies for the following:

1. To shift the awareness from ego-centric to eco-centric
2. To shift the awareness from individual centric to system centric such that people can see the systems that are at play causing the current reality
3. Through awareness based collective action bring change in the systems such that the system can take care of all the stakeholders and create equitable results for all

What does it mean?

1st Dimension : Individuals, families, communities and organizations accessing and / or generating transformed awareness. Awareness of what? Awareness of the EGO and the awareness of the ECO. How we as human beings have been living in the ego centric way at the unimagined cost to the planet, to all sentient beings, to each other and to self.

EGO : Living with a boundary view. Living of thinking of people and situations within a boundary and being unmindful of people and situations outside of this boundary. e.g. me, my family, my friends,my community, my department, my company, my religion, my country etc., etc., This ego centric thinking that we have inherited as human beings is at the source of the disaster all around.

Dr. Otto Scharmer of M.I.T points out that we can see the world from the view of 3 divides:

3 Divides and the 8 Acupuncture Points

The ECO Divide – which has human beings disconnected with nature and we know what disasters are happening because of that.

The Social Divide – human beings are disconnected with each other and that has created mess in so many different ways including wars, religion, politics, exploitation, fear, inequality and what not.

The Spiritual Divide – we as human beings are disconnected with our higher self; our highest future possibility – causing us to live lives of survival, hollowness, driven, lonely and sad lives.

We can talk a lot about the 3 divides and the world we live in, but that is another blog , another time.

As Emerging Futurz, we are committed to create awareness of this ego centric way of living and also create the possibility of eco centric way of living. Living as if the world mattered, people mattered and living as if we are all interconnected, inter dependent and may be even have a profound relationship that we are not aware of.

2nd Dimension :

As depicted in the image above, the symptoms ( the visible current reality; the 3 divides & the mess) is sustained in existence because of certain underlying structures including industry structures, government policy structures, financial, social or other structures. These structures are deep rooted in certain thought paradigms e.g.: inequality will remain.

Emerging Futurz has the intention that through transformed awareness, we are able to see the limitations, the unfairness and the bankruptcy of the current systems and are able to create systems that enable expression of the higher self – everywhere, everyone and there is a high quality of life available to one and all on a sustainable basis.

How this intention will show up in organizations, education field, healthcare, finance, governance, industry and so forth will be be a function of the co-creation of the like minded committed people who associate with the spirit of Emerging Futurz.

Emerging Futurz, offers various workshops, coaching, consulting and advisory services on a for profit as well as on pro bono basis to spread the opportunity of transformed awareness and co-creation of new systems in all areas of our lives.

The future needs you.

Feel free to connect with us on lfef@emergingfuturz.com.

The core team members include Ferdi, Vivek , Manoj , Nilesh, SK, Raaj & Viji.

PCG Growth Matrix

One of the simplest theory I have used with my clients to help them plan their growth strategy is what I call as the PCG Growth Matrix. P = Product Portfolio ; C = Customer Segments and G = Geography. All expansion plans can be looked from the perspective of the product portfolio expansion; customer segment expansion and geo presence expansion.

In each of the matrix aspects, again there is a choice of breadth Vs depth.

Depth Vs Breadth

In each case, on has an option of depth Vs breadth. For example, in the case of product portfolio, one can have the breadth of various products and the depth of variants of existing products depending on the market needs and potential.

In case of customer segments, one can look at increasing customer segments that the company serves and also look at more market share and wallet share from the existing customer segments.

Similarly from the perspective of geo-expansion, one can look at expanding the geographies that the company is servicing and also look at increasing the concentration within the existing geographies.

An additional C can be added to make it a PCCG matrix – is the channel partners that you choose for your PCG.

What is good for your company at this time?

To discuss more, you can reach out to MANAGEMENT INNOVATIONS manoj@managmentinnovations.co.in

Reality Vs Open Mind

If you know Reality, do you need an Open Mind?

If you don’t have an Open Mind, do you know Reality?

What if, we as human beings are not wired to see reality but we see what we are programmed to see and we think it is reality.

Most people seem to agree that we should have an open mind, but at the same time believe that what they know is reality : ) : ) : )

Our thoughts, opinions and judgements walk around as REALITY for us and we get seduced by them; and never distinguish their real nature as thoughts, opinions and judgements.

How to have an Open Mind?

Suspend your reality. Give up the addiction to your reality. And be willing to see it as what it is – a thought, an opinion or a judgement.

Once you give up the addiction to your reality and are willing to discover new dimensions/ new interpretations/new perspectives – one can see that there is no REALITY available for human beings. Each one is swimming in the ocean of their opinions and judgements thinking THAT IS THE REALITY.

What can one do, if you don’t know reality?

You can bring curiosity to see others perspectives, not to agree or disagree; but to just have muiltiple perspectives. If we have multpile perspectives, we can get unstuck from our old patterns of thoughts, beliefs and actions and we have the possibility of seeing something differently, hearing newly and acting (taking actions) differently resulting in a possiblity of different results.

Do others know Reality better than you?

Ofcourse not, they are also human beings and they have their world of opinions and judgements walking around them masquerading as Reality. But when you can share perspectives, each one can grow as a person and as a leader and may be create new envrionment in our families, new collaborations and create new realities.

A powerful tool for Deep Listening, Sensing & Sense Making is the concept of 4 Levels of Listening.

Since we don’t know reality, we can have an open mind. Not only open mind, we can also learn to have open heart and open will.

Dr. Otto Scharmer of M.I.T created this framework called 4 Levels of Listening as part of Theory U – a pioneering leadership and change management theory which address 3 transfromations – transformations of business, society and self.

Within the theory, it addresses 3 transformations – transforming perception, transforming self and transforming action.

Transforming listening is part of the first phase of transforming perception.

As explained in the image above, when we can notice and suspend our opinions and judgments, we can open our mind and see with fresh eyes – discovering data which might be even contradictory to our current world view, current perception of people and situation. This is called as FACTUAL LISTENING.

If we can notice our voice of cynicism – we can redirect our attention to why people are saying what they are saying and we can discover a new world view – a view from their eyes. It creates profound emotional relatedness. This is called as EMPATHIC LISTENING or open heart listening.

When we can let go of our voice of fear and our attachment to our views, past ways of doing things etc., we can practice open will listening – which allows new possibilities to emerge. This is called GENERATIVE LISTENING.

Ofcouse, all this is relevant only if you don’t know REALITY and can bring curiosity to discover different perspectives and always remaining open.

Best Wishes.

About Author: Manoj Onkar – an Organization Develoment Consultant. Part of MANAGEMENT INNOVATIONS and also EMERGING FUTURZ ( a team of associates operating from India, Thailand, Philippines and UK). Manoj and team have cumulative more than 100 years of experience in people and organizational transformation technologies. You can reach us at lfef@emergingfuturz.com

What to do when things are just not working ?

There are times – when things don’t work. You put in all the efforts , but things didn’t work out. Everything was lined up and you were on the winning path – and somehow – it didn’t work. Hopes were up, but alas!

Each one of us has had those moments of things not working out the way we expected – Breakdowns, failures, mess ups and some more.

What do we do now?

Many a times, we find ourselves going in our head.

Blaming self, blaming others, regret, fear, worry, reactions, sadness, being dejected, demotivated and the related community of emotions. We may also respond by making some decisions or working hard or giving up etc.,

Another option? PUT YOUR ATTENTION BACK ON YOUR INTENTION

In the midst of the whole upheavel, most of us lose our attention on our intention and we are distracted as mentioned earlier.

The opportunity to ask ourselves: What is my intention here? What is my big intention here?

Once we get reconnected to our intention – a certain space opens up. We get unstuck. We can breathe. New thougths open. New actions become possible.New ways of looking at the issues – new perceptions, new paradigms open up.

If we train ourselves in deep listening and sensing, there is a clearing for the future that wants to emerge can emerge.

Presencing Vs Absencing

As mentioned by Dr. Otto Scharmer in Theory U, by putting our attention back on our intention, we can come back to the space of Presencing instead of the negative cycle of Absencing.

This conversation is connected to the workshop Leadership from the Emerging Future offered by Emerging Futurz. You can contact the author for more info at lfef@emergingfuturz.com. Regards Manoj Onkar.

Secret for Improving Employee Engagement

Dear Managers and Leaders, What all are you doing for improving employee engagement?

How do you measure employee engagement?

What is the benefit of improving employee engagement?

All the above questions are valid. But may be the more useful question is: ARE YOU ENGAGED ?

Are you engaged in the selection of the employee? in the on-boarding? training and development of the employee?

Do you know her most important objectives of life? her challenges, ambitions, dreams etc.,

Are you engaged with your employees OR have you outsourced it to HR?

May be HR can play a role but it is you the business leader/supervisor/ MD/CEO to be engaged with your employees otherwise they can’t reciprocate the same?

Are you listening to them, do they feel heard, valued, treated as an important partner and contributor OR just a clog in the wheel?

Find a way to connect to them not only as their role , but also as a human being with a world inside them and around them.

What do you think?

Creating New Realities through 3 Transformations – Part 3

3 Transformations for Creating New Realities

The third phase is *Transforming Action*

(Read Part 1 and Part 2 )

Most people are related to action through the eyes of discipline, will power, effort and struggle etc. The real opportunity is to relate to action as a medium of learning. Learning by doing. Taking actions that generate feedback from the relevant stakeholders. This phase is not an individual game but a collective game. A game of Co-initiation to Co-evolving with a core team, key stakeholders and then the concerned community at large.

With a team of people with similar intention, you can build a common intent (co-initiation). Then you can get on a collective learning journey in the co-sensing space by using the space of Observe, Observe, Observe (with your ears, eyes, mind and heart wide open).

Then you and the team step back and reflect and get connected to your inner knowing and get connected to the deeper source of inspiration. It is a further crystallization of the intention and how you could experiment on it in a microcosm to test your hypothesis.

After hundreds (or less) of prototypes testing your various ideas in all dimensions you start to co-create new products, services, frameworks or whatever else you are out to create.

The final space within the space of Transforming action is the space of Co-evolving and Institutionalizing the new reality.

Of course this is a long long journey shared in couple of words, but there are couple of important dimensions that one also needs to understand. Two main points are : 1. Most big changes or new realities involve some form of systems change. 2. Every change process requires inner development work (inner transformation).

The system change principles can be captured by the following picture.

Systems Consciousness for long term sustainable change

It requires an understanding that there are visible symptoms like the tip of the iceberg, there are structures and thought patterns and other source dimensions which constitute the invisible 90% of the iceberg. It will take another full blog to explain this systems change aspect in details and it will be available on this blog in the near future.

On personal level, individuals and leaders need to develop the competency of deep listening, sensing and sense-making. Learn the U process as captured in the image below:

U Process for all leaders and change makers

and also need to develop oneself internally as captured in the following images:

Blind Spot of Leadership: The success of the intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervenor.

Capability of sensing the future with open mind, open heart and open will.

Further details will be captured in the follow up blogs.

Warm Regards, Manoj Onkar, lfef@emergingfuturz.com and manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

Emerging Futurz (www.emergingfuturz.com) and Management Innovations (www.managementinnovations.co.in.

Creating New Realities through 3 Transformations – Part 2

3 Transformations for Creating New Realities

Read Part 1 – Transforming Perception

*** The next phase is *Transforming Self and Will*

Each of us has 2 selves. The smaller self which is consumed by the need for survival, success and ego trips. The higher self which is the reflection of God(if you believe in God) or universal consciousness. As a leader and as a human being, your real life and your real power are connected with your higher self. Everything else is force and struggle and of course suffering and avoiding suffering.

Small Self Vs Higher SELF

Survival Vs Fulfilling the Purpose of Life

When one gets connected to one’s higher self and higher purpose in life – then one can start living the life that one came to this planet for. The higher self is connected with all the higher selves on the planet and hence when one is connected to the higher self – then one moves from Ego to Eco i.e. one moves from thinking of the individual self to the collective self, from benefit of individuals or a small group to benefit and workability for everyone. Vasudeva Kutumbakam – The whole world is one family. Not just human beings but the whole world.

Once you get connected to your higher Self and purpose, you go through a process of Presencing and Crystallizing your Vision and intention. This is not an Vision you have, but more a Vision that wants you. It is a future that wants to emerge and is calling you to be in service of. You choose to be an instrument for the fulfillment of that vision and intention.

How do you get connected to the higher SELF and higher PURPOSE ?

Image representing Theory U. Theory U created by Dr. Otto Scharmer of MIT, USA.

On that journey, at the bottom of the U, lies an inner gate that requires us to drop everything that isn’t essential. This process of letting-go (of our old ego and self) and letting-come (our highest future possibility: our Self) establishes a subtle connection to a deeper source of knowing. The essence of presencing is that these two selves—our current self and our best future Self—meet at the bottom of the U and begin to listen and resonate with each other.

PRESENCING: The capacity to connect to the deepest sources of self—to go to the inner place of stillness where knowing comes to surface.

This journey is the shortest and the longest.

Shortest because it is the journey from the small self to the Higher SELF. Can be accomplished in a moment.

It is also the longest journey, since many people spend their whole lives not completing this journey and never really getting in touch with their higher SELF and their purpose.

The advanced workshops like *Transforming Self* are there to support the journey at the second phase.

The third phase is *Transforming Action*

(Read Part 3)

Warm Regards, Manoj Onkar, lfef@emergingfuturz.com and manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

Emerging Futurz (www.emergingfuturz.com) and Management Innovations (www.managementinnovations.co.in.

Dear Entrepreneurs : Why do you start a business?

Photo by Liza Summer on Pexels.com. Image for representation only

While coaching a young entrepreneur recently, I realized that she was creating lot of mental pressure on herself. Her venture had gone live only 3 months back and she was already getting overwhelmed.

Little probing brought up the following conversations:

1. Father is also investor
2. I need to prove to my parents. They should be ok with me.
3. I left the job opportunity to start this business. I need to make it successful.
4. I hope I am not doing something wrong.
5. I hope things work out, fast.

After little coaching, she could free herself from the pressure of proving herself to anyone.

Then I asked why she had chosen the particular field of business.

Again a connection to a disempowering experience from the past was one of the triggers for selecting the field of business.

Next thing that came up in the conversation was her competency.

She was of the opinion that her competency was limited to the education she had.

Little coaching helped her to see that her strength (her education in this case) doesn’t have to become her limitation. Soon, she got in touch with her passion to contribute to people and her competency to understand the real needs of the customers and her ability to design products which can serve the customer needs better than what is currently available in the market.

A short conversation took away a big load off her head and she was left empowered to build her business empire.

Takeaways: 1. One can be free of the need to proving oneself. 2. When you connect to your higher self, you can build a business as an extension of your purpose in life.

The success of the enterprise depends on the interior condition of the entrepreneur.

The interior condition has 3 facets:

1. The quality of attention

2. The quality of intention and

3. The quality of presence

As an entrepreneur when you are distracted your quality of attention gets compromised.

When you are connected to your higher self, you can have a bigger intention and you can develop your ability to be in the present and be able to sense the future that is wanting to emerge.

*****

We love to support entrepreneurs and leaders to create organizations that they are proud of.

Manoj Onkar, Management Innovations & Emerging Futurz

For SME: Thoughts on Bonus and Salary increase post performance appraisal

Many SMEs face difficulties in optimum management of their resources, build the right performance culture, keeping employees happy and retention. We are sharing some thoughts to trigger a deeper thinking on the issues around performance appraisal, annual bonuses and salary increases. Firstly they are not the same. Performance appraisals, annual bonuses and salary increase are not the same. They are interconnected, but they need to be seen as different processes and enough thought needs to go in to customize them for each company.

BONUS & SALARY INCREASE CALCULATION CRITERIA

Bonus is predominantly an important reward for performance and salary increase is an important retention tool.

Criteria for Bonus Calculation:

Profit made by the company	Guiding Factor
Individual Performance (KPI)	50%
Team Performance (Team or Dept. Scorecard)	20%
Individual Competency	10%
360-degree feedback / employee feedback/supervisor feedback	10%
Demonstration of Company Values	5%
Initiative taken & Leadership Provided	5%

Based on the above scores all employees can be put into 5 categories:

1. Green
2. Blue
3. Yellow
4. Brown
5. Red

Bonus formula can be as follows:

1. Green: 1.5 times the standard bonus amount
2. Blue: 1.25 times the standard bonus amount
3. Yellow: Standard bonus amount
4. Brown: No Bonus. Consider verbal warning
5. Red: No Bonus. Consider written warning.

Salary increase criteria:

CRITERIA	WEIGHTAGE
Expected Company Performance in the financial year.	Act as guiding factor
Individual Performance (last financial year)	50%
Expected Individual Performance in the financial year. (KPI Targets)	10%
Expected Team Performance in the financial year. (Scorecard Targets)	10%
Individual Competency	10%
Demonstration of Company Values	10%
Feedback	10%

Other criteria to be kept in mind are:

1. Current Salary
2. Tenure (Length of Service)
3. Retention
4. Industry Salary standards

(Special increments can be given based on MD Scores and above criteria)

Based on the above scores all employees can be put into 5 categories:

• Green
• Blue
• Yellow
• Brown
• Red

Salary increase formula can be as follows:

• Green: 1.5 times the standard salary increase amount (in %)
• Blue: 1.25 times the standard increase amount (in %)
• Yellow: Standard salary increase amount (in %)
• Brown: No salary increase. Consider verbal warning
• Red: No salary increase. Consider Written Warning.

Additional topics that are relevant here: 1. How to conduct Performance Appraisals 2. How to create IDP – Individual Development Plans 3. How do design KPIs / KRAs/ OKRs 4. How to design company and department scorecards 5.How to design Competency Frameworks 6. Coaching and Mentoring skills for supervisors and managers.

Subscribe to this blog for some quality reading. Send in your requests for specific topics of organizational development and we will create and share the requested articles, if possible.

Manoj Onkar, MANAGEMENT INNOVATIONS, manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

Are you out of your mind? Congratulations! That’s the secret to extraordinary success!

Photo by kira schwarz on Pexels.com Image for representation only.

Most of us are living in our mind too too much.We are living in the world of our opinion and judgment masquerading as reality.

Maybe it’s time to get out of our head and look at reality.

I was talking to my daughters recently. They said that their mother (my wife) loves one of them more than the other and that they have lots of proof for the same. Both were in complete agreement about it. And they were OK with it.

I had to do something.

I told them that it is their opinion. They said that they have lots of examples to prove their point of view.

Photo by Anastasia Shuraeva on Pexels.com. Image for representation only.

So then I shared with them on how no one has access to reality. All of us are living in our interpretations, our opinions and judgement and thinking that that is reality. I said that they have an opinion that mother loves one of them more and mother has an opinion that she loves both of them equally. And all the three of them are living in the world of opinions. And all of us as human beings live in a world of opinion. That is all. There is nothing except the world of opinion and judgement and we don’t know that we are living in the world of opinion and judgement and we are continuously projecting our opinions and judgements and then reinforcing our opinion and judgements.

I think the only thing that got them to listen is when they asked and I confirmed affirmatively that YES, not only them, everyone of us is living in a world of opinion and judgement. Then they were ready to listen.

They were now willing to question their opinions and could see that when they are living in the world of opinions, they are living in their Head.

Photo by George Milton on Pexels.com Image for representation only

Now, it was time to try another conversation… Studies.

I asked: So, is Mathematics a DIFFICULT subject or is it their opinion.

They said NO. Mathematics and couple of other subjects are difficult subjects. That is a reality.

Thankfully after some time, they could see that they have opinions and judgements about the subjects, the teachers and themselves and that is coming in the way of they studying fully and getting the performance they want.

So we created a game. I asked them some questions.

Where is the subject – in their head or in the books and videos they study. They said in the books and videos they study.

Where is worry? Head or Book. They said Head.

Where is tension? Head or Book. They said Head

and so on

Now everyday, couple of times I remind them and they also remind themselves: Are you in your Mind OR in your Book? And if you are in your mind, get out of your mind and get into the book.

They are enjoying the game and are feeling very empowered.

Now, let’s come back to all of us. Shall we? Where are we living?

In Our Professions: Where are all those fears, challenges, anxieties,difficulties, enemies living? Are our careers and businesses limited by how much we live in our head and how much we live in the real world out here.

In our Personal Lives: Where are all those worries, upsets, anger and opinions living?Are our relationships and personal goals like health, finance, education etc., impacted by the time we spent in our head – our opinions and judgements instead of being out here dealing with life as it is happening.

So dear, Welcome to the World of Being out of your mind…

The beginning of transforming perceptions, relationships and performance.

Contact: lfef@emergingfuturz.com

How do you know that you are listening?

When did you last listen? Not the words – but the communication, the context, the possibility, the future and the unprecedented.

If you go beyond the initial response like “Ofcourse, I am listening” and all the defences around listening and inquire with an Open Mind: How do you know that you are really listening?

The question is not whether you are listening or not. The question is How do you know that you are really listening.

Most of the times, we are listening via the filters, listening through the opinions and judgements, listening through the interpretations, listening through the past – about self, about others, about the situation etc.,

Then how do you know that you are really listening.

Maybe, it starts with noticing all those interpretations, all those voice of judgment and opinions.

Maybe, it starts with noticing that I am not listening, but have lot of things going in my head that are not allowing me to really listen.

Levels of Listening as created by Dr. Otto Scharmer, MIT and Presencing Institute

Listening means Changing.

If one is really listening, then something will change.

Either my data points or my perspectives about the data. Either my perceptions about people and my relationship and understanding of their world. Either some reduction in my stuckness of ‘Right’ Way of doing. Something has to change.

If No Change – then we can inquire – Did we really Listen

Regards, Manoj Onkar, MANAGEMENT INNOVATIONS, Global Transformation Consulting

manoj@managementinnovations.co.in; manoj@globaltransformationconsulting.com

Fulfil Your Purpose.

Don’t Survive. Don’t Succeed. Fulfill your Purpose.

The more we spend time on thinking about surviving, making it in life, succeeding and all other entrapments that we have created for ourselves – the more we go away from our purpose.

Consider NUMBERS are a SCAM.

We have scammed ourselves out of real living by relating to every thing from the prism of numbers. Numbers may be important, but we tend to create them as our GOD and have everything be evaluated on the altar of numbers. We decide to be happy or not based on numbers. We rate our success based on numbers. From our school days to the end of life, we have brought numbers everywhere and our relationship with numbers is messed up.

This is relevant for us and individuals, family, school, organizations, society, country everywhere.

The marks in school tend to be made more important than the learning and education and the child itself. The money is becoming more important than everything else at personal and professional level. The GDP is becoming more important than citizens happiness and well-being.

What if we were not so obsessed by Numbers?

What would we spend our life on? What would we think? What would we do? What would we talk about? Who would we connect? What kind of work we would do?

—- This is a seed of a conversation…. continued further…

Performance Dialogues & Performance Appraisals – the game changer

Transforming Performance Appraisals – Transforming Organization
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/114317974138

What is Performance Dialogue an Opportunity for?

In the ritual of Performance Appraisals, most companies have realized that it is an exercise which is not giving the ROI desired.

How can we use the Performance Appraisals and Performance Dialogues for creating a high empathy and high performance culture?

1. Stop taking it as a formality to complete.

2. Create a powerful context for managers to be in the mode of listening and learning.

3. Train everyone in Deep Listening, Sensing and Co-creating.

Separate the discussions on past performance and future planning and if possible schedule different meetings/interactions for the same.

In the first phase of getting data and perspectives on past performance, convert the sessions into learning and open discussion sessions for both the managers and the team members. Create the space for discovering new data, new perspectives, actual information about the market, the field, the challenges, opportunities, the changes etc.,

Also an opportunity for the company to be in a learning mode, where inputs and insights from the first round of performance dialogues can be discussed and if collective creativity is practiced along with factual listening and empathic listening – this can be a great opportunity to sense the emerging future and make changes in the processes, products, offerings, sales, marketing, communication to be in sync with the trends and hidden opportunities.

This year the Performance Dialogues can be the game changer.

We need to notice the 24 * 7 downloading that we are doing as we listen through our opinions and judgements and still think that we have a very open mind. This simple yet difficult shift is the foundation stone for a new culture of high empathy and high performance. Also the foundation for meaningful performance dialogues.

Of course there are many other dimensions to manage from the world of competencies, KPI and strategy, but no deep listening no new future emerging.

About Us:

We are Management Innovations – an associate of Global Transformation Consulting. We are OD consultants specializing in leadership and culture transformation, strategy implementation, sales and innovation.

We work with globally acclaimed technologies and methodologies like Theory U by MIT Prof. Dr. Otto Scharmer, ITS & LIFO by BCon Japan to name a few. Out team of experts operate out of India, UK, Philippines & Thailand.

Contact for more info:

MANOJ ONKAR – 91-9106456275, manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

Do you have something worthwhile to offer to the World?

Many people and companies have something worthwhile to offer to the World, but something stops them.

What stops them?

One critical aspect that stops them is EGO. Not just the traditional understanding of EGO, but EGO as boundary. Thinking from the EGO perspective is thinking from the silo perspective, thinking within the boundary of individual, department, company, industry, community or country boundary.

When one is willing to let go of the fear and let go of the past paradigms, and allow a new perspective to emerge – a brighter future awaits them and those whom them serve.

When you think only from the perspective of sales, revenue, profit, org., costs – you might miss out the real magic. The real magic is LIFE.

Our business is not our LIFE. It is a part of LIFE. Business/Profession can be part of fulfilling the purpose of your life, while being responsible for things that one needs to be responsible for – like putting food on the plate and the other necessary stuff.

But, in most cases, when you take the direction of fulfilling the purpose and serving the highest number of people and the greater good with whatever you have to contribute, the numbers tend to take care of themselves.

So, What is it that you can offer to the World?

Who all would you want to benefit it from it?

We at Global Transformation Consulting are committed to altering the consciousness with which businesses, society and individuals operate.

We would like to support and empower you in many ways possible.

We are an OD (Org. Development) consulting firm and we provide consulting, training and coaching based on world class, globally admired technologies, principles and practices. We offer long-term consulting in the space of leadership development, Org. Culture, Strategy Implementation, Sales Transformation, Innovation and Executive Coaching.

One of our flagship workshops is Leadership from the Emerging Future based on Theory U by MIT Prof. Dr. Otto Scharmer https://bit.ly/LFEFCohort17

MANAGEMENT INNOVATIONS, manoj@managementinnovations.co.in; 91-9106456275

Awareness based Sales & Customer Relationship – Part 1

A question generally not asked: What is your most important objective?

Not asked to the customer or any other stakeholder. But also not asked to oneself and one’s own company.

So, I am asking you:

What is your most important objective?

Go Deeper. Look deeper. Beyond the surface level responses and the generic responsibilities – What is your most important objective?

It is not a question that you answer and forget, but a question that you keep reflecting on.

How would it look like out in the world, if your intention is actually fulfilled? What would happen, what would be visible or experienced in the world if your intention is fulfilled?

The next dimension on the conversation is – Inside of your most important intention – who are the key customers and stakeholders? Who are the most important beneficiaries? Who are the important partners?

How can you connect and collaborate with them? What can you provide? How can you make a real difference with them?

Leadership from the Emerging Future – A Special workshop for Entrepreneurs, Senior Management & Change Makers

https://bit.ly/LFEFCohort17

Learn and apply the principles of Transforming Perception – The first step for producing new kind of results for you and your team.

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For further information please contact: Manoj Onkar – manoj@managementinnovations.co.in; WhatsApp: 91-9106456275

Money Paradigm in a disrupted economy like Covid 19

Some of the key points on which the Money Paradigm concept was built in a recent seminar series.

Manoj Onjar, MANAGEMENT INNOVATIONS : manoj@managementinnovations.co.in. https://bit.ly/LFEFCohort-13

Lead with a humane touch in times of DISRUPTION

As people and companies get to embrace the disruption (e.g. COVID 19) it is important to not only deal with the work, workflow, technology etc., but it is also important to manage the emotional space of people.

As many of us know, when we are listening, we are listening through the world of downloading, the voices of opinions, judgments, cynicism and fear.

In the disruption times, these voices get magnified many folds and sometimes it goes into feeding frenzy.

In those times, bringing the focus back on work – is a good idea; but alongwith that certain internal work has to be done.

Some people may find themselves in the following situations:

Most of the times, people don’t embrace their emotional states. They either indulge in their emotions or resist their emotions or hide or ignore them.

When we embrace our emotional states and create space for them. Then we create space for ourselves and space for new possibilities to emerge.

When people work on the top of their unresolved emotions, it affects their performance and behaviour in various ways including but not limited to irritation, lack of concentration, stress, avoidable mistakes, flaring up on small issues and many more…

Leadership from the Emerging Future – Getting to the Source of Extraordinary Results: A Special workshop series for Entrepreneurs and Senior Management

https://bit.ly/LFEFCohort-13

For further information please contact: Manoj Onkar – manoj@managementinnovations.co.in; WhatsApp: 91-9106456275

Recommended Reading : The Book for Entrepreneurs: Getting to Plan B by John Mullins & Randy Komisar

http://getting-to-plan-b.com/ –

http://getting-to-plan-b.com/

INNOVATIVE THINKING SYSTEM

It’s time to innovate.

Whether you want to innovate the business model, the products, the processes, the sales and marketing – this is the time to innovate.

Let’s look at the game of innovation.

First thing to understand is INNOVATION is not equal to CREATIVITY.

INNOVATION = CREATIVITY + IMPLEMENTATION

Innovative Thinking System – ITS – Overall Flow

There are 4 key phases of any good innovative thinking system.

1st Phase is Generating New Ideas

Most people think that Innovation means creating new ideas.

NO.

Creating new ideas is only the 1st step.

How do you create new ideas?

Some people have a mental block from their childhood that they are not CREATIVE.

It is not true.

We have not learn’t and practiced CREATIVITY and anything that we haven’t learn’t and practiced, we are not good at it.

So creativity is a matter of learning and practicing.

What one can use here are the various Divergent Thinking Methods. Divergent thinking helps individuals and teams to go beyond the mental blocks and create an abundance of ideas.

Some of the famous divergent thinking methods are:

Technique B – Breaking down Common Notions

Technique D – Dreaming or Future Visualizing

Technique F – Finding Flaws with current systems to trigger new ideas

Technique O – Overstating and Understating some facts by a huge factor – triggering some new thoughts and ideas

Technique R – Reversing the current way of doing things – again a thought experiment to trigger new ideas

Technique L – Linking two or more unconnected ideas to trigger a new thought process

Technique A – It is a game of adding new options/dimensions or facets to the existing products or services that make a difference.

The next step after generating lots of ideas is to scientifically shortlisting those ideas.

2nd Phase – Scientifically Shortlist ideas with Screening Techniques

Since one cannot experiment or prototype all ideas, we have to shortlist the ideas from the vast list that got created through the divergent thinking process.

This process is called the CONVERGENT THINKING PROCESS.

The famous Screening Techniques are:

1. Bird’s View and Bug’s View : Seeing Macro and then going micro. Looking at all the ideas and putting them in some categories and then selecting the best ideas in each category.
2. Decision Screening: Deciding the parameters of evaluating the ideas and then screening the ideas based on the parameters.
3. Priority Screening: After having some ideas shortlisted, further shortlisting can happen based on the impact priorities. One can also give weightages to the various impact and then evaluate the ideas against those impact parameters.

Next step in the journey is to polish and and develop the shortlisted ideas.

3rd Phase: Polishing and Developing the Shortlisted Ideas

Some of the powerful methods for polishing and developing your ideas into extraordinary proposals are:

Polishing Techniques

Polishing Techniques

The next step in the journey is Implementation. And one needs to create a proper implementation plan to ensure that the idea is converted to reality and the desired benefits are accrued.

The mapping techniques to be used for creating the implementation road maps,

Happy Innovating!

Best Wishes from Manoj Onkar – manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

Leadership is too important to leave it to ‘Leaders’. Isn’t it?

Organizations can no more afford to relate to some ‘leaders’ as leaders and bet the future of the whole organization and the eco-system on them. Also one is betting the PURPOSE and VISION of the Organization.

In this really VUCA World, companies need to address couple of key Questions?

1. What is the future of our industry?
2. What are the changes that are likely to happen or need to happen that no one is working upon?
3. What is the organizational culture and climate required for us to sense that future ?
4. How do we get ready for that future?
5. How do all employees figure in that equation?

3 Transformations for Leadership & Change Management

3 Transformation – 7 Capabilities of Leadership from the Emerging Future

As per Theory U by Dr. Otto Scharmer and the various related conversations, there are 3 key transformations that are critical for new kind of leadership to show up in organizations and in society.

1. Transforming Perception: Sensing
2. Transforming Self & Will: Presencing
3. Transforming Action: Realizing & Fulfilling

Transforming Perception:

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Transforming 3 worlds of Perception

The world of Perceptions have 3 key dimensions that one has to deal with initially and the ofcourse some more dimensions have to be addressed.

1. Transforming Perception about Others and Situation: If we continue to see others and the situation from the old paradigm, then not much new quality of thinking will show up.
2. Transforming Perception about Ourselves: Similarly one needs a new view of oneself to be able to break the current paradigm of relationship that one has with life and self.
3. Transforming Other’s Perception about Us: Since results are produced inside of relationships it is important that we transform how others perceive us that would lead to how they respond to us and collaborating with us.

Transforming the world of perception requires Suspending the voice of judgement and opinions about self, situation and others. And redirecting our cynicism with curiosity, compassion and courage.

Producing Results: Getting to the Source

Keeping in mind that producing results itself can be seen at multiple levels.

The visible level is the world of results.

The layer below is what most people understand – that results are causing by efforts. Either your efforts or other’s efforts. Sometimes efforts (action) including inaction.

The layer which most people don’t explore is what influences action.

Action is influenced by Perception. The thought world. The paradigm or model of thinking.

Very rarely do people explore what is influencing the human performance at the core.

The Internal State.

The internal state is 3 things: 1. INTENTION 2. ATTENTION 3. PRESENCE

Intention: Are you operating from an Ego Intention or an Eco Intention?

Attention: Do you have your attention on you Intention or all the distractions?

Presence: Presence = Present + Sensing. How present you are in the NOW? and How are you practicing deep listening, sensing and sense-making.

TRANSFORMING SELF & WILL:

Transforming Self includes Letting Go of the Past and Letting come the Future.

Giving up Fear and Operating with Courage.

TRANSFORMING ACTION:

Not waiting for perfect ideas, but being in the game of Learning by Doing.

Crystallizing Ideas by communicating, deep listening, sensing and sense-making.

Prototyping : Testing Hypothesis and continually iterating.

Institutionalizing: Scaling up, Involving more stakeholders, creating systems and evolving.

These are the starting principles on which we design and deliver the leadership and change management interventions for corporates and organizations.

Manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

http://bit.ly/LFEFCohort12

7 Leadership Capacities

Seven Theory U Leadership Capacities 
The journey through the U develops seven essential leadership capacities. 

5 Phases of Theory U

1. HOLDING THE SPACE OF LISTENING: The foundational capacity of the U is listening. Listening to others. Listening to oneself. And listening to what emerges from the collective. Effective listening requires the creation of open space in which others can contribute to the whole.

2. OBSERVING: The capacity to suspend the “voice of judgment” is key to moving from projection to focused and peripheral observation.

3. SENSING: Seeing the system from the edges. The preparation for the experience at the bottom of the U requires the tuning of three inner instruments: the open mind, the open heart, and the open will. This opening process is an active “sensing” together as a group. While an open heart allows us to see a situation from the current whole, the open will enables us to begin to sense from the whole that is wanting to emerge.

4. PRESENCING: The capacity to connect to the deepest sources of self—to go to the inner place of stillness where knowing comes to surface.

5. CRYSTALLIZING: When a small group of change makers commit to a shared purpose, the power of their intention creates an energy field that attracts people, opportunities, and resources that make things happen. This core group and its container functions as a vehicle for the whole to manifest.

6. PROTOTYPING: Moving down the left side of the U requires the group to open up and deal with the resistance of thought, emotion, and will; moving up the right side requires the integration of thinking, feeling, and will in the context of practical applications and learning by doing.

7. CO-EVOLVING: A prominent violinist once said that he couldn’t simply play his violin in Chartres cathedral; he had to “play” the entire space, what he called the “macro violin,” in order to do justice to both the space and the music. Likewise, organizations need to perform at this macro level: they need to convene the right sets of players in order to help them to co-sensing and co-create at the scale of the whole.

To know more about Leadership from the Emerging Future and to bring this new qualities of leadership in your organization reach out to MANAGEMENT INNOVATIONS.

Manoj Onkar – manoj@managementinnovations.co.in; 91-9106456275 http://bit.ly/LFEFCohort12

Producing Results: Getting to the Source of Results

Anatomy of Producing Results

We are always looking at producing some results. Causing something. Avoiding something. Making something happen. Ensuring something doesn’t happen.

What causes Results? Actions.

Your Actions. Other People’s Actions. Also Inactions.

What influences Actions? Thought Patterns

As thought patterns change, one sees a change in actions and behaviours.

What influences Thought Patterns?

That is the million dollar question. That is the blindspot for most people.

The source of the thought patterns is the internal state that leaders and team members are operating from.

What is the internal state?

As Dr. Otto Scharmer mentions in Theory U – the internal state consists of 3 elements:

1. Intention : What is your Intention? Is it an EGO Intention or an ECO Intention
2. Attention: What is the quality of your attention? Is it on your Intention or are you distracted with the routine or the emergency.
3. Presence: What is the quality of your being present and sensing (deep listening, sensing and sense-making)

This is one of the elements that we train in-depth in the Leadership from the Emerging Future workshops and interventions.

http://bit.ly/LFEFCohort12

For more information, you may reach out to manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

What is Leadership in the 21st Century: Transforming PPP (Perception, Paradigm and Performance)

While leadership is accountable for the Performance and the Results. Leadership doesn’t cause the results. Leaders are not necessarily causing the results themselves. They are creating the environment in which results happen.

The environment in which results happen includes the culture of the team and organization. It also includes the paradigm in which people operate.

To transform the paradigm in which people operate, firstly the leaders need to transform the perceptions and help the team to transform the perceptions.

Unless there are new perceptions, there is no new paradigm and no innovation. No real Leadership.

There are 3 key perceptions that the leaders and the team need to transform:

1. Perceptions about the stakeholders, their challenges, their ambitions and their world view
2. Perceptions about Self – as individuals and as team
3. Perceptions others have about you – again as individuals and as team/organization

Once the perceptions are transformed, then the game shows up differently. A new paradigm is created.

A new paradigm in which the stakeholders can give up their positions and get into the space of understanding multiple views, multiple concerns and include all of them in the learning journey.

Inside this new paradigm there is space for collaboration and co-creation.

This is the beginning of a new era of leadership – Leadership of the 21st Century.

Welcome to the Leadership from the Emerging Future. http://bit.ly/LFEFCohort12

Regards Manoj Onkar – manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

Transforming the leadership and consciousness with which organizations, society and individuals operate.

For Leadership Team and Change Makers.

Get trained and certified in the world’s powerful technology and make a big difference for your organizations.

Master :

1. Leadership Transformation
2. Change Management
3. Organizational Culture
4. Management Development & Supervisor Development
5. Teamwork & Breakthrough Collaboration
6. Stakeholder Relationships
7. Sales and Customer Service

Technology that you use in large organizations and small organizations, for profit as well as in social organizations.

Also relevant if you are operating in the educational institution space.

Technology developed by professors from MIT, USA and used by companies like Google, Alibaba, McKinsey, PWC, Fujitsu, Glaxosmithkline and organizations like World Bank and many more.

http://bit.ly/LFEFCohort12

Contact manoj@managementinnovations.co.in for more information.

WhatsApp: 91 – 9106456275

Sustainable Food Lab – Sensing the future that wants to emerge

SUSTAINABLE FOOD LAB

WWW. SUSTAINABLEFOODLAB.ORG

The Sustainable Food Lab (SFL) comprises leaders from more than 100 organizations that represent a microcosm of the stakeholders in food delivery systems.

The purpose of this large-scale intervention is to make food systems more sustainable.

Current members include individuals from the following companies: Carrefour, General Mills, Nutreco, Organic Valley Cooperative, Rabobank, Sadia, Costco, US Foodservice, SYSCO, and Unilever; from governmental organizations in Brazil and the Netherlands, plus the European Commission, the International Finance Corporation, and the World Bank; from civil society organizations including the National Confederation of Agricultural Workers of Brazil, Oxfam, The Nature Conservancy, the World Forum of Fish Harvesters and Fish workers, and the World Wildlife Fund.

The Lab’s prototyping projects are addressing supply chain innovations, demand pull for sustainability, purchasing standards, and policy changes.

Excerpt from https://www.presencing.org/assets/images/theory-u/Theory_U_Exec_Summary.pdf

We offer customized leadership development and change management workshops and consulting services to organizations. We also collaborate with educational institutions to help them include Theory U principles in their curriculum and offerings.

We also conduct open workshops on Leadership from the Emerging Future :

Theory U & the African Public Health Initiatives

THE AFRICAN PUBLIC HEALTH, LEADERSHIP AND SYSTEMS INNOVATION INITIATIVE:

This initiative will develop a replicable model for improving public health leadership and system performance using an approach called the Innovation Lab.

The Innovation Lab increases leaders’ effectiveness by cultivating their managerial skills and by addressing the attitudes, values, and relationships that drive behavior. It stimulates system change by enabling cross-sectoral leadership teams to take advantage of new opportunities and to clear bottlenecks.

The Innovation Lab in Namibia will convene healthcare leadership teams from government, business, and civil society.

Teams will be guided through an intensive leadership development and project-based learning experience over two years.

The pilot project of this approach seeks to benefit people who are underserved by current healthcare systems, particularly those living on less than $2/day.

The proposal has been cocreated by the Synergos Institute, the Presencing Institute, Generon Consulting, and McKinsey & Company in collaboration with partners in the global South and has been submitted to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for funding.

Excerpt from https://www.presencing.org/assets/images/theory-u/Theory_U_Exec_Summary.pdf

We offer customized trainings, workshops and consulting services in the field of leadership development, culture transformation, stakeholder relationship development, strategy implementation and L & OD initiatives.

Our open workshop on Leadership and Change Management is also available: http://bit.ly/LFEFCohort12

Leadership & Change Management with Theory U @ ELIAS: Creating a global innovation eco-system

ELIAS: CREATING A GLOBAL INNOVATION ECO SYSTEM

www.ELIAS-GLOBAL.com

ELIAS (Emerging Leaders for Innovation Across Sectors) is a network of twenty global business, government, and civic organizations dedicated to finding productive solutions to the most confounding dilemmas of our time. Each member is a powerhouse in its realm—BASF, BP, Oxfam, Nissan, the Society for Organizational Learning, Unilever, the UN Global Compact, UNICEF, the World Bank Institute, and the World Wildlife Fund, among others.

Together ELIAS members are examining problems by combining systems thinking, deepened personal awareness, and listening skills with hands-on prototyping in order to develop and test new cross-sector approaches to some of today’s most difficult challenges.

The ELIAS pilot program convened a group of 25 high-potential leaders from these organizations and sent them on an intensive learning journey that included training in leadership capacity building and hands-on systems innovation.

After shadowing each other in their work environments (each fellow spent several days in the life of one or more peers in another business sector), the group travelled to China in the fall of 2006, where they engaged in discussions with Chinese thought leaders, consulted with sustainability engineers, journeyed to rural China to observe emerging challenges, and capped the trip with a week of contemplative retreat.

• One of the prototyping projects developed by the ELIAS pilot group is the Sunbelt team, which is exploring methods for bringing solar- and wind generated power to marginalized communities, especially in the global South. This decentralized, distributive, democratic model would significantly reduce CO2 emissions and foster economic growth and well-being in rural communities.

• Another team is testing alternative energy resources, such as the indigenous development of renewable and hybrid sources of power for the Chinese automotive industry.

• An Africa-based team is testing mobile community-based life education as a way to uproot the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

• An ELIAS fellow from the Indonesian Ministry of Trade applied the U process to government policies for sustainable sugar production in Indonesia. His idea was to involve all key stakeholders in the policymaking process.

The results were stunning: for the first time ever the Ministry’s policies did not result in violent protests or riots by farmers or other key stakeholders in the value chain.

Now, the same approach is being applied to other commodities and to standards for sustainable production. The Indonesia-based ELIAS team plans to launch a country version of the ELIAS cross-sector innovation platform in early 2008 that will focus on the severe flooding problems in Jakarta.

• A Brazil-based team is focused on integrating the whole demand-and supply chain for organic agricultural products. They are creating infrastructures, raising awareness, and building skills and support networks of small farmers using organic agricultural methods.

The goals include improving contractual fairness and creating a transparency that allows the entire value chain, from the farmers to the consumers, to see one another, connect, and co-evolve.

The ELIAS team from Brazil also intends to launch a country version of the ELIAS innovation platform in Brazil in 2008.

• In the Philippines, one ELIAS fellow of Unilever teamed up with former colleagues who now work in the NGO sector to form a venture (MicroVentures) that advises and finances women micro-entrepreneurs in the Philippines by leveraging the Unilever business and its network at the community level. What started as an idea by a few people two years ago has turned into a vibrant and rapidly evolving global network of changemakers and prototyping projects.

In addition to company-city- and country-specific projects and programs, ELIAS fellows have developed a global ecology of prototyping initiatives and an alumni network of high-potential leaders in some of the most innovative institutions in business, government, and the NGO sector.

Together, this global network hopes to use a web of activities develop the capacity to respond to some of the key challenges of our time in truly innovative ways (Field 4 responses).

Other outcomes of participation in the ELIAS program include:

1. Prototypes of cross-sector innovation that address that shared challenges of

• creating value for the triple bottom line—the environment, society, and the

• economy—with the ultimate goal of advancing global sustainability

• A steadily growing network of leaders from the public, private, and civic sectors

• that will enhance and accelerate the benefits to individual members

• Information and ideas for innovative solutions to individual members’

• challenges

• An enhanced capacity among leaders to deal with the complexity of    

globalization

• and sustainable development through practical innovations.

We, at MANAGEMENT INNOVATIONS offer curated courses and consulting services on Theory U and Leadership from the Emerging Future from the commitment to alter the consciousness with which organizations, society and leadership operate.

One of our Leadership and Change Management workshops offered for senior leadership teams and entrepreneurs globally is *Leadership from the Emerging Future* a 3 month video conference based workshop series. We have had participation from 28 industries and 8 countries till now.

http://bit.ly/LFEFCohort12

Our Cohort 12 starts from 24th February 2020.

For more information contact manoj@managementinnovations.co.in; 91-9106456275

Why Leadership Education needs to change?

To bring different results on the planet, we need different leadership. Actually we need a different leadership paradigm.

Shifting from Past based to based on sensing and actualizing the higher future possibilities.

Shifting from EGO to ECO. From thinking of some people, some interest groups to thinking of one and all – holistic, all inclusive.

Shifting from the economy of ignorance, hate and fear to economy of curiosity, compassion and courage.

Shifting from leadership as an individual phenomenon to leadership as a collective capacity to sense and actualize the higher future possibility. The world of co-creation.

We would like to discuss further with various stakeholders in the area of leadership and management development in institutions and organizations world wide.

Thanks Manoj Onkar Email: manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

Why Leadership Education needs to change?

To bring different results on the planet, we need different leadership. Actually we need a different leadership paradigm.

Shifting from Past based to based on sensing and actualizing the higher future possibilities.

Shifting from EGO to ECO. From thinking of some people, some interest groups to thinking of one and all – holistic, all inclusive.

Shifting from the economy of ignorance, hate and fear to economy of curiosity, compassion and courage.

Shifting from leadership as an individual phenomenon to leadership as a collective capacity to sense and actualize the higher future possibility. The world of co-creation.

We would like to discuss further with various stakeholders in the area of leadership and management development in institutions and organizations world wide.

Thanks Manoj Onkar Email: manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

Creating 21st Century University – Transforming Higher Education, Management & Leadership Development

• Why higher education needs to change?
• Education needs to prepare people aware of the current world challenges and be able to bring new perspectives to address the current world.
• Also education needs to help people develop themselves for sensing the future and actualizing the highest future possibility.

Current Reality

What are the key points for transforming education?

1. Build Vertical Literacy
2. Learning as kindling of the flame
3. Action Learning: Shift the outer place of Learning. Learning by doing.
4. Whole Person Learning: Shift the inner place of Learning.
5. Ecosystem Leadership: Building Capacity from me to we
6. Self Knowledge – Know Thyself
7. Systems Thinking – Make the system see itself
8. Social Arts and Aesthetics – Make the system sense itself
9. Science 2.0: Observe the Observer (Self)
10. Tech 2.0: Create awareness based social technologies
11. Democratize – Build infrastructure for deep learning @ Scale
12. Third and Fourth Teacher : Place and Social Fields

Leadership and Change Management with Theory U @ HP

HEWLETT PACKARD

As part of the work done by Dr. Otto Scharmer and team, among many global organizations, HP has applied Theory U in change efforts within its digital photography business portfolio, focusing on improving the customer experience and cross-category business strategies.

In 2005, HP launched an effort to improve the value of its digital photography products and services by designing compelling customer experiences across its broad portfolio.

Although originally designed to focus on customer experiences, interviews with executives revealed that delivering satisfying customer experiences would require substantial cross-category and cross-value chain strategy development and
alignment.

 A more holistic change effort was then developed and launched, consisting of four tracks:

(1) an Executive Leadership track to address executive learning and leadership, including management of portfolio objectives and leading interdependent cross-business programs;

(2) an Experience Design Operating Model to address governance, decision-making, collaboration, and lifecycle processes;

(3) an Experience Design track to develop the design capabilities and capacity required to meet business goals; and

(4) an Organizational Development track to grow the broader organizational culture in support of the previous three tracks.

In the Executive Leadership track, an initial workshop established a common ground perspective of the digital photography opportunities and challenges.

This workshop also established a learning agenda that served as the foundation for executive learning journeys.

Based on the initial positive results of the digital photography effort, HP is now pursuing a broader use of Theory U in change efforts in its Imaging and Printing Group.

Excerpt from https://www.presencing.org/assets/images/theory-u/Theory_U_Exec_Summary.pdf

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We offer training and consulting interventions customized to organizational perspectives.

Our open workshops have been a great opportunity to get introduced to the power of Theory U and Leadership from the Emerging Future.

The video conference based workshops allow people to participate in this world class leadership and change management opportunity from anywhere in the world.

http://bit.ly/LFEFCohort12

For more information contact Manoj Onkar – 9106456275; manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

Leadership and Change Management with Theory U@ German Healthcare Network

Excerpt from https://www.presencing.org/assets/images/theory-u/Theory_U_Exec_Summary.pdf

Multi-stakeholder Innovation
TRANSFORMING A REGIONAL HEALTHCARE SYSTEM IN GERMANY

In a rural area of approximately 300,000 inhabitants near Frankfurt, Germany, a network of physicians applied the U process in several ways, including in a patient-physician dialogue forum.

When negotiations between the physicians’ network and the insurance company stalled, the core group of physicians invited other physicians and their patients to a one-day meeting designed around the U process.

In preparation for the meeting, a group of students trained in dialogue interviews spoke with 130 patients and their physicians. Then they invited
all of the interviewees to a feedback session, which 100 of them attended.

During this event and afterward, the patients and physicians moved from politeness and debate to real dialogue and thinking together.

The initiatives formed or crystallized during this day had a profound impact on the region.

One group proposed a standard format for transferring information between hospitals and outside physicians and has since opened an office for the outside physicians at the largest hospital in the region. It is jointly run by the clinic and residential physicians and works to improve critical interface between the two.

The group also prototyped and then institutionalized a new program that provides better emergency care for patients, incorporates cross-institutional cooperation, and costs less.

As a result, factor 4 cost savings have been realized, and patient complaints in that region have decreased to almost zero.

*****

We offer curated courses on leadership and change management for corporates, government and not for profit organizations.

We also offer in person and video conference based live workshops.

Our next batch is scheduled to start in Feb. 2020 http://bit.ly/LFEFCohort12

Leadership and Change Management with Theory U @ Royal Dutch Shell

ROYAL DUTCH  SHELL

Shell has applied some key elements of Theory U in change efforts at Shell EP Europe. In 2005 the organization was experiencing significant problems getting its new Plant Maintenance process to work.

One site, a gas plant in the Netherlands, with about 60 staff members, was selected to be the pilot site for diagnosing what was going on.

Interviews with Shell staff revealed that the problems in the organization,
while being attributed to new SAP software, were more likely symptoms of the way people were working together.
The rich material gained from the interviews allowed a team of internal consultants to develop a number of “what’s in it for me?” propositions as a way of tapping into people’s feelings. The propositions, in the form of cartoons, were used in two small focus groups of six or seven people to help Shell staff visualize a different future.

In the focus group dialogues, Shell employees were able to express some of their deeper feelings about working at the plant and about SAP. They expressed a desire for less conflict during the workday, and they welcomed ideas for a new approach to organizational effectiveness.

Instead of seeking any specific business targets, the team sought to create a better environment for learning, innovation, and change. The results of that approach proved to be powerful and sustainable.

Says Jurry Swart of Shell: “After a couple of months we saw the output KPI’s [key performance indicators] of the process improving.

Furthermore, we saw a cultural change in the whole organization, from being negative and skeptical to one of inquiry and keenness to move forward. A survey of the Shell participants revealed greater motivation and reduced frustration at the gas plant site.”

Excerpt from https://www.presencing.org/assets/images/theory-u/Theory_U_Exec_Summary.pdf

http://bit.ly/LFEFCohort12 – Our Curated Course for Leaders and Entrepreneurs

ANTI-CEO PLAYBOOK Recommended for the evolved CEOs

http://bit.ly/LFEFCohort12 – Leadership from the Emerging Future

Very inspired to see and hear this video.

Leading in the Changing Economic Context

While management is about “Getting things done’, Leadership is about creating and cultivating the larger context – the fertile common ground and soil in which things can happen.

Initially, business leaders embraced a directive approach i.e. command and control. Leaders setting the agenda and objectives designed to mobilize and guide the whole company.

In the complex environment, that doesn’t work too well – How can you command and control when the most important goals, objectives, issues and opportunities are not known up front but tend to emerge over time?

As a response to the above challenge, leaders started to balance setting goals and direction while increasing people participation across the organization.

Now we are in the third phase.

Blank Canvas

This phase is concerned with creating the conditions that inspire people, teams and networks to operate from a ‘different place’. In this era, organizations can achieve peak performance by creating conditions that all them to unleash the power of their people – not leading them, not managing them, but by co-inspiring them.

For high performance organizations to evolve, leaders have to extend their focus of attention from processes to using the “blank canvas” dimensions of leadership.

They must help people access their sources of inspiration, intuition and imagination. Like an artist standing in front of the blank canvas, leaders must develop a capacity to shift their organization so that its members can sense and articulate emerging futures, both individually and collectively.

The Changing  Economic Context
	Goods	Services	Innovation
Focus of Value Creation	Make standardised products	Deliver customized services	Stage and co-create personalized experiences
Customer as	Target for Mass Marketing	Target for Mass Customization	Partner for Co-Creation
Economics	Economies of Scale	Economies of Scope	Economies of Presencing
Organizational Model	Functional,	Divisional,	Networked,
	Single Sphere: Mass Production	Two Spheres: Production, Customer Interface	Three Spheres: Production, Customer Interface, Innovation
Location of Entrepreneurial Impulse	Centre of one’s own organization (Product Focus)	Periphery of one’s own organization (Customer focus)	Surrounding sphere of one’s own organization (co-creation focus)
Relationship Logic with Customers	PUSH ( Product driven)	PULL ( Service driven)	PRESENCE (Co-creation driven)
Managerial Mindset	The world is as it is.                      Self = Onlooker	The world evolves as people interact. Self = Participant	The world arises as we choose to attend. Self = Source of Co-creation

Above table from the book Theory U by MIT Prof. Dr. Otto Scharmer point that, today, most organizations are not one, but three. Three spheres are Production, Customer Interface and Innovation.

And each of their 3 spheres functions according to a different set of principles.

In Production, the primary principle is Economies of Scale.

In Customer Interface, the primary principle is Economies of Scope.

For Innovation, it is Economies of Presencing; that is, the capacity to sense and shape emerging future possibilities.

To see these patterns accurately, one must look beyond a single organization and begin to see larger economic contexts in which companies co-evolve.

As companies evolve into this next stage, they begin to see the increased need to develop their presence based relational skills.

In order to deal with with disruptive stakeholder situations, managers must be able to tap into their inner sources of creativity and operate from the ECO context – not just individually but as part of a larger organizational field.

They must learn to function within emerging complexity.

The above articles in an excerpt from the book Theory U.

We offer organizations workshops and consulting interventions to help them transform their leadership and build organizations ready to thrive in the VUCA world.

Our introductory workshop both online and in-person can kick start the journey for the organizational leadership team.

Check out: http://bit.ly/LFEFCohort12 – information about our batch starting from Feb. 2020. Thanks Manoj:manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

Special Workshop for Entrepreneurs and Leaders : Leadership & Change Management

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Mantra for Listening:

Whenever one feels the other person is not listening, the other person is not understanding you,

It is a good time to check our own listening!

Ignorance -> Hate -> Fear

The mass hysteria of CAA, Brexit, Trump and a World of Absencing/De-sensing …

Absencing by Dr. Otto Scharmer

Also visible in Organizations, Communities and families.

Everyone speaking – no one really listening. Deep Listening.

Stuck in the absencing shown above and in inverted U below, instead of the bottom U of Presencing

Presencing (Creation) Vs Absencing (Destruction) by Dr. Otto Scharmer

Economies of Destruction: Social Pathology

We are stuck in downloading. Downloading is when instead of seeing what is happening out in the world, really, we are listening to our default world of opinions and judgements. Ofcourse, when we are listening to the our opinions and judgements, we will ongoingly reinforce our opinions and judgement.

That leads to Blinding. Getting stuck in One Truth and One View. And ofcourse, each one of us is 100% clear that our Truth and our View is the only valid Truth/ View.

The next phase is Denial of validity of everyone else which ultimately leads to labelling and De-Sensing. That is the phase of groupism. US vs THEM. And ofcourse the US is always right and the THEM is always wrong.

The continual Blinding, Denial and De-Sensing leads to Getting Stuck in One Will (My/Our Will) and begin to manipulate, abuse and destory every other possibility.

This is the cycle of IGNORANCE –-> HATE –> FEAR.

But there is a way out.

Social Presencing:

Human Beings have the ability, less used ability, but, there nevertheless of causing a new paradigm, a new reality.

It begins with LISTENING. Deep Listening.

Noticing our Voice of opinions and judgements, suspending them and listening for facts. Seeing the world – what is really happening instead of what we strongly believe is happening.

Instead of de-sensing, we stepping out of our world view for a moment, and seeing the world from other’s perspective. Redirecting our Cynicism and Opening our Heart to seeing the world from other’s eyes.

And most importantly, noticing our Voice of Fear and seeing how it gets us stuck in the past and fixed ways of being. Letting go of the past and allowing new futures to emerge.

This is the new kind of leadership required in the Chaos of the current times. In society and in organizations.

This is the kind of leaderships that we all, not some, all of us, are called upon to provide.

Open Mind (Curiosity) —> Open Heart (Compassion) —> Open Will ( Courage)

The future of humanity depends on it.

Manoj Onkar

manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

Management Salt: 3 Cs of Creating an Innovation Culture

3 Critical Components of an Innovation Culture are:

Curiosity

Compassion

and

Courage.

Curiosity:

Curiosity is the primary driver for learning, exploring, asking, observing, seeking and experimenting.

Curiosity allows us to suspend our opinions and judgements, and stuckness to the past and opens the possibility of finding out new facts, new paradigms, new data points and through all of them new worlds or parts of the world we didn’t know exist.

Compassion:

Compassion allows the space of empathy, deep connection with people, seeing the world from other’s eyes.

Innovation is difference making, when it is done enriched by the viewing the situation, challenges and opportunities from the view of the users, customers and stakeholders.

Courage:

Courage facilitates a new relationship with fear and failure, which is critical for the space of innovation. Courage to try out the new,take some risk, experiment, fail, learn and try again many times over.

Curiosity, Compassion and Courage in the teams will allow learning, collaboration and co-creation as the stepping stones for innovation and innovation culture.

Manoj Onkar

manoj@managementinnovation.co.in

Management Salt: Change Management Basics

“If you want to learn about an organization, try to change it.” ~ Kurt Lewin

Any system or part of the system that you want to change – you can explore the system at 4 levels.

Level 1: Visible Level: Symptoms, Results, Effects

This is the level which is easily visible and many a times our change efforts get focussed on the visible parameters only.

They are important as part of the dashboard, but that is not the source issue and hence all the efforts here are likely to give limited impact or short term impact and the issue showing up again in some other format.

Definitely an opportunity to cause a breakthrough by addressing the underlying issues gets missed out.

Level 2: Partially Visible Level: Behaviours

Behaviours of the various players in the system are directly or indirectly causing the results which one is trying to change.

Understanding the behaviours and bringing the required change in the behaviours would help in producing much better impact.

People can be trained to act differently and that will lead to change in the results.

Level 3: InVisible Level: Thinking Patterns of Individuals and Organizations

Going deeper in the iceberg model, one discovers that the behaviours that one is trying to change are rooted in the thinking patterns and models of the people concerned.

Unearthing the thinking patterns and models, deep rooted assumptions, taken for granted realities, allows one to question the current paradigms and explore other ways to look at the issues.

Thus getting unstuck with the habitual and systemic thinking patterns, allows for new dimensions to open up, leading to a natural shift in the behaviours resulting in the proportional shift in the results and outcomes.

Level 4: InVisible Level: Internal State of the Leaders and People Concerned

At the deepest level, one discovers the fundamental blindspot.

The success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervenor... Bill O’Brien

Beyond the behaviours and the thinking process, is the internal state of the people that is at the source of the outcomes. This internal state is function of the Quality of Intention and Quality of Attention.

Intention is not the most powerful force, it is the only force.” (W. Brian Arthur)

Is the intention an Ego intention or an Eco intention? Is it for the benefit of one or small group of people OR is it for the greater good.

When you have an ECO Intention, universe supports you.

When you put your Attention on this Eco Intention, then your thoughts, actions and behaviours start aligning to the intention. You start getting like minded people into the game. And the change management process starts moving with a life and power of its own spirit.

What are the systems or part of the systems that you are trying to change?

Is your focus on the Results and Outcomes level, or are you digging deeper at the behavioural dimension? You can also go towards the source by looking at the thinking patterns and models of people concerned. And you may hit the jackpot by connecting to the bigger intention and supporting everyone to have their attention on their bigger intention.

The above writeup is based on our understanding and experience while bringing the principles of Theory U by Dr. Otto Scharmer to the various challenges that we see with our client organizations.

For more information and guidance, you may reach out to manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

Management Salt: What is the problem with Visioning Process and how do you deal with it?

There are 2 key elements in a Visioning Process.

The first point is Whose Vision is it?

Is it a Vision or a flaky statement of desire? If it is a Vision, is it an EGO Vision or an ECO Vision? i.e. is it about some small group of people or is it about all the stakeholders including the marginal ones. Is it connected to people’s logic OR is it also connecting to their heart? How many people in the organization are inspired and given by the Vision? How many people have co-created that Vision and have a sense of authorship and ownership of that Vision?

The second point is Is that Vision in alignment with the Future that wants to emerge?

Mostly Vision’s are about What a group of people want to will into existence. If it is not in sync with the Future that wants to emerge, the universe is not going to support the fulfillment of such a Vision.

Theory U by MIT Prof. Dr. Otto Scharmer

How do you address the 2 challenges in the Visioning Process?

1. When the leadership team listens deeply to all the stakeholders and sees the world from their eyes, then they can develop the ability to sense what is needed and wanted.
2. When the organization as a collective is listening deeply to all the stakeholders, then they can develop the capability to sense the future that wants to emerge
3. When the culture of the organization is of authentic collaboration and co-creation within and outside the organization then one can sense the future that wants to emerge and also the appropriate pathway for the same.

Blindspots and Barriers to being aware of and transform are:

1. Listening: Everyone thinks that we are great listeners, but most people don’t experience that they have been listened to and their world is gotten by others.
2. Open Mind: Most of us have an open mind, open enough to fit things that we understand and agree upon.
3. Open Heart: Most of us have an open heart, for people who think like us OR think in the way we want them to think.
4. Open Will: Yes, we are open for new possibilities, new ideas, new actions till the time we are comfortable with them.

Hope you got the joke…

What can we do?

1. It might be helpful if we can train ourselves to be authentically curious, curious enough to be able to suspend our opinions and judgements.
2. May be develop some compassion, for people who don’t see the world the way we do.
3. May be, also, let go of the past, stop holding the past, such that there is space for some new futures to emerge.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to contact: Manoj Onkar manoj@managementinnovations.co.in for any clarification on the above OR any Organizational Development and Leadership Transformation Challenge.

Management Salt: Does your organization culture foster INNOVATION?

Innovation in an organization or society or family is a function of the culture that is available to foster it.

In organizations, if the culture is of “Yes Sir” there is not much scope of promoting innovation.

If the culture is of “I am right or I am better than you”, then also scope of collaboration is limited and hence innovation is limited.

When the culture shifts to “I respect my point of view” and “I also respect your point of view” – that is where the inter-personal relationships and team environment become conducive for innovation.

When the culture graduates to “Building on each others ideas” with no focus on “My Idea” or “Your Idea” but an authentic co-creation, that is where the magic of innovation culture can become visible.

What is the culture in your organization?

Fields of Conversation by Dr. Otto Scharmer are a good way to understand the team and organizational culture

Manoj Onkar, MANAGEMENT INNOVATIONS, manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

Management Salt: What is going to disrupt your industry tomorrow?

Do you. know what is going to disrupt your industry tomorrow? Not day after tomorrow – but tomorrow.

How can you find out what is going to disrupt your industry?

How come you don’t know?

The problem might be that you are successful and are busy with your Vision and Goals and Ambitions.

Or the problem is that you are struggling to survive and make both ends meet and you don’t have much time to reflect on the long term trends.

In either case, what’s missing is LISTENING.

Is your organization listening to the future that wants to emerge or is too preoccupied ?

Are your leaders trained to LISTEN? or are they champions of speaking and selective listening?

Are your front line staff and the all the employees and associates trained to LISTEN ? or are they surviving the hierarchy and carrying on carrying on; going through the motions, making the right noises not really up for some creative destruction?

What is the LISTENING we are talking about?

Level 1 Listening: Default Listening: Habitual Listening: Listening through Opinions and Judgements.

Output of Level 1 Listening: Reinforcing Opinion and Judgement

Enemy that keeps you stuck in level listening: Illusion called ‘I am Listening’.

Level 2 Listening: Factual Listening: Open Mind: Discovering new data (disconfirming data)

Output of Level 2 Listening: New information, which forces one to question the current assumptions.

Enemy of Level 2 Listening: Voice of Judgment

Access to develop Level 2 Listening: Develop Curiosity

Level 3 Listening: Empathic Listening: Open Heart: Seeing from Other’s eyes

Output of Level 3 Listening: Strong emotional connect with other person.

Enemy of Level 3 Listening: Voice of Cynicism

Access to develop Level 3 Listening: Operate with Compassion

Level 4 Listening: Generative Listening: Open will: Listening to the future that wants to emerge

Output of Level 4 Listening: New Possibilities and New Realms

Enemy of Level 4 Listening: Voice of Fear

Access to develop Level 4 Listening: Operating with Courage

This is the foundational competency for leaders and everyone in the organization to make your organization future ready, being able to hear, sense and connect with the future that wants to emerge and create your business in sync with that future. Otherwise the future will still come and you get DISRUPTED.

4 Levels of Listening by Dr. Otto Scharmer

If you organization masters deep listening at all levels with internal and external stakeholders including employees,associates, customers, users, industry professionals, cross industry etc., – you could create a core competency of sensing the emerging future and capture the opportunity and ride the wave to new level of success.

Ofcourse, it is not a one time phenomenon – but an ongoing game like the waves in the ocean. You sense the wave and you sense the sea… moment by moment – forever.

Happy Listening. Happy Sensing. Ride the wave of the future emerging instead of getting DISRUPTED!

Manoj Onkar, MANAGEMENT INNOVATIONS, manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

Management Salt: Is it really a department problem?

In our consulting conversations, we find this situation many times.

Recently we were working with a CEO and his team. One day over dinner, we asked him about the various problems his company is dealing with. He said that his Head of Customer Service had a problem in delivering on time and while he and others are trying to help her, it is not working out.

Another business owner was sharing that her Sales Head was not able to meet the targets for the last 2 months and that has affected the whole years performance.

Another one complained that their process is complex and that they are late in giving their quotations to potential clients at least 40% of the time.

The real question is “Whose problem is it?”

Unfortunately, many more companies, than one would expect, operate from it is that concerned departments problem.

When we work with the top management to explore the source of the problems, the impact on the problems and how the problem shows up inside of their Vision and Intention – all of a sudden their relationship with the problem changes.

So, Are you dealing with a department level problem or is it something else?

Ego Vs Eco shows up as Silo Thinking in Corporates

Manoj Onkar, MANAGEMENT INNOVATIONS, manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

Management Salt: Is your culture dumbing the organization?

Fields of Conversation from Theory U by MIT Prof. Dr. Otto Scharmer

“Culture eats Employee Intelligence for breakfast.”

This can be new twist to the old quote “Culture eats Strategy for breakfast.”

The culture of an organization can be identified through the conversational field present in the organization.

Unfortunately a good chunk of organizations have a TALK NICE field of conversation, where in people tend to speak what others want to hear, specially what the seniors/powerful people want to hear; not rocking the boat, not addressing the difficult conversations powerfully enough.

This is the cancer of an organization. It causes the following:

1. People progressively stop sharing their thoughts which are different than or at a tangent with the thought process of the senior.
2. People reduce addressing of issues and problems
3. People tend to reduce their engagement and ownership
4. And there is no real motivation to do some rigorous thinking – given that ultimately I have just agree with the senior manager.

Overall people reduce sharing their real thoughts, they reduce their listening and drastically reduce the conscious mindful thinking.

Do you see this pattern in organizations and teams around you?

Manoj Onkar, MANAGEMENT INNOVATIONS, manoj@managementinnovations.co.in, 91-9106456275

MANAGEMENT SALT: Department Vs Company: Are you married to your department?

People join companies but get married to their departments.

All people who get married to their departments have a risk of becoming a problem for the company.

Departments have no real existence except for work distribution.

There are no successful departments in failed companies. Not really.

The mess that companies face just because people start identifying themselves as part of a department or SBU or a function would have been a good comedy film if it were not for the disastrous impact they have on the culture and performance of the organization.

The resultant politics is all about the benefit of some people at the cost of the majority.

Unfortunately, many well – meaning, good intention people get stuck into this blindspot.

Even some CEOs and top management encourage departmental thinking initially to manage work and control, but realize it when it is quite late that they have built a monster that will destroy their creation.

Wishing you all to get married to the company, better still – to the purpose of the company.

If you want to transform organization culture you may connect with Manoj Onkar, MANAGEMENT INNOVATIONS – manoj@managementinnovations.co.in, 91-9106456275

Management Salt: Giving and Receiving Feedback

Transforming the Culture through each supervisor and manager.

GIVING AND RECEIVING FEEDBACK

Some Points:

1. CONTEXT: Giving and Receiving feedback is one of the most important aspects of individual and organizational development.
2. INTENTION: Giving and Receiving feedback should accomplish the following:
   1. Help the Individual improve their knowledge, skill, attitude and grow as a professional
   1. Improve the performance in expected as well as better than expected manner
   1. Strengthen the relationship between the Individual, the feedback giver and the company
   1. Help the feedback giver discover new paradigms and grow as a professional
   1. Help the company grow by improved performance, improved products and services and improved teamwork, innovation and culture

• Types of Feedback: Transactional Feedback Vs Transformational Feedback

• Key Principles:
  •  Iceberg Model: What you say is 10% Everything else is 90%
  • Receiving and Giving Feedback is not about what you say? It is not about How you Say? It is much more than that? What could it be about?
  • Transformational Feedback is a difference making conversation that contributes to the giver, receiver and the organization.
  • Transformational Feedback needs a state change in the consciousness with which the individuals and the organizations operate.

• What are the various factors affecting this conversation?
  • From Feedback Giver Perspective
  • From Feedback Receiver Perspective
  • From Situation Perspective

• Laws for Giving and Receiving Feedback
  • No one should give feedback or receive feedback without deep appreciation for the other person and the work area that is being discussed.
  • It is not a feedback session if it is not leaving everyone empowered and enabled

• Principles for Giving and Receiving Feedback
  • Giving Feedback and Receiving Feedback is a transformational conversation and hence is a ‘Leadership’ role.
  •  Blindspot of Leadership: Success of the Intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervenor. i.e. The success of the feedback conversation is dependent on your interior condition.
  • Interior Condition is constituted of 1. Intention 2. Attention and 3. Presence
  • You can choose to operate from Being the leader/Intervenor every time you give or receive the feedback.

• Interior Condition:
  • INTENTION:
    • There are 2 kinds of intentions. EGO Intentions and ECO Intentions.
    • Ego intentions are given by concern for self or small group of people. E.g: Proving Oneself, Defending Oneself, Protecting something etc.,
    • Eco intentions are holistic in nature and include the benefit of all stakeholders

• ATTENTION:

One can either have the attention on their ECO Intention or be distracted by all the concerns, worries and considerations. The Quality of Attention on the Intention is the differentiating factor between good intentions and good impact.

• PRESENCE:

The level of mindfulness that we operate with is the level at which we are really present – present to people, to the situation, to ourselves and are able to sense the said, the unsaid and the emerging possibility.

• How does one develop oneself to be effective in giving and receiving feedback? To be covered in another writeup.

For more information on trainings and interventions that transform the consciousness of the organization and its people, contact: Manoj Onkar: manoj@managementinnovations.co.in 91-9106456275

Inspired by Theory U – by MIT Prof. Dr. Otto Scharmer

Let go the past; Let come the future

MANAGEMENT SALT : How much management is good?

How much management is good?

The guiding principle is: The amount of management required in an organization is inversely proportional to the quality of its people and the quality of alignment among its people.

If your people are a highly competent team of self- generating leaders sourced by the common INTENTION (Purpose), the level of management required is minimum e.g. Salt in cooking.

If you compromise on the competency or alignment of your team, then you have to compensate by excessive management and that leads to a host of impact that an evolved leader or organization doesn’t want to see.

The more management you have – the less leadership you have in your organization. Leaders need minimum management.

How do you create an organization of self- generating competent leaders aligned to the INTENTION of the organization is the key question for the CEO and the top leadership team.

If you do the job of getting the right people – competent people, who have also mastered deep listening and sensing and invest in generating a common PURPOSE – raison d’etre for your organization and the team – you don’t need to do excessive management.

What do you think?

For more information on how you can create an organizational culture of more leadership and initiative from people and reduce the need for too much supervision and management, contact: Manoj Onkar – 91-9106456275; manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

This write up is inspired by Theory U by MIT Porf. Dr. Otto Scharmer

Sales Leadership: Co-Creation

“The success of the intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervenor” – Bill O’Brien, former CEO of Hanover Insurance

The success of a customer relationship depends on the interior condition of the seller.

The interior condition meaning the quality of intention and the quality of attention and Presence.

Is it an EGO Intention? e.g. Getting a Sale, Meeting my target, Convincing the Customer, Buying peace with my boss etc.,

OR

Is it an ECO Intention? Creating something useful for the customer and their people, or the customer and their customers etc.,

What is the quality of Attention?

How much is the attention on the intention and how much is on the distractions.

What is Presence?

Presence is a word made up of 2 words: Present and Sense

It requires deep listening not only to what the customer is saying, but being grounded in the world of customer and learning how to co-create with the customer a future that didn’t exist before.

For more information on Sales Leadership, Contact: Manoj Onkar, manoj@managementinnovations.co.in 91-9106456275.

This write up is based on Theory U by MIT Prof. Dr. Otto Scharmer.

Why Teamwork doesn’t work and how to make it work

Everyone talks about teamwork. But does it really work?

What do you do when you have wrong people on the team? Or People who really don’t know how to work on the team?

What does it take to really make Teamwork Work?

Consider the real issue is *What are you constituted as?*

You can either BE an INDIVIDUAL or BE a TEAM – not both. In the moment, you are being an individual- you are not being a team and in the moment you are being the team – the individual doesn’t exist.

What does it mean to be constituted as a TEAM?

Moment by moment giving up the ego of being an INDIVIDUAL. The boundary of our thinking has to move from that of an Individual to the Team.

EVOLVED TEAM:

An evolved team, is not about the team but about the PURPOSE – raison d’etre of the team.

TIPS:

1. Know that you have an EGO as an Individual.
2. Know that you are by default married to your EGO as an Individual.
3. Your commitment to BEING the TEAM has to win everytime over your default attachment to BEING the INDIVIDUAL
4. Having the right team helps – but at the level of EGO there is no right team. EGO will have an issue with anyone and everyone – sometime or the other.
5. Training your self and your team in the tools of A. DEEP LISTENING and B. FIELDS OF CONVERSATION – covered in earlier write ups will help.

Unless the team is trained in listening at Level 3 and Level 4 reliably – it is not going to discover it’s real power as a team.

Every team meeting that is done at the field 3 and field 4 i.e. Dialogue: Reflective Inquiry and Presencing: Generative flow will go beyond the traditional understanding of the team and the kind of work that the team is able to fulfill.

For more information on transforming team work, collaboration and co-creation in your organization, you may contact: Manoj Onkar 91-9106456275. 91-8767636060 manoj@managementinnovations.co.in

The Future of Leadership

Dear Entrepreneurs, Leaders and Change Makers,

Pleased to share the 11th batch of Leadership from the Emerging Future http://bit.ly/LFEF-Cohort11
The future of the organizations and the society depends on transforming the consciousness with which people, organizations and society operate.
This unique workshop series is designed for developing new kind of leaders. Leaders who are deeply connected to people, sourcefully connected to their Real Self and are co-creating the fulfillment of their Vision.
3 month video conference based workshop series with high interactive sessions and coaching allow a breakthrough in one’s world view as a leader.
Starting from 25th Nov.10 Sessions. Monday evenings: 7.30 pm – 10.00 pm India time.http://bit.ly/LFEF-Cohort11

Contact: Manoj Onkar, MANAGMENT INNOVATIONSGlobal Transformation Champions Group 91-9106456275, 8767636060 manoj@managementinnovations.co.in
P.S.: You may share this information with others who may be interested.

Education 4.0: From Student-Centric to Activating Deeper Sources of Learning

In education and learning we have seen a very similar shift, the journey from:

OS 1.0: Input – Centric operations, revolving around traditional teaching and teachers, to

OS 2.0: Output – Centric, revolving around standardized curricula and teaching for testing, to

OS 3.0: Learner – Centric, which puts the experience of the student at the center of reshaping learning environments, to

OS 4.0: Connecting learners with the sources of creativity and the deepest essence of our humanity, while teaching them to co-sense emerging future possibilities and bring them to fruition.

The most innovative schools are experimenting with Education 4.0

This write up is based on Theory U by MIT Prof. Dr. Otto Scharmer

Healthcare 4.0: From Pathogenesis to Salutogenesis

Realizing that only 20% of health depends on the provision of healthcare services while 60% depends on social, environmental and behavioural factors, one needs to shift the focus from Pathogenesis: Treating the symptoms of illness, to Salutogenesis: Strengthening the social determinants of health and well-being in communities.

Main stream health organizations have transformed from:

OS 1.0: Traditional input-centric operations, revolving around doctors and healthcare insititutions, to

OS 2.0: Output-centric, revolving around evidence based, standards based, and science-centric ways of operating, to

OS 3.0: Patient-Centric experiences for organizing more seamless and innovative ways of providing healthcare services, to

OS 4.0: Strengthening the sources of health and well being (Salutogenesis)

This write up is based on the book – The Essentials of Theory U by MIT Prof. Dr. Otto Scharmer

The Matrix of Economic Transformation: 7 Acupuncture Points that address the challenges of our current Economic Thought