Recently I completed facilitating my ninth Cognitive Edge Archetype, Theme, and Value workshop. This method involves allowing a group of people to share stories (possibly customers talking about a product or experience with receiving a service, patient’s experiences when receiving care in hospitals, employees about everyday work, etc.) in a certain context and then running wall exercises (papered walls with lots of hexagon-shaped post-it notes) to identify the emergent archetypes, themes, and values that are embedded in the stories that were shared. As a variation of this you can have a group also review other types of material such as news articles, photos, artwork, etc. and include this material with stories that are told by the participants. I ran a variation of this workshop with a group of eContent conference attendees earlier this year for which an article was written.
One common way of using the outputs of this workshop is to contrast two group’s perspectives on stories or other material of the same topic or subject. So for example you can have management and the employees that report to them in two separate workshops covering very similar material but arriving at their own emergent archetypes, themes, and values. The contrast between the groups serves as a way to see how their perceptions and beliefs are biased based on their experiences and perspectives. It is great to bring these groups together to then make sense of the results. One of the things we ask in sense-making workshops is for the perspective groups to explain to each other the similarities, differences, and surprises between the two sets of outputs. This in itself offers a significant intervention method to get two groups to appreciate their differing views, have the opportunity self-reflect on and realize some of their own biases, and move to action on the basis of appreciating and better understanding each other. Some of this can be hard to take since the authenticity of disclosure in these workshops, I find, is always surprising.
Just like the bees and ants (see previous post) work at the agent level unaware of the patterns of their interaction at the group level, participants in archetype, theme, and value workshops engage in activities which in the end yield a set of cultural indicators (As, Ts, and Vs). If the participating group is a good proxy for a larger organization then the cultural indicators provide a good representation of the dominant cultural traits held by the organization. Contrasting between perspective groups reveals biases between such groups and allows for the ability to identify potential synergies and conflict points. Creating a condition for such sense making has high utility for improving management / staff relations, supporting mergers and acquisitions, and helping sales and marketing groups better understand their customers and target markets. However the approach requires that you facilitate emergence and do not impose any frameworks or hypothesis onto the process.
By Michael Cheveldave
Comments (4)
Hey Michael,
Just wondering if you could share some experiences with the audience regarding post-workshop action plans, follow-through, and organizational recognition of value-attained. What are some ways that your clients have taken their insights forward? What has worked/not worked for you in helping them take innovative insight and turn it into tangible organizational follow-through?
It's just something I've experienced as a point of frustration in some contexts (especially corporate America - South Africa was more amenable) and am wondering if you have advice on the topic. Even in situations where the process and workshops have been acknowledged as being exceptionally valuable and worthwhile, the inability for clients (and me!) to communicate back and justify the expense of the process to the organization in terms that it understands and values, has led to many once-off engagements with little follow-on or recurring work. Interested in your thoughts.
Cool to see you blogging.
Speak soon - Cory
Posted by Cory Costanzo | August 30, 2007 1:06 PM
Posted on August 30, 2007 13:06
Thanks Michael for your Blog, I find it motivating to compare and contrast my experiences with another practitioner. I have been using various adaptations of the practice you describe to assist supply-chain entities appreciate and understand differences and similarities between them as part of the drive to achieve greater 'green' sustainability. The practice I have found works well in enabling people whose basic work focus vary significantly create a holistic conversation about the supply-chain's activities.
I hope this initiative of a guest 'practitioner' blogger leads to the sharing of the day-to-day value and different applications of the techniques that I believe has not been captured yet in any formal text.
Bruce
Posted by Bruce McKenzie | August 30, 2007 10:02 PM
Posted on August 30, 2007 22:02
Hi Cory,
Contrasting ATVs between perspective groups is a great way to get people away from thinking "I'm right and you're wrong" to "we are looking at the same thing but you see it this way which is completely different from how I see it". Once they see there perceptual differences people can more effectively discuss solutions or changes that can help move their organizations forward (i.e. improving employee morale, create a culture that contributes more effectively to a high performing organization, deeper customer insights, etc.)
One of the things we do in workshops is to get mixed teams working on "safe fail" experiments that can help with moving the organization in a desired strategic direction. So after they appreciate and better understand their differing perspectives (employees to mgrs, customers to sales/marketing staff, two companies in an M&A, etc.) through the creation of cultural indicators, they then get to work on designing action plans. However for the complex issues the actions are as noted above "safe fail" which means we do not know how the actions will have impact but they are designed to safely fail in case the impact is in an undesirable direction. This is the convergent point in the work and it strikes resonance with folks that have a strong inclination to move to action. It also sets up follow-up requirements for monitoring and engagement with the perspective groups that are brought together. In one project a group arrived at 15 action items many of which were very quick and easy to do. Ironically it was some of the smaller things that had a bigger impact.
I agree with you that demonstrating the value of this work is a challenge up front. I often mention 3M to convey this concept. Namely if 3M did an ROI on giving their scientists 10% of their time to dream and do whatever they wanted what would have been the results of the business case? And yet if in retrospect you calculate the value of the ROI this investment provided from all of the innovations they came up with what would that be? I think in this contrast lies a large part of the justification of doing this type of work. If we acknowledge complex challenges such as culture, knowledge sharing, resilient strategic planning, and innovation to name a few, then organizations should be able to warrant some investment in these areas. If it's all about hard measures and low risk ROI then organizations adopting these approaches will remain stable but not resilient and highly vulnerable to shifts in contexts.
Posted by Michael | September 1, 2007 3:17 PM
Posted on September 1, 2007 15:17
Thanks for the note Bruce. I think this is exactly what Dave and Steve are hoping from the guest blog. With a mix of practitioners and academics I think we have a chance to make this space along with Dave's blog a rich learning space related to the practice and theory behind this work. Let's see what emerges!
Posted by Michael | September 1, 2007 3:20 PM
Posted on September 1, 2007 15:20