Innovation Rules

In Appreciative Inquiry, businesses are always on and hyper-connected, there is no shortcut for building a trustful workplace, transparency is a must. 

When we jump into the digital future of “VUCA” new normal, people often talk about change as though it is uni-dimensional, or a universal commodity. In fact, change nowadays is multifaceted with increasing speed. Business leaders need to envision and share their perspectives on digital transformation with vast stakeholders of the companies. 

To engage talented employees and drive progressive change, it’s important to follow the so-called “heliotropic principle”: People move in the direction of the most positive future for them. People like to change, but dislike being changed. Either individually or collaboratively, set the right goals, take calculated risks, and act in a stepwise manner.

Words create worlds: Communication is perhaps one of the most important soft factors in change management success. Communication could either lubricate or stifle change, people engagement goes both ways; the leader is sending out information but also listening to the receiver. Keep in mind though, with unprecedented uncertainty, there is no "perfect language" and there are no perfect interlocutors in communication. Every change is technically a problem solving scenario, through communicating problems with words clearly to other minds, and reframe the question with a new level of thinking, a fresh mind with cognitive differences can perhaps solve the problem seamlessly.

Words create worlds. The language may cause reactions in your mind, speaking, behavior - provoke you and influence on you. If you want to be understandable, you have to choose from a set of symbols, a set of rules, but even when we make a mistake, you may still be understandable. You can't build trust or establish good communication if you don't engage with people. Great communication makes people feel more empowered and engaged in the business, and creates business synergy.

Positive energy leads to positive actions: Positive thinking evokes betterment and leads to a brighter future. It’s the mentality to drive a positive attitude and help you conquer the current barriers in order to embrace the brighter future, and creates energy and synergy in pursuit of long-term vision and growth. Change is often stressful, a positive mental attitude is focused on strengths, opportunities, and inspired actions. It's very necessary to remain focused, mindful of the present and consciously develop a profound spirit of appreciation, make change possible.

What is positive thinking? It’s idealistic realism and cautious optimism. Being positive is looking on the bright side of all (internal) and reflecting that positivity outwards for others to benefit from and add to. To make progressive change, a good positive chain of thoughts followed by positive actions brought good results. So you feel everything taking its proper course and going into shape. Change is often a collaborative effort, a positive mind appreciates other's strength, creates positive energy in the working environment, not only drives change but sustains change effects.

Quality relationships expand quality relationships: The business ecosystem is complex and the organization is contextual. It becomes complex if things do interact, particularly in the case of "non-linear" interactions with interdependent relationships. For driving transformative change, gaining the knowledge necessary to understand and manage holistic digital ecosystems. Without the contextual understanding of people, process, and technology, the blind spots and gaps are inevitable. It’s important to build up a quality relationship between functions, without the good business relationships, every decision becomes an argument. The deeper the trust, the more valuable the relationship.

In Appreciative Inquiry, businesses are always on and hyper-connected, there is no shortcut for building a trustful workplace, transparency is a must. Progress of change comes from innovative "vision statements" stories of the future. Having a story in mind for dynamic visualization is critical to business success from the current state to future state for enablement and implementation of business strategy, and then, manage the complex system and the people of the complex system as the organic living thing.

With “VUCA” new normal, we cannot predict anything beforehand but can imagine with many experiences involved in current or in the past. As matter of a fact, uncertainties are a common occurrence in any walk of our progress, be it social, professional or personal life. The challenges, competitions, and complexities may be on the increase but along with it there comes the increase in opportunity as well and in the form of demand. To deal with it smoothly, business leaders need to steer the organization in the right direction, follow Heliotropic principles- people move in the direction of the most positive future for them, make collective progress and ensure change sustainable.

Posted in: Innovation,Principle/Practice