Leadership

Leadership and Development and Emerging Future
Diversity and Inclusion  ·  Leadership  ·  Organisation Development
Learning and Development and Your Emerging Future

Organisational learning is rapidly changing. It concerns both the methods and processes used by the organisation and processing at the individual level. However, if we accept that we have no idea what the world will look like in the next 5, 10 or 20 years, what does learning and development need to look like to facilitate the emerging future of organisations.

The history of individual learning has been shaped by psycho-social theories ( each with their own particular frame of reference). These include:

  • Behaviourism
  • Social learning theory
  • Cognition
  • Constructivism
  • Social constructivism.

We look at the evolution of organisational learning and we believe that the U provides a framework to capture the history, but importantly to give an insight into the future.

Theory U has evolved from the Presencing Institute and provides a dynamic framework for systemic change and development.    The concept of ego to eco is a powerful but simple way to capture this journey.

Historically ….

0.0. Learning was in its purest form, where learning had no parameters. Learning was directly applied to your environment and circumstances. There was lots of innovation and creativity. Transmission of skills and knowledge was through direct observation/ experience and word of mouth (storytelling) and was therefore confined to localised communities.

Exploitative (ego)

1.0. With industrialisation, training was a mechanism of control and exploiting resources, the most important being human beings. Learning was about instilling discipline and compliance. Training only benefited the learner in the realms of them being able to fulfil their function (and often stay alive). Therefore learning is linked solely to employability. Creativity is stripped totally away from the process.

Protectionism (ego)

2.0 Externalities associated with the rise of capitalism are mediated by the introduction of regulation. Examples include legislation to protect employees and the rise of the welfare state. Access to formal education becomes more widely accessible.

Organisations see the benefit of developing staff with more generic skills, to provide more flexibility. Learning is still dominated by the current and immediate future needs of the organisation but sold to staff as relevant upskilling. But learning is autocratic and the learner has a passive disposition in the experience. Organisations design learning to allow staff to function within defined parameters. There is an implicit discomfort or fear of allowing learning beyond parameters. Staff respond to 2.0 with a sense of entitlement. “Tell me what to do”, “Give me the answers”, “Give me the handout”. Such a culture doesn’t encourage any sense of critique, reflection or challenge.

A key cause of the fatal accident of KAL flight 8509 out of Stanstead airport in 1999 was the Korean Air’s autocratic cockpit culture. At that time Korean Air trained cadet pilots to respect hierarchy first and foremost. This meant not opposing (challenging) their Captain what ever happened. In the flight 8509 example, the First Officer knew of the imminent danger, but, in line with his learned culture, he kept quiet. A more autonomous thinking style would have led to a different decision, saving the lives of himself and the other crew members.

Enabling (eco)

3.0. Here we witness the shift from ego to a eco. Technology is prominent in the shift from 2.0 to

  • The first level is the utilisation of technology. Digitial platforms for learning will see virtual reality and augmented learning as a common feature within years. MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are providing amazing platforms that take distance learning to extraordinary levels. A MOOC hosted by the Presencing Institute was able to engage a global audience of 75,000 at no cost to learners.

The second level of technology is a maturing understanding of the learning process. Neuroplasticity provides revelatory insides into the brain’s ability to form new neural connections throughout life.

Organisations began to recognise and respond to individual needs. A more holistic type of learning such as well-being, mindfulness illutrate a shift well beyond an individual’s role. This change also reflects the changing relationship between the organisation and individual. Jobs for life, loyalty and dependency disappear from the vocabulary. This recognises a shift in power in which the individual’s expectation of organisational behaviour increases. (Less need to focus on IQ more on self awareness and EQ)

And so to the future….

A lot of organisational learning processes and platforms provide the capacity to understand the past. For the majority, learning is reflective and helps us to understand the past so we can function in the present. But learning is part of the creative process for defining a new future. What if our current learning cultures and processes have no correlation with our potential future? That means that rather than learning being a liberating process, allowing us to prepare for the best and intended future, we become slaves to the past and simply tinker (rearranging the deck chairs). So in order to ensure that learning is fit for future purpose, we must answer the following questions:

  • What future is trying to emerge in your organisation?
    • What are the learning processes that are required to facilitate that future?
    • What role, using self as the most important change agent will you undertake in the learning?
Organisational consciousness

ORGANISATIONAL NEEDS are the core of why learning exists, its purpose and the consequences of its purpose. Organisations that are profit driven will traditionally have a narrow scope of activity. If it doesn’t add to the bottom line, there is no or little justification in engaging in a learning activity. An example is the diversity agenda. Many organisation push back on diversity and inclusion, because they don’t see how it adds to the bottom line.

If organisational needs are centred in an ego mindset, what shifts an organisation from ego to eco? The shift will be caused by a maturing organisational consciousness. Organisational consciousness is the place in which an organisation’s intention and impact extends beyond its organisational needs. Organisational consciousness is an amalgamation of organisational, individual and societal needs.

INDIVIDUAL NEEDS are where stakeholders, staff, management and shareholders care equally about organisational needs and organisational impact. They want to work for organisations that do good, and this extends to other societal issues. Employees want to develop and grow in ways which traditional organisations did not encounter.

Most learning is geared to only allow a few to shape the future. But if you were able to galvanise the potential of the majority of the organisation, what type of future could they help you to shape and how much quicker. A crucial feature of the future is that organisations need Autonomous Critical Thinkers. Such staff have a stronger emotional, political and social connection to organisations because the relationship is mutually beneficial.

SOCIETAL NEEDS are defined as fundamental disconnects that result in major negative outcomes for majorities. Customers demand more from organisations they engage with. They expect more integrity from products and services. They expect organisations to do good and make organisations more accountable. Abolishment of child labour was driven by customers, not by board members.

We shouldn’t see organisations as simple reactive to these shifts. These are external drivers, but already we are seeing organisations shifting.

ORGANISATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS is important because it will be fundamental to the learning culture and platforms that organisations will need to create their emerging future.

So for learning and development here are 3 key questions that will help you to shape the future of your function:

  1. How do we create the learning culture and platforms that allow our organisations intended future to emerge?
  2. How do we facilitate learning that allows employees to “connect to their best me”?
  3. How do we facilitate learning that allows our organisation to respond positively to societal needs, that exist beyond its organisational need
Some features to consider

Some of the features of learning could involve the following:

Awareness

Organisations need to be aware of their challenges and successes – actual and potential by asking for and acting on feedback from all parts and levels of the organisations – they need to create a culture where ‘failure’ is seen as a learning opportunity – takes time to learn so sometimes need to slow down to speed up!

Transparency

Organisations will need to be more transparent to staff who are autonomous critical thinkers. If you want to optimise the potential of your organisation, then staff need to have a greater understanding, so that they can help shape the future wanting to emerge

Playfulness

Learning is a dynamic process that needs to facilitate, creativity, exploration and discovery.

Prototyping

Learning experience must accelerate the opportunity for innovation – taking calculated risks. The impact is a more innovative culture, change is manageable and positively embraced and failure is quick. Cost effective

Co-creation

Learning experience should break normal boundaries and be inclusive of different clusters of staff, suppliers and clients. Learning and development becomes part of all working parts of the organisation rather than simply an add on or mandatory compliance process.

So what?

The so what is how important is your future and what investment are you willing to make? Change is inevitable, but the challenge is are you simply tinkering or are you truly allowing your potential to emerge.? We advocate that your emerging future is going to be deeply influenced by the quality of learning and maturity of your organisational consciousness.

Akin Thomas is the CEO of AKD Solutions, an international Organisational Change Consultancy.

Email – akin.thomas@akdsolutions.com

Web – www.akdsolutions.com

Linkedin – https://www.linkedin.com/in/akinthomas/

Diversity and Inclusion  ·  Leadership  ·  Organisation Development
Disruptive Learning – a learning method to help your intended future to emerge
Introduction  

Society is evolving rapidly and it feels like often we can’t keep up. Our children will be doing jobs that we’ve never heard of. Business will be conducted in ways which for many of us are unimaginable. So if we don’t know what our world will look like in the next 5, 10, 20 years, how do we prepare our organisations for such uncertainty. What learning methodologies do we need to adopt to allow our people to design and create the future that truly optimizes the possibilities ahead of us?  

The potential of people is huge and yet for the majority sadly squandered. In our organisations lies so much latent talent and yet we have failed to galvanise this and use it for the advantage of our businesses and society as a whole. How have the cultures of our organisations, and the way in which we learn and develop allowed for such inexcusable waste of human brilliance?   

In this paper, we introduce the concept of Disruptive Learning as a tool to address the above. Disruptive Learning is about how we learn forward and not backwards. It’s not a complex idea, but it is unconventional and for many organisations, it will be uncomfortable and counterintuitive. However, nothing great was born from convention, so why are we so determined to cling to it? Disruptive learning is a mindset and thought process for designing learning experiences that challenge the norm, facilitate exploration and discovery. If you want to design the future, then at some point you need to disrupt your present.   

The danger of learning backwards  

Although there is much to be celebrated about how we learn in the workplace, we must acknowledge some key flaws.   

Firstly our learning is heavily influenced by our formal education process. For many of us around the world, we experience an education system designed for an industrial revolution era. At its core is creating a workforce for compliance and conformity. You are rewarded for getting things right and penalised for getting things wrong. This is one of the biggest flaws in how we learn. Mistakes have rewarded us with some of the most significant inventions and breakthroughs that we benefit from now.     

John Pemberton was a biochemist, who fought in the American Civil War and sustained a sabre wound to the chest. This led to an addiction to morphine. Pemberton sought to find a cure for this addiction. Instead, he discovered Coca Cola. Everyone reading this paper has probably used the invention created by Dr Spencer Silver.  Dr Spencer Silver, a 3M scientist, was busily researching adhesives in the laboratory. In the process, he discovered something peculiar: an adhesive that stuck lightly to surfaces but didn’t bond tightly to them. The Post-it was created. 

Percy LeBaron Spencer was working on magnetrons—high-powered vacuum tubes that generate short radio waves called microwaves—when he accidentally discovered microwave cooking. The engineer was doing his job as usual when he noticed that the candy bar in his pocket had melted. Quickly Spencer realized that it was the magnetron that was causing this phenomenon. By 1945, he had filed a patent for his metal cooking box powered by microwaves. 

These are a few obvious examples, but millions more exist. If you reflect on your personal experience, you will probably find that profound learning experiences have often come from getting things wrong. So why do we struggle to embrace this truth?   

Unfortunately, we are taught to fear failure. This is indoctrinated into us as children and remains with us throughout our personal and professional lives. So naturally, it’s a very present feature of many organisations we work for. We have to get things right. Our jobs, our reputations depend upon this.   Therefore our learning processes reinforce this reality. Getting things right may provide gratification, but it depreciates learning opportunities and experience. You may get an immediate reward, but you won’t learn much from getting things right. Our most profound learning often when we got things wrong.  

Your best future cannot be created by playing it safe and striving to get things right. And if we provide learning methodologies and opportunities that reinforce this, we do ourselves, our organisations and our societies a great disservice.   

I was recently listening to Jim Rohn and he said something that resonated:   

“Here’s why we don’t really reach into the future. We are trapped, either by regrets of the past or the routine of the present.  (We are) so busy with the routine of the present that we don’t give much thought to designing the future.  Or (we are)  trapped by the past with regret of past losses, past failures, past mistakes and we relive them over and over again, not for the benefit of changing it for the future, but just because we feel that our lives have been less than favourable, simply because of all the things that have happened to us in the past”.   

This statement is as applicable to an individual as it is to an organisation. Routine can consume all your energy. There is never enough time. We are constantly busy. We are being measured on the “now performance” and if “now” isn’t good enough then there could be serious consequences. Football managers have only a handful of games to get it right before a replacement is being sought. When your shareholders are your boss, there is constant pressure to deliver for the now. So where is the time and space for the future?     

And let’s not forget the regrets that Jim Rohn referred to. Mistakes paralyse leaders and therefore the organisation. And when mistakes are perceived so negatively (and some rightly so), then bravery will retreat and “steady as you go” will come to the fore. Your focus will be on now and ensuring self-preservation rather than creating new spaces of opportunity and possibility.    

We need to recognise the importance of now and optimising now. But we must understand the importance of the future and carve out time to think about this. We need to acknowledge the mistakes of old, learn, but move on. How do we move forward with the right balance?   

Most learning is backwards. We look backwards to create our present. Learning from past mistakes is important. It would be irresponsible not to learn from the past. But here’s the problem. The evidence suggests that we don’t actually learn from the past. If you think on a personal level, the number of times you’ve had to repeat the same life lesson, because we didn’t learn.    

Disruptive Learning  

At the core of this paper is the question “How do we create a learning culture and platforms that allow our organisation’s intended future to emerge?” 

Disruptive learning

The first thing we need to do is learn forward and not backwards. Convention can’t create your intended future. But disruption can. Disruptive learning is a method to enable the fullness of your future to emerge.    

Disruption is now part of the language of business and gradually becoming part of the learning vernacular. But let’s be clear about what disruptive learning is. A dictionary definition of disruptive is to prevent something from continuing or operating in a normal way. For clarity, I am defining disruptive learning as:  

A learning experience that radically challenges conventions and norms and provides the catalyst to new possibilities, opportunities and outcomes.     

Disruptive learning has no predicted outcome other than if you embrace the experience and reflect deeply on the experience, something of immense potential could emerge. Professor Jules Goddard, a fellow at the London Business School helped to shape the concept of Disruptive Learning. He said it’s a challenging learning method that is deliberately deconstructive to allow for new thinking and possibilities to emerge. He continued there are aspects of disruptive learning that may be counterintuitive. Professor Jules Goddard said “ If you think it’s measurable, it’s not worth doing! The real value we bring by definition is immeasurable. We have a sense of whether something is important and making a difference. When you start to put numbers on it, the experience and the potential are distorted.  Measures make it comfortable. 

Uncomfortable..but let’s explore anyway… 

The disruption is highest when the feedback is lowest. When a group of senior executives from France found themselves in a remote village in Mumbai, some simply didn’t want to be there. They were extremely uncomfortable and didn’t understand the purpose. They hated the lack of structure. But the journey didn’t end there and profound learning was the result. It was back in the hotel, in the moments of reflection and discussion that profound learning and ideas emerged, that was transformational for the individuals and the organisation.    

Disruptive learning means that you must be courageous and be willing to look beyond the immediate feedback and trust in the process. The return on investment won’t necessarily come from the actual activity. It will probably come from the experiments that the experience stimulates. “What is the one question that comes from my experience that if we found the answer would have a profound impact on the organisation?” This means we will need to rethink how we evaluate a disruptive learning experience. Conventional measures of learning that we use in organisations will be too restrictive. The evaluation will be the experience, the impact and what emerges. This means courage and patience!  

What does it look like? 

Because Disruptive Learning is unconventional, I can’t give you a nicely presented package. And you shouldn’t want one. What we can do is share some examples of disruptive learning and some of the characteristics you should be seeking to include.   

I asked Professor Jules Goddard about his most disruptive learning experience. He provided two examples: 

Finding Your Voice in a Remote Village in Mumbai  

“It was when I was at the edge. I spent a week in Mumbai, with executives from Danone. We found ourselves remote in a village with no agenda, other than to find our voice and hear the voices of others living very different lives from ours. I still remember the flavours. Some of the executives couldn’t understand why they were there and wanted to leave. We experienced extreme discomfort, physically and mentally. We found a health centre and a school. We taught at the school for a few hours. We placed ourselves in the minds of very different people for a while. Later in a luxury hotel, we had a sense of guilt and voyeurism, but we reflected on our discomforts and mental models. Those who didn’t want to be there suddenly got what’s going on.   

Who is the Most Interesting Person you know? 

On another occasion, Professor Goddard took a group of executives from Prudential to California and hooked up with Andre Norman. Andre Norman is also known as the Ambassador of Hope. Andre’s years were framed by crime and violence and led him to be sentenced to over 100 years in prison. Whilst in solitary confinement Andre had an epiphany, went from an illiterate to teaching himself law, and eventually won an appeal after 14 years. Professor Goddard team up with Andre Norman with a group of executives with the objective of “finding the most interesting person in the city”.      

We went into the most dangerous parts of LT in a car. We drove around, when saw someone interesting, we stopped the car and ask the person “who is the most interesting person in the hood”. We met some remarkable people.  We did this 5 times and ended up meeting a woman hosting 25 homeless people in a park. We talked 3-4 hours to this woman and those who were homeless. I recall it had a profound impact on HR Director. She stayed in contact with one of the people for at least one year after the experience.  

The Elizabeth Line       

When the  Elizabeth line is fully opened it will be the technologically advanced railway in Europe.  What stood out was that his most profound learning when he was scared (words somewhat edited!).   He was doing things he had never done, he was getting things wrong in front of prominent people, in some ways he was screwing up.  But the learning was profound. On reflection, he saw that nothing in a classroom had created an emotional and profound learning experience.   

Designing a Disruptive Learning Experience  

The key thing to remember in your design is that you only create the framework and the spark to ignite the experience. The rest is down to those involved.    

So what are some of the characteristics of disruptive learning experiences: 

Discomfort  

The common denominator for all disruptive learning experiences is discomfort.  

Steve Murphy is the Managing Director of MTR Elizabeth line in London. He recalled having to deal with the most controversial industrial relations issue the industry had faced in a generation. On top of that, he had to face Bob Crow, one of the UK’s most formidable union leaders. Steve Murphy recognised the issue had the potential to destroy the company he had built and rip the industry apart. On reflection, he said that his most profound learning was when he was genuinely afraid. “It turned out to be really successful, but what made me focus and perform at a high level was fear”. 

Chizoba Mojekwu, the former HR Director for the Central Bank of Nigeria, recalls a 9-day course at the Harvard Business School. She recalled she spent 3 of the days in tears (along with other colleagues).  She noted that the pain was worth it for a profound learning experience that has never left her.   

We are not advocating that you deliberately make people cry or construct scenarios with the intent of scaring people to death. But there must be discomfort. If you accept that convention will not allow your best future to emerge, then you need to create a framework for learning that places people in uncomfortable (but managed) circumstances.   

Forget the classroom! 

In our research, another common feature is that disruptive learning doesn’t take place in a classroom or sitting in front of a computer. It is more likely to take place in an unusual location with people you normally don’t engage with. Professor Jules Goddard participates in a village outside of Mumbai and to the suburbs of California, not normally reserved for senior executives of global brands.   

Going with your gut! 

A lot of the learning experiences I’ve developed for clients have been intuitive, lacked a lot of structure, but were unbelievable impactful. The parameters were outlined and within this space, we provide freedom to see what would happen. 

Playfulness  

One of the most powerful and liberating learning methodologies. It is the most natural form of learning.  Playfulness has two key components, exploration and problem-solving. But when children begin they play, they don’t have a structure for what the issue is nor an intended endpoint. But through play, they discover both. We need to liberate those designing the future to play.   

Carefully Constructed Chaos 

Often disruptive learning is an experience that is in the moment and without rehearsal. We need to help people recognise, reflect and truly embrace these experiences to optimise them. 

We can also construct these experiences. A great way to describe it is Carefully Constructed Chaos.  This means carefully constructing the parameters of the experience, but allowing the middle (the content, the chaos) to emerge.  

Also remember the experience itself is only one component of the experience. True learning will often follow through reflection and asking deeper, more challenging and meaningful questions than would have been previously generated. 

To carefully construct chaos you first need to understand what normality is to those involved. You need to gain some insight into the individuals involved to gain some understanding of the professional and personal challenges they have experienced. I work with an amazing charity, Breaking the Silence, which works with victims of domestic violence, forced marriage and human trafficking. I have included them in the design of some leadership programmes because I know that participants will find it hugely uncomfortable and transformative. But if there are victims/survivors of domestic violence then it would not fulfil a chaotic dimension. 

Often these are constructed engaging with people outside of the participants’ normal social field.   The London Business School has facilitated sessions where former gang members and ex-prisoners have worked with senior executives, allowing them to explore London in ways that for them are unimaginable.  

The Role of Technology  

Technology is now an inextricable part of life, including learning.  Therefore we need to understand its role in disruptive learning. 

Artificial Intelligence is a good starting point.  Artificial Intelligence is “The theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages.” (1)  Amazon Web Services also mentions learning, problem-solving and pattern recognition in their definition.(2).   

AI has four key components: human thinking, rational thinking, human acting and rational acting.   AI wants to think like a human, but move beyond so that it can think and act in the most rational, optimised way. This is powerful, but can it be disruptive?  If we agree that human creativity is responsible for the future, can AI create the future or merely optimise the here and now. No doubt geniuses are working hard to achieve this.   

What technology provides is accessibility and connectivity. We can access information in ways which are incredible and connect with people and ideas that were inconceivable even 10 years ago. But this does come with a health warning. Technology can democratize information. However, the notion of personalisation can be counterintuitive to democratisation. The architects of social media seek to understand your profile and preference and then push information to you that suits who your persona says you are. This is particularly prevalent in our politics, where we see how political parties are using social media to carefully pinpoint campaign information that suits your profile.  

Netflix will suggest you may want to watch this, and more often than not we trust these recommendations. Personalisation may make it easier to sift through the noise, but it can also make us lazy. Disruptive Learning requires you to be intentional, going beyond what Facebook or Twitter or YouTube predict you will engage with. Disruptive Learning requires you to deliberately seek out new ideas and new people.     

Who is disruptive learning for? 

Disruptive learning is a tool that should be used by anyone who has responsibility for imaging and creating the future for an institution. Here we focus on organisations. (corporate, public or voluntary).  But it can be applied on a micro lee 

When should you apply Disruptive Learning?   

Disruptive Learning is a tool that you should use sparingly, otherwise, you lose the uniqueness and flavour of the experiences. I think that two great opportunities for disruptive learning are: 

  • Developing new and emerging leaders  
  • When there is deliberate space for future planning  

When working with new and emerging leaders, you want them to be responsible for the present, but more importantly the future. They are the talent, that likely to have some responsibility for governing the future, so surely they should have a stake in creating it. By applying disruptive learning in their formative years as leaders, you create a foundation, which will be profound and shape how they lead. 

When your organisation is embarking on planning the future of your organisation, be brave enough to rip up the rule book, start with a blank sheet and facilitate a disruptive learning experience. It will remove the barriers of convention and allow them to explore possibilities that other “workshops sessions” will potentially inhibit. From the experience, questions and hypotheses will emerge that will allow for a much fuller experience of future planning.  

Akin Thomas is the founder and CEO of AKD Solutions  

Diversity and Inclusion  ·  Leadership  ·  Organisation Development
This year taught me…

My team asked me what has this year taught me.  The answer is sooo much.  There have been many moments of brilliance, passion and just humanity at it’s best. Unfortunately the opposite is also true.  While keeping it real, I need to ensure you want to read to the end.  So here’s what this year taught me.  

Too few of us have the appetite to ask the big questions and seek solutions.   

I fundamentally believe that the quality of any society is in how it treats it’s less fortunate and how it behaves in times of challenge.  How can it be that we are the 6th largest economy in the world and yet hard working families have to go to food banks to survive.  How did we get to a place where the statement “eat or heat” is so prevalent in our society’s vocabulary.  These things don’t just happen by accident. Look at other nations.  But if we are not willing to look beyond our own personal interests (starting at the top) and seek better for others, we experience what see now.  

We have short memories!! 

Eighteen months ago we clapped for our heroes and couldn’t praise them enough.  At that time I wrote and said that history has provided us an opportunity to make radically choices that would address historical inequalities for healthcare and other workers.  And late me justify this statement 4 billion pound was spent on PPE which wasn’t fit for purpose and unusable. The moment was lost. 

Fast forward 18 months clapping doesn’t pay bills.  We can’t say we value you in one breath and then begin a narrative of being unreasonable (and militant) when they say, well prove it!  I don’t pretend these issues are easy.  But if you step into leadership….lead.   

People are prepared to have difficult conversations and experience discomfort.    

One of the most encouraging features of 2022 is the increasing number of people who are willing to have conversations that are difficult and uncomfortable.  I’ve had conversations that 5 – 10 years ago were inconceivable.  I’ve had profound conversations with Exec members and senior leaders about race, neurodiversity, mental health, which are changing the thinking and behaviours of others.  I’ve had many conversations that 5 – 10 years, would not have taken place.  There is an appetite to understand the lived experience of others and rethink how can we create greater inclusivity.  This has been so refreshing.  Its not a straight forward and ugly moments still co-exist.  But when lets celebrate the steps forward.   

“If nothing else be intentional about being the very best version of you and when you do this, your sense of peace and satisfaction will be priceless.  “

Akin Thomas

We need more stimulating conversations  

Stimulating conversations are provoked by questions that force us to have dific 

Disruption is key to a bright future  

Les Brown said ““If You Do What is Easy Your Life Will Be Hard. But if You Do What is Hard Your Life Will Be Easy.” I don’t agree with the statement in full, but I get the sentiment.  If you want a sense of achievement and fulfilment, it’s not likely to come from simply repeating what you’ve always done.   Disrupt your normality and you will create a space for opportunities and experiences that could fundamentally shift your trajectory.    

Be intentional about life  

I’ve always believed this, but so much more this year. Make deliberate decisions that you will appreciate friends and family, that you will laugh every day, that you will be kind.  When you shine then those around you benefit from the warm, the sense of safety and growth.    

If nothing else be intentional about being the very best version of you and when you do this, your sense of peace and satisfaction will be priceless.     

Written by Akin Thomas, CEO and Founder of AKD Solutions

For more information on AKD visit our website here www.akdsolutions.com

Equally Yours  ·  Leadership  ·  Organisation Development
Coaching Advisory Panel

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A wonderful serenity

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Equally Yours  ·  Leadership  ·  Organisation Development
Making Basketball more inclusive and diverse: AKD Solutions and BWB

AKD and BWB making Basketball more inclusive and diverse.

We are really proud to announce our newest client, British Wheelchair Basketball.  We are working with them to explore how to make the sport even more diverse and inclusive.  

Wheelchair basketball is a fast-paced and fast-growing sport that allows non-disabled and disabled people to compete together in its domestic leagues and competition. British Wheelchair Basketball is the governing body for wheelchair basketball in the United Kingdom. Currently there are 17,000 people playing the sport with the hope of growing it to 70,000.

The first thing on our agenda was to watch a match and see this exciting sport in action, we were not disappointed! Ladi, Nana and Akin watched East London Phoenix win their opening match against the Cardiff Met Archers, one of the first matches in the Women’s Professional League, the first disabled professional league in the UK.  It was brilliant game and we were privileged to be part of this historic event.  

“We are really pleased to be working with British Wheelchair Basketball.It is a great organisation who recognize the challenges in diversifying their sport and we value their honesty and transparency in tackling these issues. We are at AKD are looking forward to working together with BWB.”

We are looking forward to working alongside British Wheelchair Basketball as they set out to make basketball more inclusive. We will be sharing with you the great work we are doing so do follow us on this journey.

Make sure you check out the fixtures and get to a British Wheelchair Basketball match, we promise you will be amazed and inspired!

British Wheelchair Basketball we are super excited to be working with you.  Signup to our FREE Sports ACE Leadership taster workshop, this disruptive workshop is designed for sport Leaders, find our more here.‍

Download our racial diversity report #tellyourstory here.

We are always adding to our free leadership and management courses and demos, to spark brilliance by designing and delivering stimulating, challenging and fun learning experiences and training programs. Our ACE free online Leadership Workshops can be found here. Contact Us for a FREE demo on 0345 034 1105 or email info@akdsolutions.com

Equally Yours  ·  Leadership  ·  Organisation Development
This Year Has Taught Me…

This year taught me… that the work we do is making a difference.  I had to think carefully about this as I wanted to ensure it is taken in the right context.  It is not written from a sense of pride or arrogance but from humility.  

At the beginning of the year, we embarked on a company defining project, #TellYourStory. We were commissioned by UK Sport, Sport England, Sport Wales, Sport Northern and Sport Scotland to research Race and Racism in Sport. It was a deeply personal piece of work for all involved. The team were all passionate about sport and had all experienced racism in different guises.  We were upfront with the councils that it was more than a piece of research and they gave us permission to be ourselves and deliver this project in an authentic way.

We had the belief that we were the right people

This year taught me, just do it. On paper, we had fewer credentials and experience than our competitors. But there was a belief that was energetic and contagious, some in the team would say “hubris”!! But we had a belief that we were the right people to do it. So don’t doubt yourself. Leave that to others!    

325 people, from 38 sports across the UK participated. The participants were comprised of professionals and grassroots participants including; coaches, officials, parents and volunteers. Despite concerns and some hesitancy, they trusted us to share their stories and lived experiences.  

If you as a leader have no impact then you are taking up space

The quality of leadership on the project shown by Heather and Ladi was phenomenal. They were driven by purpose. If leadership has no impact then they are taking up space. But impact must be driven by purpose. I witnessed this in the whole team. They gave a voice to many people who had been silenced for years and some even decades. The process was traumatic for many who took part both participants and the team, but they pushed on.  

The team worked around the clock: interviewing, analysing, debating, editing and proofreading. They worked innumerable hours despite challenging personal circumstances. Why? We all understood how important this work was not just to the Sports Council and those who had taken part  but to potentially thousands of current and future participants of sport.  

#TellYourStory is a powerful report, that captures people’s stories as well as  their lived experience and then helps to shape the way forward. It has been amazing to experience such a positive response to the project. The creation of the ACE model of leadership is a watershed moment and to see different sporting bodies engaging with the model and working with us on how to use it to advance diversity and equality in their organisation is transformational.  

Be unapologetic about being who you are

This year has taught me to be unapologetic about being who we are and recognising that we have so much to offer the world. I didn’t learn but I was reminded that I have a brilliant team whose energy and commitment is hard to rival. This year has taught me that despite ups and downs, keep dreams alive because they do come true!

Read #TellYourStory research here

We are always adding to our free leadership and management courses and demos, to spark brilliance by designing and delivering stimulating, challenging and fun learning experiences and training programs. Our ACE free online Leadership Workshops can be found here. Contact Us for a FREE demo on 0345 034 1105 or email info@akdsolutions.com

Diversity and Inclusion  ·  Leadership
Can you do culture via Zoom?

Many people have returned to an office this week for the first time in 18 months, but for others their roles are now a hybrid mix, or they’re working permanently from the kitchen table.  

Across the pandemic it’s been amazing to see how people have demonstrated agility and developed new work patterns. We’ve seen managers and leaders step up and engage in innovative ways. One of our clients – a rail company was operating effectively from people’s homes. When you think about that, it’s mind boggling.

So, we’re all talking about the ‘new norm’. But can you do culture via zoom?

A lot of organisations struggle to create the desired values and behaviours when they are in communal spaces. So how much more difficult is it when teams are scattered and physically disconnected, operating from front rooms, kitchens and bedrooms?

People have started new jobs and have never physically met their manager or colleagues. We have witnessed some innovative ways of inducting people. But inductions give insights, they are not the full introduction to culture. They do not represent the lived experience of who we are and how we are, that gives that sense of belonging. We’ve got to exercise caution in thinking that the new norm is inevitably working from home, making innumerable Zoom calls.  

We don’t deny a new norm, we love the challenge of new. But if you want to maintain your uniqueness, you are going to have to be far more intentional about really understanding what your organisational culture is. How does it translate in a virtual world, how do we adapt without losing our essence?

The workplace has been redefined. The idea of commuting to a central location is no longer an expectation. But even working from home can test your tolerance. It can be a lonely, isolated space. We envisage an increase in local hubs for people to connect, occupied by people from different working genres.  

There is something enriching and exciting knowing that you can share a space with a creative, a developer, a social worker and a Head of HR for a global brand, that you’re together under one roof.  

We believe these experiences can bring a richness of sharing, connectivity and creativity. But such associations only enrich if everyone can bring their cultural nuances to the party.

Culture requires connectivity; the question is can you do it via Zoom?  

The construct of organisations is going to bear heavily on their culture. In his book The Second Curve: Thoughts on Reinventing Society, Charles Handy talks of the contractual organisation, where fewer people are directly employed, but instead contract their services. The benefits for the organisation are reduced overheads and greater agility. But the downside is there will be no sense of community in a contractual organisation, core values are very hard to embed and what incentive is there for loyalty.

Another important factor is understanding the characteristics of your organisation’s culture. The Harvard Business Review published The Leader’s Guide to Corporate Culture, by Boris Groysberg, Jeremiah Lee, Jesse Price and J. Yo-Jud Cheng. They found that eight characteristics emerge when they mapped cultures along two dimensions: how people interact (independence to interdependence) and their response to change (flexibility to stability).  

• Caring focuses on relationships and mutual trust

• Purpose is exemplified by idealism and altruism  

• Learning is characterised by exploration, expansiveness, and creativity

• Enjoyment is expressed through fun and excitement  

• Results are characterised by achievement and winning

• Authority is defined by strength, decisiveness, and boldness  

• Safety is defined by planning, caution, and preparedness

• Order is focused on respect, structure, and shared norms

We shouldn’t see any one of these as better than another. Note some individuals will be find it easier to adjust (learning, caring, purpose) than others (authority, order).  

It means some organisations need to be more intentional than others. For those where more thought is required, external help will be needed, because the skills, competency and mindsets will not sit naturally within the leadership pool.  

Photo by Compare Fibre on Unsplash

We are always adding to our free leadership and management courses and demos, to spark brilliance by designing and delivering stimulating, challenging and fun learning experiences and training programs. Our ACE free online Leadership Workshops can be found here. Contact Us for a FREE demo on 0345 034 1105 or email info@akdsolutions.com

Equally Yours  ·  Leadership
Building a Better Society

It’s the third-largest building society in the UK and in August celebrates its 157th birthday. Despite its age and reputation, Yorkshire Building Society has never rested on its laurels. It knows that to stay relevant and retain and grow its market share it has to be a proactive and forward thinking organisation. And since 2020 AKD Solutions has had the pleasure of working with this northern powerhouse.

After George Floyd’s murder, the company held up a mirror and realised there was an urgent need for it to improve, specifically around diversity and inclusion. Its headquarters are in Bradford, one of the UK’s most ethnically diverse cities, but this was not fully reflected in its employee base or corporate culture.

We were brought in to share our expertise. We are really enjoying working with Yorkshire Building Society’s Executive and Senior Leadership teams, who’ve embraced the bespoke learning experiences that we’ve developed.

We want to acknowledge Jane Croutha, Amy Ficil and Tracy Newton whose passion and drive to make positive long term changes at Yorkshire Building Society has been phenomenal.

Combined, they emphasised preparedness and detail, but they also welcomed the AKD stretch into new ways of thinking. They fully leaned in, and consequently, we’ve been able to do some brilliant work with the teams around diversity and inclusion.

Yorkshire Building Society colleagues have taken on board new ideas and experiences, had honest and open conversations and have spoken about the profound impact these have had on them. Colleagues understand how they can use these learning experiences to change themselves professionally, as individuals and organisationally.

It’s been an open and transparent relationship which, like the county’s other major domestic export, Yorkshire tea, is just refreshing.

We are always adding to our free leadership and management courses and demos, to spark brilliance by designing and delivering stimulating, challenging and fun learning experiences and training programs. Our ACE free online Leadership Workshops can be found here. Contact Us for a FREE demo on 0345 034 1105 or email info@akdsolutions.com

Leadership  ·  Organisation Development  ·  Team building
What does ‘Freedom Day’ say about leadership?

The government has dropped most of the measures which have reduced the spread of COVID-19 in England. This is happening despite a steep rise in the infection rate due to the Delta variant, particularly amongst the unvaccinated.

The UK has rightly received global praise for its vaccination rollout, but is “freedom day” a masterstroke or a mistake?. Risk taking is part of leadership, but learning from previous errors is also integral to future success.

From 19th July, businesses in England can open ‘as normal’, with no social-distancing requirements, and mask-wearing is no longer necessary in public spaces. Indeed, on the stroke of midnight, some nightclubs threw open their doors, and for the first time in 16 months welcomed exhilarated ravers. The lifting of restrictions is undoubtedly a much needed boost for business generally but particularly for the entertainment industry,

In Scotland, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has taken a more cautious approach. She is maintaining “sensible precautions” while the vaccine programme continues. Scotland has moved to level zero, but mandatory use of face coverings will remain in place for “some time”; limits on outdoor meetings are maintained, and workers’ return to offices is delayed.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has said that face coverings remain mandatory on the capital’s public transport systems. Other regional mayors are backing the move, whilst Uber, Ryanair and easyJet will also continue to enforce mask wearing.

Infections in the United Kingdom are now at similar levels to those of last winter’s devastating second wave of the pandemic, and rising. Deaths are far lower due to the success of the vaccination rollout, but they too are on the increase.

The loosening of restrictions is “a recipe for disaster”, says Dr Stephen Griffin, a virologist and associate professor at the University of Leeds school of medicine. He said: “For a government to abdicate itself from responsibility in terms of guiding people, I think that’s just wrong. Because even if the vast majority of people are sensible as they suggest, it only takes a minority to undo that altruism because masks prevent us from spreading the virus primarily.”

Has England’s population become Guinea pigs in an unprecedented public-health experiment that could result in large numbers of hospitalisations and deaths? Or is this a brave calculated move that will be an example for others to follow?

Only time will tell. The world has its eyes on the UK.

 We are always adding to our free leadership and management courses and demos, to spark brilliance by designing and delivering stimulating, challenging and fun learning experiences and training programs. Our ACE free online Leadership Workshops can be found here. Contact Us for a FREE demo on 0345 034 1105 or email info@akdsolutions.com