Sherpa Alliance

Agility doesn’t happen by accident, it happens by design.  We might be tempted to think that “keeping things loose, unstructured and organic around here” is the best way to be agile.  Wrong, unless a chaotic stampede is what you are looking for.   We can’t afford for things to be too loose, unstructured and organic if we want agility.  We also can’t afford for things to be too tight, structured and inorganic/rigid either if we want agility.  It’s an “and” proposition of loose and tight, structured and unstructured, organic and rigid and many other “and” propositions in the mix (Mastering the Challenge of the “and” ).

It’s not an “or” proposition, where we have to choose one or the other of these seeming opposites.  Agility comes from the realization that they are not mutually exclusive opposites and that creative approaches can allow us to combine the best of both worlds, by design.  That’s what “design” is all about – the art and science of creative approaches to architect these “and” propositions into a harmonious integration of form, fit and function.

The key is Integrative thinking.  In his June 2007 Harvard Business Review article, “How Successful Leaders Think”, Roger martin reinforces the concept of “Integrative Thinking”, saying:

 “They [leaders] have the predisposition and the capacity to hold in their heads two opposing ideas at once.  And then, without panicking or simply settling for one alternative or the other, they’re able to creatively resolve the tension between those two ideas by generating a new one that contains elements of the others but is superior to both.  This process of consideration and synthesis can be termed integrative thinking.  It is this discipline – not superior strategy or faultless execution – that is the defining characteristic of most exceptional businesses and the people who run them."

Roger Martin urges us to focus less on what great leaders do,  as that is situational and what works in one context, time and place may not work in others, and focus more on how they think, “to examine the antecedent of doing, or the ways in which leaders’ cognitive processes produce their actions”.  He likens our “opposable thumb”, which allows us the agility of being able to do intricate things like threading a needle, to our “opposable mind”.  As F. Scott Fitzgerald said:

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function”.

The trouble is that the complexity, ambiguity and uncertainty of integrative thinking is uncomfortable for many of us and we tend to short-circuit it, with potentially dangerous consequences (5 Dangerous Detours and 10 Mental Modes to Avoid Them).  Instead, Roger Martin identifies 4 steps and how to differentiate ourselves, as integrative thinkers from conventional thinkers, at each step:

• Determining Salience (Figuring out which factors to take into account)
  • Conventional Thinkers:  focus only on the obviously relevant
  • Integrative Thinkers:  seek less obvious but potentially relevant factors
  • More salient factors make for a messier problem, but integrative thinkers don’t mind the mess.  In fact, they embrace it, because it assures them that they haven’t dismissed anything that may illuminate the problem as a whole.  They welcome complexity, because that’s where the best answers come from.  They are confident that they’ll find their way through it and emerge on the other side with a clear resolution.  (Simplicity & Complexity)
• Analyzing Causality (analyzing how the numerous salient factors relate to one another)
  • Conventional Thinkers:  consider one-way, linear relationships between variables, in which more of A produces more of B
  • Integrative Thinkers:  consider multidirectional and nonlinear relationships among variables
  • The integrative thinker isn’t afraid to question the validity of apparently obvious links or to consider multi-directional and nonlinear relationships.  How many times has a superior scolded you for making a problem more complicated than it needs to be?  You protest that you’re not trying to complicate anything; you just want to see the problem as it really is.
• Envisioning the Decision Architecture (with a good handle on the causal relationships between salient factors, you’re ready to turn to the decision itself.  But which decision?  The order in which you make decisions will affect the outcome)
  • Conventional Thinkers:  break problems into pieces and work on them separately or sequentially
  • Integrative Thinkers:  see problems as a whole, examining how the parts fit together and how decisions affect one another
  • Integrative thinkers don’t break down a problem into independent pieces and work on them separately or in a certain order.  They see the entire architecture of the problem – how the various parts fit together, how one decision will affect another.  Just as important, they hold all of the pieces suspended in their minds at once.
• Achieving Resolution (all of these stages – determining what is salient, analyzing the causal relationships between the salient factors, examining the architecture of the problem – lead to an outcome)
  • Conventional Thinkers:  make either-or choices; settle for best available options
  • Integrative Thinkers:  creatively resolve tensions among opposing ideas; generate innovative outcomes
  • Instead of rebelling against the meager and unattractive alternatives, instead of refusing to settle for the best available bad choice, the conventional thinker shrugs and asks, “what else could we have done?”.   “Much else” the integrative thinker says.  A leader who embraces holistic rather than segmented thinking can creatively resolve the tensions that launched the decision making process.

He goes on to say, “those who are conventional thinkers seek simplicity along the way and are often forces to make unattractive trade-offs.  By contrast, integrative thinkers welcome complexity – even if it means repeating one or more steps – and this allows them to craft innovative solutions”. 

This kind of mental agility is at the core of organizational agility.  Its how great designers and architects think and work.  That’s what our work is about – helping you develop the advantage of organizational agility, by design, and be the architect of a breakthrough journey for your business. 

In the April 2009 edition of Inc Magazine, in an interview with Jim Collins on the topic of “How to Thrive in 2009”, he says:

“We’re heading into a world characterized by big events, big forces, and massive storms. We’re going to be vulnerable little specks high on the mountain when the storm hits out of nowhere. And if we’re not prepared, we’re going to die up there. Or we’re going to be in real serious trouble.  We need to understand what separates those who do well from those who don’t do well when the world spins completely out of our control. How are we going to study this question? This was in 2002. We decided to look at the 50 best-performing IPOs since 1970-72 and see how they did 15 years out. They were small and vulnerable when they came into the world. We’d ask them, "What did you do on that mountain? How did you do so well?" Of course, we found others that didn’t do as well. We just finished six years of what we call our turbulence research. 

That’s what our work is about.  Helping you understand what separates those that do well and those that don’t do well high up on the mountain.  We are a Sherpa, providing load carrying support for mountainous journeys, helping you get prepared.  Jim Collins goes on to say:

"We are now, I think, having to adjust to dealing with a world that is going to be ferocious. We don’t have any practice with that.  What I’ve learned from the turbulence research has already started to affect my life. I’ve become a total paranoid, neurotic freak. It has shown me the importance of building in big shock absorbers".

That’s what our work is about.  Helping you build big shock absorbers, and the rest of a chassis/vehicle which is fit for the journey challenge, In the Driving Seat of organizational agility.  Agility by design.