by Niels Pflaeging
Until seven years ago, I would have told you (and I did!) that serious organizational transformation could not be achieved in less than 18 months. I considered 1,5 years to be an excellent and in fact super-fast time-frame. A tough one, even. And I had excellent arguments why organizations could never do that kind of thing faster. I knew for sure that even fastet transformation was impossible. Until Silke Hermann and I discovered OpenSpace Beta.
Today I know better. Somewhat strangely, I have come to understand why my previous stance on transformation had been a recipe to failure - even though I had the best intentions. Thing is: Today I know that any approach to transformation that aims at taking 18 months or longer is way too slow for a serious organizational shift to BetaCodex or coherent self-organization to actually work out. So why are 1,5 years or 2 years of transformation too damn slow? Because that timeframe indicates a ‘linear‘ approach to change. A telling, not working approach to change. One that ultimately fails to transform the system, and ends up throwing people into systemic incoherence and disarray.
Now, don't get me wrong: I am not saying that those who attempt slow organizational transformations are wrong-headed or having bad intentions. What I am trying to say is that the approaches they chose are out of date, now that better, time-boxed approaches like OpenSpace Beta exist.
Conclusion: If you want to see your organization go Agile, Lean, QRM, Teal, Beyond Budgeting, BetaCodex or something of the sort, then you better pick an approach to change capable of transforming the system quickly, and does not wind up in announcements, foot-dragging and hypocrisy. Your best choice for that, at this moment of time, is clearly OpenSpace Beta. The reasons for that are manifold: OpenSpace Beta is fast and only takes 90 days (or half a year, all included – see concept overview.
In OpenSpace Beta, the transformation work is done by the members or an organization themselves, in parallel to their day-to-day-business, and as it is done by the many, together, it still requires the bare minimum of external help, or consultants. It is invitation-based, not coercion-based. And it is as based on disciplined self-organization as the system you want to bring about. What's more: You can begin with what you have, at any point of time: You do not have to wait for a right moment to arrive until you get going. You can start now.
If this all sounds odd, illogical, illusory or utopian to you, then you are probably looking at the problem of profound organizational transformation the way I looked at it, seven years ago. Believe me: I hear you. I get how this may look to you, because I have been there myself. Which is why I can only invite you to start doubting. I invite you to take a look at our current reality, for starters: Look at what we have achieved, after maybe six to eight decades of Organizational Development (OD), after maybe five or six decades of Lean and Beta at companies the likes of Toyota, Gore, Handelsbanken, and Southwest Airlines, after maybe two decades of Agile. If you look at current reality, we do not have too many actual transformations to show for. I firmly believe that is not because of bad intentions, but because of flawed method of transformation.
There are so many people out there who long for organizational self-organization, decentralization, and democracy. But as long as we stick to coercive, staged, linear, steered approaches of change management, we will fail to create the conditions for actual transformation that sticks. Today, with the advent of time-boxed, invitation-based approaches to transformation that rely on the work be done by "all the willing" within the organization itself, we finally have the chance to make self-organization ubiquitous. We just have to pick the right methods.
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If you wish to learn more about the OpenSpace Beta approach and about the cases of companies that have done it, check out the OpenSpace Beta web page. Or get the handbook on OpenSpace Beta by Silke Hermann and Niels Pflaeging right away - now in its 3rd, improved edition.
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