In to the topic, let's just briefly introduce ourselves. So again, my name is Mette tofte I'm a Partner here in Implement Consulting Group I have been with the company for almost 10 years now - time is flying.. and I have a long background exclusively with systemic change as I would call it today but Largescale transformation, strategy implementation and change management ...And then I have Charlotte with me Yes, thank you Mette. My name is Charlotte I have been in implement for eight years now, working with change and leadership and as Mette on bigger transformations as well. So I'm super happy to be here. Thank you, Charlotte. So I want you to give you a little bit of background as to why we're here today before we go into the topic itself. So as you all are very well aware, the world is changing very, very fast. And the world that we see and stand in today is very different than looking back just one year or two years or five years ago. And about a year ago, Charlotte and I had a conversation around change and we realized that how we talk about change and how we work with change in most organizations is actually anchored in frameworks and theories that was developed 10, 20 or maybe even 30 years ago. These frameworks are often quite linear and they, even though, you know, we can tweak them and we can adjust them to the transformation we are looking at, we still felt that we need something different. We need an alternative, something that reflects the complexity and the interconnectedness of organizational, the world today. So we sat down with a group of fantastic colleagues and we research and designed and developed this framework and this approach to systemic change that we will reveal for you today. We do believe that this is a most needed alternative to the more linear and traditional frameworks we see out there. So a brief scan into what we will go through today. We will cover four main topics. So to start with, we will give you a little bit of introduction to how change has actually changed over the years and how that calls for a new way of thinking about change. And then we will go into what we call a new thinking mode for change. We could also call it a mindset or philosophy. But what is it really that we believe constitutes change today? And when we think about things in a different way, we of course also need to work and apply things in a different way. So we will also reveal what we call a new delivery model, a new way of executing change in large scale, complex transformations today. And then finally, we will go into the really important and crucial topic of change leadership, looking at the tensions we see leaders need to navigate today, looking at what are the change capacities that leaders need to to tap into to lead successful systemic change. So briefly on the purpose and what we hope that you will leave today with. So as I said before, we want to offer this alternative thinking mode for change. And as we all know, what we say and how we say it actually shapes our world and our reality. So when we need to think in a different way, we also need the language to actually articulate it. We need new words that can phrase how we think and act and change management. And finally, we want to shift our attention on how we deliver and execute change by proposing this new delivery model. So we really hope that we can inspire you today to think and start working with change in a different way, in an alternative way. Now, I said systemic change a couple of times. And I just want to unfold a little bit what we mean when we say systemic change. We often work with change in organizations today. We work with what we often call the simple thing. It's continuous improvements. So this is the simple way of looking at change. It's where we tweak in an IT system. It's where we might be updating a process or maybe even activating a leadership development program or doing something to tweak the system we operate in. This is not really fundamentally changing who we are as an organization. But it's tweaking and adjusting the way we operate. Now, systemic change, on the other hand, is when we change the core, the DNA of our organization. This is the change that is anchored in our strategy and really put in the world to fundamentally change how the system operates. So this is how changing how we meet and engage with our clients, with our customers. It's how we basically place ourselves in the changing world and the changing market space around us. So this is changing how we think and how we act as an organization. The challenge is that very often we tend to actually apply the same frameworks and the same mindset when working with continuous improvements and systemic change. When in reality, we would need to apply very different approaches and dimensions to these two types of change. So today we will focus our attention on systemic change because that is where we believe that the true business value lies. So let's take a look at how change has actually changed over time and what that means for organizations today. And I will hand the word to you, Shaladu. Thank you, Mette. So as Mette already said, organizational life today is characterized by almost constant change. And we have all witnessed a constantly growing global business environment where change has become the norm for organizations to sustain their success and existence. This also means that change is almost implicit in every project initiated in organizations. And it's fair to say that it can feel like change is everywhere. The disruptors of today's society, being social, economic, geopolitical, and technological disruptors are fundamentally changing organizational change. Besides that change is a constant and ongoing, we also live in a world that is increasingly interconnected, meaning that we can't isolate the cause of a change to a single event. And this challenges our traditional way of leading change in organizations. And we want to highlight especially three important consequences. technological innovation has caused that people's attention spans are extremely short. Research from 2015 done by Microsoft states that people can focus on one thing alone for only eight seconds. And this means that the window in which we can talk about and make sense of the change is very narrow. So when we lead changes in organizations, it is therefore more important than ever that the purpose is that the purpose of the change is clearly articulated and that it engages people. Secondly, the lower trust in vertical hierarchies and institutions means that people do not necessarily follow along with the change. Instead, they doubt and they question change initiatives. And thirdly, with the rise of, for example, social media and technology, people place more trust in people like themselves, meaning that horizontal and informal networks gain more and more influence. And in summary, this shows us that change leadership is a very challenging task because these circumstances requires leaders to also re-perceive how they do leadership in the midst of change. And it also points to that leading systemic changes cannot be solved applying linear change frameworks alone. So as Metta said in the beginning, we often apply the same mindset tools and frameworks to systemic changes as when we work with continuous improvements. And perhaps this explains why we often experience a mismatch between how we expect the change to progress and how the reality of it unfolds. So this visualization illustrates how change is typically not moving in a consistent, cohesive way. And this is a consistent, cohesive direction. On the other hand, we learn and experience things that are evident to adapt into our change approach. And these observations made us ask, so why is it that so many organizations continue to repeat these routines? And in our perspective, this calls for a different approach to systemic changes. We need a shift because how we do change fundamentally determines where we end up. So now we would like to briefly share some examples of the common challenges and pitfalls we meet when we work with organizational change. We also see cases where there is too little focus on end users and employees, maybe also lack of involvement early in the project. And this potentially causes low engagement and adoption. We also see cases where setting aside time to facilitate sense making in between activities are underestimated, meaning that the organization can be left in the dark or maybe they are creating other narratives themselves. We also see cases where change is organized around efficient and detailed plans, but where there is not left any room for handling the inevitable but emerging needs that arise. And sixth, we also see that leaders are not involved enough and early enough, and therefore they are not equipped to lead the change. And this can hinder their understanding of how to lead and navigate in the complexity, but also affect their personal commitment and engagement. And not least, we typically see a large use of rational communication strategies used to communicate objectives about the change, but that fails to engage people and create trust and followership. So while these seven challenges are perhaps not present at the same time in every change project, we also see the challenges that are not present at the same time in every change project. We're guessing that you can recognize some of them. And we actually want to invite you now to share with us in the poll, which of these pitfalls and challenges you can recognize. So we are very happy and excited to see the distribution here shortly. So it's either the first one, the focus on tools and templates. It's maybe the headquarter mindset, the low employee and end user focus, or the low employee and end user focus. All right. We will look at the answers along the way. Thank you so much for answering. Thank you. So what we want to say here is that these challenges, they tie back to that we need to fine tune our approach to leading systemic changes. So what we think that we should question ourselves is, how is it that we create movement in the organization and not just busy action? So in our thinking, we need a shift about how we think and approach to lead systemic changes in organizations. We need more than classical change management, and we need a stronger capacity to lead change. And this made us curious once again. And we asked, so what if we applied both end thinking here? And we have identified a negative spiral of thinking that top down change holds no gift for successful organizational change. However, change needs to be top down and with clear guidance. It also needs to be incremental. And we need intentionally and timely decision making from the top down and an open invitation for people to contribute with ideas and actions from the ground. And with that said, Mede, I will now invite you in here again, and you will introduce our proposed thinking mode for change. I will. Thank you, Charlotte. And just a sip of water before I start. So to lead systemic change, we need, as Charlotte has said, to step away from the more traditional and linear way of thinking about change. change. We need to reconceptualize what change actually means in a world where we have rapid change, where we have complexity, ambiguity, and so forth. So our approach is rooted in a fundamental belief that if we embrace interconnectedness and the complexity of change, then we can actually have way more resilient organizations. So let's take a look at the philosophy or the thinking mode. So we often tend to talk about change as it is contained, which means that it's somehow localized to a particular project, or department, or business unit, or cluster or something else, which gives us this illusion that it's tangible, it's concrete. And it's something that we can manage, we can, you know, put it into an Excel spreadsheet and do task lists and so forth. In reality change is systemic, as we talked about before, which means that it's a part of the larger systemic context of the organization. So when we do changes over here, it's a It ripples and have ripple effects throughout the entire system and out into the microsystem and the macrosystem and so forth. In the same way that when things happen out in the environment around us, it ripples back to the organization. So we need to recognize this interconnectedness within the organizational ecosystem to really understand and talk about change. Then we often tend to talk about change as an event, which means that it somehow can be manifested into an event, but change is not a one-time occurrence, right? It's something that happens continuously. So change is what we call endemic, which means that it's a constant and inherent part of all organization and of the organizational environment. So change is really embedded into the organizational fabric, you could say, and it's a natural ongoing process. So this means that change is actually what is shaping our strategies and our processes and not the other way around. Then we talk about change as something objective, again, something that we can quantify in terms of outcomes and KPIs and milestones that we can put into a plan. But really, change is a social construct, which means that individuals look and perceive and sense-make around the change in different ways based on their preferences, based on their experiences, based on their values and so forth. So change is both something that can happen, something that occurs in the organizational system, but it's also something that we construct through our social interactions. Looking at change leadership, we tend to, as humans, to think a lot, right? We are hardwired, you could say, to apply these cognitive strategies because that's how our brain actually works. So often we apply critical thinking, we do problem solving because these strategies somehow help us to analyze situations and make informed decisions. And again, it's more tangible because we can have a systematic and structured approach to how we look at issues and challenges and how we look at issues and challenges. And then how we look at issues and how we look at issues and we've been trying to handle it. A school and a family. Well, we think this is really important in terms of the focus on how we look at issues and how we look at issues and how we look at issues and how we look at issues and how we look at issues. But if you recognize that change is complex and ambiguity, then we actually need to tune into the organizational dynamics and adapt to real-time feedback, which means that we need to be out with the organization to experience the change. We cannot hide behind the desktop, just looking at our Excel spreadsheets and our to-do lists. We actually need to be out and experience what is going on, doing that through our conversations, do that with interactions with other human beings in the organization. Then we often talk about change management or change leadership as managing. This comes back to the cognitive strategies that if we can actually put something else to tangible plans that we can manage, then we somehow feel a little bit more safe as leaders. But in reality, we need to navigate change, meaning that change is non-linear and complex, so it cannot fit into a stringent plan. Change leaders need instead to navigate change flexible by making small incremental steps to deliver results. Then we have change leaders is doing. Again, as leaders, we tend to do a lot of stuff. We like to have our task list and our to-do list and we set goals and we drive initiatives. But again, when we recognize that change and organizational life is complex and in interconnected, then we actually need to stop doing things all the time. We need to sit back. We need to act and listen to the audience and sense when to act and when to stop and listen. This is basically the subtle art of listening to figure out how are people doing out there. If I go out and I have conversations with people around me, are they happy? Are they sad? Basically put that into how you navigate the change forward. So as you can see here, this is a more nuanced or integrative approach to thinking about change. As Charlotte said before, this is a both-and mindset where we actually recognize that things can be both-and, it's not either-or. So it provides a more holistic approach to how we think about change. Now let's look at how that actually unfolds when we start to execute change. Because one thing is, of course, to think about it in a different way, but that also needs to manifest into how we actually work with change. I want to just start with what we found as a very, very interesting quote from Indra Nui, the previous CEO of PepsiCo. So she was a great change leader. So she was a great change leader. And what she said is that if your customers are not experiencing your organization differently, it's not generating impact. So it's a crucial reminder here that true change needs to be felt beyond the internal operations of your organization. So I want you to just consider with yourself right now. So the transformations, the changes you are doing right now, are they really affecting your customers? Your employees. So are your employees. So are your frontline, your clients, or whoever your system is serving, are they experiencing something differently? Are they getting better products? Are they getting better service? Are you engaging with them in a different way that's actually making their lives easier? Because if that's not the case, then often we're just doing internal stuff, but just not really generating the business value or the business impact that we want. So systemic change is really about fundamentally changing the root of who we are as an organization to improve the life of our customers, our clients, or whoever our system is serving. You could also say it in a different way. We could say that change management is strategy execution. Because if change is really anchored in the strategy, if we really believe that change should generate business impact, then change management is strategy execution. So with that in mind, I want to go into what we call the delivery model. We call it the A model. And this is really an integrative model. And I want to state that because again, it's not about either or. It's really about applying a mindset and working with change, executing change, recognizing that things are interconnected. So this model here, as you can see, proposes three distinct but interconnected domains of focus areas. It's important to focus areas. It's important to understand that this is not a process. It's not a fixed framework. It's a delivery model that says something about how we prioritize our attention in systemic change. And I know that you're all familiar with the three domains, impact, engagement, adoption. What is different here is that here we're looking at it from a systemic point of view. And I just want to unfold a little bit how that looks like or what that looks like. So when we talk about impact with a systemic lens, it's going back to Indra Nui's quote from before. It's about achieving the meaningful outcome that are strategically anchored within the organizational context. So it's really about delivering the impact that is creating something really different from your customers and your clients. They really need to feel and experience that something is new. That's the business impact that we're aiming for. When we talk about engagement. When we talk about engagement, it's about fostering a context where employees collectively can contribute to the innovation that drives business impact. And I want to stop a little bit here and elaborate on what we mean here, because we often see that we talk in organization about employees and individuals as they were the most important resource of our organizations. We almost talk about it as organizations are there for the individual. From a systemic point of view, we need to turn that around. We need to recognize that organizations are there for the customers or the people that we are serving, our clients, our customers. We are not there for the employees. That also means that very often we see that our change communication is centered around what we call WIFN or what's in it for me. You probably all heard it in your own transformations. But what we're doing with that is that we are reinforcing this misconception that we are doing things that we are doing things that we are doing things that we're doing we are changing things for the sake of the individual when in case that is not true. So instead we need to change that narrative. We need to change the WIFN to how can employees collectively contribute to the core task of the organization to the success of the transformation. Because if we do that, that actually is what is creating real engagement because then we make it super clear for everyone how the individual, how people, how teams link directly to the overall strategic ambition. and how they can actually contribute to the success of the change. Moving to adoption here. So adoption is about ensuring that the change resonates collectively with the organizational system. So again, it's not about individual acceptance of the change and what we're changing. It's way more about making sure that our system is ready to make sure that everyone can adopt to what we're actually doing. So the goal here is to create an environment that we're doing. an environment where new behaviors and new practices are integrated into the everyday work life of everyone in the organization. So again, it's important for me to stretch that this is an integrative approach. Again, it's not a process. It's not a step by step model. And when we say integrative, what we actually mean is the fact that we need to focus our attention on all three domains at the same time. It means that based on the context and the problem that we are standing in front of the same time. It means that based on the context and the problem that we are standing in front of, we balance these domains by shifting our attention based on the feedback that we are getting, based on how we sense the organization, how we experience that the system is heading. So we have drawn up this graph to illustrate that this is not about either or. This is integrative. It's about focusing our attention in the right places at the right time. So looking at the right time. And as we're standing in this, you can see that impact is and should be the one thing that we focus on all the time that is steady throughout the change process because we always need to link whatever we do in the change process directly to the impact that we are trying to achieve. Engagement will always be our key focus in the beginning because this is where we, from day one, need to get the leadership by and it's where we need to build a collective engagement and commitment. We need to empower our teams to join the change and we need to empower the organization to actually build the right solutions and ensure progress. Adoption is, again, focused on making the systemic adjustments to processes and procedures and culture and mindset that enable the organization to collectively engage with the change. So here we are aligning the entire organization and system to support and integrate the new reality effectively. And then at some point, we will shift our energy and our attention from engagement to adoption. And we call this the tipping point. And the reason why that is important is because the nature of the change, the nature of the transformation will change at some point during this process as you see here. which actually basically means that it's crucial to have this awareness because you might be needing, you know, to do adjustments to the strategy at some point. You might need new capabilities to ensure the momentum of the change as we go through. You might need to focus on culture integration. So you might need to do tweaks at some point because the nature of the transformation shifts as we go along. But as you can see here, this approach, this delivery model is not a fixed process, as I said before. And that's why actually doing, executing, navigating change calls for really, really strong change leadership. So let's go into the role of the change leader. We cannot control complexity, but we can equip our leaders to navigate it. I want to start with another quote. This is the great Deborah Rowland. She is a fantastic thought leader on the topic of change leadership. What she is saying here is that the biggest leadership to challenge today is not to build a grand plan for the future, but to create the capacity for ongoing change and innovation. So because change is complex and systemic, we cannot again rely on the cognitive strategies for as critical thinking or problems. solving. So the only thing we can do is to build a capacity for ongoing change. So let's go a little bit into the role as a change leader, as I said before. And one thing is that as a change leader, to navigate change, you basically need to navigate the organizational tensions around you. And I want to go a little bit through this before we go to the actual change capacities I mentioned before. So we have defined seven common tensions. That is the tensions we believe that we mostly see in organizations today, in change processes today. You might recognize them. I'll ask you later if you can recognize them or not. So the first one is what we call the performance tension. So this is basically about developing the business and driving the business. So as we all know, we need as leaders to have a focus on the horizon, figuring out what are the next step I can take to develop my organization. But we also need to make sure that daily operations. But we also need to make sure that daily operations are running. So at all times, we need to balance these two. The strategy tension is about staying relevant to the market, to our customers, our clients, but also maintaining stability internally in our operations. The third one, the timing tension, is about when we're standing in front of some sort of need, we have identified an opportunity. Do we change when needed or do we change when ready? Very often, we tend to act very, very fast to changes in the market space, which means that we need to change right ahead. But really, sometimes the organization is not really with us. We don't have the manpower or the authority to actually do it. So as leaders, all the time, we need to balance actually being ready and actually needing to go. The governance tension is about central decision making versus local autonomy. So as we said before, we need the firm, the stringent decision making from the top very much to set the direction and the ambition and the vision for where we're going. But we also need local autonomy for people to feel involved and engaged in actually figuring out what should the new world look like. The decision tension is about using emotions as data points rather than the number as data points. So in organizations, as leaders, we often tend to look at the numbers, right? We have KPIs for everything. We are measuring our performance, our engagement, and we take those numbers and we use them to actually formulate our plans and our strategies. But if we recognize that change is complex and interconnected to the broader system, then we cannot rely on those data points alone. We actually need to use emotions or reactions as data points coming back to what we talked about experiencing the change. We need to be out there in the organization, sense where people are, and bring that in to how we navigate change and make our decisions. Then we have the management tension. So when do I follow the plans I have defined and set out? And when do I follow people? So when do I just stringently follow the plans I have defined? And when do I actually stop and listen to people around me and maybe do tweaks to the plan because people want to go in a different direction or are saying something else that maybe I should listen to? So how do you as leaders balance that? And finally, the ambition tension. And finally, the ambition tension. So do I have an ambition to plan the future or do I want to change the now? Very often we tend to plan the future. We have this four or five year strategies ahead of us and we plan to execute those. But in reality, if we sometimes stop up and change the now, we actually get a bigger impact. So how do we balance that as leaders? So these are the most common tension we have identified. I would love to hear your thoughts on that. So I will ask you to use this poll and answer the question, which tensions do you most often meet in your role in organizations? So again, we have the performance tensions, the strategy tension, the timing tension, the governance tension, the decision tension, the management tension, and the ambition tension. So feel free to just put your comments in the chat. Thank you so much. We will look at these. It's nice input for us as well to see how you see this in your organizations. Fantastic. So I mentioned the change capacities and I will go into unfolding what that is a little bit right now. So we have spent significant time here in Implement to discuss and try to understand what are the change capacities leaders need to actually navigate systemic change, recognizing this interconnectedness and complexity of organizational life. So we have identified seven capacities that I want to share with you. You can see here that the model is a systemic model and it's just to illustrate that as a change leader, you will always be affected and be, you can say, placed in the organization based on the systems around you. So you will have whatever you do, there will be ripple effects out in the micro system, the meso system and the macro system. So we differentiate between two types of capacities. We have the inner capacities and the outer capacities. And very simple, the inner ones are the ones about what you think, how you position yourself in the world, what your mindset is and how you tap into that. And the outer capacities are, of course, as you can see, it's what you do. It's what the outer world would experience and see you actually doing. In the middle, we have systemic thinking as a capacity. So systemic thinking is what we have talked basically a lot about today. It's a capacity to be fully present and mindful and at the same time recognizing the broader contextual environment that you're part of. So it's basically understanding what you see in this picture here, that you are affected by the different systems around you and that whatever you do, it will ripple back. So when you apply systemic thinking, leaders will be, you can say, they will interpret the supple cues and signals in the environment and they would use those to make informed decisions and drive the change forward. Then we have integrative thinking. So integrative thinking is about the capacity to synthesize opposing ideas to generate results and solutions. So again, it's rather than applying either or or selecting between conflicting options, integrative thinkers would integrate those to actually make more holistic, better outcomes to drive successful change. Strategizing is the capacity to recognize interconnectedness of the organization and create links between the business strategy and the desired change outcomes. So this is really much about having business intelligence, really understanding the core of your organization, understanding how you place yourself in the market, really understanding what your role is in a broader context and use that to drive a long-term business impact. Adapting is a capacity which is about effectively responding to the evolving dynamics around you. So because things are moving fast in this world. So because things are moving fast in this world, also for organization, we need to adapt very, very fast. We need to actually be able to tap into what is changing around us and really be open to new learnings and then use that to navigate uncertainty and drive meaningful change. Looking at the outer capacities, sense-making is something we touch upon a little bit, but this is very much a capacity to construct meaning of these complex and ambiguous situations through our social interactions. So change leaders here, they need both to, you can say, facilitate their own sense-making, but also very much facilitate the sense -making process of people around them. So this process involves ongoing cycles of action and reflection where leaders actually navigate uncertainty and adapt to these changing environments by continuously redefining the understanding of the situation. Choice-making or decision-making is the capacity to make informed and timely decisions and choices to drive the systemic business impact. So this involves that you tune into the organizational system and use the cues and whatever is going on there to put in front of you and make informed decisions. And then finally, we have experiencing, which we have talked about already, but this is the capacity to engage with the more, you can say, emotional and relational aspects of the change. So this is where leaders would prioritize sensing and experiencing over these cognitive strategies. So you would put yourself out there in the organization. So you would put yourself out there in the organization to sense where are things going? How are people experiencing this? How are you experiencing? How does it feel in your body when you're out there? And you would use those, you can say, emotions as data point to navigate change and get the sustainable business impact you were looking for. So the model here, as you can say, is a systemic model proposing these seven change capacities for leaders. We truly believe that if you as leaders, can master these capacities can master these capacities, you also have a profoundly better chance of succeeding with transformational change and systemic change. So just a question to you here as well. To what extent is your organization currently prioritizing to build the change capacity for the future? So this is more a broader question than just a poll, but it's interesting for us to know, do you feel that you are already doing this today? Or how do you stand on that? So you can give me a percentage if you want, or just a yes or no would also be okay. Thank you for your nice comments. I can see that some are saying a little bit too little. Some are saying to some extent, maybe a little bit, 60%, 10%. Thank you so much. So we are coming to an end on this talk about systemic change and navigating organizational change. So we will move to the final part of what we have planned for you today. So basically just summing up a little bit on what you have seen here. So we want to leave you with four key takeaways, you could say. We know it's been a lot of work and a lot of content. But what we would like for you to take with you is basically this. So first, we truly believe that change is strategy execution and that's how you should look at it. So it's back to Indra Nui. So if your transformation, your change is not really generating impact for the customers, for the clients or the people you are serving, your organization is serving, then it's not really worth the effort. Then it's important to remember that this is not about only doing things incrementally and only having really disrupted plans and trying to navigate it all in this kind of chaotic way. But it is about balancing the line out with the incremental and maybe doing a little bit more incremental stuff than you're doing today. So it's really about setting the direction from the top, having the firm vision, the firm purpose, the firm strategy, but then let the how more emerge from inclusive involvement of the organization. And then I really have a little quest to kill the victim. So sorry for the language, but there is something about that. We need to change the narrative from this, you know, what's in it for me as an employee to how can we collectively contribute to the core of the organization. And then also an encouragement to start cultivating this change capacity because we actually do truly believe that the organizations that do that, that build this change capacity in the organization, they will have a competitive advantage in the future because in the future, we're not going to see less of change. We might see even more of change and it's moving really, really fast. So we need to be on our toes and have leaders to be able to navigate change successfully. That was all we had today. So thank you so much for listening in. Thank you for your great comments. And if you have any questions or somehow have the urge to continue the conversation, you are more than welcome to reach out. Thank you. Thank you.