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The economic, social and environmental volatility now facing business means organisations having to operate in a dynamically transforming landscape.

The nature of change itself is transforming. Organisations are now increasingly exposed to dynamic change: change upon change upon change - while dealing with one change, another affects us, then another, and so on. This dynamic change upsets the traditional business paradigm we have been working to over the last few decades.

The 8 Step Process for Leading Change

30 years of research by leadership guru Dr. John Kotter have proven that 70% of all major change efforts in organizations fail. Why do they fail? Because organizations often do not take the holistic approach required to see the change through.

However, by following the 8 Step Process outlined by Professor Kotter, organizations can avoid failure and become adept at change. By improving their ability to change, organizations can increase their chances of success, both today and in the future. Without this ability to adapt continuously, organizations cannot thrive.

This is post 1 in a series about preparing for the future of work and learning. When you jump into a heated pool or get into a warm lake in the middle of a hot day- this usually feels nice, right? What about when you jump into an unheated pool or a cold lake? Is it usually a gets your attention, even if you knew the water was cold. When you think about the future of work, did it ever make you feel like you were jumping into cold water?  If not, you probably haven't considered what this means for you.  It's a big change. Most of us are experiencing the changing workplace environment at some level while others are fully immersed. In order to build your skills or the skills of others for work of the future, you need to understand how the future of work is changing. Here are 19 Resources to help to gain a better understanding of this change.

Keeping an organization performing is a constant battle. Every organization is trying to overcome its inertia, to gain momentum, and to become more productive. This battle with inertia means there is constant change-change that people often resist, deny, and frequently become angry about.Ultimately, everyone in the organization wants higher performance. This occurs at its highest levels in spite of resistance to change when people are clear what their team or personal goals are; understand the business outcome that their team or personal goals contribute to; and ensure that each task they do supports these goals. One way to raise the performance of an organization is to help all individuals become more efficient and effective in their daily tasks. Historically, leaders have tried to develop this effectiveness and efficiency in their people by using two approaches: A command-and-control approach: Controllers lead their people as if they are herding sheep. Their mind-set is to train their people well enough to be able to control them. It works, but it costs a lot of time and energy. A knowledge-based approach: It is often assumed that if people have more information, they will be able to do things better based on that information. This is the organizational equivalent of reading a book on golf and expecting to be able to play at the level of a professional. More often than not, it is not a lack of knowledge that blocks performance, but a lack of consistent, accurate implementation of the knowledge that people already have that blocks individuals, teams, and organizations from performing at their best. People in organizations are rarely stupid, but they often suffer interference that blocks their performance.

Today, the overriding problem for every organization is how to change, deeply and continually, and at an accelerating pace. We live in a world where change is "shaken, not stirred." Yet in most organizations, practices and structures reflexively favor the status quo over change and renewal. We see entire industries-for example, pharmaceuticals, music, advertising, and publishing-where the incumbents are struggling to invent their way out of slowly dying business models.

Over the last couple of weeks there have been a number of rather interesting and insightful blog posts that have been covering IBM's journey to become a social business. A journey that started back in 2001, but that it had its main roots well substantiated within the company for much longer. Interestingly enough, when everyone was starting to think about going social within the enterprise, IBM had already well established, and recognised, since May 2005, the well known Social Computing Guidelines that soon became an industry standard in setting up a reliable and trustworthy governance model and guidelines for knowledge workers to engage with both internal and external social networking tools. However, fast forward to 2011 and I still get asked, every so often, how is IBM doing in the social business space, not just from a vendor perspective, but also from its own internal social transformation. Are we there yet? Have we already made that transition successfully? What has been the experience like so far?

Well, I could probably summarise it all with a single sentence at this point in time: It's been a long journey, indeed! We have learned a lot, we have become much more efficient and effective at what we do, but we still have got lots more to be done! Like for almost everyone out there, becoming a social business is a tough job, for sure, we are not discovering anything new in there, there needs to be a significant cultural shift, a change of mindset, a change on how we do and conduct business, but the good thing is that the trip to provoke such social transformation has been worth while all the way coming from a Globally Integrated Enterprise into a Socially Integrated Enterprise (a.k.a. SIE)

Updated design principles Speed of change, ubiquitous connected networks and intensified complexity arising from abstract, distributed knowledge flows are key features of the emerging wave of smart working. Design principles for performance environments therefore additionally need to focus on complexity, the changing nature of knowledge as power, network viability, mobility and social learning.

organisations are complex; activities are complex. For some time in middle of the previous century, managers tried to ignore this fact and establish perfect processes. Today, we slowly start to acknowledge the fact, that our work environment is complex, interdependent and constantly changing; we need to work together to create a transparency what is changing and how we can best adopt to new situations.

In the midst of an economic downturn, it's easy to fixate on cyclical events and lose sight of deeper trends and long-term changes. The Shift Index, a macroeconomic report created by Deloitte LLP's Center for the Edge, suggests that the current economic turmoil is masking long-term competitive challenges for U.S. businesses.  The 2010 Shift Index Report updates the metrics we provided last year and goes deeper into some of the underlying dynamics.

There is a deep gulf between the sterile, one-way and almost Orwellian practices of the corporate IT network and the rapidly-evolving, chaotic organism of today's Intranet.

What would it look like if the social world of Web 2.0 collided with the corporate Intranet? What would happen if information was disseminated from outside in, instead of inside out; from the people working on the front line? This is precisely what an interesting experiment at global consulting firm Capgemini is revealing. Many of the company's 110,000 people are based on site at client locations and it is here that 'real-world' challenges must be addressed. The IT consultants in particular, who form about half of the workforce, are in an environment where the information they use goes out of date very quickly.

To help keep its teams up-to-speed, and to stay on top of the disruptive changes in their operating environment, Capgemini began a few years ago experimenting with Yammer, a private and secure enterprise social network that allows colleagues to hold conversations, read posts and actively collaborate with their co-workers in real-time. CTO Andy Mulholland says that it is contributing to the "collective consciousness of the 20,000 people who subscribe to Yammer internally."

Management's changing role. Capgemini uses Yammer for: aligning activities, problem solving, information sharing, providing clarification. Now think about the things managers do for a living - and you quickly end up with a pretty similar list. Social networking technologies, in other words, are increasingly being used to provide the support and input that employees used to get from their managers. This frees up managers, in turn, to spend more time on the real value-added work - such as motivating their employees, structuring their work to make it more engaging, developing their skills, securing access to resources, and making linkages to other parts of the organisation. Warren Buffett is famous for saying that it is only when the tide goes out that you can see who is swimming naked, and the same metaphor applies here: when employees can get all the basic support they need for their work through Yammer, rather than through their line manager, the real qualities of the line manager are exposed and some are found wanting.  

We live in a world of ever more change and choice, a world where we have far more opportunity than ever to achieve our potential. That kind of world is enormously exciting, and full of options. But it is also highly disorienting, threatening to overwhelm us with sensory and mental overload.  In that kind of world, the ability to provide persistent context becomes paradoxically ever more valuable. Persistent context helps to orient us and connect us in ways that can accelerate our efforts to achieve our potential.

A few years ago, the world's leading designer and manufacturer of office products decided that it needed an organizational overhaul. Coordination across product lines was poor. Design teams collaborated ineffectively. Key personnel were remote from customers. The company responded in part by reorganizing its work space, creating an office-free "village" where designers and architects could mingle and collaborate and customers could visit easily. Proximity does matter for promoting collaboration, and the space was conceptually compelling and visually appealing.

statistics about our changing world. There are for more interesting numbers and resources than I could ever reference so I'm creating this post (which will get revised over time) to point you to their sources.

IBM Software Blog This blog promotes thoughtful discussions and perspectives on how software is changing the way we live and do business.   IBM's social business transformation journey

Permanent Rule: You may not play the Calvinball the same way twice. Primary Rule: The following rules are subject to be changed, amended, or deleted by any player(s) involved. These rules are not required, nor necessary to play Calvinball. 1.0. The following words in these rules are mostly freely interchangeable, the Primary Rule applies: Can May Must Shall Should Will Would

Stories of companies and individuals transformed by coaching. InsideOut's GROW process is a powerful technique for bringing about change through coaching.

To have a successful digital workplace (which I define as 'work is something you do, not a place you go to') it is vital organisations have the right strategy, culture, environment and infrastructure to exploit the benefits fully. It needs to become the natural way of working so everyone is more effective and productive and your organisation more efficient and successful.

My 'must have' principles for a great digital workplace include: Strategy: it is vital that your digital workplace strategy is aligned with your organisation's overall strategy.  There is no point planning to invest time and resources to move in one direction if your organisation is going in the opposite way. Engagement: this is needed at two levels.  Firstly with stakeholders you need to endorse your strategy.  Secondly with early adopters who will embrace enthusiastically and spread the word. Governance: a consistent, relevant and appropriate level is needed that minimises risks and enables the maximum benefits to be achieved. HR policies: policies need to encourage people to change their way of working that also benefits the organisation. IT infrastructure: people need to be confident they can use what they need for their work when they need to - simple!

The 21st Century: Analysis and Definitions
Are You Ready For The 21st Century ?

February 2009
A Future in Crisis

Intuitively, people everywhere are now sensing that they are living on credit … borrowing from the future in terms of the economy, the environment and sources of energy. People from all walks of life are beginning to realize they are borrowing from an uncertain future to finance current levels of prosperity. It's becoming clearer and clearer that the current models for society are mortgaging the quality of life from future generations in order to fulfill current desires.

Thus, mental models are beginning to change, and people don't want a range of disparate studies on various disconnected problems; rather, they are seeking concrete analyses and approaches that can help redirect or remedy difficult and complex situations.

This section of the web site offers readers a framework that explores some new mechanisms for addressing the complexities of the emergent post-industrial society.