do you have a high adaptability culture?

7/28/2019 Do you have a high adaptability culture?

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Oracle HR Board ReportThursday 18th April 2013, The Ritz, London

HR Imperatives: Creating a High Adaptability Culture

Te Oracle HR Board series was established to drive best practice and

thought leadership in the proession, bringing together HR leaders rom

some o the UKs most admired organisations to discuss the challenges and

opportunities acing HR today.

More than ve years into the economic crisis, the uture or UK

organisations remains extremely unclear. Te government has a limitednumber o levers at its disposal to re-ignite prosperity, and volatility in

domestic and global markets continues to have unpredictable ramications.

Adaptability is the key to survival and growth, but or large, established

organisations, achieving it is more easily said than done. We need to create an

environment that allows the organisation to adapt quickly and eectively to

changing circumstances.

How can HR encourage High Adaptability?

Tat question ormed the theme or the evening, which was again acilitatedby Dr Max McKeown, author o Te Strategy Book and Adaptability, one

o Personnel odays Stars o HR, and an expert consultant specialising in

innovation strategy, leadership and culture. We were delighted to welcome

Max back to the HR Board to help us urther explore the potential or HR

leaders to shape business strategy in a world dened by constant change.

Te ollowing report captures the key themes and discussion points rom the

evening. I hope you will nd it useul and thought-provoking.

Guy Cunnington

HCM Sales Director, Oracle Corporation


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How Can HR Shape a Better Future?

Te ocus o the evenings discussion was the uture:

not necessarily what is going to happen, but how we

can prepare or it and even shape it.

HR Board members agreed that the uture is very

uncertain: we cant predict what will happen, nor

over what timescales. We can be sure o more

volatility, and while some things will inevitably

remain constant, we dont know what those things

are. Its hard to prepare or uture eventualities, but

at the same time we all have an idea o what wewould like the uture to be like or ourselves and

our organisation and that means we can act in

ways we think will make that uture happen.

Four Possible Futures

Reprising a theme rom the September 2012 HR

Board meeting, Max McKeown proposed that

the uture holds our broad possibilities or our

organisations (and also or ourselves as individuals):

1. Collapse: the organisation ails completely and

ceases to exist.

2. Survival: the organisation manages to get by day-

to-day, but with little reward or enjoyment or

anyone involved.

3. Triving: the organisation does well within the

established rules o its industry or market.

4. ranscendence: a paradise state in which the

organisation succeeds in rewriting the rules in its

own avour, changes the way the industry/market

operates, and reaps signifcant benefts.

No organisation or individual is an island,

though, so even thriving and transcending

organisations may not be immune to changes

happening in the wider environment. Te nancial

crisis overwhelmed many apparently stable and

successul companies. Stability can be a dangerous

illusion when viewed rom a wider perspective

(usually the perspective o hindsight).

o be a transcending organisation youhave to do something that only you cando and only you can understand. For thatto happen, strategy and culture have to eatbreakast together. Max McKeown

Sometimes a crisis can have good eects.Look at the Enron scandal: the partnersat Arthur Andersen got good jobs at theother Big Four rms and they got an even

bigger share o the market. Not being ableto see the uture coming worked out wellor them!- HR Board Member

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Powerul Principles or Shaping the Future

Believing that we can shape the uture is the rst

step towards achieving it. People who believe they

can create a better uture generally do; a common

trait among entrepreneurs, or example, is a rm

belie that they make their own luck.

But to be truly eective in shaping the uture in our

avour, we have to recognise that the way we usually

approach it is likely to be deeply awed.

Tats because:

We use the past as a guide to what will happen

in the uture. Most business plans are based on

extrapolating gures rom previous years. As soon as

something unexpected happens to buck the trend,

the plan becomes useless.

We do things out o habit. Even when we

recognise our bad habits, we end up doing the same

things and making the same mistakes. (HR Boardmembers admitted they oten made the same

mistakes repeatedly.)

Failure is in vogue. Some businesses are

experimenting with throwing away the rulebooks,encouraging experimentation and celebrating

ailure. But organisations with no rules cant pull

together to nd a way orward, and ailure can

only be helpul i lessons are learned rom it (and

those lessons are acknowledged, shared, and put to

productive use).

Leadership styles persist. Many leaders make

the mistake o perpetuating the same strategyand management style as their predecessor, even

when the environment is changing wildly and new

thinking is needed. Whats been successul in the

past is not guaranteed to be successul now.

Few o us in the City o London saw theuture (crisis) coming. We were all operatingin the now. No one anticipated it. HR Board Member

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A Better Approach: Encouraging HighAdaptability

I the current environment is all about volatility

and change, it ollows that the organisations that

will thrive and transcend are those that can adapt

quickly and well to changing circumstances.

Encouraging adaptability among the workorce

should thereore be an imperative or HR leaders.

What do we mean by adaptability? Its the ability to

do three things very well:1. Recognise the need to adapt

2. Understand the nature o the adaptation required

3. Do whats necessary to make it happen

Each o these three stages is critical. Simply

recognising the need to adapt is not enough: time

must be invested at the second stage to work out

what kind o change will produce the best results

(rather than reacting in a knee-jerk way to thechanging circumstances). And no plan or change will

be any good i its not actually put into action. HR

can help people learn to adapt aster and smarter.

Adaptability as a Dierentiator

Adaptability is a hugely desirable attribute, but

it also needs to be paired with achievement.

Individuals and organisations must be capable

not just o adapting, but o adapting in a way

that produces better results than similar eorts at

competing organisations: pioneering successul new

business models; developing innovative products

and services; capturing untapped markets; nding

less expensive, more reliable and less risky ways o

doing things, and so on.

Once, perormance management was seen as

the primary way or HR to shape the success

o the organisation, but nowadays, everyone

does perormance management. Its no longer a

dierentiator. By identiying high-adaptability,

high-achieving individuals - what McKeown calls

HAHAs working within a high-adaptability

culture, what McKeown calls a HACK - HR leaderscan create the conditions or uture success. Tey

can help their people to more successully adapt.

Tat may seem obvious. But the reality is that

in many organisations, its the opposite kind o

behaviour that is praised and rewarded. Low-

adaptability individuals are seen as good soldiers, as

stalwarts who put the hours in, do what they have

always done, and keep the organisation on an evenkeel. But as weve seen, in a chaotic environment,

stability is a dangerous illusion. Recognising the

need to change and making the right changes as a

result is whats needed now or the uture.4


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Te HR Imperative: Enabling HighAdaptability

Because o its ocus on skills and behaviours,

HR is ideally placed to create a high-adaptability

organisation. Te goal should be to embed

the three-stage model o adaptability into the

organisational culture, so that everyone can

recognise the need to adapt, take time to understand

what kind o change needs to happen, and put that

change into action.

But how can HR take the organisation rom its

current state (which the majority o HR Board

attendees admitted was low-adaptability) and create

a high-adaptability culture?

Te rst step is to measure the current levels o

adaptability within the organisation, to create a

baseline or assessing subsequent improvement.

Tere are various methods o doing this, and HRBoard members agreed that a uture workshop on

those methods would be useul.

(A good start, though, is to examine what kind

o behaviours lead to dismissal and what kind o

behaviours lead to promotion within the organisation.

I people are being dismissed or challenging the status

quo and promoted or maintaining it, the organisation

has an adaptability problem.)

Te next step is to identiy high-adaptability

individuals within the organisation and allow

them to show the way. Such individuals thrive onadversity, and dont respond well to being cosseted

or mentored. Te way to motivate them is to set

them impossible challenges that will lead to what

McKeown reers to as amaking point: breakthroughs

HAHA individuals achieve when challenged.

Te third step is to encourage higher adaptability

among individuals and teams who currently display

low adaptability. HR Board members provided

some suggestions or how to do this, including:

Focus on the people who dont yet have a lot o

experience. Give them a dicult task to have a go at

and see how they perorm. I you tell them the task is

impossible, they wont ear ailure. You have to take

the risk out o it: succeed or youre dead isnt a very

motivating message!

Leaders have less desire or change, because theyrealready in the top position. Teyre ocused on getting

better results, rather than rewriting the rules. Better to

try to inuence the management rung below, who have

more desire to change and innovate.

We encouraged the workorce to be more

entrepreneurial by giving business units P&L

responsibility. But it backred: they got into

competition with each other and wouldnt shareinormation even though sharing would have been

or the greater good o the business.

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See how they deal with ambiguity. Some struggle,

others deal with it well and use that ability to innovate

diferent solutions.

Unite against a common external enemy like a

competitor or around a common goal or vision.

Te speaker added that an eective strategy is to

create a vision o how the organisation could be and

ensure that everyone understands it and, crucially,

has permission to question it. By painting a simple

picture o the ideal state o the organisation #1in the market, the most admired company in the

sector, the best customer service in the world

and reminding everyone o that aim, its easier or

everyone to understand what they need to do make

it happen.

Shaping the Future

I uture success is about rewriting the rules o the

game in the organisations avour, HR leaders must also

create an environment in which possible utures can be

imagined and game-changing strategies explored.

Some organisations have something like a

Doomsday room, where you imagine the worst that

could happen how could the business ail? and

what could be done now to prevent that happening.

Some allocate resources and innovation unds orexperimentation with new ideas: Heres 10 people

and 50 million, go o and see what you can do.

Others look or ideas rom all across the workorce:

oyota pools one million ideas a year rom its

employees, and implements 97% o them. Enabling

the entire workorce to contribute is essential: some

o the best ideas come rom those on the actory

oor or the customer-acing ront line.

However, many organisations lack a ramework

or allowing new ideas into management thinking.

Another imperative or HR is to create an

environment or allowing new ideas to be identied,

tested and implemented: whether they come rom

the workorce or rom an external source.

At our organisation, we always ask peopleto think how a thing could have been donebetter, even i it worked well. Its a simpleapproach that encourages new ideas and

we need that to stay successul.- HR Board Member

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Te HR Board was reminded that an Apple

employee didnt invent the mp3 player, and Oracle

didnt invent the relational database but thoseorganisations were capable o seeing the promise

in those radical ideas and harnessing them or

game-changing success. Te ability to allow in new

ideas and make them y is the essence o the high-

adaptability, transcendent organisation.

Watching or undercurrents o change is another

imperative. Keeping a close eye on competitors

successes and ailures, on whats making people

within your own organisation unhappy, on whatcustomers are doing and saying all these things

can highlight a need or change which can then be

enacted as part o the three-stage adaptability process.

Another crucial part o creating a high-adaptability

environment is to make sure that lessons are

learned rom mistakes, ailures and misses. Many

organisations have no ramework in place or

recording, examining and learning rom mistakes

they simply move on and hope things will go better

next time. But as habits and learned behaviours die

hard, this may well not happen.

HR leaders should also examine the rhythm at

which people-related processes happen in the

organisation. Te pace o the external environment

is always changing: speeding up and slowingdown. Processes like perormance review cycles,

recruitment cycles and workorce planning should

be able to ex with the pace o the environment.

In a highly-volatile environment, an annual

perormance plan will be woeully out o step with

the need to adapt and change direction.

An organisation that has a highadaptability culture or HACK will

respond to threats and opportunities withintelligence and imagination. And thrive inan ever-changing world.- Max McKeown

We stay close to competitors. Look atwhat theyre doing, how can we grow asterthan them?- HR Board Member

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Conclusion

In a volatile environment, successul

organisations are the ones that can adapt

quickly and eectively to changing conditions.

But large organisations tend to be set in their

ways. Its hard to create a culture that can

recognise the need to change, quickly identiy

the best course o action and implement it

beore competitors do, or beore circumstances

overwhelm the organisation. Tats exactly whatmakes it so valuable, because high adaptability

sets you apart rom your competition.

HR has a key role to play in enabling high

adaptability, by creating an environment

in which new ideas are continuously tested

and implemented, adaptable individuals eel

challenged and rewarded, and the emphasis is

on continuously nding better ways o doingthings.

Join the Oracle HR Board

Further HR Board meetings are planned

throughout 2013. I you would like to join a

select group o private and public sector HR

leaders to discuss ways to take the proession

orward, please contact Sue Good on +44

(0)7810 830629 or [email protected].

About the Oracle HR Board

Oracle established the HR Board series todrive best practice and thought leadership in

the HR proession. Regular Board meetings

are attended by HR leaders rom organisations

including:

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do you have a high adaptability culture?

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