DELIVERIES & DATES THIS WEEK

LIVE SESSION:

The live session will be hosted by YOU on TUE 31 MAR from 15:00-16:30 CET.

TASKS & DELIVERIES:

1. Pod Call: Project Wrap Up
2. Your Road Map
3. Individual Reflection Journal

See instructions for each delivery below.

All deliveries should be uploaded as a PDF in the #6_continuous-transfor channel on Slack by Sun 5 Apr.

HOW WILL YOU KEEP IT GOING?

Throughout this program we've introduced a whole load of principles, tactics and tools for transformation. You’ve been amazing, setting to work experimenting and trying new things out with your stakeholders, your teams, your clients and yourselves. We’ve seen many of you make genuine progress in real-time, from small personal breakthroughs, to organization-wide impacts.

But there’s much work yet to be done! This is just the beginning.

You’ve started to have an impact, but for most of you this will be largely superficial. Six weeks simply isn’t enough time to deeply embed new working practices, new mindsets or changes that will stick over the long-term. So a key question for this final module is:

How do you make sure that this experience isn’t just a one-off?

Not so deep down, we’re all creatures of habit. Experts argue on the exact number, but we’ve all experienced new habits forming through repetition. That morning run that used to be so difficult but is now merely part of your daily routine; checking your Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat feeds even though you checked mere minutes ago; sitting in the same spot in your favourite café every Sunday for years on end.

Not all of our routines and habits are useful or productive. But we can deliberately add new ones into our working patterns that support a culture of continuous improvement. It starts by just doing it. Then doing it again, and again, and again. Before long, it will become a habit. The more you do it, the more you’ll do it.

Checking-in at the start of a meeting and checking-out at the end is the clearest example of routine (a ritual) for us at Hyper Island. Sometimes if we forget to check-in or out, the meeting feels strange and incomplete. That process has become a total norm in our teams. What routines and rituals will be important for you and your team in order to sustain your work toward positive change?

Our friends at the remote design agency Hanno have packaged their routines, rituals and habits in an incredibly clear, compelling and accessible way – and make them public for the world to see and learn from. They call it their Playbook. It’s an open site that details the routines, habits and working processes that make them who they are. Check-it out and see what you might take inspiration from.

As you go through this kit and this final week of Driving Transformation, keep these reflection questions in mind in order to deliberately commit to routines and habits that will support you to continue driving toward your change case with effectiveness and purpose.

Key questions to explore this week (and going forward!)

• What is driving you and what do you want to achieve?

• Which of your own behaviours are helping you and which are hindering you right now?

• What can you start / stop / continue doing that will improve your effectiveness?

• Where are you seeking support, guidance, energy and inspiration to be at your best?

CASE 1: LEARNING FROM WITHIN

This first case study is about Hyper Island's own transformation journey. It's an ongoing process but one that mirrors many of the challenges we have discussed during the program, touching on many themes that you will recognize from your own case. In particular, we focus here on the Road Map – how we worked with building and executing a plan for change in a complex and constantly changing environment.

Hyper Island has been around for about 25 years. Not long ago, we realized that we had reached a point in our evolution where we needed to proactively shape our future by revisiting the core of our business. New competitors were emerging, new trends and technologies were disrupting the space of learning and education.

We looked to a powerful question to inspire us. The question we asked ourselves was:

How might we create a clearer purpose, position and mission to meet future customer needs with our core competence in facilitating learning and transformation in a rapidly changing world?

STEP 1. COMMUNICATE A CASE FOR CHANGE AND A ROADMAP

One of the first steps in this journey was to communicate the Case for Change and visualize a road map that communicated the journey we saw we needed to take in a way all stakeholders could understand. We identified key steps in a timeline and who needed to be involved in what, when, where and how.

This first part of the change process is often the most difficult one. When you start by challenging the "way things are done" and "how we've always done things," you put can everyone and everything off balance. So be aware: you may evoke strong reactions in people when presenting a road map for change.

We also gave our journey a name. It’s was helpful for us to have a working name that was simple to remember when driving a change process that included a lot of different projects. Naming it helps people to understand that the different activities (regardless of their size) are actually all connected to something bigger. Ours became Future of Hyper Island. Have you given your transformation case a name? If not, what might it be?

STEP 2. DEEPEN ALIGNMENT AND BUY-IN WITH LEADERSHIP TEAM.

As a way to create leadership alignment around the change process we ran a workshop with the leadership team. During this workshop we co-created a collective picture of the current state, by working on the question "How does the organization and business look today?” It was an important first step to assess and map where they, collectively, felt they were at that moment.

Once the current state was mapped out and processed by the team, we then went on and co-created a change vision for the future: ”How should/could the organization and business look in the future?” For inspiration on how to craft a picture of the future, check out this article by John Kotter where he beautifully describes how to create a powerful change vision.

We populated the flipcharts with post-it notes that described both sides. The “current state” and on the other, “vision”.

This enabled the leadership team to see where they differed with one another but also where they found common ground. It was only through their ability to empathize with one another that they could create the alignment around why they were changing. It was also a critical step that enabled individuals to take ownership over important parts of the journey.

STEP 3. ENGAGE PEOPLE THROUGHOUT THE JOURNEY

To ensure that we collected input and worked inclusively with different parts of the business, we made sure people from all types of stakeholder groups were represented in the journey. Everyone from coworkers, board members and founders, to the current leadership team, even partners and clients.

One of the key projects in the journey was to understand our customers future needs and challenges. At one stage, we asked all co-workers to reach out, connect with and interview one to three clients each. This activity brought in remarkably valuable input! The input was collected and synthesized into insights that informed the work to answer our main question of the change. This allowed us to create internal engagement while still taking an outside-in approach to understanding the perceived value and impact we had on our clients and their futures – inside both their organizations and specific industries.

As a way to keep everyone involved throughout the journey we created a communication channel on Slack where we posted updates and output as we progressed. It was open for any coworker to follow and engage if they wanted to. We also focused on making it personal and accessible.

STEP 4. SETTING UP COMMUNITY TO LEAD AND CHAMPION THE IMPLEMENTATION

When the purpose, position and mission was finalized we began sharing it internally through storytelling. We created space for people to process their feelings and the information presented to them and then provided platforms to share their reflections, ideas and questions. We held local team meetings, global video conferences and individual key stakeholder presentations to make sure all of our key people to lead a successful transformation were onboard.

After a couple weeks, we created an additional "town hall" style meeting that allowed for people to come together and share their excitement and fears with one another. This cross-team, cross- organization dynamic really allowed for all views to be brought forward and understood and perhaps most importantly, it provided a chance for tensions to be identified and ultimately resolved .

Some people felt resistance on how to make the purpose and mission tangible and actionable in their everyday work. Instead of neglecting this resistance, we asked the group what could be done to support them. From that tension and question a group of "purpose champions" emerged, including some of the very people who had felt resistance in the first place. That group of champions created a mission for themselves: Guiding alignment and supporting Hyper Island’s network to translate the purpose into action, by living and co-creating behaviours, structures and principles.

This was a fantastic example of putting our ability to listen to and empower others in the process. It was those who felt safe and secure that shared their feelings. Not only did they bring forward and create awareness around a tension, they were active participants in creating solutions.

Whether you have identified champions from the outset or support those who emerge and surprise you along the way, there are numerous benefits to creating a network of them to support your change. Champions support by identifying issues and providing feedback from the front lines of change in real time. They also support their colleagues by managing their resistance to change through listening, encouragement or training. If you set up a champions team, make sure you create a clear purpose and culture for their work.

Hyper Island's transformation journey is ongoing, with new challenges and opportunities emerging all the time. With a new purpose and mission defined and aligned through the organization, we're now in a phase of re-designing structures, evolving products and services, and bringing in new talents – all while continuing to look toward the future and adjust the road map. If you're curious to hear more about Hyper Island's ongoing transformation journey, reach out to Bella Funck, who has been central in leading it and will be happy to share more. She's always happy to share from her own experience and discuss the challenging, rewarding work of transformation.

CASE 2 - CHANGING A CULTURE

Nielsen’s mission is to provide the most complete understanding of consumers and markets worldwide. They study consumers in more than 100 countries to give their clients the most complete view of global trends and habits. We will explain Nielsens case for change by using the same format as you will find in your own Case Road Map.

You will find a new term in this case: Journey. A journey is a collection of projects, activities and prototypes. The journey can have a clearly defined goal, but it also allows for flexibility and serendipity. If your case has a clearly defined goal, you can replace journey with project.

NAME OF JOURNEY

The journey began as Project Sync and it aimed to sync up technology with the existing abilities inside the organization. While there were great minds behind the name Project Sync didn’t stick. It later evolved to be Sync, The Movement and it in itself became a lesson on being flexible.

WHY

Why do you need to do the journey? What is the pitch? What is the elephant motivator? What is the driver motivator?

Nielsen was almost 100 years old with roots and an operating system developed to innovate in the space of data collection. A legacy mindset was very present and old ways of doing were dictating its future. Their clients’ needs demanded new levels of speed and flexibility and solutions that went beyond the available options. Nielsen soon realized this shift needed to go beyond upgrading their skills - it must be a cultural shift too. Because without creating new mental models such as developing an explorer’s mindset and being able to take risk while learning, the new expectations of their clients would not be met.

Motivating the driver was easy. There was no shortage of data and statistics looking at how competitors came from the most unexpected places. Clients had been with Nielsen for many years, with strong relationships. When the CEO said “There's never been a better time to be part of our company than right now", he leveraged the strong culture and pride from its employees.

HOW

What are the main projects in this journey?

The first activity was to do a future vision session with main stakeholders to help them align and visualize the goals and KPIs of the program. This session led to key insights within the leadership team, mainly around the need to invest in technology in order to support the culture change. Also, it became clear that this journey was a top down approach, which meant the leadership team needed to be onboard. To get them onboard Nielsen and Hyper Island created a learning program for the 250 leaders to grow and stay competitive in an increasingly digitized world.

The program goals were to:

• Create clarity and alignment around Project Sync (see learnings below)
• Explore new opportunities related to business processes
• Define and experience new ways of shifting the Nielsen culture to best support its future
• Create individual ownership and commitment that would build excitement for leading change within Nielsen

The program was designed to motivate and empower leaders to lead the change with their teams and clients.

To support a bottom up transformation Nielsen launched a digital literacy series to build knowledge and understanding of digital technology, consumers, disruption and transformation. It was for anyone who was curious and hungry to explore, tinker and test new ways of doing.

When the program began to gain critical mass, it shifted its name to Sync, The Movement. Also, together with Nielsen and some key leaders, we identified Champions and worked with them through coaching, facilitation, and training .

WHO

Who needs to be involved in this journey? Who will be your sponsor? How do you communicate with these people and how do you create ongoing feedback loops with them?

There were three types of stakeholders that needed to be involved.

The Sync Champions

To create change within the organization, Nielsen and Hyper Island identified key influential internal leaders who would be Sync Champions. We used these as filters to identify the champions: they believed change was needed and had shown some signs of already driving transformation, had been at Nielsen for over 8 years, and represented a diverse group of people (different business units and locations.)

The Sponsor

To help Nielsen transform from top to bottom, the CEO (a 15 year Nielsen employee) made this transformation a personal quest. He spread quotes like:

"Sync is what really elevates our thinking about where we are going and who we are going to be when we get there. There's never been a better time to be part of our company than right now." — Mitch Barnes, CEO.

Stakeholders

Before launching Sync, the CEO had to get the Board of Directors buy-in on two important pieces of the puzzle:

1. Monetary investment in new technology and leadership training; and
2. Support to reorganize (including bringing on a CTO) and to automate the company. This last one meant replacing existing jobs by algorithms.

WHEN

When does this journey need to happen? How long will it last for?

The transformation was originally intended to happen in 1 year, but it continues to this day. It started at the end of 2014.

DOCUMENTATION

How will you document your journey, so that it can travel without you? How will it be integrated in your case?

Given the scale and size of an organization like Nielsen, documentation and communication creates challenges in of itself. Some leaders manage up to 26,000 people, so documentation efforts needed to be effective with the required audiences.

Every session was recorded and the learnings were documented for future sessions in support of personal growth opportunities and leadership engagements.

Learnings and online sessions were improved by developing a manual of Dos and Don'ts.

Graphs were developed to track leadership progress in transformation in relationship to the training portion of the program over time.

These were just some of the ways in which documentation was leveraged to support the journey.

KPIs

What are the KPIs of this journey? What are the data points you will collect?

Prior to launching the Program there were no data driven KPIs articulated. The goals were tricky to measure, but we trusted that the KPIs would evolve.

The goals were:

• Demystify digital for all employees, providing accessible and fun programs to inspire learning and growth.
• Transform leaders to move from inaction/complacency to engagement and exploration.
• Empower leaders to feel comfortable with being uncomfortable.

These were the mindsets and behaviors used to measure the above KPIs:

• Exploring more
  • Testing new tools
  • Tapping into internal resources (talent mainly) to expand abilities
• Enabling speed
  • Involving clients in testing new solutions in quick ways
  • Setting up an approval system that allows quick turn arounds
  • Bringing departments on board with new ways of thinking to allow processes to evolve (such as Finance and Procurement teams)
• Expanding their network
  • Developing new partnerships
  • Leveraging existing assets outside of Nielsen
  • See competitors as possible partners
• Embracing technology
  • Brought a CTO on board (for the first time)
  • Invested in new technology such as personal computers, Google Works (which also enabled collaboration and transparency) and data tools created by start ups.

VISUALISING FAILURES

What potential failure could emerge from this journey?

We used these visualisations to help shape the journey, it gave us data and useful information to use for when we defined the process and our next steps.

Leaders don’t take ownership of the transformation process

If this would become true, the transformation would stay as an intellectual idea. We knew it needed to come from within the organisation. Knowing this we made it easy for the people to create their own initiatives, and gave them support to follow them through.

Nielsen people wait for detailed instructions to follow rather than owning the process of transformation themselves

This told us to be open and focus on empowerment. The sessions all included personal action plans, where the participants were inspired and challenged to define their ownership. We encouraged them to work with what they were passionate and curious about.

The shift takes too long to happen or never happen

This told us to make sure we got some quick wins. We knew we had to show progress early on in the process. We needed to communicate the quick wins which we did through the CEO constantly and consistent communications via townhalls and in Yammer channels.

RESOURCES

What financial and human resources do you need to fulfill this journey?

We created a Sync team together that was dedicated to the transformation process. It was a small team of 8 leaders from different departments and geographies. Investment in new technology to support new mindsets of collaboration, openness and speed was also needed and implemented.

Hyper Island’s role as a partner was important and by working closely with Nielsen we were challenged to question how things were done internally, giving us inspiration and a sense of urgency that we were included in the process.

LEARNINGS

The journey continues and so do the learnings. So far we’ve learned that the word “project” gave this journey an ending date unfortunately instead of inspiring continuous growth and change. Being a part of a “project” created a need for a manual and task list to follow rather than employees be empowered to create new projects within the journey, as they were when included in part of a movement.

A consistent and message about the WHY with transparency on not knowing exactly the HOW was also key.

Thank you for these six amazing weeks. Your dedication, generosity and energy have impressed and inspired us. With this module, the formal program comes to an end, however, your journey of transformation is only getting started. Below are some of the ways that you can continue to draw on the content and community of this program and Hyper Island going forward.

LEARNING MATERIAL & SITE

You will have access to this site for 6 months after the program ends

SLACK

The Driving Transformation Slack will be up for 6 months, and the activity on it will be up to you, the HI team will stay there and will reply to mentions.

CERTIFICATION

You have 3 weeks after the course (SUN 27 APR) to complete all the tasks to receive your Certificate of Completion.

DRIVING TRANSFORMATION COMMUNITY

The Driving Transformation community is now made up of 6 cohorts (including yours.) It's an increasingly active community that already meets semi-regularly. The community of all cohorts uses a Slack WorkSpace which you can join via this link.

HYPER ISLAND ALUMNI GROUPS

If you want to talk to other Hyper Island open course alumni, check out the blog Resources for Alumni for different platforms

CHECK IN LIVE SESSION

Given COVID-19 and all it is bring to us drivers of change, we will host an additional live session on Wednesday 22 APR at 15:00 CET.

1. POD CALL: CO-CREATION

This is the final pod call of Driving Transformation! Make sure you make the most out of it, ask every single question you might have about each other, your cases and ask for all the feedback you can handle.

Below you will find a suggested tool from the Hyper Island Toolbox. In order to run it, you need a facilitator who is willing to take on this learning experience. The tool is made for being in a physical room together, but there are plenty of digital tools that will allow you to run the exercises. If you need any tips or support, just ask in the ##6_continuous-transfor channel on Slack.

You might want to arrange a 90 minute call this week, just to make sure you get the most out of it!

TOOL

Project Wrap Up

TO DELIVER

WHAT: Share what tools you used and any other learnings from running online workshops in the channel #6_continuous-transfor

DEADLINE: Sunday

3. REFLECTION JOURNAL

Use the following questions as prompts for this week’s reflection journals. Treat them as ‘jumping off points’ rather than questions you must answer individually and specifically. Feel free to reflect from other angles too!

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

• What affected you most during the experience of this programme?
• What has been your biggest learning?
• What has been your biggest failure?
• What has been the biggest surprise?
• Where do you see yourself and your case in 6 months time?
• What didn't you see or learn that you are still curious about?

TOOL

Individual Reflection

DELIVER

WHAT: Your Reflection Journal

WHERE: Upload a PDF in Slack, channel #6_continuous-transfor

DEADLINE: By Sunday