Virtual OD by SYNNECTA – Go digital!

19. März 2021

The digital world is a great source of new potential for organizations to foster a cultural change that is more democratic and more tuned into the future in order to address the challenges of an increasingly complex and dynamic world. In future, culture will be even more important in organizations. Culture fills gaps that cannot be bridged by structures and traditional processes alone.

Virtual organization development – Virtual OD by SYNNECTA – provides sustainable support to this aspect.

Cultural change aims to strengthen engagement, heighten performance, improve collaboration, make effective use of diversity and become more agile. It aims for the sustainable development of an organization. Only those organizations that engage in such continuous development will in the future be able to deal with change swiftly and appropriately and maintain long-term success.

Cultural change can take place from two directions

Approach 1: Central perspective – one guiding theme creates a pervasive common notion that is delivered ‘top down’ in order to integrate differences (different characteristics, metaphors, …). Further along, we see the development of islands that network self-sufficiently and influence the central pervasive message.

Approach 2: Synchronous-lateral perspectives – Useful aspects emerge automatically. Peripheral perspectives emerge laterally and enable the required multi-perspective viewpoint from the beginning. Resonance and successful action foster the emergence of new structures, which in turn resonate again and thereby reinforce each other (spiralling development) – self-sufficient organizing.
This is where Virtual OD by SYNNECTA opens up great opportunities.

Both approaches take place in conjunction in everyday Organizational Development, but are given different emphasis.

Employee community and identification with the organization serve as social glue. An organization’s strong core identity prevents it drifting apart. Communication within a continuous dialogue that provides emotional touchpoints is an essential guiding element here.

Organizational Development today: limits and challenges

Cultural transformations traditionally begin at the »centre«, meaning from an organization’s headquarters and spreading from this »epicentre« to other areas and through the entire organization in order to become »global«. The direction of change therefore goes from »central« to »local«.

In this process, thinking and acting come from the central perspective of the headquarters from the beginning. This means that the process is asymmetrical from the very start, with a decline from the centre to the periphery. Consequences can include:

  • Lack of identification in the peripheral areas that are not part of the centre.
  • Weaker acceptance and lacking commitment.
  • Difficulties guiding the transformation on global and international levels.
  • Varying depths of effect and speeds of implementation between centre and regions.
  • The differences between centre and regions stay in place and may even be reinforced or increased (insider/outsider thinking).
  • Important perspectives and potential from the periphery is not sufficiently included and utilized.

Successful cultural development always includes self-organized dynamics and therefore requires an approach »across the field« that departs from the notions of »top-down« and »bottom-up«, which reinforce a hierarchical mindset. The real force of renewal is therefore found in the periphery. The digital sphere provides an opportunity to strengthen or improve these aspects.

Digitalization can foster a new Organizational Development

Any organization essentially has the implicit knowledge to be sustainable for the future. However, it is often not understood how to explicitly use this knowledge. Virtual OD by SYNNECTA shifts the dynamics from central to local. At the same time, it provides an opportunity to leave to dominant notion of »top-down« and »bottom-up« behind. Organizational Development at eye level!

The three classic levers of Organizational Development are creating meaning, changing patterns and establishing commonalities. These three levers can be expanded by Virtual OD by SYNNECTA. It allows for the guiding theme to be disseminated with greater conviction (see approach 1), but even more importantly, to design self-sufficient organization more effectively (see approach 2).

The greater efficacy of virtual organizational development is mostly created by the following aspects:

  • Time and space are opened, so that simultaneous activity is possible and asymmetries are eliminated.
  • Synchronous and asynchronous events/communication/collaboration take place at a global level.
  • Fast and high degree of networking among people in the digital space.
  • The power of weak joints. Weak joints are the basis of prolific cooperation. Virtual OD by SYNNECTA uses the power of weak joints.
  • More outcome thanks to focussed collaboration.
  • A greater degree of self-sufficient organization, stronger interaction and involvement.
  • More effective dynamics permit themes to spread virally faster.
  • Creation of virtual communities (of practice).
  • Greater use of creative tension through multi-perspective working in the digital sphere (using diversity).

What moves you?

  • Remote work will stay with us!
  • How will the dominant position of the headquarters be reduced?
  • How do we achieve greater and more sustainable employee engagement?

Contact us!

TheQuestBySynnecta – What are we for?

19. März 2021

People in organizations expect a credible answer to this question in order to be able to establish a context for their work that delivers a sense of both purpose and meaning. Reacting to such challenges, companies position themselves with a company purpose. Until now, this purpose has almost always been developed from an inside viewpoint. However, organizations always exist in the context of an ecosystem. A meaningful purpose can only be developed in dialogue with the stakeholders of the company‘s own ecosystem. At SYNNECTA, we endeavour to give a truly multi-perspective design to these dialogue processes and thereby foster a deeper understanding of the company’s identity.

People need to work in meaningful contexts

The mindsets of societies change and shift in ways that are especially tangible to the younger generations. There is a growing desire and need for meaningful work contexts and an intention to contribute something useful for a greater whole while working. In short: living meaningfulness.

At the same time, societies are asking companies what contribution they are making to people and society. It is a question that both citizens and employees want answered.

Reacting to such challenges, companies position themselves with a company purpose. However, this purpose is still often strongly driven by a marketing outlook. The company purpose is therefore worked out within the old structures: A selected group of managers formulates a purpose that is then communicated inwards and outwards with considerable effort.

A range of perspectives – those that have developed out of the highly diverse employee population, from the clients, sectors of society and the markets – are hardly represented. So far, there has been a lack of real and open dialogue between the interest groups. A shared understanding to provide a basis for a company purpose cannot be developed this way.

Understanding our own identity in the context of the ecosystem: »What are we for?«

Organizations evolve and exist in the context of various stakeholders: markets, clients, competition, partners, society, employees, etc. All of these systems are in continuous exchange and yield an influence on each other. Together, they make up an ecosystem. Since organizations are always part of an ecosystem, they can only arrive at an understanding of their own role within the context of that ecosystem. The identity of an organization is defined through a constant exchange with the ecosystem.

Developing an organization’s identity that can provide meaning and a sense of community must therefore focus on asking:

  • What are we for? What is our contribution to our ecosystem?

Any answer to this question that is found only from within the organization will establish a limited and frequently distorted perspective. It is based on hypotheses about the self and the world that were developed along many paths, but never in exchange with that very world, the stakeholders in the own ecosystem.

A true understanding of the own identity requires direct dialogue with the various stakeholders that make up the own ecosystem. It needs to come from a perspective that goes from the outside in:

  • What do you need?
  • What can we do for you?
  • What can we do together?
  • How should we be from your point of view, what makes us attractive partners to you?

Dialogue and joint examination of the own ecosystem

We create shared dialogue spaces with the stakeholders of the ecosystem and therefore make it possible to create a joint, multi-perspective debate to achieve a common and shared guiding theme. All relevant viewpoints will find a place where they can learn from and with each other: about themselves, about joint interests, about shared potential. This process then underlies a grasp of the own identity and the own purpose. This guided dialogue allows synergies to emerge. The multi-perspective process expands everyone’s thinking. The processes of creation and implementation come together and establish a high degree of commitment for the joint cause.

Our Approach:

  1. The organization chooses an overall guiding theme for the dialogue in the ecosystem.
  2. A suitably wide spectrum of various stakeholders is invited to join in and explore this guiding theme together.
  3. Shared, relevant questions that pertain to the guiding theme are developed together with the stakeholders.
  4. Further guiding questions will support the moderation of a substantial and demanding dialogue that is fundamentally set out to take in many perspectives.
  5. Promising impulses from the dialogue can be adopted and can kick off future initiatives and joint projects.
  6. The stakeholders can develop further individual conclusions and measures from the shared insights.

The choice of stakeholders is essential to the success of the process. A successful dialogue fosters new insights and therefore needs to start from a sufficient degree of difference. It requires constructive juxtaposition. Here lay the great challenges and the opportunities of multi-perspective dialogue processes: allow differences, let them have an effect and develop deeper, shared insights together with them.