#26 Purpose Driven people with Alize Hofmeester

“To really solve problems ask for input from all those involved and design the model together. Don’t design behind close doors..”

In this week’s episode Alize and I discuss ‘being’ Agile and what it takes to build trust into organisations. All organisations are different and unique yet the same questions recur all the time; new practices and examples to experiment with are extremely valuable to learn from, and we should build deliberately inclusive organisations by determining the reason for change and ensuring all perspectives are covered. We dive into the different concepts and experiences around creating a learning organisation via community building, ecosystems and transformational leadership. A rich, fun and inspiring discussion with the common thread or deliberately developing inclusive practices and collective intelligence to co-create, experiment and iterate on building collective purpose. 

Alize shares her wealth of experience and insight from working with organisations across the globe to create sustainable business agility, as well as the experience and insights of other experts in her book Purpose Driven People. 

The main insights you'll get from this episode are :

-      purpose-driven people go hand in hand with sustainable business transformation; the human dimension aligns with purposeful business agility to bring about meaningful change

-      agility means a different way of thinking and doing, working towards a shared goal, coming up with possibilities and alternative strategies, taking personal responsibility and having the courage to make different choices

-      Agile is iterative: experiment, learn and continuously improve - old models are giving way to communities and collective intelligence as platforms for tapping in to others’ brains (thereby bridging human and digital)

-      we should build deliberately inclusive organisations by determining the reason for change and ensuring all perspectives are covered, i.e. from an organisational, employee and leadership standpoint

-      ask for input from all those involved and design the model together; this idea has taken root but is yet to come to full fruition as it often falls foul of cost-cutting, and transformation should not be aligned with costs

-      when writing a book, never assume that what you write is common knowledge and concentrate on what is of value to and enriching for readers; combining fact and fiction / theory and practice offers scope for creative storytelling

-      People Journey Circle is a methodology for a unique human-centred approach to transformation to close the gap between thinking and doing; the echo chamber notion applies when working long-term with the same people, creating blind spots and no new ideas

-      leaders think they act but employees do not experience the action; collective intelligence closes the loop with real-time involvement to simultaneously close the mindset and perception gap through diversity and exploration

-      transactional leadership is more of an old-fashioned managerial style whereas transformational leadership is actively geared towards changing the future and generating new ideas, and building relationships with employees to allow self-organising teams to lead themselves

-      collective purpose is essential to connect people, imbue their work with meaning and moreover highlight its value – this in turn helps to create a wider focus on an ambitious purpose

-      people are the beating heart of an organisation and this must be understood for successful transformation - success depends on what you are willing to let go