Time regained Sense-making to build antifragile and courageous organisations

If the title Time Regained brings to mind the work of Marcel Proust, that is exactly what we desired. Within In Search of Lost Time, one of the greatest literary masterpieces of the last century, the theme of time is an essential leitmotiv, intertwined with that of memory. 

This topic, however, is of great interest today, as well, in the world of organisations and society at large. Understanding the time in which we live in has never been so important. 

The aid Proust gives us works on at least two levels. “Time Regained” is the seventh and final volume of “In Search of”, a work that is extraordinary for its ability to link introspective, autobiographical analysis with that of historical, social time. This seventh volume tells in particular how the events of the past take on a different meaning in subsequent phases of life. 

This is the perspective. The phase we are living through allows the resumption of a series of behaviours from the past - which we can, however, reread with new eyes, reconsider, and partly change for the better, both in our private lives and in our organisational practices. 

The second level on which Proust can give us inspiration concerns synesthesia. In what is probably the most famous passage in “In Search of”, the adult Proust renews his acquaintance with a madeleine, a biscuit dipped in tea, which unleashes an irresistible flood of memories from the time of his childhood. It is an unintended mixture, and yet an overwhelming one, combining sensory experiences with the stimulation of the spirit and memory.

This is also a plan that is relevant to us today, because we all have an enormous need to get back to doing things with feeling and which we can experience fully with all our senses. Again, both in our personal lives as well as in the life of organisations. 

During the pandemic, as difficult and problematic as it has been, we have had a lot more time for ourselves and our loved ones. We have had more time to devote to our passions. Now, in the recovery, we have a chance to return to our previous activities, but also to value things that formerly tended to be overlooked in our hectic lives. 

Organisations, in particular, can start a new if they are capable of implementing a strategy of courage; if they can rid themselves of useless things, of what Daniel Kahneman in his latest book calls “noise,” and focus on the essence of things. 

What must emerge and become dominant is the empathic component: companies must be closer to people, their customers as well as their employees. They have to become truly people-centric and know how to express this orientation in everything they do. They must have the courage to get near to people, to put themselves on the line, and to express their feelings. They need to have more heart. And aim to be more positive, cheerful and truly happy. This also implies greater integrity and the ability to tell true stories, such as the truth of their brand. 

On which levels should we act? To answer this question, I might take some of the content of my recently published article in the Future Trends supplement of HBR Italia. 

Spaces 

Workspaces today are in a dynamic balance, a phase of transformation from spaces to places. What is the difference? Spaces are where we live and work, but places are where we feel we belong. A place is made up of relationships, it is a social dimension in which the employee’s well-being is truly placed centre-stage. 

The evolution from workplace to place requires both design capacity and the ability to develop a corporate culture able to transform walls and surfaces into environments where employees feel good in themselves. As Rex Miller, author of The Healthy Workplace Nudge, states, this can be done with a proper wellness culture, one which is disposed to gently nudge employees towards high-level work performance and great economic results. 

Culture 

In recent years the corporate culture in leading companies globally has made an important shift, starting with a focus on Employee Experience ( link. Employee Experience, Franco Angeli 2020) and leading to the notion and practice of Employee Caring. ( Dall' Employee Experience all'Employee Caring; Franco Angeli 2021 link )

The period of remote working has favoured a new culture based on trust, in which the worker is given more freedom to manage his own time and the possibility of defining their commitment not on the basis of performance but of the achievement of objectives. 

Even that may not be enough, however. The most recent tendency within organisations places the concept of Wellbeing at the centre. A corporate culture that is attentive to this goes beyond the concept of caring, and is aware that the office can be a place of fulfilment where one can feel happy - but only if it is designed to be so. 

Data 

In contemporary businesses there are many change management needs. Changing one’s own habits always involves a great deal of effort. 

But change today can be supported by technology and data. How? Mainly by encouraging behaviour design decisions and solving problems of connection between people. The first aspect has to do do with changing behaviour. Data, algorithms and apps are at our service to more easily effect the change in behaviour we have sketched out. 

The second aspect concerns the need to support relationship needs. Technology and data can offer a way out of the organisational atomisation that remote working unintentionally brings about, identifying tacit communities and supporting free connections among employees. 

Organisation 

For the thinking activities that most contemporary employees, knowledge workers, are engaged in, the autonomy and accountability inherent in remote working are certainly attractive. But autonomy taken to excess can mean uncertainty and disorientation. Organisations need to reconsolidate and, in order to do that, they need to find new ways of working. In addition to the practice of revealing the tacit communities I just mentioned, the most effective way to do this is to encourage employee engagement, turning the headquarters into a hub-quarters. This means, on the one hand, making the office a welcoming place with a view to creating encounters, intersections and moments of cross-fertilisation; and on the other hand, to ensure that work is accompanied by moments of relaxation and gamification. 

But how can organisations implement all this? The continuous activity of supporting companies that we undertake every day in OpenKnowledge puts us in contact with a multiplicity of tactical and strategic requirements, as well as specific requests for action. On this basis, we have figured out a way to support organisations facing a path of change. What point of view do we use to carry out our activities? The perspective of OpenKnowledge looks at people, individually and as a whole, and to the network of relationships, attitudes and behaviours through which the company lives. 

Examining the organisation from the perspective of people centricity, we promote a human & digital Organisation transformation that, both internally and externally, must enable resilience and the ability to evolve in a context of continuous transformation (Figures 2 and 3). 

But how do we actually support change? What concrete actions must be implemented by organisations? We work together with people by supporting three directions of transformation, which in our opinion are fundamental at the present time. This supplement illustrates these directions in detail, with reference to the different organisational contexts in which we operate – and by inviting influential corporate speakers to share their ideas. 

The three categories of action are

Unlearn & Learn 

The first important action is to unlearn. Organisations need to free themselves from many concepts and practices that have been rendered unnecessary by the pandemic. They have to be abandoned because they were (long ago) obsolete or wrong. Next, the transition to the new normal must be implemented, going back to doing many of the things we used to do - but in a new way. That is why we have to rethink the needs of enterprises, and the actions to be taken must focus on learning and renewing skills. 

Almost every day the media reports that there is a serious mismatch between what is taught in our schools and universities and what businesses need. But the problem is not only an Italian one. Many studies report that most CEOs around the world recognise the existence of important gaps between the skills of their own workforce and those desired. Young people must be trained in a different way and, in our experience, this is possible: there is an urgent demand for action to meet this goal. After the T-shaped competences, those of the vertical, specialised type, today there is a lot of talk about the need for Comb-shaped competences, or skills which are less specialist but capable of embracing multiple fields of knowledge. In any case, it is a question of targeted action and of renewing employee training in an ongoing mode, focusing on the knowledge that is needed today, and that we will need tomorrow. 

Change & Evolve 

In an environment that is changing at an accelerated pace, walking at the usual speed, as in the tale of Alice’s, means standing still or going backwards. Changing and evolving today is not a choice; it’s a necessity. How, then, can this be achieved; in concrete terms, to promote change in organisations? The second category of actions that we propose to companies involves working particularly on places and culture. 

Spaces can be recreated with the goal of pushing people towards collaboration. Transformed into places (in the sense explained above) they are able to reshape behaviours, facilitating the adoption of New Ways of Working that would struggle to develop in the old environments. Adherence to interventions to change the space, moreover, is linked to a transformation of the culture of the organisation, which often has to pass through a new culture of leadership. Business leaders must take on board the post-pandemic principles that today require abandoning the logic of control and micromanagement in favour of those of delegation and empowerment. In a short period of time remote working has accustomed employees to work not by task but by objectives, involving them in the responsibility for results. 

Communicate & Engage 

The third category of actions is aimed at engaging people. But it is important to make it clear that this is not about initiating mega-communications programmes. 

The changes that need to be brought about are not top-down. Rather, they are designed with teams in an agile way. In other words, they are new operating models and behaviours that people want. The basis of everything is a macro-model of empathic engagement. 

We know that in large organisations it is not possible to instantly extend engagement with everyone. How should we act in these situations? The solution is to start with fast, agile teams able to create programmatic indications which inspire pilot experiences. These can then be extended to all employees with communication and engagement campaigns. In short, transformation is triggered by small groups of people acting as change leaders or ambassadors. Without this, transformation can be very slow or may not happen at all. In order to move ahead to actions of this kind, the concept of nudging remains valuable: as important as communication is, sometimes you get better results by talking less and doing more. The most effective engagement campaigns are those in which communication is accompanied by “gentle nudges” on the other action plans - spaces, culture, technologies and organisational models. 

The LINK that follow, however, offer many clarifications and examples of how they can be grounded in real business life. 

Now, what is the relationship between the four areas in which organisations must engage (reproduced in Figure 1) and the three classes of actions we propose to adopt? 

In our vision, the answer lies in a perfect integration - the one we present in Figure 4. 

In other words, the Unlearn/Learn lever can concern both the area of culture, as well as those of organisational models, technologies and the use of spaces. It depends on specific needs and on a case-by-case basis. 

The distinctions I have been talking about are logical in nature and are meant to clarify the situation, making it possible to establish the purposes, contours and scope of every intervention. 

Today, at OpenKnowledge, we are at work in all these areas, with a heightened awareness of the importance and value of time – both our time and that of the companies we serve. This is time regained, following the experience of a collective crisis of exceptional magnitude that has caused us to reconsider many things; time, therefore, that is even more valuable, through which we hope to have developed (as Proust suggested) the ability to make better use of it.