Over the last 10 years the pace of change has increased dramatically, driven by globalisation, new technology and social media. The impact on business has been profound with competitive advantage increasingly more difficult to find. The ‘adaptive organisation’ has become one of the latest buzz words – but what does it actually mean and how do you move beyond the hype to practical steps that make it happen?
An adaptive organisation is able to quickly respond to new trends by altering both infrastructure and workforce competence whilst still maintaining core business, reputation and staff – they can respond quickly and continuously to change. Examples might include the development of a new product, taking advantage of a new piece of technology, organisational mergers and lastly identifying and implementing more cost effective ways of working.
We keep looking for the answer to creating competitive advantage, when the truth is – we already have it. There has been research into what makes change ‘stick’ and how employees, teams and managers react / engage with change. A range of evidence has been analysed from leading experts in change such as Kotter, Bridges, Lewin and Senge et al, Nadler & Tushman and others. Additionally organisations such as Epsos Mori and ORC have provided some evidence to support this.
Some of the features of an adaptive organisation include employee trust, autonomy, innovation, vision, transparency and leadership. Structures tend to be flatter with matrix working and self-managed teams. Activities include focused business discussion, risk taking, accountability, reflection, coaching, talent management and learning. Overall a higher level of emotional intelligence is applied to business relationships and challenges that arise from continuous development.
So, it has been clear for some time that one of the key competitive advantages of an organisation is your people. What hasn’t been clear until now is exactly how you develop those people, their talents and capabilities – and create the culture and environment to allow this to happen. Emotional Intelligence gives you that model and links to virtually every one of the key features above. In a world of declining empathy and growing business need for connections and partnership working, EI is no longer a ‘nice to have’, but the key to creating sustainable competitive advantage.
With this in mind, the overall theme of this year’s Experiential Learning Zone at the World of Learning Conference and Exhibition is:
“Developing successful, adaptive and emotionally intelligent people, relationships, organisations and leaders”
The image above summarises how we link the concept of Emotional Intelligence to people, leaders, learning and organisations and how our Fusion Learning methodology brings this to life.
Pearlcatchers will be running 6 interactive seminars on each day of the WOLCE that focus on all these areas, as well as ongoing feedback and coaching sessions.
Click here for full details of our schedule of interactive learning activities
Below, we detail how we will be incorporating all these aspects into the range of exciting activities on the Experiential Learning Zone
Emotional Intelligence is the answer to maximising your competitive advantage (your people):
1. Emotionally intelligent leaders are able to engage with their people, so they willingly follow them into challenging times. They embody authenticity, consistency and confidence and are able to have powerful and courageous conversations.
Our interactive seminars will explore the breakthrough competencies that will really make a difference in the future and how managers can avoid accidentally demotivating their staff. We can also show you a range of EI profiling tools for leaders and will be offering a free profile and follow up session to one lucky visitor
2. Emotionally intelligent people – in a recent worldwide study on the top 3 issues facing companies today, 65% were people related. Emotionally intelligent people have improved personal relationships, greater clarity indecision-making, feelings of well-being, emotional resilience and the ability to constructively handle conflict and disruption. This can both drastically reduce the ‘people related issues’ in the workplace as well as being a ‘life changer’ that enhances individuals’ personal lives.
We will be running seminars on emotional resilience, taking from lessons from laughter to help create an open mind for change and how to tackle difficult conversations from the ‘inside-out’.
3. Emotionally intelligent learning – learning itself is an intrinsically emotional business, yet is so often excluded when planning or delivering learning interventions. The facilitator / coach who pays attention to the emotional dimension of a learning intervention is more likely to develop a state in their learners which is conducive to learning, with an increased likelihood of learners being engaged, motivated, confident, constructive, ready to collaborate, creative and resilient.
Our sessions on Coach v EI Coach and the Rise of the Learning Facilitator will explore the role of EI in learning. You can also assess your own EQ (Emotional Quotient) as part of our free Learning Facilitator Skills Assessments
4. Emotionally intelligent organisations – are aware of their own ‘vital signs’, encourage an adaptive culture and are able to identify intelligence and ‘talent’ in all its forms.
Our sessions include how you can create the business case for the ‘Emotionally Intelligent Organisation’, creating your own ‘talent team’ and a coaching tool to provide clarity and engagement during change. We can also introduce you to world-class profiling tools for organisations and individuals
Fusion® Learning is our game-changing methodology that transforms training into learning in 7 clear and easy-to-follow steps. We successfully launched Fusion® Learning at last year’s World of Learning, with amazing feedback, such as “It is an innovative and fresh way to approaching the whole concept of learning in a holistic way” – Samsung.
Fusion® Learning is made up of 7 Pearls of Wisdom, as detailed below.
This year, we will be showing how Fusion® Learning perfectly complements Emotional Intelligence in developing adaptive learning organisations. For example, it incorporates
As well as a number of sessions dedicated to creating truly interactive learning interventions by increasing your impact and your ability to use visual images, we are delighted to launch our Learning Facilitator Competency Framework for adaptive organisations. This incorporates three ‘skill-sets’:
The framework concentrates on the core skills and knowledge that will enable you / your organisation to create an environment that allows your business to adapt quickly to market trends with minimal loss to productivity. It includes questionnaires that can be as self assessment and / or 360 feedback and a range of suggested development activities depending on your individual profile
As a special gift to World of Learning visitors, we are offering you the chance to try out the practitioner self assessment for free. Approximately 4 weeks prior to World of Learning, all registered visitors will be sent a link to complete the questionnaire online. Pearlcatchers will prepare your confidential report and this will be waiting for you at the Experiential Learning Zone.
To help you make sense of the data and consider what this means for you and your organisation, our team of expert coaches will be on hand to offer complimentary 20 minute feedback and coaching sessions.
Please let us know if you would like any further information on any of these activities or would like to book your coaching session in advance