Creative Thinking, Innovation and Problem Solving Summary to Search

Creative Thinking, Innovation and Problem Solving

[no images – this has not been edited]

My name is Antony Peloso from Queensland University of Technology.  This unit, Creative Thinking, Innovation and Problem Solving is an important step in the ongoing enhancement of your abilities to grapple with complex issues and deliver useful solutions. We hope you enjoy and learn from this experience.

The overall message for this unit is that we want you to be very confident of your abilities to deal with the uncertain. We also want you to be able to work creatively in the team environment and in your team roles. We know that most of you operate in the team context. We know too, much of your work is focused on change. This readiness prepares you to deal with significant pressure and challenging situations.

The unit has been designed with YOU in mind so before you begin, take a few minutes to look at the learning journey image in this introduction.  This shows how the unit is organised and will help you plan your study routine.  There are 20 hours of learning in this unit but you can approach the learning in a way that best works for you.

In this unit we help you to understand the concepts of creativity, innovation and problem solving in your unique context. We give you a set of tools and processes that you can apply to the situations in which you and your teams are likely to find yourselves. These tools in particular help you to understand these situations and the capabilities and skills you have at hand, and can leverage to best advantage.

Since it is likely that you will be focused on projects and specific initiatives, the unit encourages you to explore the real world situations and problems that are meaningful to you. We want to help you learn new ways of doing things in your role and in your teams, as you deal with complexity and develop an entrepreneurial spirit as you help to create a better future for you and the Army.

<end of video>

Jenny.

Now this goes next. I have realised that my intros are a bit disjointed.

I think there should be Jenny and tony pics. This unit has been developed and coordinated by Antony Peloso and Jenny Boreland. Congratulations for choosing to explore and learn more about creative thinking, innovation and problem solving.

As you watch the short video, we want you to think about your experiences and perceptions of these important concepts. Every day, you make decisions, take actions, and reflect on your work and personal lives. To be sure, part of your thinking will be about what is working and working well. Either implicitly or explicitly, for some of the situations in which you find yourself, or problems you have to solve, you will be pondering how to change things, make things better, and what absolutely needs to stop.

As humans, we naturally create hypotheses all day long that we test, in action. We don’t have to have these written or said. They usually just hang in our minds and we test them as we go. As you drive to your favourite coffee shop perhaps, you might be thinking, ‘Should I turn left or right at this intersection?’ That implies a ‘what if’ question. Probably you are testing your assumptions about which is the quickest way to get there, which way is likely to have more or less traffic, and where you are most likely to find a park.

If this is the first time you have visited this location, and taken this route, you will be processing new information, and making decisions on your overall knowledge. You will be making assumptions based on that knowledge and also what you are experiencing in real time.

If this is a tried and true route and a routine activity, then you are likely basing your decisions on a set of heuristics, or ‘rules of thumb’. You don’t really have to process, you just sort of ‘know’.

We hope you were running those scenarios in your mind as you were reading. Now, take those same sets of decisions and actions, and put them into your Army context, if you haven’t been already. Imagine now that you are leading a group of soldiers on a training expedition. Or negotiating a complicated procurement issue, or you are suddenly presented with a new and challenging situation.

You would call upon your skills and capabilities, your existing knowledge, your cognitive skills, and most likely too what we think of as ‘wisdom’; some people might say ‘common sense’. In the Army, you are trained to be highly skilled, disciplined, resilient, team-oriented and process-observant. This sets the framework and boundaries in which you demonstrate creativity and innovation, and also develops a mindset around problem-solving.

As you now set out to view the video, you have already engaged some of the most powerful capabilities that you have: curiosity, imagination, prediction, awareness, expectation and also quite likely some scepticism. Excellent. We have your attention!

Jenny

I was wrong. The above is the precursor to the video that goes after the reflection piece, and here is the video script

Insert video 2. this is the longer vid.

<video script>

This is the script

Video 2

In this unit we encourage you to find new ways to do familiar things, and new ways to do unfamiliar things.

The focus is very much on how you think, make decisions, and put those decisions into action. Since you work very much in team, we also focus on how you and your teams are able to create new and innovative  solutions, and how this helps you and the Army deliver new outcomes and results.

To do this, we help you think carefully about your own thinking! We ask you to explore different situations and scenarios and how you tend to make decisions. What is it that you, your skills and capabilities, bring to your team? And what new skills and capabilities can you develop to help build and enhance a stronger Army?

We encourage you to reflect carefully on what works in the way you do things and the way you think about your teams and your place in them.

We get you to explore some of the teams and projects you have worked on, and look for the patterns of behaviours and the culture you experienced in those teams and projects. By doing this we are really getting you to focus on details, or what we call discriminatory details. In the Army, and in most of your roles, this focus on details is crucial, and as you would know, also fundamental to the Army’s success and the safety and lives of its members.

The Australian Army has long been famous for fostering innovation in its systems and processes, and also in the ways that is encourages its people, that is, you, to think, make decisions, and act. These fit together to deliver on the promise that the Army, and thus you, make: Protecting the interests of Australia and our people; in addition to helping communities and supporting international operations.

In our very humanness, we work in networks to achieve outcomes. Your decisions and actions affect those around you, and the collective decisions and action affect our country and our well being. The Army is one of the most integrated and purpose-build human and capability networks. We want to help you to become even more aware of this and continue to develop your knowledge and skills.

Your training since you joined the Army has always been about rigor, discipline, resilience, teamwork and delivering on outcomes. You know a great deal about this. In this unit we encourage you to take these wonderful attributes, and apply them in new ways. Making the kinds of decisions that you are likely to make, in what we call high reliability organizations, of which the army is, requires a special kind of focus. So when we talk about innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship, in your context, we are always mindful of the fact that lives are at stake. This means we need to have a special kind of certainty and evaluation of risk, when we create new ways of doing things.

Many of us shy away from the concept of creativity. I’m not creative we say. I can’t draw. I can’t create new things. Naturally we can do all these things, and we did versions of these when we were kids. We did these things then, and we can do them now, with a different purpose and intent.

This is an applied unit, with creative thinking activities, quizzes and reflective exercises that I encourage you to complete. Always remember your reflective practice, and ideally your reflective journal. We know that these really work as you build your capability set.

Here is a little more detail about the kinds of processes you will explore. There are different types and levels of innovation. Each type requires different ways doing things, and also differing levels of change. We get you to work through these types so you know what it is you are dealing with when it comes to creativity and innovation. Any kind of change, no matter how useful, important and necessary, requires changes in behaviours and attitudes. In the Army this presents both challenges and unique opportunities.

Army culture is one the absolute bedrocks of success. We use the culture web to look at the various elements of your culture, at the whole of army level and also at your local levels, so you can see what you have to work with, and sometimes confront, to make changes.

The people element of creating and introducing innovations is crucial. We get you to work on understanding the stakeholder landscape, a huge component of creating innovations and then making them successful.

We also explore scenarios, a process that is widely used in the Army context. We suggest some different ways of using scenarios. We also ask you to reflect on a concept we call learned and urgent optimism, which is essential for doing things that are new and perhaps uncertain. We encourage you to commit to continuing to build good personal and team habits, that will help you on your mission to solve challenging problems, make informed decisions and deliver great outcomes!

In the final part of the unit we share some tips about how to build personal and team strengths around creative thinking and problem solving. We ask you to do a self-audit, and build a success tool kit. All the best and enjoy your new thinking skills!

<end of video>

Post video words

You would have noticed that in the video we encouraged you to think about your thinking, and how that translates into decision making and finally action. This unit is very much focused on the outcomes of creative thinking, problem solving and innovation. It relies on applied learning and so we want you to focus on exploring what you currently know and do in your context, what you would like to know and be able to do, and especially on using your new knowledge and expertise to solve problems, create solutions, and put them into action.

The Army is a team, and a team of teams[i][1]. These solutions and actions almost always are in the context of teams, small and large. We speak of networks, which in your context are the interconnections among the many people, teams, stakeholders and eventually, communities. When you have that image in your mind, you can ‘see’ the impact that you, your decisions and actions, and of those around you, have. The ripple effect is sometimes the metaphor used. In fact in your case, a more accurate metaphor might be many interconnected pools, with many ripples, of different sizes, intensities and timings.

As you progress in this unit, we want you to continually focus on how the exercises and concepts apply to your life, personally and professionally. Be constantly reflecting, sense-checking, and of course using your Reflective Journal. Remember that by now you will have quite a collection of insights, observations and ‘ah-ha’ moments in your Journal. The more you can ‘connect the dots’ in your journal, the more you will learn, and the stronger will be your abilities to effectively address the situations in which you find yourself.

Two more things to consider before we start with the applied section of the unit. Keep in mind your concepts of creativity and innovation. What do these concepts mean to you, and how do you believe they apply to your life and work? Secondly, using your Reflective Journal, begin right away to record your progression and conscious development of your creative thinking ability, innovation orientation, solution outcomes and subsequent actions and successes.

HINT: Towards the end of the unit we ask you to complete a self-assessment of your perceptions of your ability and confidence to complete and apply core components of comprehensive solutions to complex situations, issues or problems. This exploration of your self-efficacy[ii][2] is a core element of your likely success. More about self-efficacy later!

How structure and creativity work together.

Lesson 2              Primer

title: Creativity is part of our everyday.

In this section we ask you to watch a short video that explores an innovation in the Army context. To help you get your mind into the ‘innovation space’, we then ask you as series of questions to get to reflect on the components innovation, and the context in which it takes place.

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NOTE: This is copied in from the RISE asset as it currently is:

Read, Watch and Reflect

Activity: Read the provided short scenario from an Army context that highlights the importance of change initiatives, and how creativity and innovation fit. The short video also shows the technlogy in action.

Army starts field-trial of 3D parts printing https://www.contactairlandandsea.com/2020/02/25/army

This short YouTube video shows a little about the actual process of 3D printing with this technology. (Jenny – this is also included in the reading)

Youtube inserted.

SPEE3D 3D Print Metal at Lightning Fast Speed

SPEE3D printers enable the most affordable metal additive manufacturing process in the world. They make metal parts the fastest way possible, leveraging meta…

VIEW ON YOUTUBE

Using the information from the scenario, answer the following questions:

• What was the change?
• How is this an innovation in the current context? Or

In what way is this an innovation in the current context?

• How might it impact the relevant team?
• What might be difficult?
• What might teams have to learn?

Now that you have watched the video and answered the questions, we want to think carefully about your current evaluation of your abilities in terms of this unit. It will help you to think about a time where you needed to come up with a solution to something that was a new and challenging situation. What did you finally decide to do and how did things ‘turn out’?

You have also had a short experiment with using scenarios. Scenarios are an important component of this unit, so keep your insights in mind as you progress.

Thinking ahead for your learning…

What would you like to achieve from this unit? Make a check list of your personal learning objectives.

Keep this list in your Reflective Journal and refer to the list as you progress.

You are now ready to get on with exploring the activities.

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60          Topic 1 Exploring Creativity and Innovation 60 minutes

Lesson 3

Identifying Key Concepts: Change, Innovation, Creativity, Scenarios and Complexity in the Army

In this section we want you to firstly do some sense checking. We want you to consider each of the concepts in the squares. There is a definition hidden that pops up when you click the square. Before you click, record your definition of the concept, ideally in your Reflective Journal. And there are NO wrong answers here. Do your best and then when you have completed all the definitions, take a look.

How do your answers compare with those provided? What else came to mind as you read the provided definitions? Keep coming back to both your insights and the definitions here in the unit. Be sure to adapt and modify as you learn more about these concepts.

Change:

Flip:

Now, this is a tricky one!

Primarily , change is the act of something moving from one ‘state’ to another. Change entails a shift from one component of an attribute, to another.

Something is different, and the difference is measurable, or able to be perceived. Change in and of itself, is not necessarily positive or negative; it simply is.

Conscious change intent relies on recognising the current state or condition and making a decision to alter that condition. Change itself is the result of action. Intention is a precursor of change, but not usually a change itself.

More about change. [another click perhaps?]

Everyone writes about, talks about, and makes changes, but what few of us define the concept of change! People say ‘change’ and assume that there is a universal view of what it is. Very few consultants and change experts define change in their work. Robert Cialdini, an eminent professor of psychology from Arizona State University, makes a good case for the definition of change.[iii] [3]For humans (and of course all living things), he suggests that change is our perception and recognition, physical or psychological, of the difference between one situation, context, or environment, and another. The importance is in the recognition of the stimuli involved and how we evaluate those stimuli.

The temperature goes from 10 °to 15°. That is a quantitative change; one that is easily measured and recognised. Over time we come to believe that our local politician no longer reflects our views. That is a change of attitude as our perceptions have changed. It is possible that the politician is doing and saying the same things. She or he hasn’t changed. Our beliefs and attitudes have. In the definition we stated that conscious change intent relies on recognising the current state or condition and making a decision to alter that condition. Change itself is the result of action. Intention is a precursor of change, but not usually a change itself.

In our context what is most important is our reaction to change, acceptance of change, resistance to change, the recognition of the need for change and a perception of the changed state. It is our beliefs about change that we focus on here.

Innovation

Flip

We define innovation as something different that creates value, for individuals, teams and organisations.[4][iv]

Anyone and everyone within an organisation can create an innovation, and it can be a new product, process, service, or idea. Some definitions suggest that innovation is ‘the invention of entirely new things.’[v][5] In this unit however, an innovation can be a big breakthrough, or an incremental improvement.

More about innovation. [another click perhaps?]

There will be more about innovation in following sections. For the moment, however, let’s assume that most innovations begin as small-scale experiments, whether or not they are significant disruptions to the current way we do things.[vi][6]

Creativity.

Flip

Creativity is about being able to see new connections between familiar things and ideas, and recognise useful relationships among them.[7]

James Webb in 1939[8] suggested that creativity was basically about new combinations of old elements.

Steve Jobs, the co-founder and eventual saviour of Apple, is noted to have said that creativity is just connecting things.[9] These definitions probably don’t resonate with famous artists, designers and composers, but they work for our context.

Scenarios.

Flip

Scenarios are ‘what if’ activities and simulated situations that are constructed to enable creators and participants to explore and investigate future options and possibilities in contexts where outcomes are unknown and prediction and certainty are less likely to be effective.

More about scenarios [another click perhaps?]

Scenario planning is a disciplined method for imagining possible futures and outcomes.[10] It is a systematic methodology that has both fuzzy and ambiguous boundaries combined with detail and rigorous thinking and analysis. In the language of scenario work, scenarios explore the joint impact of various uncertainties as multiple variables change both simultaneously and at intervals. These interactions allow for both subjective and objective interpretations and insights, and create future opportunities and possibilities as well as insights into potential challenges and barriers.[11]

Scenario thinking is a branch of scenario work that focuses more on the concept of implausibility, the exploration of concepts, ideas and possibilities that are potentially highly unlikely and may have highly disruptive impacts, either to the upside or to be catastrophic.[12]

Scenarios, scenario planning and scenario thinking are fundamental strategy, planning and learning tools in the Australian Army. You would all have experienced these in various ways. Some of you might have developed scenarios. Others of you will have used this when you were instructing and training others. We are sure that most if not all of you will have experienced scenarios in some ways in your time in the Army. Later in this unit you get to make your way through a scenario experience.

The underlying goal of scenario thinking is to explore and question assumptions. There are many considerations and possibilities to consider, and there are as many opinions and approaches to this thinking model. Even expanding the technique to encompasses scenario thinking, changes the purpose and approach to some degree. Scenario thinking is an ideal ‘wicked-problem-solving’ strategy.

Complexity

Flip

Complexity we define as a large number of different components, such as technologies, inputs, context, intervening forces, ideologies, raw materials, products, people, and Army units, that have many different connections to one another.

More about complexity [another click perhaps?]

The dynamic number and nature of combinations of components and connections, allows for both benefits and advantages, as well as disadvantages and challenges, depending on how we view and manage these dynamics.[13]

Just as a note for you, ‘complexity’ is a term that is used in so many ways, and quite frankly the whole concept of complexity is ambiguous. Even across disciplines it has multiple definitions. For this unit we are more interested in the implications of complexity.

These are some of the implications that interest us. Complexity can create inimitability, the idea that something is difficult for others to copy or replicate. Most likely we can easily copy individual elements or pieces of a strategy or product. It is the interrelationships among multiple elements that are hard to replicate.[14]

More about this when we get to the VIRO capability exercise. Another advantage that complexity can imply is better coordination. Because the components of complexity are often highly interconnected, things can ‘fit’. Flocks of birds are a complex system, and their interconnectedness allows them to move and act as a group. They are usually safer and better at finding resources as a result.

Businesses at times rely on the concept of complexity as a key part of their strategies. Complex strategies are harder to understand. Now, we are sure that you can understand the importance of this to the Army. If complexity makes the Army’s strategies in battle harder to understand, its enemies will struggle to deal with them.

Bringing it all together.

These concepts are related and interact. When you think about the Army and your specific context and role, perhaps not one of these five concepts is the ‘driver’ of any other, but most likely the ‘need for change’, no matter from where that comes, is key. In the welcome video, we invited you to find new ways to do familiar things, and new ways to do unfamiliar things.

Let’s start with change.

Using the ‘hub and spoke’ image, plot out factors and ideas that you think are the most likely things that will be the impetus for you, in your immediate situation and role, to get you to ‘find ways to do familiar things differently, and new ways to do unfamiliar things’.

[Please replicate. Write ‘drivers of change in your context and role’ in the centre circle]

Add more circles and links if you need to and you can build in some importance and impact measures if you wish. For example, you can highlight some of the arrows to show stronger links. You could add some circles that are further away, to suggest that they matter, but are less direct. We call this concept ‘the strength of weak ties’,[15] which we will discover later are in fact often hugely important when we get to innovate and truly enact change.

Now that you have completed the ‘spoke and hub’ exercise, pause and reflect. What do you ‘see’ in the drivers you have noted? What most interests you? Can you see any patterns and pieces that overlap? Make sure you keep these at hand as later on we are going to look at trends, and these insights here will be very useful for you.

In the next lesson, we move on to explore innovation in more detail. In the meantime, start to think about how the ‘change drivers’ impact on the four other key concepts we are exploring here.

Lesson

Preparing to Explore: The Innovation Matrix

As we begin this Lesson, make sure you keep the concepts from the previous lesson in mind. We will refer to those concepts and we want you to continue to develop your understanding and use as you learn.

Earlier on in this unit, we defined innovation as something different that creates value, for individuals, teams and organisations.[16][vii]

Now we are going to explore different types of innovation. We encourage to you focus on the approaches you would need to use to be successful when creating innovations that fit into the different types.

Jenny – this is a modification of the paragraph that is in Rise.

We ask you to examine the Tushman O’Reilly Innovation chart.[17] [I don’ t know if you want to put the image in here, or later]

It shows a laddering approach to innovation. The level of complexity, creativity and degree of change tends to increase as you go ‘up the ladder’. Look carefully at the descriptions of each type of innovation. Your role and what you do in the Army would make a difference to the kind and types of innovation that you are likely to encounter and create.

<insert template – it is in the Army images ppt in the Assets and word docs folder. Take your pick of which one, or make another)

A Map of Innovation Template[18]

These are the 6 types of innovation in the map. The map has two main anchors, information about the level and type of innovation, and importantly, information about the likely user or recipients of the innovation.

Let’s explore the map in a little more detail before you get started on your exercise. The map has two main anchors, Innovation and Stakeholder.

Stakeholders.

We use the term stakeholders in the Army context because of the broad range of individuals, teams, divisions, organisations, and even countries, that might be the ‘user’, ‘target’ or the ‘recipient’ of the innovation. When you are thinking about the stakeholder, please try to be as specific as possible. It is also possible that you might have a group of stakeholders who are the likely ‘users’ of the innovation. You can have multiple ‘uses’ in the Stakeholder box by the way. By the way, there will be more about stakeholders later.

So as a guide, we have put in the words Stakeholders/Users/Army Teams/​Situations as a guide.

You will also notice that we divide the Stakeholder anchor into Existing and New.

Existing are those who are already using or know about whatever it is that you are providing.

New are those that either are not familiar with what it is that is being provided, or as yet have not begun to use it. Already you can imagine that the situation might be different.

Innovation

You will notice that we divide the Innovation anchor into 3 groups.[19]

Incremental Innovations​: These are small improvements in the provision, which might be existing services or goods, operations, processes, policies.

Architectural Innovations​: These are technological or process advances that fundamentally change a component, element, or direction of your organisation, division, team, or operations.

Discontinuous Innovation: These are radical advances that may profoundly alter the basis for operation and or purpose in your broad context. This is a new way of doing and thinking and requires a fundamental rethink of your operations and purpose.

Click here to read a little more about each of these innovation types.[20]

[Perhaps an insert, click, or a table. These are in excel. In <ambidex pieces>]

When you put these anchors and their groups together, you can see that you have six combinations.

Before we send you off to explore these concepts on your own, there is one more concept that we want you to take in. Ambidextrous organisations, teams and people are able to create and cope with ‘business as usual’ improvements and incremental innovations, and major purpose-shifting innovations, at the same time. We think of these as mindsets and capability sets. Each set has its own distinct strengths and requirements, and also its challenges.

We group the different types into the language of ‘exploiting current capabilities’ which we will represent with a blue circle, and ‘exploring new options’ which we will represent with a green triangle. We have a third concept to add, the ‘decide’ or ‘wisdom’ square, which is the organisational or team capability that makes key selection and retention decisions about what to keep and support  with resources and time, and what to do less of, retire, or put aside for another time. We show this as a red square.

We stick with this language: blue circle, green triangle, and red square. We know that there are other systems that use colours and shapes. These shapes with their colour in this exercise are not to be confused with ‘hats’, animals or personas. The shapes remind us of the capabilities and attributes of the type of thinking and actions, and the time, effort and focus that is required.

We put these onto a grid to make sense of the whole set, and also a way that we can think of how the organisation might be able to ‘see’ its innovation landscape.

[Jenny – <insert template>  this image is in the Army images ppt in the Assets and word docs folder. It is the very last one.)

[21]

You will notice that we have the shapes on two axes. The ‘x’ axis is time, and the ‘y’s axis is focus. Generally speaking, green triangle thinking and the resultant innovations require less time and often less focus to conceptualise and ‘mock up’.

Ideas and concepts especially for services, processes and systems can often be ‘easier’ to come up with. Of course, the actual creation and bringing to life can be another whole issue. But generally these potential innovations require less time and focus. It also means that there can be many of these!

Hence the need for the red square, the decision box. This requires specific skills, decision criteria and another whole set of ‘eyes’ and ways of thinking. We sometimes call this the ‘wisdom’ component of innovation decisions.

Then we have the blue circle. These usually require significant time and focus. These are the ways of working, the ‘business as usual’, the things that we know and have worked for us over time but need to change. These are the ongoing, usually incremental changes and modifications that require retraining, rethinking and modifications, that for some are actually more difficult than the big impact significant shifts.

It is pretty likely that you have already started to match the boxes on the innovation map with the shapes on the ambidextrous organisation framework.

Generally speaking, the innovations map out like this, but not always, of course.

Stakeholder/Innovation and Explore/Exploit Illustration

Here is a quick example. The switch from fixed land lines to in home wireless handsets didn’t change the basic functions of a telephone. It is allowed for much more convenience, flexibility, the ways that the telephone fitted into homes and the way they were used. However, the advent of mobile phones was a complete change of technology and usage possibilities. The next step, smart devices, completely changed the concept of a telephone!

Activity: Find and categorise innovations in your context.

Reread the Preparing to Explore: The Innovation Matrix section. Be sure to use your Reflective Journal for this exercise.

Step 1

Using the Map of Innovation template, find an example of each type of innovation.

Step 2

Write a 100 word description of the innovation. You can include images and diagrams if you wish.

Step 3

Write up your reasoning for deciding the box in which the innovation belongs.

Step 4

Add a green triangle or a blue circle to each box in the Innovation map.

To find examples think about your time in the Army. Consider changes in equipment, exercises, systems, missions and technologies. The Cove is also a great place to go and explore for examples. https://cove.army.gov.au/

Wrap up.

Now that you have finished your Innovation Map, take some time to figure out what is it showing you overall. It is very likely that you were able to find examples of each of the types of innovation, relating to new and existing users. I am sure that you also noticed that the Army is busy! Innovations of all kinds are taking place, all the time, in many locations, in many ways. You are a part of these innovations. You will be suggesting, commenting, creating, adopting and adapting!

Innovation means change! In the next lesson we take time to step through some of the impacts of change, and the ways that we cope and deal with change, in an organisation like yours.

A word of warning: there is probably more written about change, change models, change processes and other change elements than just about anything else in organisations, other than leadership! We try to keep it straight forward and focused on things you can do in your role and situation.

90          Topic 2 90 minutes

Lesson 5

Exploring Change

As you start this Lesson we want you to watch the short video of Dan Pink, a change expert and a pretty compelling speaker. This is an old video, but it makes a good point about persistence and the challenge of change. Indirectly he is encouraging you to ‘go and grab a cookie’! You will see why as you go. Perhaps take a break now and grab a treat!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpiDWeRN4UA Why Change is so hard, Dan Pink, 2010. A conversation with Dan Pink.[22]

Now there are some who argue that Dan Pink is misquoting or misunderstanding the research, or that he is taking things out of context. However, I am sure that I have your attention and you are ready to explore this change lesson, ideally with ‘cookie in hand’.

The important thing here is that change is inevitable. It is usually necessary, and if you don’t ‘get on board’, change will take you with it, regardless.

In our definitions, we stated that change is the act of something moving from one ‘state’ to another. Said like that, there is no emotional element or challenge, it just ‘is’.

Insert#2

This is what was already in this section

Why and when is change necessary?

Mindfulness

HROs

AAR

Small wins

Activity: HROs and AARs: What and why? What is a small win from this exploration?

Scarf: Can fit later

Added

Why and when is change necessary?

Change is now seen as commonplace and change events are announced regularly within organisations. Think of your time in the Army. What changes have you seen? The longer your tenure, the more changes you have experienced. Choose   one in particular that for some reason sticks in your mind. It might help you to go back to the definitions of the concepts earlier in the unit.

Stop for a moment and consider your reactions to change. What have you said to yourself and to others about the change? How have you felt about the changes? What do you believe were the drivers of the changes? What were the outcomes of these changes?

OK! Time to go back to your Reflective Journal. If you have taken a number of units by now you would have many insights and things to explore. If you haven’t used your Journal much as yet, this is a great exercise to get you going.

<insert change reflection template excel>

Now read back over your thoughts. What are these insights suggesting about you and change? Share your insights with a trusted peer. Nothing more to do here, just notice!

<A break here. An image perhaps>

Often strategies and processes for implementing the change focus on rational aspects and ignore the people and more emotional aspects of the impacts and meaning of change.

Change is often defined as an event that is situational and external to us – something stops or something starts. Sometimes it may even feel as if it is something that is ‘done’ to us.

The change might be a restructure of a work area, the introduction of a new work instruction, policy or procedure, a new way of thinking required in the organization. Sometimes a new position or job comes along. Someone leaves a team, or a new layer of leaders or commanders are put in above us. A project or tour ends. A new product or system is launched. All of these things happen all the time in large organisations including in the Army. We can become immune to their impact.

Usually, organisations use change management strategies, project management or both, to plan and implement changes. Often where they can forget to focus attention is on the impacts on people: that is us.

Revisit the section on complexity. We defined complexity in your context as a large number of different components, such as technologies, inputs, context, intervening forces, ideologies, raw materials, products, people, and Army units, that have many different connections to one another.

Even the definition sometimes creates bewilderment. <perhaps a whimsical image!>

Complexity theory can be a framework for understanding how the current world works. Complex systems can be extremely unpredictable, especially in your context. People, of course, add to the unpredictability. We can be predictably unpredictable, unpredictably  unpredictable! Think about that for a moment.

If you add the incredible context in which you work, the layers and impacts just increase. Hold in your mind the most difficult situation in which you have found yourself in the Army. Think too of some of the most challenging roles that exist.

Here are a few ‘truisms’ of change to get you started on the next section.

During times of change, often experts and our leaders tend to find the first pattern that fits rather than the best fit. Action: Mixing ‘novices’ with experts in planning change is often a good idea because novices will ask the right and different kinds of questions. It is also a good idea to include informal networks and use novel processes to think about things.

We actually find patterns when none exist. Then we find evidence to support what we think we found. We need to encourage finding multiple patterns and seek disconfirming evidence rather than proof. Find exceptions and explain them.

Action: Enable dissent within your organization. Now that can be difficult in the Army. There are ways to honour your role and your institution and do it respectfully and appropriately.

We find cause and effect relationships when they do not exist. Assumptions become facts and we find motives for the actions of others.

Action: Test assumptions constantly when change is radical and emotions are high.

We all have different identities and roles and hence we behave differently at different times and in different situations.

Action: Use novel settings, give clear instructions and enable other identities to emerge for ourselves and for others. Hint: Scenarios are great ways to create novel settings and ‘free’ things up.

The power of Mindfulness

There are many seminars, insights, techniques and philosophies around mindfulness. Here we will keep it simple and suggest some ways that work in what we call High Reliability Organisations (HROs). More about those in the next section.

By the way, you will find more about mindful practices and mindfulness insights in other units as you explore the many units available to you.

Karl Weick, a US psychologist, academic and consultant, has dedicated his life, along with his colleagues, to researching disasters and finding ways to help organisations like yours to avoid them, or at least mitigate the degree of damage caused.[23] He is a great advocate of awareness that leads to mindfulness.

This is Weick’s definition of mindfulness: “a rich awareness of discriminatory detail”.[24]

He writes that when people act they must be aware of context, differences among details, and things that are different from their expectations. He also builds a very strong visual image by saying that “mindful people have the ‘big picture’, but it is a big picture in the moment”.

Given that statement, take a moment to pause, and using whatever technique you prefer to ‘bring yourself into the moment’, to take notice of what is around you. One of the facilitators at QUT sends his workshop participants into the Botanic Gardens which are close the Gardens Point QUT campus in the centre of Brisbane. The instructions are simply to walk slowly, run hands along the leaves, walk on the grass, and feel the breeze. The impact and differences as a result of those simple actions are quite profound.

Quote:

Awareness improves when attention is not distracted, is focused on the here and now, is wary of pre-existing categories ….  This pattern of awareness and attention is called mindfulness. (Page 42)

Here are three concepts for you to explore, each with a short set of scales that relate to each one.

Pick an example from your role that has been really important to you, and one in which you felt very good about your performance and of the people around you.

Answer these questions in the three scales: Team Mindfulness Capabilities, Resilience and Errors.

Score each ‘element’ of team behaviours using the scoring method below.

3: Usually. 2: Sometimes. 1: Rarely.

Scoring: The scoring refers to the degree that your team engages in these actions or experiences these outcomes. A score of 8 or 9 on each section suggests that the team functions well in this regard. 6 or 7 suggests that the team lacks some ability to address this issue. 3 to 5 suggests that this is a real issue for the team that needs to be addressed.

Capabilities

In Weick’s mind, organisations and their people should know where the skills and capabilities are. He believes that great organisations have deep knowledge of their teams, their capabilities, the system, and most importantly, themselves. Who has those capabilities, where are they and how are they shared? He also believes that organisations should ‘push decision making down and around’ so that the people with the most expertise on a particular topic, problem or project, should be involved in decision-making, especially in complex and high-risk situations.

1. Team Mindfulness: Capabilities[25]

We have a good map of each person’s talents and skills.

We discuss our unique skills with each other so that we know who has relevant specialised skills and knowledge.

When attempting to resolve a problem, we take advantage of the unique skills of our team members.

Total: __ + ___ + ___ = _____

Resilience and Errors

There are very complex definitions of resilience. However an ‘action oriented’ definition might be: the ability to bounce back from failures, errors and setbacks, realise what happened, and get back to focusing on the task at hand. A really important fact here however, is that exhausted teams, either physically or emotionally, are less able to be resilient.

Resilience is essential to success in complex situations. Resilient teams focus on those small things, on keeping errors small. They look for workarounds, and they have a deep knowledge of their teams, their capabilities, the system, and most importantly, themselves.

2. Team Mindfulness: Resilience[26]

We encourage ‘stretch’ assignments and activities.

We focus on building our team members’ skills and capabilities.

We can rely on one another.

Total: __ + ___ + ___ = _____

3. Team Mindfulness: Errors[27]

We talk about mistakes and ways to learn from them.

We spend time identifying activities we do not want to go wrong.

When errors happen, we discuss how we could have prevented them.

Total: __ + ___ + ___ = _____

Check your scores on each of these scales. Given that you chose something of which you are proud, it is highly likely that your scores are high. Look at the pattern. What do you see? Was there one of the mindfulness categories in which you felt that you and they excelled?

Now, flip the exercise. Think of a project or situation when things didn’t go well. Please keep it to something that does not entail high risk or one in which the outcomes were damaging or traumatic. That will not help you in this context.

Repeat the exercise. What did you notice? What felt different? What do you think you can do about this? Overall, what have you learned from this exercise?

This is also a good time to reflect on the benefits of using and referring to your Reflective Journal. It is a great habit to have and it also reminds you of your progress.

High Reliability Organisations (HRO  )

In our discussion about mindfulness, we introduced you to Karl Weick and his ideas about mindfulness. It won’t surprise you to know that he links mindfulness and HROs! When he explored organisations, it was often around disasters and finding ways to help HROs to avoid them and what can be learned for the future. Mindfulness plays a huge role in the effective practices of HROs. In fact, mindfulness and the concepts coming up next: after action reviews (AARs) and ‘small wins’, all fit nicely together and reinforce each other as essential practices of HROs.

Here is a definition of HRO.

An HRO is an organisation that is built for and requires high levels of performance in settings where potential for error and disaster can be extreme and where lives are at stake. These organisations must function reliably and ‘on demand’. They often experience unexpected problems and the expectation of these organisations is high.[28]

We say that HROs are on the lookout for ‘weak signals’, for things that could escalate. Weak signals are those ‘small things’ that catch our attention and make us feel that something might be going wrong, or might be causing some concern, but aren’t really ‘noisy’ at the time. It can be something tangible like a rattle, or something that is slightly out of place. It can also be something that is a hint or clue. A preoccupation with failure isn’t saying that we should live in constant fear of the worst. It is saying that we need to be mindful of those signals, and make decisions about what to do.

Does that sound familiar to you?

You have already explored some of the characteristics of successful HROS in the mindfulness section. You work and perhaps spend most of your life in one.

What does it ‘feel’ like to you? Had you actually considered  that you work in this context? How would you describe an HRO to someone who has no direct experience or understanding of the Army?

An experiment!

Read this article, CONNECTING GOOD SOLDIERING AND MISSION COMMAND, in The Cove: https://cove.army.gov.au/article/connecting-good-soldiering-and-mission-command

Now think about the characteristics of HROs. Look for details and insights in the article. What are you reading there that signals the essence of mindfulness which is a key characteristic of an HRO? Here is a reminder of the definition of mindfulness: a rich awareness of discriminatory detail.[29]

After Action Reviews (AARs)

AARs are part of the foundation of HROs. You probably know a lot about AARs, even if you don’t formally use a process. Take a moment to visit The Cove https://cove.army.gov.au/ and type in the term After Action Review in the search box. You will also find this video which reminds you of the process and how it is used in the Army. https://cove.army.gov.au/article/after-action-review

You can also scroll through the various search results and find an article that interests you. Look for the process and also the actions and recommendations that might be either explicit or implicit in the article. This might give you some ideas and thoughts about how others around you use AARs.

Activity

Here is action for you. Identify a colleague you know well who has recently completed a project or initiative. With the person’s permission, facilitate an AAR process about the project or initiative.

We really like you to do this exercise with someone who isn’t in your team and also a situation about which you know little or nothing. That way, you are approaching this with an open mind and you aren’t bringing your own perspectives and thoughts.

Tips

As you do activity, take notes. At this stage best not to be thinking about any comments and feedback that you could be giving as a ‘gift’.

Remember too that AARs aren’t about blame or fault, they are about learning and growing.

Of course, we can’t assume that the project or initiative ended poorly. AARs should also be conducted for success. It is as important to know why things went well as it is when they didn’t. Be sure to ‘flip’ the questions if you discover that you are about to explore a success story.

Take your time and let the story unfold. Your storyteller is likely to be deep in the situation and needs time and space to think and reflect.

At the end of the exercise prepare a short set of comments, written or spoken, as feedback. Create the feedback based on your knowledge and insights from the situation the person is describing. If appropriate, you share the feedback. Please only do so if this is a suitable action in your role and Corp, and if you feel comfortable doing do. As you conduct the AAR, use these questions.[30]

By the way, the questions can be changed to suit the situation. For example if you are part of the team, you might ask for Question 2, What did we set out to do?

1. Tell me about the situation?
2. What did you set out to do? What did you want to achieve in the first place?
3. What happened?
4. Why did it happen?
5. What are you going to do next time?

Listen carefully and only ask clarifying questions. At this stage of an AAR, we don’t offer advice, we don’t critique and we don’t judge. We are looking for facts, for different views and for different lenses.

Here is a set of questions that are more specific and more in-depth. This takes more time and effort on your part and on the part of your colleague.

You can also ‘mix and match’ with questions from the first set.

1. What was planned?
   1. What was your leader’s intent?
   2. What information were you provided?
   3. What did you feel was missing?
   4. Why couldn’t you get it?
2. What was the situation?
   1. What did you see?
   2. What were you aware of that you couldn’t see?
3. What did you do?
   1. Why did you do it?
   2. What didn’t you do?
   3. Why didn’t you do it?
4. What did you learn?
   1. What might you do differently the next time?
   2. What can we learn as an organization?

Earlier on we gave you the statement: rich awareness of discriminatory detail. These questions and the process help you to do just that: develop a rich awareness of discriminatory detail. You will also have helped your colleague who perhaps will be in a reflective state as well.

Speaking of reflective states, it must be clear to you now that all along you have been focusing on discriminatory details as you have been working in your Reflective Journal. By now you might be able to see patterns and highlights.

Deleted: Small wins

There is a philosophy in HROs that small wins can help teams build an awareness of the possibility of failure!

First, what is a ‘small win’? These are ‘small, cumulative, changes that build [team capability] to better manage the unexpected.[31]  Small wins are specific, complete and implemented outcomes that have moderate importance to a project outcome. They allow for change without being confrontational or challenging. They let teams test and experiment and they promote learning.

These are different to the idea of breaking a big project into smaller chunks. They are steps that help move the team in a new direction, or away from something that is not useful.

Small wins can be really important in situations where there is high risk and a danger of failure. And they work in situations where success leads to better outcomes.

A ‘small wins’ focus in such situations works like this. Individuals and teams look for ways to avoid failure, and they look for ways to find success. They look for things that need to go right, and they look for things that could go wrong but need to go right. They also look for things that have gone wrong and things that have gone right.

This is a dual process that identifies small failures and small successes. The idea is that by identifying small failures, the team can work on correcting, early. At the same time, by identifying small successes, the team can work on enabling and building, early.

 Small wins are about avoiding failure and finding success. The ‘small wins’ approach is a useful way especially in HROS to think about the steps and actions that could go wrong and require specific focus.

Just because you work in an HRO doesn’t mean that you are always looking for ‘what could go wrong and what needs to go right’. You are also in the business of success, achievement and creating new things. It is almost time for you to go back to thinking about innovation and that concept of ambidexterity.

Let’s look at the ‘small wins’ successes and why they matter too! They are strongly related to creativity and motivation. They are a little bit like the ‘cookie’ that you may have had when you were exploring change. They help with resilience and they are great for building team motivation.

In fact, ‘small wins’ are strongly correlated with innovation.[32] This insight is based on a major research project focused on progress, motivation, innovation and successes. The research paper is enticingly titled The Power of Small Wins, by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer. They explored teams such as those that discovered the double helix, so no ‘small stuff’!

Here are some of the principles they highlight.

Progress on anything tends to shape reactions. This progress principle, as Amabile and Kramer call it, works most effectively when people and teams are working on something meaningful. This is about progress in meaningful work.

When people experience the sense of progress more often, they are more likely to be creatively productive in the long term.

Everyday progress, or ‘small wins’, can and do make all the difference to how we feel and perform. Minor milestones are enough. As the authors note, big wins are great but they are rare.

The progress principle works when it is visible. Later in the unit we will explore the 30:60:90 Day process, which is a technique that tracks consolidation of a series of ‘small wins’, in teams, over time, on view.[33]

We will leave the 30:60:90 Day process for now and focus on a Daily Progress Checklist.

This is a principle, by the way, that has been implemented in the QUT Learning Design Team. We do like to ‘eat our own cooking’ you might say.

We would like you to try this for five consecutive days, ideally with some of your colleagues.

Make it visible and easy to access.

This is an achievement progress record. This is NOT a ‘to do’ list.

This is progress towards bigger goals and success.

The Daily Progress Checklist [To make it quick here let’s call it the DPC]

1. The day before you plan to start the DPC exercise, decide on where to post the DPC sheet, have pens or markers ready, and tell everyone what you are working on.
2. Have your DPC set up for all five days.
3. Before you leave, decide on a couple of actions or ‘small wins’ that you know you can achieve. Write them up on the DPC. Nothing like getting started on success!
4. On launch day, be sure to get those things done, and check them off.
5. As the day progresses, notice outcomes that are moving you towards the ‘bigger picture’. Add them to the DPC.
6. Highlight the Progress Tools
   1. Set the milestones, small and large
   2. Give each other autonomy
   3. Notice progress
   4. Show respect
   5. Encourage each other
7. Continue to work on the DPC every day. Encourage everyone to add to the DPC
8. At the end of the week, celebrate.

Here are some tips on how to debrief and reflect on this exercise. Look at patterns. Use the Progress Tools as a way to diagnose the outcomes of your week’s DPC.

Did you encourage? Did you celebrate and notice? Did you support each other? Did you help each other?

Some teams set target ‘small wins’ progress goals. Some teams like to compete! Any and all of these processes and tips make a difference. Some teams have small tokens that they leave, secret buddy style, for ‘small wins champions’.

Now that you have finished this DPC exercise, think about how you might use it as an ongoing tool, if you don’t have something like this already.

Here is a slight diversion and add-on to the progress principle.

James Clear is a motivator who specialises in helping people create what he calls atomic habits, or as the book says, tiny changes with remarkable results.[34] He highlights great lesson and insight that he calls the Goldilocks Rule. The Rule is about sticking to your good habits and matching task with talent. To maintain motivation and achieve peak results, we need to work on tasks that are of ‘just manageable difficulty’.

We love challenges. The best ones are those that are within what Clear calls an optimal zone of difficulty. Too challenging and we are frustrated, and too easy and we bored. Just right and we have a good chance of success if we really try. We become more focused and able to brush aside distractions, and we become invested. [I created this image. It is in a ppt file in Assets and Word docs file. If you don’t like it or you are worried about copy right, leave it out. The story is told regardless in the text]

[35]

The basic idea is that if a challenge or project is too difficult we feel deflated and too easily, we become bored.

Here are the steps to make this work. To begin, keep it simple and make it easy. Then start advancing in small steps. Remember the DPC and ‘small wins’. Add small challenges that keep you engaged. Sports coaches use this approach: working on challenges of just manageable difficulty, small noticeable steps that are celebrated (the DPC) and making it visible. Eventually we can get to mastery. When this principle is consistently used in teams, on purposeful work, amazing things can happen.

Now there is a little more nuance to this story. Two innovations experts, Robert Sutton and Huggy Rao, have worked as consultants on some of the great technological projects in Silicon Valley in the US.[36] They always talk about cognitive load and the necessity to build cognitive capability. What do they mean? Simply put, too much drain on the brain, over too long, creates fatigue. Similar to the Goldilocks Rule, the right amount of cognitive effort produces the best results. As teams progress they develop capability. Projects and innovations that require deep thinking work best when the cognitive capability grows over time, when the challenges are of just manageable difficulty, the progress principle is in place, and the work is purposeful.

Ben Horowitz puts a little dampener on this paradigm.[37] Horowitz has helped launch Airbnb, Facebook, Twitter and also works in the military intelligence space. The title of his book, The Hard Thing about Hard Things, says it all. He cautions against what he calls the ’positivity delusion’. This is the act of accentuating the positive and ignoring the negative. Reality requires the truth, and shared truth.

By sharing the problems and challenges, everyone can put their minds to work on creating solutions and being motived by the challenge. Three things are necessary: trust that enables communication; great brains working on the hard problems; and a culture that shares the good news and the bad!

This brings us to end of this Topic. Here is your reflection and wrap up activity.

Carefully review your insights about change. We then introduced a series of concepts, processes and tools that help you to understand ‘what is going on around here’. These are so useful as approaches to show what needs to change, why and also how.

Your Reflective Journal is also likely to have many tips and tools to help you. If you use mind mapping techniques, make a mind map. You might like to start a strategy journey map,[38] or if you are a wordsmith, write a page about how all these things fit together.

Do this so you have a ‘how to’ guide as you move to the next topic.

There are just a few more things for you to focus on so that you are ready to get creative!

Insert #3 Review and Reflect

Jenny. This is what is in Rise so far. no need to proof  REPLACE with below

Now this is your opportunity to review your learning so far.

Using your description of the requirements and opportunities change in your environment, and your knowledge about change and innovation, identify an issue or situation that you believe is ‘ripe’ for change. It can be an incremental change, or something major.

Write a brief description. Using the terminology and language from the change, creativity and innovation charts, and the imperatives for change, categorise the change

Share with a colleague, including a description of the:

Need for change.

Degree of change.

Who will be impacted.

Seek feedback from the listener. HINT: Use one of the reflective Practice models from your first unit as a guide to seeking feedback.

What did you learn? What might you do differently? What do you now know that you didn’t previously?

Replace with this.

Here is the updated version

Now this is your opportunity to review your learning so far. In the welcome video, we mentioned that we all create hypotheses all day long and we suggested that we test these and we also ask ourselves ‘what if’ questions continually.

Next we asked you to watch a short video about 3D printing and we gave you a set of questions to answer in your Reflective Journals. Then we got you to create your definitions of 5 key concepts: change, innovation, creativity, scenarios and complexity.

We helped you to explore those concepts and we got you to wrap up that section by creating a ‘hub and spoke’ map of the drivers of change and the factors and ideas that you think are the most likely things to provide the impetus to change the way you do things.

You also completed an innovation mapping exercise and you learned about blue circles and green triangles! You wrote about changes that have happened during your time in the Army and your thoughts and beliefs about those changes. You learned too about mindfulness, HRos and VIROs!

Put all together, these insights have ideally helped you be able to focus on the signals and processes to recognise the need for change and also some tools to use to put them in place.

For this Review and Reflect exercise we want you to identify a ‘blue circle’ issue or situation that you believe is ‘ripe’ for change. It can be an incremental change, or something major, but it must fit in the blue circle category.

When you have finished the investigation we want you to share your investigation with a colleague.

Here is a check list for you to follow:

Explain what is a ‘blue circle’ innovation. Remember that we classify a change as an innovation.

Describe the situation or issue that you believe has a need for change.

Explain why this is a ‘blue circle innovation’, and also to which innovation box it belongs.

Using one or more of the mindfulness techniques, explain why this is a useful innovation.

Ask for feedback from your colleague. You really want to know from your colleague if your short description of your investigation ‘made sense’? Did you explain the investigation in a way that the listener understood? Were you able to show that you could explain in straight forward manner, what you were doing, why, and how you knew that it was a good idea.

This is an intense exercise, and from your work in the unit, you know that you benefit from small wins, and that you should celebrate. If you have created a Daily Progress Checklist, you get two ‘ticks’ for this exercise: one for the investigation and one for the sharing!

Topic 3 90 minutes What our environment is telling us

Lesson 7

You will have noticed that we tend to move between looking at what can go wrong and how to work to prevent that, and what we can do to make things go well.

In this topic we want to do some analysis of the capabilities within your organisation and also what is going on outside. Because of the type of work that you do and its part in the bigger picture of the Army and its purpose, you must succeed.

The Army must have an impeccable understanding of its current capabilities. It must also have the best possible success rate for figuring out what are the capabilities that it needs for the future.

You may or may not have direct influence on the overall capability development and assessments of the Army. You do have to know what you have to work with and what is going on around you so that you can do the best that you can with what you have. You also need to have a good idea of trends and changes that are affecting you today and might affect you in the future.

We also need to know as much as we can about how we do things and what can go wrong.

We have an expression for this:

Preoccupation with failure and a focus on success!

Delete: Preoccupation with failure.

HROs treat any lapse in behaviour as a symptom of something being wrong with the system. They worry about a series of ‘small things’ that might combine and have severe consequences. They encourage the reporting of small errors and they think about ‘near misses’. They worry about complacency.

We say that HROs are on the lookout for ‘weak signals’, for things that could escalate. Weak signals are those ‘small things’ that catch our attention and make us feel that something might be going wrong, or might be causing some concern, but aren’t really ‘noisy’ at the time. It can be something tangible like a rattle, or something that is slightly out of place. It can also be something that is a hint or clue. A preoccupation with failure isn’t saying that we should live in constant fear of the worst. It is saying that we need to be mindful of those signals, and make decisions about what to do.

You might notice that we have picked up on the idea of ‘small wins’ and flipped it to ‘small things’ and ‘weak signals’.

Bus drivers are experts at picking up weak signals. They sense the road, they feel the overall mood of the passengers, they notice little things. They know an awful lot about their routes and their towns and cities. They are aware when things are not quite ‘right’. They also know that their actions and reactions need to be commensurate with the situation and they need to get their jobs done.

Alarm is not in the best interests of the driver or the passengers. Situational awareness combined with good sense is key.

In the Army you call this detection threshold. The important skill is to know what to do about it, and when. Police and first responders are typically hypervigilant. They learn to have a 360 degree awareness. They know when to dial things up and when to dial them down. They have clues about what is going on around them.

Emergency call centre responders are also experts at exploring weak signals and separating them from urgent calls for action. They learn to ask question and get clarification that make the difference between sending crews to situations that don’t need them, and failing to sense the need in other situations. They don’t have body language as a cue, so they need to focus on tone, breath, pace, and clarity, as well as what is being said. Callers fit many patterns. Some callers are extremely calm and assertive in emergency situations. Others are panicky and distracted.

Air traffic controllers are another special type. Almost all of the time their work is seamless, calm and controlled. Let’s just leave this image there.

In these situations and contexts above, including yours, failure can be devastating and success is often about prevention or limitation.

As an exercise, walk in the shoes of one of the professionals we mentioned above. Imagine a walk through their day. What would you notice? What might be a weak signal of something that could go wrong? To be sure, if you have experienced trauma or work in these types of situations, please skip this exercise. Just take a little time to appreciate your contributions and move your attention to what is coming up.

Keep: Focus on success: Sense and Capability

In an earlier activity when you were exploring team mindfulness, we asked you to answer three questions about capabilities. We wanted you to score how much you know in your teams about each others’ talents and skills; how much you discuss your unique and specialised skills with each other; and did you as a team apply those skills when working on problems.

This exercise was really about your overall sense of the team and what were the patterns of behaviours in your teams.

Now we want you to do a capability audit. Firstly, let’s say that a capability is something that you or a team member is ‘really good at’ and that is useful to the team and the Army in terms of ‘getting things done’. For this exercise you need to able to name the capability, you need to be able to name the person (a nickname works!), and you need to be able to say why it is useful to the team. At the end of the exercise we will help you to finish an analysis that we call VIRO.

Start with you. Use the table below. You are Team Member 1. List at least 3 capabilities that you have, that are specific, valuable and useful to the team, rare in that they aren’t capabilities that most people have, and relevant and applicable to your role. Do this for at least 2 others team members. If you work alone, or don’t know your fellow soldiers that well, think of a different context you can use. Perhaps consider a previous role or organisation or your family ‘team’.

In the final column think about the team capabilities and write those in. We assume that these are partly related to the individual team members. However, it is very likely that there will be some form of collective effect that will add up to some team capability or capabilities.

In an earlier topic we introduced the concepts of inimitability and coordination.

Inimitability is the idea that something is difficult for others to copy or replicate.[39]

Better coordination is an outcome when things and people are interconnected, and things can ‘fit’. Interconnectedness enables teams.

Here you are doing a form of VIRO capability exercise. A VIRO capability audit is evaluating whether a capability is:

Valuable
Inimitable (hard to copy)
Rare (hard to find)

The Organisation uses and leverages the capability.

Take a few minutes to do a VIRO audit of the capabilities. You have mostly already done the valuable and rare in the way that you chose the capabilities in the first place. The ‘inimitable’ evaluation comes from the way that you combine them to create something unique, and organisational use and leverage is about whether those capabilities are actually put to use.

The three questions will help you here:

We have a good map of each person’s talents and skills.

We discuss ourt unique skills with each other so that we know who has relevant specialised skills and knowledge.

When attempting to resolve a problem, we take advantage of the unique skills of our team members.

Now you have a good idea of what the capabilities are. You know what you have to work with. The questions is: do you discuss them in the team, and do you call on them to solve problems.

When you, your teams, your leaders and commanders understand the distinct capabilities, when they know where they are, when they talk and share about them and when they call on them, successful things are more likely to happen.

Delete the entire section: Trend analysis [I think this is lesson 7]

The word ‘trend’ is used continually in reports, newspaper, strategy analysis, and strategic plans. The thinking seems to be that everyone knows what we mean when we say ‘trends’. It is unlikely however that everyone, and every organisation has exactly the same meaning in mind. However, we are probably a little more clear when we think about trend analysis: that it is a process that observes specific changes or developments and considers the general direction in which they will affect society more generally and people and entities more specifically.[40]

The purpose of trend analysis is to stimulate discussion around what we think the significant trends are that will potentially impact us, and then try to figure out how they will affect us and in what way.

We are concerned about the meaning, scope and impact of these ‘trends’. We want to try to figure out in some meaningful and objective way what is likely to happen because of the trends. We want to be able to identify trends early and figure out what might happen. We want to be able to increase our understanding and precision with which we can identify trends early.

We also want to try to figure out which ones we need to treat as threats and which ones we might be able to leverage to help us achieve our goals.

Nostradamus may have a huge reputation as one of the greatest predictors of all time, but not necessarily as the most accurate! We want to build our trend models on more than guesses!

The Army relies hugely on its grasp of trends and their implications. We want to have a little more clarity around what we mean.

For this exercise we define a ‘trend’ as an ongoing, discernible and observable variable that progresses over time, that may or may not impact other factors and variables around it, but exists in the context within which an organization operates.[41]

Now that is very formal and sounds a bit like ‘jargon’. What it is saying is that we typically can notice and measure them. A trend can change over time, and its effects can also change over time. It is also saying that trends can have an impact on each other. All these interactions are happening in and around you and your organisation, as well as in other contexts.

We want to break up the definition a little more and help you to categorise trends and develop some insights about their meaning and impact.

A ‘macro-trend’ is defined here as a trend that is enduring, significant, potentially impacting multiple elements of society, business, military and political environments. Over time macro-trends are acknowledged as potential or explicit major forces for change.

A ‘micro-trend’ is defined here as a trend that is immediate, can be readily understood and/or leveraged, be measured or made tangible in some way, and to some degree is a known input of a strategy analysis or design.

Please read this article in The Cove, KIWI PME: THE NEW ZEALAND’S LAND WARFARE SYMPOSIUM, by Ryan Kelly. https://cove.army.gov.au/article/kiwi-pme-the-new-zealands-land-warfare-symposium. October 15, 2019[42]

The article raises big questions and prompts you to think about the future.

Using the definitions of macro-trends and micro-trends, make a list of what you can identify from the article as the macro-trends and the micro-trends.

When you have completed the list, spend some time thinking about the implications of those trends. What do they mean for the bigger picture and also your more immediate environment.

You can use the template at the end of this section.

[this template is in the Assets and word docs folder]

The Macro-Micro Trend Analysis.

Now you have completed this Macro-Micro analysis, here are some more thoughts. Benjamin Schneider and his teams have worked for many years exploring what organisational members, including soldiers, ‘know’ about their organisations, compared with what their leaders think they ‘know.[43] Overall, the inference is that organisational members in most situations know a lot!

One of the things for you to take out of this exercise is that you might know a lot about the micro-trends and their impact on ‘what’s going on around you’.

To wrap up this part of the exercise, please go back over your macro and micro-trend analysis and the implications you have noted. Pull all of those insights together. If you were to share with someone, what would you be saying!

TrendWatcher [I think this is lesson 8]

Simon Sinek , the ‘Start with Why’ proponent, suggests that great leaders create an environment in which ideas happen, where the people inside the organisation who are best informed, can make innovation happen.[44] In the business, government and the Army world decision-making is best thought to be effective when it is made using data, ideally ‘rich’ data, that is enhanced by technologies that analyse and leverage those data.[45]

This leads to the concept and practice of ‘big data’, the idea that a trend and knowledge focused organisation such as the Army begins by analysing and leveraging what it already knows and has, adding as it goes, inputting additional external sources, and using these data to generate insights that guide decisions and the decision-making process.

Clearly you appreciate the concept of ‘big data’. Access, usability and applicability may or may not be within your reach. Of course, there are whole sections with the Army that use these big data, artificial intelligence and machine learning processes and capabilities.

Let’s switch track here. What about ‘small data’? These are the small, at times infinitesimal objects, comments, actions and other ‘bits and pieces’ that someone with YOUR SETS of expertise and capabilities, might notice. Martin Lindstrom has dedicated a lifetime to observing ‘small data’ and has turned this ability into a global consulting business. His book Small Data: The Tiny Clues that Uncover Huge Trends,[46] details a life of looking and noticing. His story about Lego and what Lindstrom calls a small, chance insight is inspiring. The book is worth a read, as it tells the story of ‘small wins’, ‘small things’, discriminatory detail, and mindfulness, in a completely different way than it would be told in the Army context, but is essentially the same story.

[this should be a highlighted section in some way. It helps make the shift to creating and innovation and also signals the links[

The point of this discussion so far about TrendWatcher? You are very likely to be a TrendWatcher, and trend watching is very likely to be one of your core capabilities. It is what you have been trained to be.

Now we want you to explore a set of trends we have complied from many sources, and refined by asking people in all sorts of roles, organisations and countries.

When you have finished the exploration we will then ask you do some analysis and also highlight what you think is missing. You will have a head start on this exercise because you have already exploring trends in your world.

[Insert the TrendWatcher activity and chart here. It is in the Assets folder.]

Well done on completing the TrendWatcher survey. You are continuing to be an outstanding TrendWatcher!

Please reread your responses on the TrendWatcher survey and your answers to the questions.  Here is a useful exercise for you. There are important links between macro- and micro-trends. We believe that there is a working space between a macro-trend and a micro-trend that we call a sphere of influence. This is where you can focus on the macro-trend and think of what might be the micro-trend that relates to it, and where you can make sense of the link in a way that you can use in your work.

It might also work the other way. You might notice a micro-trend and you can link it a bigger more pervasive trend and be able to understand that there are much bigger implications.

Activity

Choose 2 macro-trends from your TrendWatcher activity.

Think about what might be at least 3 micro-trends that come out of each of those macro-trends that are impactful in your role in your battalion.

Later, you might come back to these are you are working on your creativity and innovation activities.  [insert the template – it is called trend image in the assets folder. [

Wrap up

The Implications

We hope that these exercises help to encourage you to build your awareness of the importance of spotting, understanding and considering trends, in a wide variety of functions and levels of the Army. Too often, trends are only considered at specific times and for specific sets of strategic activities. However, we want you to realise that at all levels of an organisation , ‘trend thinking’ can lead to positive outcomes. At senior levels of the Army, leaders have objectives and  intuitive and heuristic appreciation of macro trends.

When you are able to translate these macro trends into more specific influences on daily actions and thinking, micro-trend implications, then overall we think that you can help the Army become more change-ready and flexible.

Let’s call that ‘trickle down’.

You just read about ‘small data’ and how you are experts in noticing these. Let’s call that the ‘bubble up’ effect.

This trickle down and bubble up helps to create trend readiness, and change and innovation capabilities. It prepares the Army more effectively to manage for the unexpected.[47]

Let’s go back to the ambidexterity model, those blue circles and green triangles. Those of you who might identify as the green triangle people might be likely to naturally embrace both macro and micro-trends and their implications.[48] By contrast, those of you who are in blue circle roles might be more focused on the micro-trends.[49]

Finally, over time we would expect that deeply embedded macro-micro ‘trend thinking’ has developed into a noticeable Army capability that is difficult for ‘competitors’ to replicate and encourages connections. Think back to your VIRO exercise and its implications and also the potential outcomes of leveraging complexity.

Delete the entire section up to here.

Amabile, T. M., & Kramer, S. J. (2011). The power of small wins. Harvard business review, 89(5), 70-80.

Ehrhart, K. H., Witt, L. A., Schneider, B., & Perry, S. J. (2011). Service employees give as they get: Internal service as a moderator of the service climate–service outcomes link. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96(2), 423.

Jackson, M. (2019). Critical Systems Thinking and the Management of Complexity – Contents and Preface (preliminary draft – MCJ).

Kjaer, A. (2014). The trend management toolkit: a practical guide to the future. Springer.

Reeves, M. L., Simon; Fink, Thomas; Levina, Ania. (2020). Taming Complexity. Harvard business review, 98(Jan-Feb).

Amabile, T. M., & Kramer, S. J. (2011). The power of small wins. Harvard business review, 89(5), 70-80.

Clear, J. (2018). Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results. Penguin Random House. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/543993/atomic-habits-by-james-clear/

Horowitz, B. (2014). The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers. Harper Business. https://books.google.com.au/books?id=620pAgAAQBAJ

Lencioni, P. (2010). The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable. Wiley. https://books.google.com.au/books?id=iC-NUBtuGeQC

Peloso, A. (2020). Strategy Journey Mapping: Pathways to success.  https://blogs.qut.edu.au/qutex/2020/02/25/strategy-journey-mapping-pathways-to-success/

Sutton, R. I., Rao, H., & Rao, H. (2016). Scaling up excellence: Getting to more without settling for less. Random House.

Watkins, M. D. (2013). The first 90 days, updated and expanded: proven strategies for getting up to speed faster and smarter. Harvard Business Review Press.

Weick, K. E. (1979). The Social Psychology of Organizing. McGraw-Hill. https://books.google.com.au/books?id=0LO9QgAACAAJ

Weick, K. E., & Sutcliffe, K. M. (2011). Managing the Unexpected: Resilient Performance in an Age of Uncertainty. Wiley. https://books.google.com.au/books?id=GU55MJOp1OcC

90          Topic 4 90 minutes

Lesson 9

Culture and Change in Teams

Creating and sustaining culture, including a learning culture, requires persistence. Ben Horowitz, a venture funder, knows a lot about culture, having helped to fund and also shape Twitter, Airbnb, Facebook and Pinterest. Of course, these organisations might not seem to be anything like yours.

However, there are some things that are essential in your context that are similar. He notes these three things about culture and ways of working.

An organisation’s culture should support these ways of working that will:

Distinguish you from your competitors.

Ensure that the critical operating values persist over time.

Help the organisation to identify and keep employees who fit with its mission.

Now, whilst you might n0t think immediately of your ‘competitors’, some lateral thinking and reframing helps you to ‘see’ how this might be relevant. In the game of geopolitics it becomes clear who are the ‘competitors’. In war and the military, we have different names for the competitors, but we know who they are.

When we speak of critical operation values over time, and fit with mission, all is clear. The promise that the Australian Army, and thus you, makes is to protect the interests of Australia and its people; in addition to helping communities and supporting international operations. These factors have behavioural consequences. In the Army, when people break the culture and the behavioural expectations, one reaction is shock. This is one way of maintaining discipline, rigour and consistency. The same ‘shock’ value can be for better or worse. When it is for worse, it is breaking the ethos and going against the purpose: to protect and help. Or it might be an outcome that is different to previous outcomes, for example when a process or field manoeuvre has been successful in the past, and suddenly is no longer.

When it is for the better, these factors can be used to drive positive change. Nothing creates the imperative and urgency for change than a shock.

What does mean for you? Think about ‘creativity’ in your context. What is innovation in the Army? How do these fit with mission critical projects, especially protecting and saving lives? What is ‘value’ and what are ‘valuable solutions’?

Your culture is highly valued by you in your everyday missions and also your imperative to be the best ahead of the ‘competitors’, delivering on purpose, on task and within the values of the Army.

Keep in mind the power of your culture as you develop improvements, innovative solutions and new ways of working. Regardless of how beneficial these things may be, they are change, and change requires – well – changes!

The Cultural Web[50]

JENNY! There is a separate doc called Insert Jenny1 that should help here. This is so messy.

It starts here. I will put in a marker where it finishes.

Here is a culture tool that works well for HROs and similar organisations where the culture is crucial to the safety and well-being of members as much as it is to the delivery of the overall mission and purpose

The Cultural Web helps us to understand the ‘why’ of these things about you place of work, whether you are in barracks, in the field, or off location:

the way it ‘feels’ and ‘looks’ around here

the way we do things round here

the basic assumptions about how things work around here that most of the soldiers share; what drives their perceptions, attitudes, feelings and behaviours

how we behave when nobody is looking.

(Johnson et al., 2017)(Horowitz)The Cultural Web Components

The Cultural Web framework provides a tool that helps us understand the way we do things around here. When we use this tool to also think about the way we would ‘like’ to do things we can start to see the gaps and more clearly identify where to take action.

In relation to creativity and innovaton, this is a very useful activity. Examining the cultural web of your team, barracks and the Army more generally may generate ideas for new initiatives. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the web may help you foresee and circumvent obstacles to implementation. Mapping your cultural web may even provide you with a way of measuring progress.

The Mindtools website provides an excellent summary of the 6 key components of the Cultural Web framework along with key questions needed to explore each component.

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newSTR_90.htm

Vignette:

We often don’t see what others ‘see’ when they look at our workplaces and the work we do. Sometimes we develop stories about ourselves and our workplace that may or may not be true. An outside in look using an objective tool can be very useful. At QUT we engaged for many years with a well-known HRO. One of the goals of our engagement was to help the organisation become more focused on gender equity and providing workplaces that were fit for all.

We asked team members to share stories about each of the elements of the Web. Stories about Symbols and Rituals and Routines were especially insightful. In HROs there are many tangibles and behaviours. We then had teams collect images and also write up short stores.

Next we organised role plays. We had people switch roles, genders and also be ‘outsiders’ what ‘came in’ for a look. Some of the noteworthy and useful ‘ah-ha’ moments came from some of the most basic things. The way team members sat, made eye contact, help shoulders, and even jangled vehicle keys told stories about ‘how things are around here’.

By using props and making the exercise about ‘others’ rather than ourselves, sometimes it is easier to get the insights and understand the culture and what it means to everyone.

The point is that culture tells a story and it is a story that makes us.

Reflective Journal Activity: Creatativity, Innovation and the Cultural Web

Part 1

1. In your Reflective Journal, investigate each component of the cultural web framework in relation to your culture as it is now. What is the impact of the current culture on creativity and innovation generallly? What impact does it have on your ability and motivation to think and act creativiely?
2. Now map how you would like your Cultural Web to look. What changes would you like to make?
3. Identify the major areas of differences between the current and ideal culture.
4. Consider some of the other tools, frameworks and audits you have used to examine your work context. Can you see connections or integration points between your cultural web insights and the various conclusions you have reached using these other instruments?

Use your disciminatory details mindset to work on this exercise. Think about the presence of ‘small wins’ and ‘small things’. Keep in mind the ways that you talk about each other’s capabilities, if indeed you do at all. How do you react to change and changes around you personally and as a team.

Delete this section of the exercise: Part 2

So far most of the unit has been about the Army and your reflections have been about you, your roles and your battations.

Now we want you to go and explore another context. Ideally choose something you don’t really know much about. Perhaps watch a team operating a ferry. Go to IKEA and look at ‘how things work around there’. Perhaps visit a nursery and watch the different roles and behaviours.

A small team from QUT for example once was sent to investigate an innovation hub at a large bank. The hub was extremely well funded and staffed and had many useful tools and processes in place. However, it was lifeless and uninspiring. We helped the team to ‘see’ that the routines and rituals were more about being clean and tidy than creating. Team members sat in functional teams rather than sharing. The space looked as if it was organised by rank. Overall it looked and operated like a factory than an innovation hub.

Apply the Cultural Web analysis to the situation you have chosen. What did you see and learn? What might you be able to do in your workplace as a result of your investigation? What would you suggest to the teams you observed? Please exercise caution if you choose to do the sharing.  As a wrap-up to this section, here is a story about IDEO, an American innovation design studio. https://www.ideo.com/

The studio is famous for its role in breakthrough design innovations like the Apple iphone. Here is an IDEO case study for you to explore. Take a quick look. https://www.ideo.com/case-study/an-improved-airway-intubation-system-that-helps-physicians-save-more-lives

What do you see? What principles are in place that are similar to those of your teams, roles and workplace? If you like, dig more deeply into the product, GlideScope Core. Look for the link in the article. GlideScope Core.

IDEO has a fascinating model of internal ‘helping’. [51]

Team members are rewarded by the degree to which those they have supported and helped feel they have been helped. It isn’t enough to be the ‘go to’ person. Everyone needs to be a go to person, and everyone needs to know to whom someone needs to go to get help.

This means that the patterns of interaction within the teams and between teams is more more ‘point to point’ rather than ‘hub and spoke’. There is less ‘traffic’ through single people or small groups. Go back to your complexity insights. What do they tell you about why this is an effective way to work?

Delete the entire section up to here:

Congratulations! You are now ready for your first @Work activity!

The activity is asking you firstly to revisit your insights so far. It really wants to you dig more deeply into the links between culture, change and innovation in the Army. You have already practised this both in your workplace and in another context, so you should be ready and skilled up! Take your time with this exercise. Really work to link all the pieces. Note that at the end of the activity there is a hint that you will be using your findings and insights from this activity in your final @Work activity.

Reflect on the overall way that you and your teams, including your leaders, think about and go about change, creativity and innovation.

Action 1. Re-visit the Cultural Web readings and activity. Be sure to understand each of the sections of the Cultural web.

Action 2. Revisit the section of High Reliability Organisations (HROs) such as yours, and also the concept of discriminatory details in situations where ‘small things’  matter.

Action 3. Now identify a specific example of a change that was introduced to your section. Write a 300 word description of the change. You can use the example you identified in Topic 1, or introduce a different example here. Questions: What was the change? Who was involved? What was the purpose of the change? How successful was the change, in your opinion? HINT: The Sinek Why How What thinking approach may be useful here.

Action 4. Now, using the Cultural web template, fill in each section as it relates to the change. Be sure to consider those ‘discriminatory details’ that are really important in your area or division.

Action 5. For the specific example you have described here, complete the Change Scale from Topic 4.

Action 6. What have you learned about the ‘way change works around here’? What might you want to change, about the way change happens? HINT: This learning will be useful for your @work 2 at the end of the unit.

Jenny1 finishes here!

45          Lesson 11 45 minutes

Reflection: A learning cultureThis is already in Rise

These are situations where this is a high need to focus on mindfulness as an organisational imperative. In particular and in situations where there is a high need to both learn and apply specific skills and processes, and also build flexibility and reflection into your ways of working.

One of the best ways to learning is to help others learn! For this reflection you firstly need to note what you have discovered in your first @Work1 activity.

List here your Top 5 Takeaways!

1

2

3

4

5

Now write a short ‘reason why’ this is a Top 5 for each one.

You now have the outline of a learning pitch to give to a work colleague! We know that many of you are experts in instruction. Therefore, if you are an old hand, you need to find a very new way to deliver your Top 5. Perhaps create a sandwich board and go stand outside the barracks and tell anyone and everyone who walks by. Make a YouTube video. Teach your cat. Anything that takes you out of your usual comfort zone. The point is that you want to learn more about creating a learning culture. Remember your learning about the positivity delusion, the power of small wins and the ‘green triangle’, ‘blue circle’ innovation. If you are old hand at learning and instruction, go for ‘green triangle’.

If you are new are instruction, focus. Use your discriminatory detail capabilities and find small details and keen insights about your workplace, and use those to highlight the importance of your Top 5 and what you, and your audience, can learn.

Phase 2

30          (Not a Lesson #) Learning s far

Change is coming! So far you have been reviewing ideas and concepts, and ‘looking’ around you to see how things work in the Army and in your context. Now we are going to get you to start ‘doing’. We are giving you a set of tools to apply so that you can apply your existing and new capabilities. We ask you to look for opportunities to make a difference to something in your workplace, teams or on the bigger stage.

The first thing we want you to do is watch the Tom Wujec TedTalk video, titled Got a Wicked Problem? First tell me how to make toast. This is a very useful process for you to use to investigate issues, challenges and possibilities around you.

As you watch the video, we want you to be listening out for these points so you can answer these questions.

What is the sequence of ‘what to do’?

What are the three elements of the approach?

What is the ‘surprise’ about how to work?

What are your ‘take-aways’?

How likely are you to use this?

Why might you use this technique? Why might you not use this technique?

https://www.ted.com/talks/tom_wujec_got_a_wicked_problem_first_tell_me_how_you_make_toast?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare

OK so now you are ready to start putting together your Innovation tool kit. Your# 1 tools are already in your Reflective Journal. It is your ‘how to’ guide.

Next

OK so now you are ready to start putting together your Innovation tool kit.

You #1 tools are already in your Reflective Journal. It is your ‘how to’ guide.

It is time to get the rest of your Innovation kit ready. You will need to explore your environment looking for issues to address. You will need to think about how you are going to go about finding out about user needs and wants. Are you doing to interview potential users of your ideas and proposals? Or will you make decisions yourself based on your own experiences, knowledge and perceptions? Will you be doing virtual interviews or will you be using Post-it notes and physical locations, as appropriate, for your work?

We are sure that you will have been developing ideas and possibilities along the way so there are bound to be ideas that you have for project and actions that you can explore as possible situations ripe for change.

For now, you want to get your pens, Post-its and templates, real or virtual, all ready to go.

90          Topic 5 90 minutes

Now you are on a journey of creative thinking, innovation and problem solving! You have been building your ‘tool kit’, your capability set and looking for challenges and issues in your Army context that you can use to explore and apply your learning.

Empathy mapping

[1]

The first action you want to take is to apply the empathy mapping technique.

Liedtka, J., & Ogilvie, T. (2019). The designing for growth field book: A step-by-step project guide. Columbia University Press.

[52][2] Liedtka, J., & Ogilvie, T. (2019). The designing for growth field book: A step-by-step project guide. Columbia University Press.

We are sure that you will have been developing ideas and possibilities along the way so there are bound to be ideas that you have for project and actions that you can explore as possible situations ripe for change.

By the way, we have put together an Innovation Workbook for you and also created a short video that talks you through the fundamentals of creation, pitching and launching an innovation, based on the Workbook. Please treat this as a ‘starter kit’ as you will likely have other tools and processes that you know work for you and your context.

In your @Work 2 activity you will be identifying a potential issue, problem or opportunity to address. You will be building your own ‘tool kit’ that you will use for the @Work 2 activity. We also think that you will want to continue to use the ‘tool kit’ and that you will continue to build your overall creative innovation and problem-solving capabilities.

I think the workbook and the video should go here.

The first action you want to take is to explore the empathy mapping technique.

[53] Liedtka, J., & Ogilvie, T. (2019). The designing for growth field book: A step-by-step project guide. Columbia University Press.

Empathy Mapping, what we sometimes call the ‘Think-Feel’ approach, is the process of capturing in a visual format an individual’s answers to empathic questions on a specific topic. These questions will usually be framed around a specific problem, opportunity, product or service. The core questions focus on what people think, feel, hear, see, say and do. When you really want to understand what it is that your user wants to do and you need to know more about the why and the circumstances, empathy mapping is a great place to start.

The Empathy Map is a single page outcome of this process. An Empathy Map can also be used to represent a group of people when individual responses can be all put together as one.

This tells us about the ‘state’ of the use or potential in the process you are proposing. We also need to know what the user is doing, or ideally wants to do, to achieve their goals and needs. How do we find out about their actions?

What is an Empathy map?

Empathy maps are a very useful tool to systematically unpack a market segment’s psyche. The Empathy Map Canvas is an investigation device which asks the right questions to help dig deeper into people’s drivers to really understand ‘why’ they do what they do and behave and react as they do.

Why use the tool?

Empathy is an essential skill we need to be able to create innovations, especially those that involve people. . It can however be difficult to connect with all research subjects. This tool is a great hand holder to ensure you ask the right questions and get the right information. It is a little bit of structure at a point that is critical to delivering a Human Centred outcome.

How to use it?

The Empathy map could be as simple as asking what do the subject group of people see, say, hear, do, think and feel. The Empathy Map Canvas goes a step further to create a staged process to follow. This is a very useful tool to use during qualitative research to build personas and Journey maps. It can also be used many other qualitative research scenarios.

Since most of our work in the Army is about people, for people, and by people, how do we go about exploring what we need to know about those people? Of course, we use the empathy map as part of the process. We also need to know what it is that our user wants to achieve, what why want to do and what are their frustrations with the current ways of doing things. To do this we use Journey Maps and Jobs to be Done techniques.

[54]

Tony – copy in the first empathy mapping exercise.

Journey Maps and Jobs to be Done

The next part of the journey is to explore the idea of knowing your customer or users’ Jobs to be Done!  Or what is the ‘job’ that the users are trying to get done! In the Army, if we take a customer/client perspective, then we want to know what it is that they want or need to achieve.

These jobs are usually multidimensional. The process enables us to focus on the social, emotional and behavioural dimensions of the ‘jobs’, in the context in which they need to ‘be done’.

A recent example we have noticed was the increase in the purchase of garbage bin liners after grocery stores were banned from using plastic shopping bags. There were many ‘jobs to be done’, in the case of the shopping bags. Get the groceries home and use the bags for other purposes. This was a case of unintended consequences of the changes to in-store shopping bags! Clearly users had more than one ‘job to be done’ with those bags.

A User  Journey Map, from the journey mapping of ‘jobs to be done’, is a visual representation of the experience users have with an organization, or in your case, with the Army. In your context, if is better to think about this as a ‘user journey map’. However, we will continue to use both user and customer so that we stay true to the original purpose of the tools. Customer user actions, feelings and outcomes are recorded for each touchpoint with the activity. Customer Journey Maps allow a deep understanding of customers’ experiences with an organisation and importantly it is used to discover more about the unknow and unseen parts of their experience.

A map of the current experience with an organisation can define the as-is state. The map can then be used to as a tool for imagining an improved or alternate experience. The map can then be used to prototype and iterate newly designed experiences. Real customers or users can be given a show case of potential redesigns of the experience without having to first create the processes. Customer Journey Mapping is a very cost-effective way to create, test and iterate new ideas.

Creating a user  Journey Map will highlight the pains and gains customers experience with an organisation. These pains and gains you would have most likely uncovered using the empathy mapping process and exploring ‘jobs to be done’. A journey map will also shine a light on the usually unseen parts of the journey. These parts of the journey offer opportunity for improvement and innovation beyond the times that an organisation normally sees its users in action.

The Pitch

At some stage in an innovation project you will have to bring stakeholders, potential users and decision makers onboard. The next sets of tools and processes will help you to both build a convincing rationale for your innovation and also help you to ‘bring it to life’. The first part of the Pitch is something we call the ‘ease of use grid’. One of many objections you might discover to any potential change and innovation is about what value it might actually deliver and why anyone should put time, effort and resources into its implementation. As you work on your innovation it is a great idea to be focusing on the value of the concept first, and then building a story about its adoption and implementation. At times, designers create wonderful, innovative equipment and processes that too hard to implement and use, or even worse, are difficult to implement and the value is questionable. It is also a great visual for you to have in mind as you go.

Next up we ask you to think about the value of the innovation using the concept of a value proposition.

Value proposition and the business model canvas

A value proposition is a ‘solution’ or an overall ‘set of solutions’ that your innovation sets out to provide to solve the problem or challenge that your user has.  The value proposition concept fits into a business model canvas (sometimes referred to as a strategy canvas). This is important because the business model canvas, and with it the value proposition, is an easy ‘tool’ to see, share, understand, and use to ‘action’ a new process, create a new operating system or introduce a new piece of equipment. Even though the words ‘business model’ may not really seem to fit an Army context, the canvas really is a way to fit all the pieces together and put them back into your Army situation.

The value proposition is the centre piece of the canvas. It is what you have created the innovation to ‘do’, to deliver, to provide. The value proposition is also what the user ‘gets’, the benefit the user or users receive as a result of ‘adopting’ the innovation.

In the short video, we discussion the links between the value proposition, user pains and gains that come out of your empathy mapping exercise and how that fits with the innovation that you are developing. In the visual below, the square or ‘gift’ represents the actual equipment, process or service – the innovation you are developing – and the circle represents the user.

The value proposition also fits into the BMC. This helps you when you are communicating about your innovation and when you are creating the overall integrated approach developing and launching your innovation you have a consistent story. And you can use this story in your ease of use grid.

What is the Business Model Canvas (BMC)?

The BMC, sometimes called a strategy canvas, is used to create an overall business or departmental strategy, to evaluate a current strategy, to launch a new enterprise, innovation or product. The BMC encourages particular focus on the organization’s value proposition and the connection to customers and clients.

Why use the BMC?

Having created a Business Model Canvas, the integrative, visual and ‘everything on a page’ approach can encourage and support individuals and teams to assess the robustness and potential veracity of the proposed ‘model’. A typical question might be: How can we potentially improve and regenerate our current business model, or even generate new business model options? How can we implement this approach, or manage changes to our current approach?

Overall, the BMC can be used as a new product or service design tool, a business model testing tool, a diagnostic tool, a way to explore potential outcomes if inputs to the model are changed, and a communication and business development tool.

Once you are getting close to developing the final pieces of the innovation you need a way to design the ‘user process’ and also see how it will work in the situation you have created it for.  The next tool is very useful for this and it is also a great way to test your innovation and also to make improvements as you go.

Service Blueprinting

The Service Blueprinting [SBP] tool is a crucial element of developing and testing a process, system or new way of doing things. We are sure that you have tools and processes just like this that you are using now or may have used. Techniques like service blueprinting help you to focus on the chosen and desirable outcomes that you want from your values, mission and vision. They also help you to focus on the process, system or new way of doing things that you want to demonstrate. This technique can be readily shared and understood by those who must deliver. This technique can also allow individuals, teams and place like the Army to more readily explore failures and successes, and start using innovations that are both ‘blue circle’ and ‘green triangle’.

The crucial element of the SBP process is that it uses the customer, client or end user, as the continual focal point and beginning of each step in the system. The belief is that the organisation should align its people, processes and resources that the provider has so that they are all customer-facing and acting to support each other in the service design and delivery system.  When you look carefully at the service blueprint template you can see that everything runs along the line of what the customer or user needs to do, see or use, to get their ‘job to be done’, done.

As the development process progresses, the SBP allows the ideas to become more concrete so that customers, employees and leaders can ‘see’ and interact with it. Roles can be clarified. The process can be specified, and equipment, quality, and cost factors explored. An actual system can begin to take shape. Army members, users and customers, and leaders can participate in its design and potential delivery.

And if you want a last piece of the ‘pie’, so to speak, you can wrap up your designing with a great Business Model Canvas that tells the whole story of the innovation and how it fits into your context and addresses an issue that you believe to be important.



Take a moment to read this section about scenario thinking. Sometimes when we are busy in the creativity, innovation and problem-solving space, we lose track of other options and things that are  going on around us. These are variables that may make a difference, either positive or as a challenge, to what it is we are trying to achieve. Scenario thinking is a reminder that we need to be mindful of other possibilities and also about those variables that may impact what we are doing.

Scenario thinking

How can scenario thinking help you to be open to new ideas? How might you encourage yourself and your teams to apply scenario thinking to situations where the currents solutions no longer seem to be working as well? Here are some tips that will help you.

A word of caution. Given that you work in an HRO, you want to consider the implausibility rule in a considered and mindful manner. There are many activities and techniques in this unit that will guide you, including the concept of error-friendly learning, and the small wins process.

Many organisations use scenario planning as a risk management approach. It can allow planning for poor outcomes as well as better future outcomes. It requires you to at least think about ‘what is the worst thing that could happen’? It is a great technique when safety is key for example, and organisations that need a strong safely culture tend to use this approach for safety workshops and training.

Now the next step is to start using scenario thinking. The ‘thinking’ element encourages us to think more about new possibilities and options. It helps us to also accept the possibilities that the outcomes could potentially be much worse that we might anticipate or much better than we might anticipate. This is the step of ‘implausibly’ – what is highly unlikely to happen, but might be either catastrophic, or way beyond expectations. This thinking tends to work because we set up the process as an act of exploring and building multiple, flexible and shifting versions of both inputs and outcomes. The scenarios’ ‘anchors’, or inputs, can ideally be easily changed.

The easiest way to think about the idea of scenarios and multiple, flexible and shifting inputs and outcomes is to imagine a Rubik’s Cube. A simple ‘spin’ of an axis, and the inputs to a surface change, and the overall ‘look’, the outputs, of the Cube change. In fact, the analogy of a Rubik’s Cube is a good one for when you are facing a complex situation with many unknowns.

It is now time for you to complete your Self-assessment scale!

90          Topic 8 90 minutes

120        Lesson 14 120 minutes

@           Work 2 Primer

This is created in Rise

In preparation for your @work2 activity, you need to review the various components of the unit. The objective here is to review your understanding of each component of the unit and look for links and connections between and among each of the tools and processes.

Activity: Review the unit description. Examine each of the key concepts in the description.

Consult your Reflective Journal or other notes or observations. Before you proceed, be sure that you understand each of the key concepts.

Activity: Revisit your ability and confidence in your ability to complete or apply each of the following core components of creating a comprehensive solution to a complex situation, issue or problem.

Complete the Self-assessment scale for each of the core components.

1. Your ability and confidence to identify a change requirement or opportunity
2. Your ability and confidence to objectively analyse and evaluate improvements to solve everyday problems in the dynamic workplace
3. Your ability and confidence to develop and apply critical and creative thinking through a range of proven tools and techniques to identify challenges and respond to them in a structured and considered manner.
4. Your ability and confidence create a comprehensive, repeatable and flexible methodology to deliver effective change in your organisation.
5. Your ability and confidence to apply internal analysis process, external and trend analysis processes, personal and organisational capability audit processes, action and outcomes techniques.
6. Your ability and confidence to apply the above tools and techniques to create effective and insightful future scenarios that are effective in enabling you and your teams to create high level thinking and evaluation capabilities to complex problems and opportunities.

At the conclusion of this self-audit, review your results and observations.

Divide your scores into the three categories: 1. Very confident in your abilities; 2; Suitably confident in your abilities; 3. More likely to express confidence in your abilities after additional review and practice.

Beginning with those in the 3 category, review and revisit. If you do not have scores in the 3 categories, or when you have at least suitable confidence in your capabilities, proceed to the next activity.

Activity: Prepare a short overall statement that would be suitable in a performance review, of your objectives ability to effectively apply critical and creative thinking to address important issues and problems in your workplace. Include at least one example of how you have applied this capability set or describe a situation where you believe you could have more effectively created a viable solution to a problem or challenge.

Link specific tools and processes from the unit to your statement.

For example you might provide an example of a change that you have been successful at making to a behaviour that enhances the culture of your team. You might begin by noting that after having noticed that a particular problem reoccurs despite it being highlighted, you applied the discriminatory details thinking. You might apply the culture web analysis to understand the underlying principles. You might then examine the stakeholders’ landscape.

@Work 2

Identify an innovative project idea, using situational analysis tools to explore the context, and apply scenario thinking approaches to develop an innovative solution or set of solutions to solve a complex real-world problem.

Process: Review your Reflective Journal and your other observations for this unit.

Action 1: Build a ‘tool kit’ approach to integrate a flexible custom process to evaluating the necessity for a change and innovation initiative in your context.

Action 2: Identify a potential issue, problem or innovation opportunity to address in your context.

Action 3: Using the ‘tool kit’ you have created, conduct an analysis for the situation and develop the justification for the intervention.

Action 4: Design a change or innovation intervention using a set of methodologies suitable for the situation or context.

Action 4: Reflect on the suitability of your design.

Action 5: Share the initiative and your proposal design with a stakeholder you have identified as key to your initiative.

60          Lesson 16 60 minutes

Bringing it together so far

Review & Reflect

(60 mins)

Revisit your Check list of your personal learning objectives from the Primer Section of this unit. Make a note in your Reflective Journal of the learning that you set for yourself that you have achieved. These will help you with the following Review and Reflect section.

After you have completed your Action 5 step from your @work 2, review your Creative Thinking, Innovation and Problem Solving ‘tool kit’.

Reflect on the following:

What can I implement into my everyday thinking and actions in the workplace?

What are the 3 most significant new learnings I have gained from this @work activity?

What are the 3 most significant practices that I have currently been using and applying, that I realise are effective practices that I want to continue and ideally enhance?

What are some activities and practices that do not serve me as well in my journey that I will consider reviewing?

Overall, what are the overall strengths that I can bring to complex issues and situations that allow for growth and improvement in the workplace and the teams in which I engage?

Review and Reflect

30          Lesson 17 30 minutes

Summary

This is what we hoped you set out to achieve these key issues and learning from the unit.

This is important for you to embed your learning. These are the key issues that we want you to be able to apply in your current approach to your work and duty expectations.

Change, innovation, creativity, scenario thinking and an ability to deal with complexity are important and useful skills for you to have in your role in the Army. These concepts have specific meanings and implications for your work. More and more in the Army you are expected to apply these skills in your daily activities. Your Reflective Journal will have many insights that will help you to appreciate how you apply these in your roles and how you can continue to build these skills. Your ‘hub and spoke’ activity encouraged you to focus on how what is going on around you and understanding how and why they are key drivers of change. The more you recognise those ‘incoming’ factors, the more you are prepared to encompass change. You are also more able to be flexible in the face of change.

Change and change adaptability is a key component of your daily processional lives. You need to be and do the best you can on a daily basis and at the same time be able to adapt and do the same things better. You also need to be able to learn new capabilities and apply those to existing situations and also to new and unfamiliar situations. You worked your way through some truisms of change and some actions that can be useful. We also encouraged you to continue to add to your Reflective Journal and to look over your thoughts and insights. By doing this you make more connections and come up with more ideas.

You explored innovation in its many shades and shapes. One of the concepts you studied was the idea of ambidexterity. In its fundamental form individual, team and organisational ambidexterity highlights the need to be doing the same things more effectively and learning and doing new things that benefit everyone in the future.

Your ‘blue circle’ and ‘green triangle’ exercise was designed to help you recognise the different type of innovation and the skills and capabilities that are necessary for those different categories of creativity and innovation. The ‘red square’ was the additional piece of this exercise. Put together, these are signals and clues for you to use as you work. Does this situation need a ‘blue circle’ or ‘green triangle’ mindset? What does your ‘red square’ wisdom tell you? Who else can you get to share with as you explore such situations?

Key insight [or takeaway – whichever word is best]

‘Blue circle’ and ‘green triangle’ are your creativity and innovation mindsets that you use to create potential solutions and beneficial outcomes for you, your teams and the Army.

‘Red square’ wisdom enables the problem-solving element of your work. You ‘ways’ of working and your focus changes are you move between these key processes.

We encouraged you to constantly recognise the importance of stakeholders and to consider the stakeholder landscape in your creativity and innovation activities. You work in a complex organisation and deal with complex issues continually. Strong stakeholder awareness is a key component of being able to perform well in a complex space.

You explored a range of approaches and processes that enable you to be more focused and aware and also to be more able to deal with issues and challenges as they arise. Overall, the importance and value of mindfulness and its relationship with the Army, which is what is termed a High Reliability Organisation, or HRO.

Recognising the characteristics of an HRO and the types of activities that are part of the HRO ‘repertoire’ helps you to understand the types of people and capabilities that enable good outcomes.

The capabilities audit and the VIRO concept helped you to really focus on capabilities and how you recognise, share and honour them and the people and teams who have them. Mindfulness and awareness of ‘small things’ is one of the underpinnings of an HRO, and of the Army, and its purpose.

Recognising capabilities helps you to understand where it exists, how to share it and also to support the development of the team’s overall abilities to get things done.

Resilience, how to deal with errors, understanding and conducting after action reviews are all part of this mindfulness suite.

Key insight:

The principle of mindfulness is a rich awareness of discriminatory detail. Discriminatory details are fundamental understanding your context and the situations in which you find yourselves. This capability is an essential and core capability that supports and enables creativity, innovation and problem-solving in the complex environment in which you find yourselves.

Culture and the Army’s cultural web was a big focus of your work. You were encouraged to always think of the purpose of the Australian Army as you made your way through the unit. Culture and purpose are naturally and closely related. Achieving purpose is more likely to happen when they align.

The Cultural Web tool you can use to continually explore your culture and you can use it to figure out what to enhance and what might need to change. You were able to read a short applied vignette and also a case study from IDEO, the US design studio.

Key insight: Understanding your culture helps you to get a good sense of your overall context and the way things feel, look, and work around you. You also get to understand more about your organisation and how it ‘sees’ itself.

We all need ‘how to’ tools that get ideas out, gets them shared and allows for ways that people can explore and bring ideas and solutions to life. The Tom Wujec ‘Toast’ process is a simple, effective and fun way to engage your teams in creative thinking without putting them on the spot. Everyone’s voice is shared and people and teams can more readily ‘see’ possibilities connections.

At this point you got to stop and think about what you had been learning and to start putting it all together and practicing in your workplace on something relevant to you. You also took some time to think about the learnings and finding ways to share with others, given that we learn a great deal when we apply the learning and also when we help others to learn. We asked you to create a learning asset, including perhaps engaging a family pet in the process.

Empathy mapping helps you to understand users’ stated needs and wants, and also those more complex underlying issues, ‘pains’ and potential ‘gains’. This process led you along a user exploration journey that encouraged you to think about the ‘jobs to be done’ in any situation. The question was very much about what the user was trying to achieve. Since this unit is about creativity, innovation and problem-solving you were also looking for ways to create better outcomes from existing processes and activity sets, and also creating new ones.

This combination of jobs to be done, user journey mapping and value propositions, led you to building an ‘innovation toolkit’ that you can use and share. The innovation toolkit could include some of the practical application and creation processes, such as the service blueprint, the business model canvas and testing possibilities and different options using scenarios.

You started to explore the ways that you can both bring your innovations to life and also ‘pitch’ your ideas with the aim of influencing stakeholders, team members and decision makers.

Creating a value proposition and then building a ‘way’ of delivering it to the end users, as well as be able to actually deliver it, is a key consideration of this unit. Creating something is one thing; getting buy-in and getting it to work, is another. The business model canvas and the ‘ease of use’ diagram are visual tools you can use to show and share how you can bring an idea to life and how to justify its existence.

Key insight: Learning in action and reflective practice are powerful ways to enact change and develop capabilities. Opportunities to share and practice exist in many forms. Building visual and interactive process as a ‘toolkit’ for getting things done, enables testing and validation.

Self-efficacy, the belief that you can achieve positive and purposeful outcomes, is a fundamental human characteristic. Some people have a natural capacity to believe in their abilities. Others need to take time to explore what they are doing and achieving and thus come to the realisation that they ‘can’. Another group of people need others to help them by external validation of their capabilities.

You conducted a capability audit, and you applied your learning using the Innovation Workbook. By doing so you should be more aware of what you can achieve and how you can achieve great outcomes in the Army context.

At the same time you have most likely created a performance review statement and you have created and shared an initiative and your proposal design with a stakeholder who is key to your initiative.

Key insight: Reflective practice and the application of learning in a safe and supportive environment helps to build awareness of abilities and enhances the confidence to apply these learnings in the workplace.

Congratulations on great work! Be sure to add some celebration to your day and give yourself a note of achievement in your Reflective Journal. Take a break and choose the next step of your journey in Cove+.

1200

20          hours

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