Finding new space in challenging times

Leading in times of crisis, how do you do that? Nobody knows. Never before have we seen so much work happening from home. So we are all, both employees, managers and organisations as a whole, learning and pioneering at full speed.

A major insurance company asked itself: how can we support and accelerate the learning process of our managers? Department A may learn from what is already working in department B. That would help all those involved and strengthen us as an organisation.

After the departure of its owner-founder early in 2020, an ecological consultancy firm continued as an employee owned company. The approximately 25 consultants organise themselves like a 'flock of sparrows'. There is no hierarchical management and everyone is co-owner of the company. In addition to customer projects, employees also take on all management tasks - managing and building the organisation together. Whoever takes the lead on a particular subject varies from time to time. Everyone works from home and freedom is an important value. 

A challenge lies in the area of coordination - essential in a flock of sparrows, and not so easy to achieve in practice. That is why the company sought support at the beginning of March for the question: 'how do we organise better coordination within our organisation?

Since the national covid-19 related regulations in themselves had little impact on their ecological field work and because the firm's workload always rises sharply during the summer season, the consultants wanted to get to work on this - despite the fact that it was no longer possible to get together physically. After all, the issue was still highly relevant, or perhaps even more so. But how?

Two years ago, a large multinational set up an entirely new service aimed at protecting our climate. A group of about 12 people from all over the world pioneered this unique task. The big question was how to build a learning, largely virtual, community that produces results and in which people can work safely and healthily - within a larger organisation with structures and protocols that are designed for a completely different type of work process. All this, in times of rapid growth.

We supported at the kickoff and then stayed on board one day a week to search and build from the inside out and on-the-go.

Creating a learning culture had been in the focus of a hospital's Academy for some time. Healthcare is a rapidly evolving field and learning is crucial to keep up with the latest developments in the profession and to stand out as an organisation. In order to gather new ideas for strengthening the learning culture, we conducted research on how learning in the organisation takes place. What works well? How can it be made even better?

When the project was almost finished, the Covid-19 pandemic broke out and the study came to a standstill. After the first intense crisis months, the organisation felt a need to give that period, and everything that had been learned and experienced in it, a place. This gave rise to an idea: wouldn't it be possible to use the research project precisely for this purpose?

The Change Express is a tried and tested workshop in which participants are invited to reflect on their own perspective on organizational change. Advisors, managers, project leaders, L&D professionals - they can participate and discover their - often implicit - change philosophy.

With the new situation of working remotely, we were challenged to translate this formula into an online version.

A national research institute in the Netherlands wanted to gain more insight into the public's aspirations and wishes with regards to the future. The research was part of a long-term study into the 'state of the country', in which a 'snapshot' is prepared every quarter. In addition to a survey and an online research community, the institute wanted to conduct a number of group interviews that specifically zoomed in on people's dreams and hopes. The institute's experience is that people often find it easier to indicate what they do not hope for, but more difficult to indicate what they do want to see more of. Especially in these special times of the covid 19 pandemic, they were particularly interested in getting a better sense of the public's ideas and dreams about the future.