Hacking HR to Build an Adaptability Advantage

Design Thinking based Change Management

By Dave Whitman on June 24, 2022

Use Design Thinking Methods and techniques applied to Change Management/Org. Dev. issues.

Transition Change Management related actvities from problem solving to opportunity identifying related efforts. This focus moves actvities father up the value stream in that you begin by identifying root cause and unexpressed need in the organization. By applying the obeservational aspectives of Design Thinking research and analysis you spend more time at the beginning identfiying true need and opportunities. This allows you to address and correct systematic issues at their foundation rather then to provide solutions to the resulting sypmtoms of an issue.

HR process being hacked:Organizational Development

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val-green's picture

How do you do that? It's about reaching the paradigm shift between what you are now and what you might be, given the vision to see it. Once you have that (and others have bought into it) it becomes much easier to see how to get there. Is it just about research and analysis at the beginning, or is it actually something more visceral?

It has been my experience that it is critical to identify the performance gap and business need/opportunity (whatever the "business" of an organization is; profit, non-profit or government), at the appropriate organizational level, before you begin to seek and analyze causes and root causes to to the gap. I insist on this in my organization consulting , even if it means losing the consulting opportunity by not addressing the immediate problem being presented by the client. It is the only way to establish a business partnership with your clients and to link what you do to business results .

val-green's picture

It can be hard to know where to start when using design thinking principles. It will almost inevitably lead to better solutions, but only if you can identify the right problem to work on in the first place. It can also be difficult to engage others with what may initially seem like navel gazing, or 'paralysis by analysis'. I can hear someone now saying 'well, let's just take a pragmatic approach and get something done.'