In the face of digitalization and amidst risk of being disrupted by new products, companies, and business models, many companies have woken up to the need for change in company culture, management and the way of operation. Whether the goal is business agility, the culture of experimentation, or agile company culture, the key challenge is how to foster change in a large organization. The big question is: what investments to actions help make the change stick in the organization while still providing a return bigger than the investment. One approach to this that I have been a part of at Agile Company Culture Accelerator at Yle, as well as other companies, is creating coaching curriculums to grow leaders and change agents to enact and catalyze the change itself. Change in organizations spreads like innovations in the population: in a network. You can reach the early adopters with a small change agent team, but to spread the meme of change wider in the organization network, you need other tactics. In coaching curriculums such as Yle’s Culture of New Work Leadership Coaching, we offer coaching for the hub persons in the organization network (not necessarily the ones in management positions) to grow as and into leaders and change agents. This way, we foster the change in the organization at an arm’s length. This way, different parts of the organization can tailor the change according to their own context and take responsibility for the change themselves. In this talk, I will share my experiences in designing and carrying out these kinds of coaching curriculums for the leaders. I will also discuss the strengths and weaknesses of this way of fostering change. This talk is targeted at coaches, change agents and managers who want new ideas on how to foster change in their organization and for their customers. The audience will walk away with tips on how to, and how not to, organize a coaching curriculum for leaders, as well as an idea how and in what context it makes sense to consider this way of fostering change.

1. Facilitating Change
Through Helping
Leaders Grow
Antti Kirjavainen @anttiki
Agile Saturday XV
#AgileSaturday

2. that’s me at ~20

3. Culture of New Work coaching
curriculum
–
Why

4. Companies amidst change
Broadcast
Media
(one->many)
On-Demand
Media
(many->many)
Personal
Customer
Experience
(many->one)
IT
Consultancies
Efficient
supplier
Wanted partner
Expertise, vision
Responsiveness
Meaningful employer
Product/
service
companies

5. The dreaded “change is the new black” slide...
Material: Niels Pflaeging
Fortune SmartCEO

7. Turn to the person next to you and discuss:
Organisations, organising around work, leadership and
management:
● What are the old ways that are dying, going away?
● What is the new that is emerging, that helps us deal with
complexity?

8. The new? Teal
● Wholeness
● Self-management
● Evolutionary
purpose
Niels Pflaeging
Mirette Kangas
F. Laloux
Salim Ismail

9. Culture Mapping the Organisational Change
Thinking Structures Behavior Results
Everyone
wants this to
change
This needs
to change
for a lasting
effect
Experiments here provide
feedback to challenge
thinking

10. Help people in
organisations to
develop their
thinking to foster
change

11. Culture of New Work coaching
curriculum
–
What

12. Culture of New Work curriculum
● 12-week programme
● Support learning of new culture
of work, organisations, and ways
of organising
● For leaders, change agents,
influencers, opinion leaders,
experts
● Goal: help people in
organisations to develop their
thinking to foster change

13. The Cast
Virpi Mattila-
Manninen,
Yle
Maiju
Niinivirta
Milsa Malin Tero Kadenius
Ari-Pekka
Lappi Daniel Wellner

14. Some numbers
● 14 coaching curriculum groups + 1 on-going right now
● 7th semester (6 iterations done)
● Over 175 participants in total
● 250+ experiments carried out in every-day work and
reflected in the workshops
● Participant Assessments: average 8,8 / 10
● NPS: 50+ across the groups

15. Culture of New Work coaching
curriculum
–
How

16. Design principle:
Walk the talk, make
the vision of future
alive today

17. Themes, content and sources
Core
Protocols
Reinventing
Organizations
Responsibility
Process,
TrustTemenos,
Cynefin model,
Turn the Ship
Around, Lean
Change
Management
etc. etc.
“Many
perspectives”

18. “Who pays the
bills calls the
shots, right?”
“Well...”

19. Turn to the person next to you and share:
● Recall a moment when you were motivated to do
something
or
● Recall a moment where you lacked the motivation to do
something.
What made the difference in your motivation?

20. We treat
participants as our
primary customers

21. Invitation-based participation
“We create
commitment to
trainings with
invitation model and
application process.”

22. Participant interviews

23. Participant interviews: learnings,
experiments
Questionnaires. Personal connection is more
important than gathering data.
Doing interviews with pairs of participants. More
potential side-effects than advantages.
One-on-one conversational interviews,
face-to-face or online video (Zoom.us)
Create online doc of challenges relevant to
participants.

24. Participants bring their own challenges
Challenge
PitfallsThings
to
try

25. 2-day trainings are
legacy learning
tech.
Photo CC-2.0-BY by wecometolearn

26. Squeezing the curriculum in to
2 or 3 days time
Allowing 3 to 4 months
calendar time to learn
Half-day sessions for
brain-friendly learning

27. Learning requires
time, focus and
energy

29. Learning requires
practice in
everyday work

30. Experiences to challenge thinking

31. Experiment templates
Goal
Expectations
Commitment
Measures
Reflection
What and
how

32. Sharing, reflecting on experiments together

33. Our purpose
Bright spots Improvement opportunities
Your one wish
Ask participants to interview their
peers. Provide a simple handout to
help with that.

34. Competence
development
focusing on
individuals
considered
harmful.

35. Our goal is to grow
a community of
organisation
radicals!

36. Organisation as a network
Participants from
many roles,
positions and
teams.
Niels Pflaeging

37. Turn to the person next to you and share:
Most of us have been in organisations where people do not
learn together.
Some of us have been in teams or organisations where that
happens in a daily basis, too.
What is the difference between those two, for you?

38. Fostering Mutual Trust
Introductions
Working agreements
Having lunch together
Appreciation
Check-ins
Feedback

39. Making sense of the new together

40. Sparring Partnerships
Sparring partners help
participants reflect on their
own context
Lots of variance in
commitment to working with
one’s sparring partner
?

41. How to foster learning and change
● Walk the talk, make the vision of future alive today
● Participants are your primary customers
● Hold the space for people to make sense together
● Learning takes time, focus and energy
● Learning takes practice in everyday work
● Building a learning community begins with fostering trust

42. What next?

44. Climate Change is real
● Challenge: Supporting learning in the age of climate
change
● Online f2f learning encounters
● Building a learning community online

45. Want to continue
the conversation?
Talk to me during the day (or at
the afterparty)!
You can also contact me on
Twitter or LinkedIn :)
Thank you!
WhatsApp +358 50 546 2465
antti@flowa.fi
Linkedin, Slideshare anttikirjavainen
Twitter @anttiki