Last week I attended an Enabling Catalysts & The RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) event, where instead of being talked to, we the audience were tasked to do the thinking and drive the conversation throughout the evening as a collective of #changeagents in the room.
We were also given pre-work which immediately established the quality of the event and proved a very useful tactic to introduce members to each other and set the engagement at a high from the start.
The subject of discussion was on ‘Organisational Transformation’ and I therefore joined the debate with my social business lens on. Given the prestigious setting of the RSA building and air of traditionalism with its fellowship programme, I thoroughly expected to have to fight my corner when it came to introducing this new, emerging area of social media and build the case of why i felt leaders need to be adopting strategies to manage this change.
This pre-conception of mine turned out to be very wrong as within minutes of discussing our first question, it was clear that the room was with me, as technology was quickly ear-marked as the fundamental catalyst for change happening everywhere now: from public sector, politics, journalism, start-ups and beyond.
In particular, some of the conversations that I had with groups and individuals highlighted social technology as the driving force of fast developing trends such as:
- Better and deeper access to information
- Globalisation as the norm
- Multi-platform convenience
- Public and consumer power
- Personal profiles blurring with professional profiles
- Death of the MBA
- A deep consciousness and CSR
- Scandal and fear feeding a deep-rooted lack of trust of our leaders
The impact of social being the life-blood of the new Gen Z was also noted as a fundamental reason for leaders to stay socially and trend aware, in order to adapt their thinking and to meet new expectations as Gen Z hit the work place.
Being a part of a #changeagent project
It was a fantastic privilege to have played a part in shaping others and my own thinking around all these inter-twined areas of society and business. It was a creative and inspiring experience hearing how each member in the room came at the questions we were given with their own individual lens and angles (e.g. social enterprise, charities, product design, start-ups, policy and politics, consultants and corporate). As a final discipline, we then distilled our thinking into 10 succinct words on what we felt the top qualities were that leaders needed to manage business.
Words such as authentic, social and trust were quoted as absolutely integral with a focus on the future and not the past.
Real-time was also highlighted as a critical competency of businesses to survive and stay relevant (music to my ears!)
The vast content that came out of the meeting is being consolidated as a RSA thought-piece and I for one, hope to continue the debate of this hugely engaging and though-provoking topic that the Enabling Catalysts are leading.
Other social innovation thinking from The RSA
Here is an excellent animation that The RSA also recently put together on the need to re-think the work-place.
(Brilliantly designed and spot on with how we still perceive ‘flexible working’).
Keep up the good work RSA and partners!
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
