The Hot Spots Research Institute launches its 2009/10 Research Consortium
Last month you may recall we mentioned that we were about to launch our latest Research Consortium, so we are now delighted to announce the Consortium has been launched. Titled ‘The Future of Work and the Adoption of Innovative Organisational Practices’ we will formally kick off on October 1, with a fast-cycle time that will run for six months.
We believe this is a crucial time to be looking forward – even when the temptation is to focus exclusively on the present. We will really consider what the workplace of the future will look like and what it will mean to the leaders we develop, the way we create HR practices, the structure of the company and the culture and competencies. We believe it will prove to be one of the most provocative conversations about the future with companies across the world engaging with our state-of-the-art technologies to pull together ideas. We already have some great companies, public sector institutions and not-for-profit organisations signed up.
This will be the third time Lynda has directed a major Research Consortium, and the results of the first on HR strategies were incorporated into her books, Living Strategy and The Democratic Enterprise, while the second – on cooperation - became the basis of Hot Spots and Glow. And, with near-seismic changes taking place in the business environment, this promises to be Lynda’s most significant Research Consortium yet.
What changes in our environment have brought about the need for a radically evolved workplace?
We are seeing a shift towards more collaborative work forms that span boundaries, companies that operate in flatter organisational hierarchies and engage employees in decision-making. We are also seeing a trend towards open-source innovation in outside communities. Companies are moving towards flexible organisational clusters and community structures, and advancements in technology have facilitated an increase in virtual work. These changing environments have given workers a desire for more flexibility and with a choice of where and how they want to work.
What areas will the Research Consortium focus on?
We will be focusing on three key challenges:
1. Understanding Global Forces: first, we will create an accurate reading on how these global forces are likely to play out over the coming years with an emphasis on the way that work gets done.
2. Impact on Organisations: next, we will work with members of the community to analyse carefully how these are likely to impact organisational structures, people practices and processes such as leadership development, performance management, reward and training; and finally, what they will mean to the day-to-day experiences of employees.
3. Adoption of Innovative Practices: finally, the challenge will be to understand how these new organisational practices, process and work styles can best be incorporated into the strategy and practice of the organisation.
At the Hot Spots Movement, we believe this challenge is particularly relevant since our early research has shown that, while many companies are well developed for the adoption of “best practice”, only a few are configured for the adoption of “innovative practices”.
The emphasis here will be to identify those nascent practices best suited for the future and also to understand how these can best be adopted. This can be complex since often the adoption of innovative practices results in the shattering of assumptions and requires the legitimisation of new activities to successfully implement new lines of organisational activity.
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