In this decade characterised by highly complex transformation endeavours, where cross-cultural projects are the norm rather than the exception, project managers face an unprecedented challenge: navigating the murky waters of cultural ambiguity and volatility. Compounded by the challenges of remote working and diverse team dynamics, transformational and digital projects represent complex scenarios that can benefit from systems leadership training and intact team coaching. Some practical approaches organisations can take in managing such teams are discussed below.

Integrated Systems Thinking And Team Coaching Framework

Anchoring the training and coaching mythologies requires an underlying framework. The hierarchy of choices system model provides a visual representation for program directors and project managers to nest their various projects using this frame as a basis for decision-making and trade-off analysis. This approach offers a holistic view of organisational dynamics, and when coupled with a responsibility assignment matrix tool such as RACI, roles and responsibilities can be clarified when it comes to managing and riding the change journey.

A training programme that is focused on systemic thinking and critical analysis will help project managers see the big picture and the connections therein, as well as how their sub-projects are linked up and aligned. Understanding how various cultural elements might be at play is a key consideration and goes beyond the traditional focus on timelines and budgets, incorporating an understanding of cultural dynamics and their impact on project outcomes.

A key component of the courseware therefore involves a good appreciation of cultural nuances, particularly in countries with their own languages in regions such as Southeast Asia, where indirect communication and respect for hierarchy play crucial roles. As part of the training, real-life case studies can be drawn up to demonstrate how misinterpretations in these contexts can lead to project setbacks, teaching managers to decode subtle cues and navigate these complexities by having greater awareness and keeping a lookout for triggering behaviours within their cross-teams.

Another pivotal aspect of the training revolves around contextual communication. It’s not just what is said, but how, when and why it’s said. Coaching can empower project managers with the skills to decipher and respect these contextual differences within intact teams, ensuring that communication is not just transmitted but also received and understood as intended using different verbal strategies, balancing inquiry and advocacy during team meetings and check-ins.

In recognising the role of digital communication in global projects, the courseware should also introduce project managers to digital platforms and tools that facilitate better cross-cultural communication as structured by the organisation. This includes understanding digital etiquette across cultures, a vital skill in a world where video conferences and instant messaging are ubiquitous. Systems leaders are adept at identifying and addressing the systemic issues that may arise in cross-cultural teams, such as unconscious biases or cultural misunderstandings.

Fostering Creativity And Innovation In Diverse Teams

Given the complexity of global projects, systems leadership fosters adaptive problem-solving skills. Perhaps the most exciting aspect of designing a cross-cultural course is its focus on harnessing the power of diversity for creativity and innovation. By valuing different perspectives and fostering an inclusive environment, project managers can unlock new ideas and solutions. By promoting an environment of open and inclusive dialogue, systems leaders can bridge cultural gaps, ensuring that all team members feel heard and valued.

Intact team coaching strengthens the training as it seeks to apply systems leadership concepts to practices of intact teams. Intact team coaching focuses on strengthening the cohesion and effectiveness of teams. In a cross-cultural setting, this involves coaching teams to appreciate and leverage their cultural diversity, transforming potential conflicts into opportunities for innovation and creative problem-solving.

Workplace coaches can work with teams to develop trust, mutual respect and understanding, which are critical in a remote working environment where nonverbal cues and face-to-face interactions are limited. This includes understanding different communication preferences and aligning them with project goals. By improving collaboration, teams can better manage the complexities of digital and transformational projects.

Real-World Application: Deploy, Test And Iterate

What sets a well-designed cross-cultural course apart is its emphasis on practical application. Interactive workshops, role-playing scenarios and group activities are designed not just to teach but to immerse managers in simulated cross-cultural environments. This hands-on approach ensures that the lessons learned are not just theoretical concepts but skills that can be immediately applied in real-world scenarios.

The team coach can work with the project team to customise team development plans based on their unique dynamics and challenges. These plans may include targeted training on cross-cultural project updates, pre-agreed conflict resolution approaches and acceptable practices captured in a team charter, all of which are essential in managing the attitudes and behaviours of complex regional projects.

Using the systems model of architecture and the essence of a learning organisation, intact teams have a better chance of actualizing the domain of action from guiding ideas and internalizing the domain of deep learning to create new sensibilities for the work at hand. Intact team coaching unlocks a culture of continuous learning and development within these teams. It encourages team members to regularly reflect on their performance, learn from each other’s experiences and continuously adapt to changing circumstances to create, modify or eliminate systemic structures of policies, processes and infrastructure.

Preparing For The Future Of Work

In conclusion, employing systems leadership and intact team coaching can provide project managers and their teams with the tools and skills necessary to navigate the complexities of cross-cultural, remote and diverse team dynamics in today’s globalised business environment. As the business world continues to evolve, the ability to manage projects across cultures is no longer just a desirable skill—it’s a critical one. For companies looking to thrive in the global market, investing in such training and coaching isn’t just beneficial; it may be imperative for future success.

Thomas Lim is the Vice-Dean of Centre for Systems Leadership at SIM Academy. He is an AI+Web3 practitioner & author of Think.Coach.Thrive!

As operating environments in the business world shift, driven by technological advancement and rising customer expectations, businesses must not only keep pace but also thrive amid uncertainty. Against this dynamic backdrop, the concept of systems leadership has emerged as a beacon of hope, guiding organizations toward sustainable success.

Personal mastery serves as the bedrock of individual growth and development within organizations. It empowers individuals to continually expand their capabilities, enhancing their ability to lead themselves and others. Personal mastery equips leaders and employees alike with the tools needed to face change with confidence, creating a strong foundation for systemic transformation.

Mental models represent the deeply ingrained beliefs and assumptions that shape our perception of the world. To drive systemic change, organizations must encourage individuals to examine and challenge these mental models.

Building shared vision provides organizations with a North Star, guiding teams toward a common purpose. In times of transformation, a clear and compelling vision is indispensable. Team learning emphasizes the value of collective intelligence. In a world marked by complexity, no single individual possesses all the answers. Team learning promotes diverse perspectives and fosters a culture of continuous inquiry. At the heart of these disciplines lies systems thinking, the thread that binds them together. Systems thinking enables individuals and organizations to see the interconnectedness of all things, comprehend the consequences of decisions and navigate complexity strategically.

Furthermore, organizations should identify advocates and champions who possess a deeper mastery of systems leadership. These individuals act as catalysts, propelling the essence and architecture of a transformational organization. They inspire and guide others, facilitating the evolution of the organization into one that is more adaptive, innovative and resilient. Referencing the five disciplines, here are six examples of systems thinking models at two levels of competence:

1. Creative Tension Model

Foundational Level: Develop a fundamental understanding of the creative tension model, recognizing gaps between the current and desired state and understanding structural tension and the impact of being reactive.

Intermediate Level: Deepen understanding, embrace creative tension (eustress), differentiate eustress from distress and proactively use creative tension for innovation. Have participants draw the model on a flip chart.

2. Hierarchy Of Choices Model

Foundational Level: Appreciate the hierarchy of choices model, comprehend logical order and focus on the fundamental choice of purpose. Understand its role in guiding transformation change.

Intermediate Level: Deepen understanding, explore the interconnected nature of the model and focus on primary, secondary and tertiary choices. Practice drawing the model and identifying areas of focus and relevant questions.

3. Levels Of Perspective Model

Foundational Level: Develop a working understanding of levels of perspective, “walk up” levels, explain associated action modes and realize most actions are reactive or adaptive.

Intermediate Level: Use a framework with specific vocabulary, phrase mental models using “If… then… therefore” syntax and use data points to plot against stakeholder groups. Participants can draw the levels of perspective on a flip chart and provide nuanced answers.

4. Causal Loops

Foundational Level: Develop a basic understanding of causal loops, identify reinforcing and balancing loops and grasp the concept of systemic delays.

Intermediate Level: Deepen understanding, construct and analyze causal loop diagrams, use specific terminology and apply knowledge to real-world scenarios. Participants can create detailed diagrams and narratives at this level.

5. Systems Archetypes

Foundational Level: Gain a basic understanding of systems archetypes, learn common archetypes and understand their manifestations in systems. Foster a mindset shift from reactive thinking.

Intermediate Level: Enhance skills, identify and interpret various archetypes, use archetypes as diagnostic tools and apply them in strategic planning and issue analysis mapping. Trace systems archetypes and explain reinforcing and balancing loops.

6. Single- And Double-Loop Learning

Foundational Level: Develop an understanding of single- and double-loop learning, and learn principles and applications of single-loop learning. Recognize the need for double-loop learning.

Intermediate Level: Again, deepen skills. Detect operational inefficiencies (single-loop learning) and critically analyze and reframe foundational policies and strategies (double-loop learning). Distinguish situations requiring process improvements from those needing a fundamental rethinking of assumptions. Focus on the dynamic interplay between reaction versus reflection.

While introducing these disciplines is essential, activating motivation and confidence within individuals and teams may necessitate workplace coaching. Coaching can help provide the guidance and support needed to translate these disciplines into actionable strategies. It can nurture a culture of continuous improvement and empower individuals to take ownership of their growth. In the same way as systems competence, building a coaching culture means that even as managers within the organization are trained in workplace coaching to unlock team potential, there needs to be a deeper mastery by a core group of internal coaches whose agenda is about continuing education and coaching development.

In the pursuit of transformation, systems leadership and the five disciplines are not mere assets; they are prerequisites for success. Embracing this holistic approach positions organizations to thrive in an era where change is the new norm. Systems leadership—the combination of the disciplines enabled through coaching—illuminates the path forward, guiding organizations toward a future characterized by boundless possibilities. It is a journey worth embarking on, built on competence and mastery, offering organizations the keys to unlock their full potential to reach their desired future reality.

Thomas Lim is the Vice-Dean of Centre for Systems Leadership at SIM Academy. He is an AI+Web3 practitioner & author of Think.Coach.Thrive!

In today’s ever-evolving corporate landscape, achieving success transcends traditional hierarchical management. The concept of systems leadership, especially in the context of commercial enterprises, mirrors orchestrating a symphony of diverse elements toward a harmonious outcome. To master systems leadership effectively, organizations need to fundamentally transition to a systems thinking approach to leadership design and execution. The PEARLS systems leadership model can inform the adoption of systems leadership principles within enterprises.

First, systems leadership can be defined as an approach to leadership that focuses on addressing complex and interconnected challenges by mobilising and collaborating with diverse stakeholders across multiple sectors or domains. Some key characteristics include cross-team and cross-sector collaboration, holistic perspectives, long-term causal orientation and the use of systems thinking methodologies. The PEARLS approach maps systems leadership principles using the following pillars: purpose, experience, attitude, resilience, learning and step-out. These six pillars are designed to empower leaders and managers to create shared mental models, visualise scenarios and simulate outcomes of their actions and decisions.

Purpose (P)

At the nucleus of systems leadership resides a well-defined purpose and a compelling vision that binds all stakeholders together. Consider a client, such as a supply chain company, committed to transforming its operations for societal betterment through an environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiative. As a traditional enterprise embarking on this transformative journey, it is beset with multiple layers of challenges and complexity, including regulatory compliance, supply chain transparency and technology adoption—such as the use of blockchain for end-to-end tracking. Systems leadership meant that this business needed to rally both internal and external stakeholders toward their common cause and overcome resistance to change.

The business proceeded to engage its leadership using systems mapping through the hierarchy of choices and systems axiom to visualise the intricate web of relationships and dependencies within and external to the organisation and the ecosystem it is operating. This mapping endeavour provided the rich canvas needed to align shared mental models of the organisation’s purpose and its interconnectedness with the broader industry.

Experience (E)

Systems leaders must possess an in-depth understanding of their industry and their organisation’s ecosystem intricacies. This profound understanding enables them to leverage their experience to build bridges across sectors and establish strategic partnerships. In the above case, this meant recognising the interplay between their supply chain and environmental and social factors, motivating them to act responsibly. Using the levels of perspectives, leaders were given the opportunity to view issues in current reality and opportunities of future desired reality from multiple levels of perspective. Having data and conversations at the event, patterns over time and systemic structure levels based on present experiences allow for deep conversations around a common vision and new mental models for success. This approach allows them to gain a holistic understanding of their organisation’s culture and dynamics and a road map for change management.

Attitude (A)

A systems leader’s attitude is one of humility, acknowledging that no single entity possesses all the answers. It’s about fostering relationships and trust, rather than relying solely on hierarchies. A humble approach encourages open dialogue and collaboration. During a transformation journey, they embraced this attitude by actively soliciting input from employees, suppliers and local communities to drive positive change. Team coaching proved to be most valuable in facilitating authentic conversations about the quality of relationships in the context of the core theory of success and how attitudes may be shaping certain behaviours within the enterprise. Using this and other causal loop diagrams, teams were able to identify leverage points for intervention and foster a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement.

Resilience (R)

Leading systemic change often requires navigating uncertainty and ambiguity. Systems leaders must exhibit resilience in the face of complex challenges. For instance, they’ve encountered numerous obstacles during their ESG planning and discussions regarding trade-offs. Team coaching was instrumental in helping leaders understand how the work of different departments needs to be “nested” to align their future workstreams to the purpose and vision uncovered through the earlier hierarchy of choices output. By considering multiple options and their potential consequences, leaders can make informed choices that align with their organisation’s purpose and navigate challenges more effectively. Building resilience for the journey ahead and remaining unwaveringly and steadfastly committed to their core mission becomes the enterprise’s corporate imperative.

Learning (L)

Systems leaders are lifelong learners, continuously seeking to expand their knowledge and perspective. They employ techniques such as narratives and framing to reshape how people perceive issues, fostering progress. They put together a learning and organizational design five-year framework to emphasize personal and team development. The corporate communications made clear that the enterprise will cultivate a culture of continuous double-loop learning, adapting its strategies based on insights gleaned as a learning organisation as part of its transformation narrative.

Step-Out (S)

Systems leadership is not about exerting control but empowering collective action among diverse stakeholders. Leaders have exemplified this by forming coalitions of the willing, forging connections and venturing outside their comfort zones to drive meaningful change. The next steps were charted based on the best outcome envisaged through scenario planning and guiding ideas afforded through the architecture and essence of the learning organizations model. This approach allowed leaders to anticipate and prepare for various future circumstances based on data being collected on an intentional basis. By exploring different pathways, leaders can step out of their traditional approaches and proactively shape their organisation’s future.

In conclusion, systems leadership, when implemented through the PEARLS model and supported by these powerful models and tools, empowers enterprises to confront complex challenges, create shared value and navigate the ever-evolving business landscape in service of ESG outcomes. By tapping systems leadership and thinking, leaders can create a shared vision, visualise a clear desired future reality, and simulate outcomes of their actions and decisions, ultimately propelling their organisations toward transformative success.

Thomas Lim is the Vice-Dean of Centre for Systems Leadership at SIM Academy. He is an AI+Web3 practitioner & author of Think.Coach.Thrive!

One stress point in organisations today is the importance of activating a theory of success for middle managers who need to translate organisational strategies to their working teams, holding the creative tension between their current reality and where the organization wants to go. However, there is usually not enough attention paid to turning middle managers into leaders beyond equipping them with deeper functional skills. Hence, while they may be operationally competent, middle managers are often unable to adapt to the fast-changing external environment.

A critical aspect of this adaptability is the development of middle managers who can bridge the gap between operational efficiency and strategic leadership. The key to their development lies in employing effective pedagogical strategies and designing a robust pathway for growth and development.

Managers need to go beyond individual contribution to leading in the emerging future. They need to provide clarity and context for the work their team is doing. This includes:

Advocacy

Developing effective advocacy strategies is essential for rallying the intact team and cross-team efforts. Manager-leaders should learn to tailor their communication to different audiences and contexts for consensus-building.

Stakeholder Engagement

Understanding and addressing the needs and priorities of various stakeholders is crucial. Techniques such as using systems mapping to determine the nature, frequency and narrative choice can improve stakeholder buy-in over the long term.

A manager-leader also needs to steward organisational resources responsibly and create a virtuous success loop based on improving the quality of relationships to deliver results. This includes:

Building High-Performing Teams

Leveraging team strengths, setting goals aligned with corporate vision and maintaining accountability are key aspects of team leadership.

Coaching And Mentoring

Providing constructive feedback and coaching team members for their growth and development is crucial. Tools to activate autonomy toward team potential such as the PEARLS model or the Wheel of Work can support such undertakings.

The manager-leader personal mastery is crucial as they rise up the ranks within the organisation. The areas of focus would include collaboration mastery, creation mastery and complexity mastery.

Continuous Learning

Encouraging a culture of continuous learning and development is important. Systems leaders play five roles in making this happen. These roles support the development of their teams: steward, coach, teacher, designer and theory-builder.

Talent Pipeline Development

Identifying and nurturing high-potential employees to build a strong talent pipeline is essential for long-term organisational success as part of the stewarding process.

For middle managers taking on the mantle of leadership, the hierarchy of choices model is a valuable tool for diagnosing team needs and strategizing future directions. It emphasizes the logical order of decision-making, where lower-level choices (such as strategies and core values) must align with higher-level choices (such as vision and purpose). This model helps leaders develop greater systemic competencies, ensuring consistency and that decisions are aligned with the organisation’s strategic goals during implementation.

For example, if a component of the competency roadmap is to focus on increasing industry and financial acumen, the corresponding strategy derived from the hierarchy of choices based on the vision of managers as thought leaders might be to align training programmes with industry needs to maintain relevance and competitive advantage, ensuring their managers have relevant and insightful industry knowledge and stay updated with industry trends. They also need to understand the economic and financial implications of their decision-making.

In addition, leaders can use the levels of perspective. At the mental model level, the beliefs and assumptions that influence behaviour and decision-making would drive the creation of systemic structures that allow for skills upgrading in cross-functional collaboration that drives innovation. At the patterns-over-time level, communities of practice sharing analysis of industry trends and the impact of technology could be set up to ensure a cycle of learning and operational application. In designing such interventions, here are some pedagogical considerations to bear in mind.

Self-Directed Learning

Team members learn best when they take responsibility for their learning. Programmes should encourage self-directed learning and provide opportunities for learners to apply new skills in real-world scenarios.

Experience-Based Learning

Drawing on the existing knowledge and experiences of learners enhances engagement and relevance. Case studies and scenarios should reflect actual challenges faced by the managers.

Critical Reflection

Encouraging manager-leaders to critically assess their beliefs and assumptions facilitates transformational learning. This can be achieved through reflective journaling and dialogue sessions.

Perspective Shifts

Provide opportunities for managers to challenge their existing perspectives and develop new ones through interactive activities and discussions.

Real-Workplace Application

Incorporating hands-on exercises, role-plays and practical scenarios helps managers apply their learning in real-world contexts, ensuring better retention and effectiveness.

In developing middle managers to become effective organization leaders, senior management first needs to role model the aspired mindset, skill sets and tool sets themselves. They need to demonstrate their leadership mastery to inspire middle managers to walk the same path. This transformational journey requires developing competencies in effective communication, stakeholder engagement, team leadership and continuous learning.

Implementing pedagogical strategies anchored on systems thinking and leadership through a self-directed and experience-based approach improves corporate efficacy. Through intentional learning interventions based on critical reflection and real-workplace application, middle managers can evolve into capable and effective leaders who can drive organisational success systemically toward future desired reality.

Thomas Lim is the Vice-Dean of Centre for Systems Leadership at SIM Academy. He is an AI+Web3 practitioner & author of Think.Coach.Thrive!

In undertaking any organisational transformation, the team tasked to conceptualise, strategise, synchronise and implement the change will find themselves having to deal with issues and challenges on many fronts.

Having a well-formulated transformation agenda can help to frame the initial narrative to get started. Thereafter, in planning the specifics of transformation, what is needed is drawing out a transformation reference document to chart and navigate the transformation journey. The document provides a common basis to understand interdependencies and advocate for adjustments so that at the systems level, the systemic structures can continue to be developed as a total solution.

Here are five things to systemically pay attention to when leading transformational change.

1. Provide clarity on essential aspects of the transformation

After consulting widely across business units and having interviewed key stakeholders and understanding their mental models, the transformation team needs to organise the data and insights into essential aspects that will guide planning and execution. Each aspect should document from the perspectives of both current reality and the desired future reality. Some mandatory sections to cover are business model, culture, operations and risk management.

The articulation of the existing business model and the transformed model should clearly demonstrate the differences at a few levels. Namely, at the events and activities level, what is observable in the day-to-day? Then, at a systemic pattern level, what are the key indicators that will shift over time? The business model needs to determine at the structural level what policies, processes and systems need to be created, modified or eliminated. The mental models raised through interviewing the relevant stakeholders should guide the modelling of the business that’s envisioned at the end of the transformation journey.

2. Articulate what will change, and develop the steps to get there

This section is all about signaling what is the envisioned change and how teams and individuals are impacted. It will include a list of critical projects and initiatives, with indicators and targets to help units align their efforts to achieve these targets.

For example, in improving customer service, the existing measures might be turnaround time and percentage of complaints versus compliments. In the new articulation, it could be orienting the customer journey in terms of satisfaction, positive engagements and referrals. Such shifts require recalibration in norms and behaviours and mindset change. Positive customer experience will imply marked improvements in terms of the value proposition throughout the lifetime customer journey. Key follow-up questions might be the role of technology and digitalisation in providing customer visibility, insights and future-oriented modelling.

The transformation team needs to monitor all the parallel tasks that are happening and track their progress in getting to the stated transformation goals.

3. Define and deliver the positive impact for post-transformation work, workplace and workforce

Post-Covid-19, every transformation initiative will need to define what “working” means. For example, the nature of emerging work might mean exhibiting the following characteristics: firstly, being highly collaborative and mastering essential soft skills within and across teams; secondly, having integrated workflows enabled through technology with an emphasis on innovation; and thirdly, having ultra-disciplinary, cross competency-based, evidence-based approaches.

By “workplace,” the organisation might want to stipulate that as part of the transformation, the envisioned workplace will have certain characteristics. For example, perhaps the workspace will have a physical office but also co-working sites elsewhere, and digital workplaces may be designed to facilitate the “work anywhere safely” concept, such as adopting seamless-presence conferencing facilities.

When it comes to the workforce, possible desired characteristics of the employee post-Covid-19 might be the ability to anticipate customers’ needs and new requirements, being competent to make data-driven decisions and to make sense of the environment and being agile, coachable and having a growth mindset.

Irrespective of the choice of characteristics, organisational transformation must provide a clear vision and commitment to this aspect.

4. Embed transformation projects within the corporate work plan

Transformation projects are not confined to those undertaken by the transformation office. In fact, the office is the secretariat that maintains a bird’s-eye view of all the interventions by functional units in service of advancing the transformation work.

More likely than not, these projects are multi-year in nature and need to be resourced accordingly. There is a need to capture initial assumptions and hypotheses, documenting the scope of change and planning the engagement of impacted stakeholders. And from a work plan point of view, you must track deliverables, timelines and budget utilisation.

For example, if customer service is integrating a new technology platform, the stakeholders might be current employees with account management responsibilities, the internal training team, managers accessing the system for evaluation and offer approvals and the audit office.

The input-output table maintained by the transformation team must have clearly defined change management plans that appear in the relevant units’ work plan.

5. Draw up a comprehensive risk management plan

For a complex undertaking such as transformation, there are many accompanying risks that need to be considered and mitigated against. A risk register is a starting point and should contain action plans for when things do not go according to plan.

These issues might be technology implementation delays impacting training delivery, issues with the scheduling of training or the availability of training resources or the inability for all employees to be operationally ready for launch.

Some mitigating actions could include evaluating options and the pros and cons for pilots instead of full-scale launch, maintaining parallel systems while keeping a view on related costs, considering training early adopters to have a buddy system and making available demos even before training to get employees used to the changes to “unfreeze” them in preparation for the migration.

A well-defined transformation reference document with a good monitoring regimen ensures that the organization is not blindsided when the outputs and outcomes fail to yield the envisioned results or do not achieve the desired quality. There should be no surprises of projects falling behind schedule—and resulting in unforeseen blockages along the critical path. Having a master transformation schedule and maintaining it rigorously means that the transformation has a systemic way to move toward success.

Thomas Lim is the Vice-Dean of Centre for Systems Leadership at SIM Academy. He is an AI+Web3 practitioner & author of Think.Coach.Thrive!