Take it apart, and you’ll see where it sticks.
When something gets stuck in your organisation, it is rarely down to one thing. That is why we look at how goals, structure, culture, technology and leadership fit together. In those areas we have the expertise to find out what is going on and to work on development in a focused way. Below you’ll find our areas of expertise and how they fit together in our Leapshift model.
Explore our expertise
Is your question about how the work is organised, how people deal with each other, how people are led or what technology could do for you? Under each area of expertise you’ll find familiar challenges, examples from practice and how we help organisations with them. A question often touches several areas at once, so we also look at how they affect each other.
- StructureMeeting structures, roles and mandates, and an overview of what is running. So that decisions are made where they belong.
- CultureUnwritten rules, psychological safety and change that starts from what already works.
- LeadershipGiving direction, leaving room, and seeing how others experience you, with ESCI 360.
- TechnologyMeasuring digital mindset, starting small with smart tools, and improving processes and systems with AI.
How our expertise fits together.
Structure, culture, technology and leadership constantly affect each other. Our Leapshift model makes those connections visible and helps you find out what an organisation needs to reach its goals and keep developing.
The model builds on Peter Senge’s thinking about the learning organisation. We developed it further from our combined 25 years of hands-on experience in organisational development, giving structure, culture and technology a place of their own. The model shows how the parts of an organisation interact:
- At the centre are the organisational and development goals: what you want to achieve, and the ways in which you want to keep developing.
- Around them are the four domains of a learning organisation: shared vision, systems thinking, team learning and collaboration, and craftsmanship. This is where an organisation keeps developing.
- Structure, culture and technology are the conditions: they make development possible, strengthen it or get in its way.
- Leadership connects the goals with everything else: it gives direction and creates the conditions for development.
Our four areas of expertise tie in directly with this. That lets us see where things pinch, and also where there are opportunities to take the organisation further. Click on a part of the model to zoom in, or read the explanation of each part below it.
What the organisation wants to achieve, and the ways in which it wants to keep developing so that it stays successful in the future. Every other part serves these goals.
How the work is organised: roles, mandates, meetings and processes. It determines who decides what, and how work is divided and coordinated. A condition: structure can help or hold back development.
The shared norms, values and unwritten rules that determine how people behave and treat each other. A condition: culture can help or hold back development.
The systems and tools people work with, and how willing and able they are to use them. A condition: technology can help or hold back development.
Giving direction towards the goals and creating the conditions for development. Leadership connects the goals with the four domains and influences the conditions.
The ability to develop a shared picture of the desired future together, and to act on it out of commitment.
The ability to zoom out and see the organisation as a coherent whole. To look beyond day-to-day practice and separate issues, recognise recurring patterns and understand how teams, departments and the organisations they work with affect each other.
The ability to learn together, make use of knowledge and keep improving the work.
The knowledge, skills and professional qualities of people, and the ability to keep developing them.
Choose a part
Domains
Conditions
At the centre: organisational and development goals.
What the organisation wants to achieve, and the ways in which it wants to keep developing so that it stays successful in the future. Every other part serves these goals.
An organisation has goals to deliver, such as quality, results or social impact. At the same time it has to keep developing to meet new challenges, for example in agility, its capacity to innovate or how well people learn from each other.
How clear are those goals? Where does the organisation want to get stronger? And do the goals steer the choices and the development it puts in motion?
The goals give direction to the other parts of the model. At the same time, new insights and developments can be a reason to look at those goals again.
The four domains of a learning organisation.
An organisation has to deliver results and also keep developing. These four domains strengthen its ability to learn, to renew itself and to respond to changing circumstances. They matter at every level, from the board to the team, and they contribute to the organisational and development goals.
Shared vision
The ability to develop a shared picture of the desired future together, and to act on it out of commitment.
A vision is more than a story on paper. We look at whether people recognise themselves in the direction the organisation is taking, whether it means something to them and whether they see their own contribution. And whether the vision helps them make choices and set priorities together.
A shared vision gives direction to the course the organisation takes, and helps connect people through a shared ambition.
Systems thinking
The ability to zoom out and see the organisation as a coherent whole. To look beyond day-to-day practice and separate issues, recognise recurring patterns and understand how teams, departments and the organisations they work with affect each other.
Looking beyond day-to-day practice and separate issues, recognising recurring patterns and understanding how teams, departments and the organisations they work with affect each other. That way a fix in one place doesn’t cause a new problem somewhere else.
Team learning & collaboration
The ability to learn together, make use of knowledge and keep improving the work.
We look at how teams share knowledge and experience, look back together on what is going well and what could be better, and try out new ways of working. Is there room to ask questions, discuss mistakes and challenge each other? And is what teams learn actually used to improve the work?
Craftsmanship
The knowledge, skills and professional qualities of people, and the ability to keep developing them.
Craftsmanship is more than being good at your job. It is also about staying curious, reflecting on what you do and keeping your knowledge and skills up to date. We look at whether professionals get the room to do that, and how their development contributes to the organisation’s goals.
Leadership connects.
Giving direction towards the goals and creating the conditions for development. Leadership connects the goals with the four domains and influences the conditions.
Leaders are responsible for the goals at the highest level. They make sure the organisation understands them, and they help decide whether structure, culture and technology help or hold things back. You can see leadership in behaviour: what you do with bad news, how you react when someone has doubts. So we show managers how others experience them, and support them in what they want to do differently afterwards.
Three conditions that help or hold back.
Structure, culture and technology determine whether the domains can develop. Each of them can help or get in the way, and leadership plays a part there too.
Structure
How the work is organised: roles, mandates, meetings and processes. It determines who decides what, and how work is divided and coordinated.
Structure is everything you can draw. We look at whether the way things are set up helps the goals or gets in their way. A picture we see a lot: plenty of meetings, few decisions, and in the end the same person decides anyway. Then we make visible who is responsible for what, and redesign the meetings together with the people who sit in them.
Culture
The shared norms, values and unwritten rules that determine how people behave and treat each other.
Unwritten rules are often stronger than the agreements on paper: what you say in the meeting and what you only say in the corridor, who you challenge and who you spare. We bring those rules into the open so they can be discussed, and help a team make agreements it keeps up itself. Psychological safety belongs here too. Without it, nobody asks the awkward question.
Technology
The systems and tools people work with, and how willing and able they are to use them.
We look at two things. Are people willing and able to work with technology? We call that the digital mindset. And does the technology fit the work? A system locks in the way you work, so if the process isn’t clear, you automate the detours along with it. That is why we map the work first and only then choose what helps, from a simple tool to the application landscape or automation with AI.
Prefer a short piece from practice? On our blog we write about what we come across in teams.
Missing a topic?
Looking for something that isn’t here, or want to talk a challenge through? Send us a message and we’ll get back to you.
Prefer to call? Laura +31 6 2717 3742 or Maarten +31 6 5107 2929.
You’ll get a confirmation by email shortly, and we’ll be in touch.