SYNTROPY TOOLKIT

SYNTROPY CENTER

Toolkit

Culture

The DDO Process

What

Deliberately Developmental Organizations (DDO)— Establish Home, Edges and Grooves for individuals to help realize the DDO vision.  This is an organization development practice that supports an inclusive, humanistic culture at work. Deep alignment with people’s motive to grow means fashioning an organizational culture in which support to people’s ongoing development is woven into the daily fabric of working life, visible in the company’s regular operations, day-to-day routines and conversations.

Organizational Features in a DDO—all 3 of the following are deeply aligned to promote individual development throughout the organization

  1. Principles
    1. Running on principles
    2. Adults can grow
    3. Weakness is strength; error is an opportunity
    4. The Interdependent Bottom-Line
  2. Practices
    1. Destabilization can be constructive
    2. Closing the gaps
    3. Timescale for growth, not closure
    4. “Interior Life” is part of what is managed
  3. Communities
    1. Rank does not have its usual privileges
    2. Everyone is HR
    3. Everyone needs a crew
    4. Everyone builds the culture

Why

Personal development and professional performance are inseparable. Organizations will best prosper when they are more deeply aligned with people’s strongest motive  which is to grow individually. This means going beyond consigning “people development” to high-potential programs, executive coaching, or once-a-year off-sites.

 

As a human being, when you know that someone really cares about you – not just your work, or the skills you possess but who you really are – when we know that, we feel a powerful sense of belonging. That kind of culture acts like a medium to make you feel a part of something bigger than you could ever be on your own. And having that feeling makes you not only love your work, but the people at work; not because they’re perfect, but because, like you, they’re not.

 

Organizations that prioritize personal development see employees as ongoing works in progress, far from perfect in the beginning, yet capable of much greatness over time. Rather than hiding mistakes and papering over imperfections, employees are encouraged to use work as a vehicle for growth. The assumption is that, over time, these highly developed individuals will add great value to the organization.

How

Set up.  Chairs arranged in a circle, where 2 or more people, gathered together to grow.  Pen, paper to take notes.

Each person, regardless of title or position, gets to share their developmental home, edge and grooves and listen and support their colleagues to do the same.

Run through the following questions one at a time, taking turns to share what’s important and where you are and where you need to improve:

  1. Establish HOME (developmental community)
    1. Openness about the self—is exposing one’s limitations welcomed as a resource for development?
    2. Appreciate the whole self—are individual strengths recognized as a resource for development?
    3. Psychological safety—are teams and colleague relationships psychologically-safe spaces?
    4. Leader vulnerability—do leaders participate equally and fully in developmental activities?
    5. View of conflict—source of development?
    6. View of expertise/authority—deference to expertise by role or background minimized?
  2. Establish EDGE (developmental aspirations)
    1. Mistake-making—are errors seen as potentially promoting development?
    2. Problem-finding—are problems identified and generated to promote development?
    3. My growing edge—are individuals actively working on their own development?
    4. Your growing edge—are employees actively challenging each other to grow?
    5. Our growing edge—is the organization working on overcoming collective, organization-wide limiting assumptions?
    6. Purpose—does the purpose of the organization connect to the employees’ development?
  3. Establish GROOVES (developmental practices)
    1. Learning supports—are job-embedded learning supports routinely used for development?
    2. Role-to-person matching—are assignments and roles created and modified to spur development?
    3. Feedback—is consistent feedback on developmental goals given and taken by all?
    4. Regularity of practice—do practices focusing on development recur regularly?
    5. Symbolic tools—does the organization have a systemic language and articulated principles for development?
    6. Process improvement—do employees participate systematically in improving processes to promote development?

Tips and Traps

Gauge your success at implementing DDO in your company. If we came into your company, chose five people at random, and asked them each the following five questions, what would we hear?

Can you tell me a personal-growth goal, or self-improvement issue, you are working on at this time? (For shorthand, we’ll call this your OBT, your “one big thing”)

Can you tell me how making progress on your OBT would make a big difference for you personally, for the company, and for your life outside the company?

Can you name others in the company who are aware of your OBT, whom you talk with about it, who might give you feedback about it, who care whether you make progress on it?

Can you tell me how regularly you have the chance to be “at work” on your OBT during the normal flow of your work activities? When was the last time you were aware you were working on your OBT?

Can you tell me—when you do make progress on your OBT—how is this noticed or acknowledged in the company? Does it “register,” and, if so, how?

Attributions

An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization. Kegan, Lahey et. al. (2016). HBR Press. Thanks also to Andy Fleming,  co-author and consulting partner of Kegan and Lahey, for his training sessions to Syntropy over the DDO.  More on their work at the Developmental Edge (formerly known as Way to Grow, Inc.)

 

Recommended Article

© 2021 SYNTROPY CENTER

Made with ❤ by Montaia