The Art Of Scaling Value
Group Partners At Work
Organisations of every kind have been attempting to replicate the best of their practices for as long as we can remember. It’s a natural phenomena — organisations are traditionally bound by their very existence to create more value — for everyone concerned. They are motivated to grow both geographically and in depth and range — to scale their capability.
For many it’s a quest that never seems to reach a tangible outcome — or if it does it can often fall short of expectation.
We refer to this in many ways — ‘defining best practices’ and ‘codifying the Intellectual Property (IP)’ being just a couple of the most common terms. Sometimes we hear it referred to as ‘capturing the pixie dust’ — the magic that exists in pockets across an organisation.
In this document we offer our perspective on what it takes to find and distill the unique strengths and capabilities of an organisation in a way that is valuable to them and to others.
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The Art of Capturing Pixie Dust
It’s not unusual to hear an organisation talking about there being something really special about the way they have developed their services or products and the importance in scaling that ‘magic’. However, while its easy to see potential and value its much harder to make that a reality.
The people who create this value have often developed it over a long time out of a blend of personal values, beliefs, real experience and instinct. They just do things that way, they don’t (always) follow a rule book. So asking them to convert what’s a mix of explicit and implicit knowledge into a ‘coded system’ is a tough ask.
They may not even see just how valuable/special what they have created really is or have questioned why they do certain things in certain ways.
What’s in a Name?
Codification as a term creates that immediate image of documenting processes and creating templates — standardising something so that it can scale. After all that is what the term means — to ‘arrange laws or rules into a systematic code’. And this is necessary to some degree of course but the reality is that the reason something is worth scaling is usually because something very special has been created by human beings who care.
The minute you boil that down to processes and rules and standards you are likely to lose the most precious part and end up with a sterile imitation.
Best practice as a term has unfortunately lost credibility and partly due to the previous point. Add to that too many claims that have not been backed up and too many interpretations that fell short of the mark. But in its purist definition that is exactly what we are talking about. Best does not have to mean gold plated quality, with bells and whistles.
Organisations try to avoid the term ‘best practice’ and opt for alternatives — appropriate practices, or doing the right things at the right time.
Going Beyond The Semantics
The issue is not about the term that’s used. It’s about really knowing what matters to achieve the right outcome in a given scenario and being able to capture not only the procedural aspect but also the essence of what makes it work. Crack that and any label will work.
Over the years we have been studying the way organisations describe what it is they feel makes them special. We have heard teams talk about the things that matter and we have seen the difference between passionate engagement in work and simply going through the motions.
Making It At Scale
The rest of this publication is dedicated to anyone* who has the privilege of helping organisations to unlock best practices and create more sustainable value.
*We make no assumptions on the exact mix of capabilities or roles, or whether this work should be done by people within the organisation or with external help. There will be many ways to achieve this. Just because people are doing amazing work doesn’t mean they themselves have the necessary skills to deconstruct and translate it into a well designed and effective product that others can utilise. To do this successfully requires a spread of capabilities and a collaborative / co-creative approach.
Our focus is simply on what it takes.
Cracking The Code
First Understand The Intention
While it makes huge sense to capture and record what works well and how to repeat it, there has to be a very real reason for doing so. Its not enough to simply write it all down, you need to know the purpose that you want this to support.
- Is it to train other members of your own organisation?
- Is it to showcase the best of what you do?
- Is it because you have the opportunity to monetise your IP?
- Is it because you want to protect your IP
- Is it because you want others to benefit from what you learned?
The answer can be more than one of these things of course
Even The Purpose Has Purpose
There is probably very little that happens in any organisation that doesn’t need to start with a clear purpose. It may even exist but it’s highly possible that the majority of the workforce has either never fully connected with it or have lost what connection they had.
The larger the organisation the more likely this is. The inevitable weight and volume of structure, process and governance, no matter how well intentioned, can have a dehumanising effect that quickly transforms genuine engagement into box ticking.
If you want to scale the best practices you need to rebuild that connection with purpose and focus on the people who show real passion for it.
SCALING VALUE — THE 12 LAWS
We have identified 12 Laws that we think are key to capturing authentic best practices. They look at this from 3 different perspectives. Together they represent a valid framework for thinking about sharing and replicating any best practice in a way that honours its origin and stands a chance of being replicated in a way that does justice to the original intent.
Get The Right Content
1 — Create The Right Conditions. You have to get everything you possibly can out of the heads of those who really get it. Give them the opportunity and environment to just open up and share whatever is in their heads. It doesn’t really matter what they say to start with as long as they speak from their heart and it relates to that purpose in some way.
People need to be comfortable before they will completely open up and also to believe that you are genuinely interested in what they have to say. That means listening intently and giving these conversations your undivided attention. If you feel your mind wandering — which you will at times — break, its tough to stay focused for long periods.
You will get way more from people if they feel you are interested in them, in what they have to say. Show them that you are — and mean it.
2 — Make It Relevant. Keep everything that connects back to the purpose and discard what doesn’t. There will be a lot of red herrings in your early content capture. Things that sounded really important at the beginning but later prove to be either historic information or out of context in some way. You won’t be able to manage the data capture in a nice logical sequence so expect to do a lot of refinement and resist trying to use everything.
You will need to use judgment on what to use and how so make sure that you have a good appreciation of what you have been told. Always remember why this is all being captured in the first place and consider how the information you are capturing adds value to someone who will adopt this practice.
3 — Keep It Human. Where so many documented best practices go wrong is in the things that are chosen to be defined and the way they get defined. The very acts that earned them recognition get lost in translation or swallowed up by policy and process. From the very beginning its important to look for the human aspect, the special touches and insights that made it special. It will make the job of bringing it to life later so much easier. There is no golden rule that says you have to take all the emotion out of writing when it comes to formal practices.
4 — Ask The Right Questions. Never assume or take for granted that you understand an action or activity. Resist the temptation to gloss over something that feels scarily complex. The best insights that have created that pixie dust exist where you least expect them. Those already in the ‘magic zone’ won’t always think about that any more and this is what you are on the hunt for.
Be prepared to go round the same topic multiple times by shifting the emphasis of the question. You are almost certainly going to hear something new or that throws a new light on something you have already heard. It can be more valuable to know what led to a practice than to know what that practice is.
It’s the simple questions that get you that context, the ones that ask who, what, why, when, where and how. You have to dive into their world but fall short of ever going native. Your job is to connect with their work, not become a part of it. They don’t need that kind of expertise.
Make it authentic
5 — Make Sense. Entering the world of another organisation can feel overwhelming but if you are going to bring out the best you need a very good appreciation of their context. Without it you will struggle to ask the right questions or spot the big insights.
There is going to be a lot of homework and equal amounts of frustration wrestling to get to the heart of the matter before trying to translate what has probably taken years to evolve. At some point you will need to move from a free flowing outpouring of knowledge to something more structured and usable.
Frameworks are your friend even if you are the only one who knows that at the time.
6 — Respect The Dynamics. To have established good practices the original designer would have needed to understand what was influencing their world — good and bad. It can;’t be assumed that the same set will apply in every case. Even where there are similar dynamics they may show up differently or have different implications.
You can’t ‘hard code’ this part of a best practice. Often its the knowing and responding to local dynamics that makes all the difference. And of course Dynamics change over time, any repeatable practice has to be able to deal with that.
7 — Emphasise What Matters. All context is important but some is more important. Make that clear. Your aim is to help someone else to be successful and so you need to cover off everything that is required to achieve that. At the end of the day the difference between pale imitation and repeated success is knowing what really does make the difference. Don’t give people opportunities to cut corners and compromise the things that count.
8 — Provide The Rationale. To help others recreate something in their own form requires them to make their own judgments and sometimes to apply things subtly differently. That means they need to know why you do things a certain way, so that they can test how that applies to them and their circumstances and dynamics. It’s very easy to dismiss information as irrelevant or to discount guidance because that all important ‘why’ was not covered.
Bring It To Life
9 — Identify With The Context. Visualisation is, of course, key to bringing content to life. And in something like a best practice, where information needs to be very clear and unambiguous, there is a lot that visualisation can do to help. It must be in context however.
For visuals to hold power they must resonate with the target audience and that means fitting their environment and culture. They need to bring ideas to life, to help the reader understand the practices more clearly — to create a visual language that becomes integral to the practice.
10 — Make Structure Work. Don’t impose structure or process on people too soon. To begin with all you need is to listen and take note. Structure is vital however, make no mistake. It’s important that whoever is driving this does have a structure and just important to know when that needs to be introduced. If structure is not your thing find someone who eats it for breakfast and get them engaged at the right time.
11 — Hide The Complexity. It is very easy to capture so much information that the reader is completely overwhelmed, no matter how valuable the information might be. Quite often it genuinely is a complex topic that can’t be given the justice it deserves through a simple document. The way information is presented is key to making it a joy to read rather than an ordeal.
While the standard plea from most organisation is to ‘make it simple’, it’s not about dumbing something down to a point it becomes meaningless. It is about making the content engaging and taking the reader on a steady journey of understanding so that they become comfortable with complex topics at the right time in the right way.
12 — Command Attention. Minds need to be stimulated and there are no shortage of distractions ready to divert attention. If you want people to care about your best practice and to give it the attention you believe it deserves then the product of your efforts needs to be a compelling read.
Take information design extremely seriously and consider every aspect — the navigation of your product, the correct media for your product, the design of every page. It all adds up to the experience you want the reader to have.
A Real Use Case
We have been taking on this challenge with our friends at Waterberg Welfare Society (WWS) in Limpopo, South Africa. A perfect example in many ways and we are convinced that the lessons we are learning here are just as valuable for other NGO’s and also commercial enterprises.
To Read Their Story Click Here
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