My DT Remote Coaching Experience

I have just completed my remote coaching of design thinking on Monday, 10 Aug (pending one last participant of whom I am scheduling to coach her alone for the final session - special treatment). It was my inaugural remote coaching (I mean literal coaching remotely trying to create an in-person learning experience for my participants virtually via Zoom).

Given that it is remote coaching of the course, I have modified the coaching approach to more participant-led or self-directed learning. I scheduled a one-hour interactive session with my participants to provide assignment instructions and review their assignments. I felt that it would be challenging to expect screen time for more than two hours (provided overrun buffer). I worked out a five-week design thinking remote coaching course based on a two-day in-person design thinking workshop for a class size of 20 participants.

In reality, I learned the following:

1. Ideal class size

For remote coaching, the optimum class size is up to five participants. I can still coach a class of a maximum of ten participants by having two break-out rooms in the Zoom. The small remote class size will optimize coaching because it is unlike in-person class, as the coach, I was not able to read the facial expression or body language via Zoom. The majority of the participants (of large class size) would not turn on their video camera. Furthermore, it would not be possible to make an adequate assessment of participant learning. Instead of interpreting facial expressions or body language, I needed to find ways to get an assurance of the learning outcomes expected of each participant. I like to be able to engage each participant to share and learn more about each other.

2.Scheduling

I was ambitious that I was able to deliver what I required the participants to learn and work on their assignments on their own. I have allocated one-hour for each class of remote coaching. I found out that this was not achievable within one hour. I ended up remote coaching each class (large and small class size) for more than one hour (mostly two hours). It was important to me to review the participant assignments and to get them started working on their assigned activities during the remote coaching classes. One of my participants has suggested scheduling additional classes to include mid-week check-in classes.

3.Model behaviors

Design thinking involves ways of working, mindsets, and the physical environment. I was not able to adequately model these behaviors during remote coaching. I tried to demonstrate some ways of working and mindsets by using online collaborative tools (such as Miro Board). I often asked the participants to imagine themselves working on the activities in a physical environment. I would illustrate how the physical environment would look like and what materials would be required. I need to find a way to improve this to enhance learning effectiveness (e.g.: how might I enable cross-class or cross-team sharing and learning from each other).

4.Getting outside the building

One of the steps of the design thinking process is to get outside the building to conduct empathy fieldwork and testing. Some of my participants were able to get outside the building and worked in teams to complete this activity. Unfortunately, one of my international participants was still in a lockdown situation. He was not able to get outside of his house to complete this activity. He was resourceful and found a way to conduct remote empathy interviews and testing with people (unknown to him and referred by his wife). Although remote empathy interviews and testing give a different learning experience, this important step of design thinking can be made possible in remote coaching. I need to find a way to enhance the learning experience for remote empathy fieldwork.

5.Documentation

I like all the activities and assignments that were well organized and documented by the participants in remote coaching of design thinking. Furthermore, all participants were able to reflect and capture their learnings. All documentation was stored digitally without the use of stickie notes and flipcharts (paperless and full digital). The digitalization of the design thinking activities is one key takeaway from this remote coaching experience.

In conclusion, I find remote coaching requires 2-3 times more effort than in-person coaching. In-person coaching of design thinking remains a preferred approach to learn and apply design thinking in a more engaging manner. Of course, I will continue to learn and improve the remote coaching of design thinking so that I could extend such learning opportunities to more people.

Finally, I like to take this opportunity to extend my sincere appreciation to my inaugural class participants for their commitment and feedback throughout their learning journey.

Leadership of the Future

The accelerated pace of industry changes is driving most businesses to realize that the key to growth, and even survival, is innovation. Most CEOs today identify creativity and innovativeness as critical competencies for enterprises facing global complexities.

I believe that we can harness the power of the Design Thinking process in developing talents and transforming organizations. Design thinking fosters better collaborative complex problem solving through a set of tools and techniques that embodied a growth mindset and authentic human values.

Such a mindset and values are essential for the current and future workforce of organizations in the digital world. Organizations will need to develop a culture of innovation and make deep and meaningful connections through creativity, critical thinking, and learning agility.

Being resilient and agile will be key leadership competencies in a volatile, uncertain, changing, and ambiguous (VUCA) environment that will only continue to unprecedented levels with the rapid speed of innovation and change in the world.

The exponential development of technologies is increasingly disrupting all industries. Leaders of the future will require to shift their mindset from linear thinking to exponential thinking. They will need to learn and identify the implications of exponential technologies so that they can implement disruptive business models to leverage exponential technologies to create exponential results.

Finally, all leaders of the future will require to define their massive transformative purpose (MTP) that will inspire all communities of those inside and outside their organizations. An MTP that drives conscious leadership and management in contributing to the development of a sustainable world.

Make the Change to see the Change

Bonnie responded to our client in 1996 that it would typically take more than 15 years to change company culture. After more than 20 years, my response to my clients remains the same with regards to time taken for organizational cultural change.

Why did I say so? Well, in reality, cultural change involves people of diverse backgrounds, values, interests, and needs. Companies continue to face difficulties in transforming organizational culture. There is a need to translate the meaning of culture and values to every employee in the company. The translation or interpretation of values is equally challenging in many instances.

Most HR organizations would define organizational core values in detail, providing examples or evidence to illustrate the expected behaviors. All core HR processes covering recruitment to performance evaluation and development incorporate the definition of organizational values. However, most company leaders still find that lack of right culture and mindsets of their people is often the major stumbling block to the company’s progress in strategic or transformation initiatives.

From my experience and lessons learned from others, I believe that leadership model behaviors are simply the best way to change organizational culture. Leaders should model the values that they expect of their people. They should be held accountable for modeling organizational behaviors.

Leaders should live and model the behaviors of the organizational culture in their daily work routines. When working with the leaders, the direct reports would have developed the required values consciously or unconsciously. They would then model the behaviors when they delegate the responsibilities to the next level of employees. Such leadership model behaviors will then be cascaded down to the lowest level of employees and eventually permeate the entire organization.

In conclusion, leaders must demonstrate the beliefs of the company and reinforce behaviors that reflect those values. They must make the change to see the change they wish for the company.