One voice. Sense-and-respond capacity. Information processing. Freedom within a framework. Boundary fluidity. In a recent study titled “The Value of Adaptive Advantage”, these five characteristics were commonly found in highly adaptive teams.
They join other top traits like:
- distributed leadership (the team leader believes in the value of sharing leadership at the top and developing leaders at every level)
- optimal talent mix (the team is not only composed of the top talent representing key positions and disciplines but also has the chemistry that comes from the right combination of backgrounds, styles, and perspectives)
- clear charter (the team has defined goals, roles, ground rules, and accountabilities)
- and mutual trust (team members are able to express divergent views and let down their guard to acknowledge when they need help).
It is the five characteristics with which this blog opens, however, that truly sets highly adaptive teams apart from their peers. Last week, we examined what it means for a company to operate with one voice and maintain alignment with vision, values, and vital priorities. Today, we’ll be talking about the second characteristic, which is the sense-and-respond capacity.
From Roselinde Torres: “Adaptive teams systematically use multiple real-time filters and amplifiers of information to monitor the external forces that drive change in their business environment. These filters often take the form of customized data mining, market research, dashboards, and war rooms. These enable the teams to excel at reading external signals, connecting disparate trends into meaningful patterns, and putting in place mechanisms that allow them to collectively separate the signal from the noise. When early-warning signs flash red, they are in a position to either consciously act differently or choose not to act—ahead of the curve.”
People sense and respond through a combination of rules, reflex and reason. Action is taken organically, often in the moment, as circumstances dictate the need for change.
Jake Sorofman, a digital marketing strategy analyst, has this to say when advising organisations on moving toward better sense and response:
- It’s about thinking beyond campaigns–which are artifacts of command and control thinking—perhaps necessary, but wholly insufficient to satisfy audience expectations for personal and personalized engagement.
- It’s about agile teams–that continuously test and learn, measure and adapt. Agile marketers iterate through the clouds of the unknown, discovering the highest performing patterns through continuous experimentation.
- It’s about audience-attuned content and social marketers–who think like journalists and act like publishers, listening to their audiences and finding opportunities to engage in the most relevant ways.
- It’s about decentralizing voice of customer–from ivory tower listening posts to frontlines intelligence, where action can be taken in the moment by machines and by human beings.
A successful sense-and-respond system has to employ careful planning as well as intelligence, flexibility and responsiveness in execution. Additionally, analytics comes into play and tend to enhance a company’s sense-and-respond model, especially during chaotic or inefficient situations.
Has your organisation got a sense-and-respond model in place? It’s instrumental toward building a highly adaptive team and can additionally serve as insurance for your company’s growth and success in the future.