Table of Contents
What are Patterns?
When we talk about Patterns, we immediately think of an art pattern – patterns in nature, patterns in dresses. By definition, we know patterns are a series of sequentially arranged structures forming a design. We hear people say, “I like the design of a particular dress.” They are referring to patterns on the dress – embroidery, tailoring, etc. On the surface, they are great patterns. Have you seen fabrics up close? The weaving is a pattern.
Transcending this thought to nature, everywhere we see in nature is a pattern – leaf structures, the golden ratio, sunflower seeds arranged, bouquets of roses, and symmetry. Patterns in the mind create comfort. Creative designers and creative directors on a runway embrace patterns in the dress.
Patterns and Anti-Patterns
In Design Thinking, we use terms such as Patterns and Anti-Patterns. As mentioned before – patterns create comfort in our mind. In the Design Thinking parlance, Patterns are things or processes that work for the organization. They are predictable and are achievable targets. An easy-to-understand example from an IT services company would be a simple customer requirement implemented as per the customer’s request.
An Anti-Pattern, however, are things or processes that hinder performance in an organization or an institution. They would translate to unforeseen challenges and lack of proven processes leading to late deliveries.
To define Patterns, let’s discuss occurrences, incidents, and accidents. Occurrences are repeated instances of regular incidents happening over time. Accidents are one-time and generally have negative connotations. We may claim a process as a Pattern when it works in our favor and is in alignment with what the industry needs with a fine balance within the organization in terms of strategy, alignment of employees, and culture appreciation. If it happens once, it’s an accident, twice or more, it is an incidental occurrence, more than five times in our favor it emerges as a Pattern.
It may be important to note that Anti-Patterns may crop up due to influences beyond an organization. Organizations that settle, and conform to a certain Pattern may not realize the changing dynamics beyond the system due to which the entire system may collapse. Internally, organizations assume that their proven Patterns are working without realizing that Anti-Patterns may slowly kill the organization at the root level.
What is happening in organizations today?
In today’s organizations, especially the big established ones, experienced senior leaders are at the helm. One of the common problems is that there are huge gaps between the shift in the age of demographics and the expectations in the market, the leaders struggle to cement. Thus, new leaders are recruited across verticals, and organizations, both from within and outside of their domain. These leaders have immense potential and knowledge regarding their area of expertise but are unable to deliver because of the natural hindrance to seeing beyond their ego and seeking ideas and suggestions within and out of the box.
Certain elements play hand in hand such as Expertise and Ego, these two E’s are very dangerous for a leader of an organization. Expertise would bring about ego and the pride of know-it-all. Such leaders are considered to be borderline dictators and would have no actual empathy towards the other.
As for new leaders who come into the game, take for example HUL, PnG, and Johnson and Johnson, Such companies had leaders from various sectors apart from FMCG. They came out of their comfort zones, and with so much adversity from the public and expectations from the stakeholders, they used that fragility to become anti-fragile. Vulnerability, as we say, is a make-or-break situation. And strong leaders make the best out of vulnerability. With vulnerability, comes innovation and thinking differently.
An organization undergoing developmental changes is the most uncomfortable spot for an employee since critical evaluations are being made and in worse cases, many get sacked too. The Twitter-X change was one of the biggest total transformations of technological changes and hostile takeovers that had happened recently. The new head had mentioned that “Anyone who would work for X, will work. Others leave.” Technology adoption is also another change that organizations undergo as well, the underlying reason is to be quick, fast, agile, and adaptive to the markets and keep up with upcoming technologies; the downside of it, is the time to adapt, data transfer, migration, etc. Cultures are shifting due to technology, even communication via text is preferred rather than talking face to face, and business meetings, and conferences, are held online. All of the changes are driven by the top visionaries of the company. And leaders today are following something interesting.
Adaptive Engines: The new buzz in organizational development
Surprisingly, systems are adaptive and in today’s VUCA world, we are talking about “Adaptive engines” to drive organizations forward. The engine is one of the core components and as we drive the car smoothly, we know mileage, performance, and other factors keep the car healthy and moving for years. Today likewise, we need to run organizations keeping in consideration of knowing properly who are we targeting, and analyzing the ‘how’ of the organization, keeping in mind ‘roadblocks’. “Adaptive engines” are and have become an essential part of every organization today. These engines follow a particular pattern or a process and are also very capable of being adaptable to new interventions for greater performance as a whole and sustained profitability, these engines are also indicative and have data captured for strategic future prediction. There is no change of the engine, there are only additions, deletions, and updations of the pre-formed engines. Complete culture change and off-steering of strategic direction will require an engine change in the organization.
In conclusion, patterns in organizations are thought carefully and drive engines are always created in alignment with the customer base in mind. Design thinking focuses on the mindset of continuous innovation and keeping customer empathy in mind. Profits automatically fall into place as we directly ease the customer’s requirements while keeping the product’s design- i.e. the patterns of the product placement, the customer’s patterns and the organization’s perfectly align with the patterns of nature on a magnified scale.
