Filed under: youth specialties
a year ago tomorrow, YS set off on an aggressive path of organizational re-ivention (which we call our “reboot”). this stemmed from a growing sense that we were getting stale, and losing our innovative edge, even though the company was “healthy” by most external measuring standards. in the months leading up to that day, we’d tinkered and considered pursuing a few innovative ideas. but we got to a point where we realized that, unless we seriously address some internal, cultural, systemic problems, the best we could hope for was a few innovations, but no sustained innovation. so, the reboot has been (and still is) a wild and challenging process of rethinking who we are, how we work, how we’re structured, how departments interact, how new ideas get birthed, naming our roadblocks, and addressing personal growth.
we had an all staff meeting this morning, and spent some time going over the reboot milestones of the past year. it’s been quite a ride — and my hunch is that we’re maybe about half-way through the process. here’s the list of milestones:
May 04
· Learning from Adizes’ “Stages Of An Organization” theory (see here and here and here) (we set off on a course of re-invention, taking the middle of three opportunities for change. We’d already missed the first opportunity – creating a flywheel of change that starts before the necessity is clear. But we weren’t yet at the last opportunity – basically, selling off the assets to someone else who would bring the rebirth. Our chosen path of re-invention, however, necessitated a “departure from the shore of where we were” into the waters of change, without a clear vision of the other shore)
· Naming of 5 re-affirmed organizational values and 6 “new values” that would be the initial (at least) focus of our reboot
· Reboot org chart, v1.0
· Reboot working teams formed
June 04
· Exec retreat #1 (personal and corporate identity; major break-throughs in trust; shift in thinking about employees)
July 04
· Re-boot org chart, v2.0
· Attempted shift in reboot working teams
· All staff day away at Mission San Luis Rey
August 04
· “Accounting Irregularities” discovered
· Lawsuit filed against YS
September 04
· Acknowledgement that “reboot working teams” are a false construct
October 04
November 04
· Thinking about “seeing” our future, we started talking about these kinds of things are markers (this was a pre-cursor to the Jan exec retreat and “Yvonne Santos” – the name we gave the living organism that was our desired future):
o Innovation
o Freedom
o Change/risk/good failure
o Self-organizing teams
o Accessible resources
o Satisfaction from contribution
· Mild revision of “new values”
December 04
· Major office moves: tech upstairs, product and events trading spaces, marketing bulging across the hall
January 05
· “Imagine if…” exercise with all staff
· Exec retreat #2 (redefining our future – identification of Power and Communication as primary impediments)
· Decision to stop hosting NPC/EC (primarily coming out of the discussion on power and identity)
February 05
· Re-boot org chart, v3.0
Feb/March/Apr 05
· Lawsuit concluded
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[…] to the deep and rough waters of change. i recapped what’s happened in the last year here. then, we sensed that we were at a critical spot a few weeks back — lots of great opportunity in our fac […]
Pingback by ysmarko 06.15.05 @ 2:39 pmLeave a comment
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I know there has been some flack for the stuff you guys do, but from one blogger to another (and God lover) keep up the good work, be encouraged and sit still enough to hear God’s whisper.
Comment by Andrew Seely 05.11.05 @ 3:18 pm