Do you have surge capacity?
A sustainable approach for dealing with new challenges
Click to hear the BoldNewBreed podcast episode.
I recently talked with Robin Vincent-Smith from MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières or Doctors Without Borders). He described how they approach challenges where they lack expertise. Instead of hiring a new person to work on the problem, they use a multi-prong approach that he calls surge capacity. Rising to the need!
1. First, explore the untapped knowledge within your organization.
“Everybody brings different life experience and work and personal experience from all over the world. And much of the time you can solve many of your problems, just leveraging the existing collective intelligence within the organization.. That’s definitely the first place to start.”
2. Then, build a community around the topic, bringing together all the people who have shared their information and experiences.
3. Third step is to hire external expertise, if you think you need more. Buy intelligently, meaning the outside experts will share their knowledge and help your people further develop the topic.
4. Finally, you are ready to designate or hire an employee to lead the new domain of work. The person will arrive to find a strong foundation, ready to be further mobilized to meet the new challenge.
Linking all this together is a sustainable way to evolve as an organization:
Internal collective knowledge + community + external expertise + designated leader
You’ll find the full podcast episode here, and subscribe to stay up to date for new episodes: Apple, Google, Stitcher, Spotify, and others.
Points covered in our conversation:
Decision-making: more inclusive and flatter organization
Office: the place to meet, build trust and relationships, but not to work
Internal collective intelligence + community + buying consultancy intelligently = strong foundation
Surge capacity: strategic advantage for the field and knowledge development
More connected: raw, real stories directly from the field to the central office
What are your thoughts? Please leave your comments or questions here or get in touch.
I am on a mission to bring gig mindsetters, nonconformists and mavericks together in a private space to interact and share
The Bold New Breed Community is born!
After the publication in May of The Gig Mindset Advantage–A Bold New Breed I had reactions from people around the world telling me they felt like gig mindsetters. Many were surprised and reassured by this new identity. Many of them felt excluded from their organizations, not understood by management, and not included in critical conversations. Others, on the other hand, are successful in bringing change to their organization. Either way, they all deserve to be recognized!
To this purpose, I have created the Bold New Breed Community and invite you to request an invitation by contacting me here.
Get in touch and stay in touch!
You can follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. You can read about my book The Gig Mindset Advantage before purchasing it or get in touch via my Contact page.
See you soon! Stay safe.
Jane