Real Time Strategic Change (RTSC)

The Real Time Strategic Change method enables all participants to interact with their leaders, outside experts and each other, in order to exchange ideas and create a forum for analysis and dialogue. Together, proposals and topics are analyzed and new strategies are revised and formulated. After the event, participants are motivated and recognize their individual rules in the future of the organization since they have been actively involved in the process of designing a shared future. The Real Time Strategic Change approach is best used for groups of participants between 100 and 2,500, although it has been used for even bigger groups. An RTSC event is normally put in place when management teams of an organization or a company already have a future vision or further development to be supported by employees or members through feedbacks and reflections, creating a forum for analysis and dialogue.

Summary of the Six Principles of Real-Time Strategic Change

1. Real-Time: Simultaneous discovery, planning and implementation of individual, group and organizational changes.
2. Engagement: Involve the entire organization in ways that lead to commitment and alignment with a shared strategy and future direction.
3. Preferred Future: A collective "image of potential" for the future energizes people to make it real.
4. Reality is a Key Driver: Expand your thinking by looking outside your organization to gain perspective, and focus inside your organization to gain insight.
5. Build Understanding: Share strategic issues that need to be common throughout the entire organization at all levels enable people to take wise decisions, individually and collectively.
6. Create Community: Ensure people feel committed both to their respective and to the entire part of the organization. When these dual alliances exist people collaborate as part of something larger that they have contributed to create and believe in it.

Before the Event

1. Nominate a “Design Group” who effectively represents a cross-section of the whole system in terms of level and function in the organization, gender, personality, ethnicity, attitude and perspective.
2. Support activity of the Design Group toward the facilitators for the planning process by advising on activities and processes that would work with their organization.
3. Design appropriate and funny activities, plan the logistics and the invitations, and conduct ongoing research to gather feedback and information in the run up to the event.

During the Event

1. Assign to circular tables participants that represent a maximum mix of organizational viewpoints.
2. Present the issues that have to be discussed and give a certain amount of time to the group-tables to work on it.
3. Share in public and at frequent intervals feedbacks. Mechanisms like voting can be used to gain consensus on problematic subjects.
4. Switch frequently from small group work to whole room work. Voting and individual flipchart presentations ensure people attention, giving the chance of meeting and talking with new people throughout the event.
5. Envisage spaces where tea and coffee are always available so that individuals can organize themselves and their time in the best way.
6. Close the event with a consensus and agreement over the most significant issues. Some decisions, actions and plans have to be completed during the event.

Results after the Event

1. Change takes place at a fast pace and simultaneously within the whole organization.
2. Commitment to and ownership make people feel responsible for the success of the organization's change efforts.
3. Change is seen as an integral component of people's “real business”.
4. Substantial changes are made across an entire organization.

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