Impact: how LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® supports EViso to thrive into turbulent times
A regional energy company in North West Italy is thriving notwithstanding the turbulent time of the energy market in Europe. They are a strong player, but simple guiding principles extracted during a Real Time Strategy workshop with LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® helped them to make decisions.
eVISO, a company listed on Euronext Growth Milan that has developed an artificial intelligence platform for trading physical commodities, has developed a new algorithm for forecasting the PUN (Single National Price), which is the reference price of electricity as measured on the Italian power exchange. This, according to the Piedmont-based company, will enable it to improve its ability to calculate exposures and collateral. Its stock surged more than 10% in the last quarter, in a stock market that plunged in general.
Last February I did a real-time strategy workshop using LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® with the leadership team. Real-Time Strategy (RTS) is a historical application of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® developed by Robert Rasmussen and Per Kristiansen for LEGO® Company at the end of the last century. It is an emergent strategy starting from the resources of the company and its goal is not a plan, but a series of simple guiding principles that do not prescribe decisions, but guide the decisions of all people because that is what is guiding the team. So they are perfect for a leadership team to make decisions in unpredictable times.
Simple Guiding Principles are not rules or instructions. They help make decisions in real time. They are open and should always be interpreted. They guide rather than lead, helping to decide what to focus on and how to act.
These simple guiding principles work to keep convergent decisions even when decision-makers are not coordinated or in the same place. So they are very efficient and effective for a leadership team. It allows the definition of emergent practices that are needed to make decisions in complex environments, as illustrated in the Cynefin framework by Dave Snowden.
Picture from The Cynefin Company
The Cynefin® Framework was developed to help leaders understand their challenges and to make decisions in context. By distinguishing different domains (the subsystems in which we operate), it recognizes that our actions need to match the reality we find ourselves in through a process of sense-making.
As you can see in Fig. 1 if the context is complex the practices emerge from the decisions, which are ruled by probing, sensing, and responding. Thus to properly make these practices emerge simple guiding principles that are shared can really allow those decisions to be similar.
In addition, this is precisely what has happened to eViso. Some members of the leadership team called me a few weeks ago to tell me that those simple guiding principles really saved them during the energy crisis. Those words written on a flip chart with red marker have been their lighthouse: they placed the flip chart paper with them in their meeting room and distributed them to all people who have to make decisions in the company.
Obviously, the company and the leadership team are strong and they have a robust foundation, but these little principles helped them to thrive.
Posted by Fabrizio Faraco