Adaptive Capability connects your people and your customers with your ambitions to grow, synchronising strategy with change and delivery, turning actions into outcomes.
We partner with clients to build Adaptive Capability from the inside, bringing people together to make it happen.
Wants to lock in with delivery, so that targets shape the work, and the plan adjusts as things move.
Teams want to be aligned with strategy, with the right capacity to deliver and manage growth.
Want an optimal, secure architecture to enable great CX and EX, capitalising on the power of AI and data.
Wants to make the right things at the right time, and to commercialise successfully.
Wants to get closer to customers, build strong relationships and generate advocacy.
Wants to convert the pipeline, increase velocity and maximise revenue opportunities.
Wants everyone working together to achieve the same goals, asap.
Principal Consultant for Adaptive Capability
I couldn't be more excited about working on Adaptive Capability. It's the culmination of 25 years' experience in CX and digital transformation, learning what really works (and what doesn't) when it comes to making strategic change a reality. Supported by my colleagues at inSpring, I now advise growth companies on how to improve their change operations. I love working as part of a team, on the ground and with leadership, building capability and delivering results.
It turns out that change is hard. Take technological change for example. From digital to AI, we try to adopt and adapt but it's painful, expensive, and far too often fails to generate the anticipated value.
Human nature plays a role when it comes to resistance to change, but that doesn't explain 20+ years of systematic failure. The truth is that the traditional change models are outdated. Linear strategy cascades and PMO (however it's dressed up) can't deliver transformative change in a modern business.
Today, there's complexity and disruption around every corner. External change is relentless. We need to flip the model to fit the context. Stop trying to change by force and instead think (and work) in systems. Look at the permanent space between strategy and delivery, and put something useful in there. Something dynamic and connective, that adapts and learns.
We call this space the missing middle.
Our mission is to populate it with Adaptive Capability.
CX practice regularly suffers from the missing middle. When companies are not joined up internally, how can they expect customers to have a joined-up experience? Then, who in the company has the will and the power to join everyone up in the name of CX?
Adaptive Capability is a target operating model for strategic change, connecting people, processes, platforms and practices so that they work together as a dynamic system, getting smarter over time.
How Adaptive Capability is developed inside an organisation is itself an example of our new approach to change. So, we lead by example. From the outset we are open and collaborative, bringing people together with a shared mission. Building integrated, sense and respond capability requires a cross-functional team to connect up what already exists, and to identify the room for improvement.
How we execute our approach, what gets done in what order, depends on the context for each company, but typically our work follows three stages:
Flying under the radar, we organise a small group of willing collaborators to review the current state of play (see maturity below) and then pilot our methods and tools on a live project (usually CX).
We start to develop elements of the new operating model, running a visible Centre of Excellence with a cross-functional community, working on org-wide enablers, tools and a roadmap.
Strategic change operations expand deeper into the organisation, supported by dedicated people and resources, with strong governance. Outcomes are measured and improved.
Pencullen has developed a model for assessing the maturity of Adaptive Capability in an organisation. Six properties and five levels of maturity provide a clear direction and destination for the evolution of Adaptive Capability. Here is a brief overview:
Customer insight, business intelligence and market intelligence. Gathered, synthesised, analysed and shared. Informing every decision. Locked into outcomes.
An internal superpower and a competitive advantage.
The bridge between strategy and delivery. Systematic and dynamic, sensing and responding. A two-way dialogue that inspires and supports teams to succeed.
Change orchestration. Mission control for Adaptive Capability.
The ability to understand, manage and improve customer journeys. Data-driven and human-centred. The front-end of change, fully integrated with EX.
Long-lasting, valuable customer relationships.
Portfolio, programme and project management follow universal principles and embrace change. State of the art frameworks and methods iterate to outcomes.
Right solution, right place, right time. Outcomes achieved.
All implicit and explicit knowledge is captured, managed, synthesised and shared. Research is commonplace and learning from what works (and what doesn't) is BAU.
A market leader in every sense. Everyone grows with the business.
The board, exec and SLT buy in to and actively support the 'how', as well as the 'what' and 'why' of strategy. Everyone else feels it, embraces it and plays their part.
Changing how we change is part of the company mission.
Every business is different, so every first step is too. We flex our approach to fit your context. We are adaptive, after all. Here are three classic challenges that set a business on the path to Adaptive Capability:
As a business scales, improving CX becomes an enterprise challenge. Previously it may have evolved organically, but now it needs to be done on purpose. Where to start?
A 12-week project to establish and pilot a CX Centre of Excellence.
Strategy can easily get stuck in slide-ware. Making it a reality requires a high degree of company engagement and programme orchestration. How is that achieved?
A 6-week project to review change operations and recommend actions for strategic alignment.
Businesses already depend on systems, and now everyone is talking about AI. How can AI (and the rest) be deployed successfully, to the benefit of the business and its people?
A 12-week project to establish use cases, outcomes and governance, and to run a pilot.
Say hello and let's have a conversation about your business and your plans, and how Adaptive Capability may be able to help you grow.
hello@pencullen.com