“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few.”
So writes Buddhist monk Shunryū Suzuki in his book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. He believed that by looking with an open mind, you will see more, appreciate more, understand more. And then ultimately you can achieve more. Because true change first requires true understanding. It requires opening up your mind, to see why things happen and why people do what they do. For a closed mind can only take you to where you already know.
In order to change behavior, first try to understand it. Really understand it.
Virtually every business in the end is a people business. It’s people that make things work. And people behave in strange ways, sometimes. Or it may seem strange to you. But for every action, however illogical it may seem, there’s a reason. That’s where we come in. To help you understand, change and lead in a better way.
What we do
In short: we help you with your challenges for culture & behavior change, governance and learning & development, to help you improve the way you work and the results you get.
At Shoshin Advisory we try to make sense of and in organizational life. By organizational life we mean all those hours we spend our precious time and energy on doing all those things our jobs demand. All those hours spent on trying hard to do things better or faster. However, sometimes, somehow it just doesn’t work out. People don’t seem to want to change. Company procedures limit you. We don’t learn from our mistakes. Or the organizational culture won’t let you do things differently. That’s when work ceases to be any fun and becomes just that, work. But fun subjects like learning, behavior and organizational culture are a bit misunderstood and often poorly analyzed. Organizations lack proper insight. So in organizational life we too often act on assumptions.
Organizational Culture as a topic is often misunderstood, and therefor misapplied.
We do research and advice on exactly those assumptions. On why things go the way they go and people act the way they act. On what really hinders or drives learning, performing and sustaining culture or behavioral change. On leadership styles and their effects. To do that we balance theory and practice, the instrumental and the personal. Our goal is to enable better, happier individual and team performance that leads to better performing, happier organizations. Because we believe that with enabled people, results will follow automatically. And achieving results, together, is actually a really fun way to spend your precious time.
Examples of what we’ve done before
- Corporate anthropology.
- Organizational diagnosis.
- Learning culture research & advice.
- Blame free Lessons learned reviews.
- Change management program analysis & advice.
- Workshop Understanding & Applying Organizational Culture.
Our Why and How
We help with organizational culture and behavior, with learning and development and ultimately with organizational performance. We do this with an open mind, full of wonder and genuine interest. We ask questions before we give answers. We combine fields ranging from Business Administration to Systems Thinking. And we help you make the scientific practical for everyday organizational life. Because we are driven by first understanding and then improving what we find interesting.
Above all we want to help you find your true Why, before we help you with the How. Because shoshin to us really means looking with an open mind. Listening without judgment. And looking at how we can use our expertise to help you with your challenges.