Unbounded Thinking with Shannon Phillips

With a Bachelor of Biomedical Science, Shannon is an expert in understanding human behavior, decision making, and why we’re wired to innovate.

He has an extensive background in organizational change management, organizational behavior, and innovation management. He is also trained in many different psychology concepts, such as behavioral psychology, emotional intelligence, and personality psychology.

Q & A with Shannon Phillips

What is Unbounded Thinking?

Unbounded Thinking (UBT) is made up of complex problemsolvers, organizational change nerds, and innovation scientists, who turn innovation from a buzzword into a science. We collaborate with startups and organizations who are ready to unbound from traditional thinking and explore new ways to become future-focused

We’re a diverse mix of intrapreneurs, entrepreneurs, and academics who love to explore ways to improve HOW we approach innovation and change systematically. We’re collectively passionate about helping people tap into their inner-explorer mindsets to discover more fulfillment at work.

To do this, UBT applies a humancentered approach to three core areas: innovation management; organizational change and behavior; and complex problemsolving to help build the structure and unlock the skills needed to create internal innovation ecosystems.

As a result, businesses turn innovation from something they say to something they do, a survival-tactic, and therefore stand the best chance of thriving in a new world of rapid change.

It's in our nature to innovate. Unbounded helps businesses nurture it.

How did you come up with the idea for Unbounded Thinking?

It’s all in the name. It started off as an idea to challenge traditional thinking and management theory that was designed for static environments. We’re living in a world where the only constant is change and the new normal is to find comfort in uncertainty. The last 20 years has led to the planet being one big network of shared consciousness and because we’re a problem-solving species by nature, we’ve hit a state of hyper-drive!

For an organization to not only survive, but thrive in this new environment, requires new thinking. This means the same for founders and startups. Although, we automatically think of startups as innovative, if they aren’t building an adaptable mindset from the beginning, they’ll end up like the organizations they’re trying to disrupt. We forget that startups are just new organizations that are on the same trajectory or growth cycle as any larger organization because that’s all we know. As startups grow, they add more processes and people which leads to more complexity. It’s inevitable if the strategy is to grow!

As complexity grows, problems become harder to solve, change becomes harder and innovation becomes something that is said a lot, but not well executed. The result, highly motivated people leave or lose interest and the organization doubles down on traditional strategy and execution which may be a good defensive strategy, but on its own won’t work. Organizations and startups also need an offensive strategy. That’s where UBT comes in. We help with complex problem-solving, organizational change, and turning innovation into a strategy so that startups and organizations survive the long game. Think of us as the offensive coach!

What is organizational change management (OCM)?

Organizational change management (OCM) is the methodology to manage change within complex systems by reducing the effort and fasttracking adoption. It sounds like a mouthful, but the best way to think of it is by picturing a correlation chart. As an organization grows, so does complexity.

More people and more processes create a complex network that has a big impact on how an organization approaches any internal changes. This could mean anything from digital transformation, finding new revenue streams, or an employee-engagement initiative. Traditional approaches to managing these types of changes in large organizations has typically been through strategic planning, email mandates, or technical approaches which tend to fall flat on the adoption side. There is also a mass confusion between OCM and innovation.

We love to slap the ‘innovation’ label on anything new without really defining what it means, and I would guess that a high percentage of organizations that say they innovate don’t even have a definition or strategy for how they approach it.

OCM, I believe, is like learning anatomy and physiology before studying medicine. It’s the foundational stuff. But we tend to jump straight to wanting to become ‘innovation doctors’ before having a foundational understanding of what it takes to manage change. The difference between invention and innovation is adoption (change).

The value in OCM is to focus on the people-side of the change and although it’s common to hear that ‘people don’t like change’, I disagree. People resist change when it happens to them, versus with them.

OCM ensures that the peopleside of change is front and center. Think of it as including the measure of adoption to your projects.

How do organization’s implement OCM?

There are a bunch of methodologies out there and some can be quite complex to implement (the irony). I would suggest for organizations and startups to implement the thinking first. It’s more important to build the change muscle in people across the organization versus having the best methodology that doesn’t get adopted.

To fast-track change projects, we created a simplified organizational change framework that focuses on building the change muscle. The goal is to think of change in stages rather than use a calendar to define when change happens (this doesn’t work):

1. Assess

2. Test

3. Launch

4. Align and Sustain

In a world where change happens constantly, we need better ways to manage change that reduce complexity in organizations. Here’s some tips to get you started on your own OCM journey:

1. Go down a rabbit-hole of Googling OCM – create a ‘benefits vs effort’ list.

2. Define what OCM means to you and your organization.

3. Create a stakeholder assessment template and use it for an existing project.

4. Find your own way to measure adoption of an existing project that you’re working on.

5. Try our canvas!

If you could give any start up advice, what would it be?

I believe we all should find comfort in carving out our own path to success. What’s so exciting about embarking on our own founder journeys is that there is no prescriptive path. It’s about exploring!

Outside of finding comfort in your own journey, my top three learnings so far include:

1. Build partnerships & find the right communities – Don’t do it all on your own or feel as though you need to start your own community from scratch to stand out! Managing your time is important and collaboration is the new competition.

2. Focus on your people versus your idea – Create a shared consciousness among your team. Learn how they think and what motivates them and create space for them to share their ideas. Leave your ego at the door because an adaptable business will survive longer in today’s environment compared to the best idea.

3. Fall in love with the journey – A conversation today might lead to business in a year. Go into every conversation as a sponge. Don’t sell, solve! Most importantly, be a good human, and enjoy the journey!