From challenge to clear vision and concrete activities
Since 2017, Usify has used strategic dialogue in several different projects with LKAB. In the first step of strategic dialogue, Usify and LKAB’s CEO have reformulated challenge as clear vision and visualised all of the conditions, challenges, and sub-goals associated with the transition to a year 2045 that is free of carbon dioxide.
In the second step, Usify conducted large workshops based on the vision which have involved several groups. The first series of workshops was run with the IT management team, the second with HR and everyone from union chairs, function leaders, and the operational steering group to key individuals in communication and sustainability. The goal was dialogue and organisation-wide understanding of the vision and how to make the upcoming digitalisation and automation changes successful. Important questions for HR included how to achieve cultural change in the organisation and how to provide a visual overview of how the various parts of the process connected up with each other.
Agile workshops and visual maps led to dialogue and results
Inspired by Design Thinking, and by taking an agile approach and adapting layout, pace, methods, and exercises to the participants’ needs, Usify ensured that everyone had a say and could participate on equal terms in the strategic dialogue workshops. This led to understanding and consensus around the vision and to the formulation of many concrete activities to enable the transformation. Together, we summed up the various dialogues in visual dialogue maps, which helped orient the workshop participants and also acted as a catalyst for the process.
This was an efficient, engaging process that converted complex challenges into a clear and communicable vision. As a result, LKAB was able to clarify three principal strategies, commence various activities, enact organisational and operational change, build alliances, and create one of the world’s largest prototypes. Usify also collaborated with HR and an additional partner to develop a tailored training programme in Design Thinking, strategic dialogue, and change management for the company’s managers and employees – all to equip LKAB for the most challenging industrial change ever faced in Sweden.
