Cocomotion

Griff Griffiths / cocomotion

I specialise in supporting groups and individuals in navigating uncertainty inside organisations.

As well as working independently, I'm a Consulting Associate at, and UK Lead for, the Human Systems Dynamics Institute whose practical and accessible approach to working with uncertainty I use and teach.

I'm also an Associate at the leadership institute Roffey Park.

Cocomotion is a story of navigating uncertainty to create a self-managing network. It was created originally as a network of coaches with the slogan of “confidence through community”. The idea was that as a network or community, we would be better able to win and deliver worthwhile projects, than we would as individual practitioners.

But how to organise it? I had a vision of a community able to use its diverse skills and experience to spontaneously create projects with only minimal central control, projects which motivated its members and provided value to its customers. I started to think of Cocomotion as a broad similarity of skills and interests which provided an identity, acting as a container for a rich diversity which, when connected, would create energy, possibility, and worthwhile work.

Well, this is not so easy to build. It requires a critical shift in mindset for people schooled in hierarchies - people like us. I developed my own community model for explaining Cocomotion to people, but it wasn't until I started to apply some methods from Human Systems Dynamics that I began to see how we could create the conditions for a community to flourish.

My subsequent development of the network won me ODN Europe’s Community Award, and although no longer a coaching network, the Cocomotion experience provided me with the basis for my current work in self-managing networks.

Clients including the UK Civil Service are recognising the immense value that can be added by creating this kind of network.