Organisations are made up of many functional parts. These parts include such things as marketing and sales, procurement, accounts, product development, and so on, all having their own people, systems, and processes.
These components make up what is called the ‘black space’ of the organisation’s structure as is depicted in a typical organisational chart.
All of them work together to produce what the organisation has to offer to its markets.
This works very well in environments where there is a high degree of control, certainty, and stability.
The ‘gaps’ that occur between these various parts are the interfaces or ‘white spaces,’ where conversations occur to ensure that there are smooth operations and transitions across the whole organisation. This ‘gap’, space and interfaces within the organisation are often where issues reveal themselves that need to be addressed.
Where instability occurs across the organisation, these interfaces are extremely important to understand, negotiate, and navigate.
These spaces and interfaces also exist between the organisation and its external world.
These spaces that occur, in both cases, are described here as the ‘white space’ that exists, both within an organisation and its various parts, and then between the organisation and the ecosystem within which it operates.
The ‘white space’ is the neutral space between the various structures, systems, and entities, where people can explore new opportunities for mutual benefit, and it also provides the reflective space to navigate effectively what is discovered in these exchanges.
Having an objective person who listens and discovers options to be explored within the business, its networks, and in the transition spaces that exist in the business, as it progresses, is called operating in the white space[1].
- Resilient organisations need to be able to simultaneously work effectively in the black space to grow existing opportunities, and in the white space by exploring and scaling new opportunities.
- Working in both types of spaces can be complex and require a different way of thinking and doing, compared to the traditional ways of how the black space operates. Whilst most enterprises are comfortable working in the black space, it is not always the case when they are working in the white space.
In exploring the ‘white space’ of your organisation, that is the in betweenness of the company and the other entities in its system, is where the energy is discovered to provide impetus to the organisation, in terms of motivation, capability, and opportunity realisation.
This is the role of the strategic advisor who focusses on and works diligently in the white space to help identify, navigate, make sense of, and leverage the opportunities in a co-creating way.
In this capacity, the trusted advisor acts as an intermediary, boundary spanner, catalyst, and enabler that can help bring such people together to explore and leverage the identified possibilities.
This person, working within the white space of a business has the capability to observe, engage and talk with all connections that are identified, in a disciplined and rigorous way, to capture the network intelligence that exists in and between all these connections.
As Viktor Frankl said – ‘Between stimulus and response a choice is made’[2].
The trusted strategic advisor working in this space knows that it is teeming with options to be considered and catalysed. In exploring the options to be considered and having the wherewithal to expand a company’s surface area, a leader reinvigorates the current state of the business.
This is well illustrated, as follows, by our colleague Peter Murden[3]:
The spark of new energy that happens in this gap involves:
- Listening into the space and between the spaces and the transitions that are occurring both inside the company and the external world.
- Understanding the transitions that occur in the neutral safe space by listening deeply to the context and its implications – the result appears in the new state of the organisation once a decision is made.
- Moving from one state to another occurs in this transition space, not in the current state or the future state of the company.
- Knowing that no one owns this white space, nor controls it, for what comes out of this space is emergent in nature, and the advisor is a catalyst in this regard (Ecosystem Intelligence and new forms of capital).
- Transformational change, since it is in the interfaces that something else can occur, which is unexpected and brings about change as a result.
- Noticing that divergence and convergence of thought that occur in the white space. All the threads that are known are drawn together to establish adaptive advantage into the next state that the company moves toward across its lifecycle.
- Embracing uncertainty for it is in the in-between state and its unfolding processes that may appear unstable and uncertain, which they are, until they are structured into the next state where they once again become stable, until the next gap is discovered (a never-ending process).
- Focusing attention on what is there and what is not there.
- Deep reflection in this space, that is the place of silence and waiting to see what happens and creates the new. What is new invariably emerges from the ‘white space.’
The Results of Co-design and Co-creation in the ‘White Space’
- Observation, analysis, collation, curation, and execution.
- Identifying and implementing new energy sources that motivate the company and its capability through working with others
- Accelerating the response times in terms of new co-created agendas
- Focussing on the transition to a new state, not envisaged by the company in its current state.
- Cultural change, through change in structures and systems, to address emergent needs.
[1] Life Cycle – See Edgelow, C. & Bridges, W., (2000) – Working with Organisational Character, Page 33ff
[2] Frankl, V., (1946) ‘Mans Search for Meaning’
[3] Murden, P., (2023)
Rob Jennings
