When it comes to organizational learning, I have identified three essential social resonance spaces that play a critical role in collaborative value creation: personal resonance, team resonance and system resonance. All three social resonance spaces intersect in different modes of exchange and development.

Why ‘resonance’ rather than ‘relationship’?

Firstly, resonance implies that we all have social resonance to begin with, including ourselves. We may not be in a relationship, but all people carry the inner resonance of their biography and culture. In this sense, all people have a voice, even if they have not yet spoken. Secondly, resonance implies an active mutual, interactive and inter-subjective entanglement. As Paul Watzlawick famously defined in his first axiom, we cannot not communicate. We cannot not make an impression on another person. Resonance, as a vibrant entanglement between subjects, implies that the action of one will have an immediate impression on the other, and vice versa. We may or may not consider ourselves to be in a relationship, but we always feel resonance.

However, there is a limit to personal resonance beyond family and peers. Individuals can rarely create organizational change by themselves.  But organized in teams, they can.

Why shall we use the term ‘resonance space’?

I believe that each team develops a unique identity, a unique collective fingerprint, an original experience of team efficacy, mode of collaboration and identity. Resonance spaces are social spheres that define the empowerment and boundary conditions of individuals, teams and organizations. However, in order to enter sustainable resonance, social actors need to initiate action-based social processes. Silence, such as in Japanese culture, can be a wonderful way to express connectedness, mindfulness and togetherness.

By contrast, we study change at all levels of social experience. And when it comes to organizational development, the perfect way to avoid resonance is idle talk with no goal, outcome or consequence.  If the resonance space is too small, teams will be stifled by tight guidelines, restrictions and rules. If the resonance space is too big, teams can get lost in their explorations and creative musings.

Why processes? Processes help to find a productive path in between these two opposites and, in our context, can be defined as logical sequences of learning actions. Developmental processes generally guide teams towards desired outcomes and therefore employ some sort of methodology. The more complex the challenge posed by the system(s) at hand, the more elaborate the required processes. The employed learning actions answer the question: What should, could or can we do next?

The approach of designing for resonance has a major advantage when it comes to a modern organizational development in heterarchies, meaning flat hierarchies. Think about it: In a ‘flat’, non-hierarchical organization, the notion of top-down or bottom-up change processes doesn’t make sense.  So how can a business with teams at eye level evolve when there is no clear ‘up’ and ‘down’?

The answer might be change by developing and improving resonance. This means that a learning organization requires a meta-level at which it can reflectively calibrate its resonance between persons, teams and the system as a whole. What I really hope is that some business leaders will tell me that the entire idea of designing for resonance is rubbish and quite far-fetched.

The fact is, however, that companies are well aware of the pull and push factors in retaining and attracting top talent. They know the value and innovative potential of psychologically safe teams – at least in theory. And they know that the future shape of highly innovative companies does not lie in rigid and hierarchical management structures. It is not that we do not know about attraction and repulsion, about gravity and centrifugal forces that influence any member of our team.

Finally, designing for resonance suggests that individuals, teams and the organization can fine-tune their mode and level of shared development through appropriate meta-processes (= reflected and shared processes to clarify and legitimize everyday operations as well as strategic planning) that, as Amy Edmondson nicely put it, find the right balance between a team’s comfort zone and an organization’s expectation of excellence.

Every innovative enterprise depends on a well-designed headspace for its teams.