Why EQ Is The Missing Operating System For Transformation
Marketing Unfiltered #76 → Change Agents Need A Skunkworks
Good Morning Leaders.
This week we have Simon Swan back with his monthly newsletter, Simon digs into why so many “transformation” programmes stall and why the real operating system for change isn’t a new AI platform or a shiny innovation lab, but emotionally intelligent people working in the right way. Simon also introduces his SPARK framework which will likely help you in your next big change project.
Thank you for your feedback and the love shown for my reverse engineering of New Balances rise since 2020. If you missed it enjoy it below.
Thanks for reading again today and have a great weekend
Change Agents Need A Skunkworks: Why EQ Is the Missing Operating System for Transformation
Most organisations do not struggle to come up with ideas, they struggle to make new ideas stick.
That’s because the organisation lacks the discipline of creating and putting in place an operating model or system.
That is why I keep coming back to the skunkworks model.
Years ago, I wrote about skunkworks as a way to support digital transformation:
“A small, protected, cross-functional group with enough autonomy to test new approaches away from the drag of business as usual”.
I still believe that.
Fast forward 10 years to now and I’d update my thinking to:
A skunkworks only works when it is driven by the right change agents and shaped by emotionally intelligent leadership.
In other words, the structure matters, but the human system matters more and that is especially true now.
Enter AI
AI is making it easier to automate, analyse, generate and optimise. But it is also exposing something many organisations have ignored for too long.
That the real constraint is often not the technology but more so starting with Emotional Intelligence rather than platforming. It is the fear, lack of trust, rigid hierarchy and low psychological safety that’s not being addressed
It is managers who still think transformation is a rollout plan instead of a social shift. Amy Edmondson describes psychological safety as a key factor in healthy teams and says a leader’s job is to create a space where people can speak up, make mistakes and bring their full selves to work.
That is not a soft side issue. It is the condition that allows experimentation and learning to happen at all. This is where the idea of the change agent becomes more useful than ever.
Change Agents
The real change agents inside organisations are usually the ones who connect dots across functions, challenge outdated assumptions, learn in public, influence without authority and make new ways of working feel practical rather than abstract.
That sits very closely with Jane McConnell’s “gig mindset” work, which grew out of more than a decade of research into organisations in the digital age and then shifted focus from the group to the individual.
Her argument is that organisations need more people who operate with initiative, adaptability and breadth inside formal structures, not just outside them.
No More Hidden Innovation Lab
Today, a skunkworks should not be thought of as a hidden innovation lab off to one side of the organisational chart. It should be a practical engine for organisational learning.
A small, trusted unit that can test better ways of working, prove what works, and then help the wider organisation adopt the change, in other words, to create a repeatable path from experiment to operating model tied back to the business objectives.
Why This Matters More In The AI Era
Seth Godin’s Brainwashed still feels relevant because it challenges the old compliance mindset many organisations still reward.
Seth argues that people have been trained for obedience when what the modern economy needs is connection, generosity, initiative, courage and the ability to ship work that matters.
AI raises the value of those qualities rather than reducing it. When generic production becomes easier, human judgment, empathy, creativity and trust become more valuable, not less.
That lines up with what we are seeing more broadly.
Start Small
Amazon’s two-pizza teams were designed to keep teams close to customers, reduce communication overhead, and increase ownership through small, single-threaded teams.
Adobe’s Kickbox gave employees a structured way to develop new ideas from the bottom up and later open-sourced the method.
My own experience at the Met Office reinforced the same lesson. The progress there did not come from a single big-bang programme.
It came from starting small, proving value, linking work back to purpose, and building internal belief over time. The Digital Academy helped people think differently, connect across departments and build digital culture as much as digital skill. That is what a good skunkworks does at its best: it creates a place where new behaviours can be tried, seen and then scaled.
The Practical Framework: SPARK
If I were building this approach inside an organisation now, I would use a five-part framework.
S — Select the right change agents
Start with people, not org charts. Choose a small cross-functional group of credible operators.
Key Insight: Curiosity, influence, adaptability, resilience, generosity and the ability to work across boundaries. You are building a catalyst team.
P — Protect the space
Give the team real cover. Protected time. Senior sponsorship. Permission to test. Skunkworks fail when they are expected to transform the organisation in the gaps between BAU meetings.
Key Insight: Small-team models work because they cut decision friction and increase accountability.
A — Anchor the work in a live problem
Give the team one meaningful challenge the core system struggles to solve. That might be onboarding, content operations, approval speed, internal capability building, customer journey friction or AI workflow adoption.
Key Insight: At the Met Office, progress accelerated when digital work was tied clearly to the creation of digital principles we used to anchor the work.
R — Run on EQ as well as process
This is the missing bit in most frameworks. Use rituals that build trust and reflection, not just status updates. Check-ins. Retrospectives. clear team norms. Honest discussion about resistance.
Key Insight: Compassionate leadership matters here. That kind of leadership helps people feel heard, lowers defensiveness and creates the conditions for change to spread.
K — Knit the learning back into the organisation
A skunkworks is only useful if the wider business changes. Build internal champions. Share tools and methods. Train managers.
Key insight: Translate experiments into simple playbooks others can adopt. The goal is to make its ways of working normal.
The core skills to build
The old model of capability often overvalued technical depth and undervalued human range. I believe we are seeing this change where the core skills companies will need from their workforce will be centred around:
Sensemaking — knowing how to interpret signals, ask better questions and apply judgment in ambiguous environments.
Curiosity — testing, learning and acting before everything is certain.
Cross Team collaboration — working across silos based on skills and shared outcomes, not just formal reporting lines.
Learning agility — updating how you work as tools, expectations and markets change.
Human & AI Future
A scan of LinkedIn and you’d assume the future all about AI literacy but rather, It is about human agency.
AI can accelerate output, but it cannot replace the people who make sense of change, bring others with them and create the trust needed for adoption.
I still believe in skunkworks more centred around social technology for driving transformation not structural transformation.
And to do this is by gathering the right people, giving them enough space, equipping them with the right emotional and practical skills, and let them model a better way of working before the rest of the organisation is ready.
Because that is how real change usually happens.
Want To Go Further? This is a great podcast to listen to help you understand how people are driven and what science and research studies
Definitely connect with Simon on LinkedIn
Thanks for reading and have a great weekend
Danny & Harry