Noa has spent the last 19 years in Australia (with Israeli origins) understanding, nurturing and evolving organisational behaviour within organisations.
Spark & Rumble was born out of Covid where Noa found an opportunity to support organisational thinking, design and creation. Through creating space that allows transformational change through sparking imagination to explore, discover and get down and dirty with curiosity.
Through Think Play, Noa unpacks topics like communication, politeness and constructive conflict to get to the heart and soul of an organisation to enable further growth.
TS: Can you explain a little bit more about what organisational behaviour means?
NR: It is about human behaviour within the organisational context. We work with all types of organisations, so it doesn't have to be paid work. It can be anywhere that we join and collaborate and try and create outcomes.
Frequently, for anyone experiencing my sessions for the first time, I always start with your relationship with your spouse, your children, and often your parents, because that's actually a type of organisation. It is about our human behaviour in the context of others, and in the systems that we have built.
TS: Tell us about your original call to adventure in launching Spark & Rumble?
NR: Spark & Rumble consulting was a Covid-19 opportunity. Covid did not leave me untouched. It was actually a beautiful opportunity to take time and think and design and create. It came with what I call ‘Rumble’ – which means that there was concern and anxiety around income and other things – but it did give me space. I met some incredible people during that time.
Spark & Rumble is a consultancy which looks at transformational change. We partner with individuals and companies and teams to actually create change that sticks, which is not an easy thing to achieve. ‘Spark’ talks about imagination, that moment where we explore and discover and ‘Rumble’ is about sitting in the challenge: the moment they conflict – sometimes you experience conflict – and the discomfort of change.
TS: Can you go a little deeper into transformational change? Because I think 2020 really showed us how adaptable we really needed to be to create that change. What does that next stage of transformational change really mean?
NR: When people come to me and say transformational change is something they really want, I stop and get curious about it, because I don't think most people are mindful of what transformational change really means. Maybe that's a good thing, because we just do things and we try them and then we actually create some change. But the way I like to think about it is that I have not yet heard an adult say “You know that time I went through puberty, I want to go back to that time. It was such a wonderful time, right?” Have you heard anyone say that? Never. And I'm cringing as I give that example. But the idea is: consider your life if you have not undergone that transformation, right?.
We might really enjoy the outcomes of change, but we don't necessarily enjoy the process. There are two types of change: change from strength and change driven by crisis. One of the things that I ask when someone comes to me and wants to change from strength is: “Are you sure you want this because it is going to be really uncomfortable at times, and I don't know when”. Most people don't believe me initially, or find it hard to imagine.
Transformational change means that once you've started this process, you don't end up the same. You end up different and it's your own version of different. But you can't really say at the beginning of the process, what it will look like at the end. I want it to be a change that sticks – something that you've wanted and worked for and are proud of – and it stays. So it's not enough to say “I want to get healthy” – I want you to be healthy at the end. As many of us know, saying that doesn't usually build muscles or drop weight. That's a space of transformation.
TS: Something that you are super passionate about at Spark & Rumble is Think Play. Can you share more about how you bring this to life through your work?
NR: ThinkPlay came about because as I've been working with the teams, one of the things they keep talking about is how much they love the stories and the different examples that I gave, which are very life related. One of the things I wanted to do was to make that accessible without going to academia and without spending days and days in a classroom. What we've created is ThinkPlay.
For an hour or two hours, depending on your organisation, we pick a topic and we get down and dirty with it. We learn about it, we use concepts, we figure out frameworks that are related, but we play with it. I think being an adult is hard, so why not play wherever you can, but also the play is about implementation into your own life.
For a long time you might have been interested in something, but for me interest needs to translate into an ability to translate something into my life, because then it has impact. So we play. We play with communicating to influencers or at influencing stakeholders; we've played with blind spots and bright spots. All of those might sound like what they called soft skills. But I dare you to try and do business without them.
Interested in learning more? Listen to Noa Rein's interview on the TradeSquare podcast, TSQ, here.
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