Spines. Change by learning

Why do we get up every day?

Spines is a company committed to the development of people, teams and organizations, with a focus on solving the complex problems this requires. Our purpose is to help people think clearly and make sense of complex situations. We help our clients to develop their ideas, create clear messages, spread them and transform them into action.

Pablo Jimeno

Some ideas can transform the way we see the world, our work and our life. They act as lenses that we can activate at will. But these ideas are not intuitive and we hardly discover them without help. Some of them, if we've been lucky, we could learn them from traditional education, probably not, others we lose them because of traditional education and most of them come to us in dribs and drabs and with effort. I like to look for, understand and teach those ideas to help improve the way people collaborate, solve problems and create value.

Since I was a child I have been attracted to doing things with computers, programming, designing, recording music or communicating. And I've done all these things in a more or less professional way. I studied Biology, and I still do, although as I was approaching the end of the degree I decided to quit and dedicate myself to this new world of the Internet. I set up several companies and worked on projects in the private, public and non-governmental sectors. In the end, the ecology and the behavior of individuals in all of them is quite similar.

Francisco Salvador

It takes many years before one finds a definition of oneself that satisfies one in the least. That's what happened to me when I came across "passionate lifelong learner", a description I fit in with. My parents worked very hard with their hands so that their children could do it with their heads.

University (Economics and, later, Management of Social Economy Organisations) discouraged me a lot, although it opened the doors to development cooperation for me after I studied a specialisation in International Economics. After that beautiful period as an aid worker and volunteer in other countries, the compass pointed elsewhere. Serial entrepreneur, I have set up four companies in very different sectors, either alone or together with partners. I went bankrupt twice, so I know first-hand the risks of these paths. The technology sector is my latest fascinating choice. I'm still learning every day.
At Spines I work on business development and facilitating honest conversations in order to connect with new clients. If we ever converse, I hope this humble and passionate lifelong learner will bring value to you with a smile from the first good morning.

How do you look at your workplace?

Don't you feel that everything is connected, messy and it is getting harder to make sense of what your company is and how it works? You are not alone.

Knowledge work is driven by curious minds, developing new ideas, reframing old ones, mixing information, experimenting with new ways of collaboration, thinking differently.

Every individual in the organization is connected with more people inside the organization that any organizational chart can map. But most importantly they are part of bigger networks outside the organization that influence their work, nurture with ideas and feedback…

The world is moving towards a new scenario where most of the work will take place in self-organizing networks of people (and machines?). Trying to control these networks introducing traditional managerial constraints is like trying to fly by controlling the wind.

“Trying to control these networks introducing traditional managerial constraints is like trying to fly by controlling the wind.”

Broaden your perspective

Complex problems, uncertain scenarios, rapid changing environments, these are the challenges that we face in modern organizations. We bring you models to see patterns in complexity.

Spines help you inquiry your context from different perspectives, experiment new mindsets, paint a bigger picture connecting people's ideas from inside and outside the organization.

We do it by partnering to come up with a new vision, develop and execute strategies and improve processes, practices and eventually the culture, to better deliver important products and services. Our approach develops internal capacity to experiment, understand and discover innovative solutions to complex problems.

We share new lenses to look, think and work in the knowledge age.

New tools

Art

Some ideas are easily understood with words, some require more. Almost everything is better learned with visuals or just by doodling while you try to interpret it. Narratives and visuals are two underused resources that promote sense-making and agreement. Visual thinking, Storytelling, Narratives Socialization, Visual Management, Visual Policy Deployment, are a part of the skills we help with.

Science

You may see scientific thinking exclusively as professional scientists business, but it’s actually a skill for us all. Design experiments to solve problems, test alternatives or understand contexts, gain or assess knowledge. Scientific learning and decision making makes us more adaptive and creative in the face of uncertainty. Systems Thinking, Scientific Thinking, Complexity Thinking are different mindsets needed to confront accelerated change.

Tech

Talent shortage is not going to be solved any soon. Organizations that deliberately focus on developing people have a big advantage over those that rely on constantly acquiring new talent (and losing it). Lean Mindset, Continuous improvement, Growth mindset, Personal Mastery, Technical Excellence, are some of the topics we work with our clients.