A. Embrace a grand challenge. You can’t build an adaptable organization without adaptable people—and individuals change only when they have to, or when they want to. In most companies, deep change is crisis-driven. People are pushed into the icy waters of change by circumstances outside of their control. But every day human beings all over the world rush out to embrace change—because they are seduced by an opportunity to do something big, exciting or noble. So if you want people to change ahead of the curve, you have to give them something worth changing for. Continue reading
Leadership
Strategic flexibility – Nimble and quick beats big and beefy.
A. Disaggregate the organization. Big things aren’t nimble. That’s why there aren’t any 200-pound gymnasts or jumbo-sized fighter jets. It’s also why Gore & Associates, the manufacturer of Gore-Tex and 1,000 other high-tech products, limits its operating units to no more than 200 individuals. In a company comprised of a few, large organizational units, there tends to be a lack of intellectual diversity—since people within the same unit tend to think alike. Continue reading
New meaning is gradually born….
I think there are good reasons for suggesting that the modern age has ended. Today, many things indicate that we are going thorough a transitional period, when it seems that something is on the way out and something else is painfully being born. It is as if something were crumbling, decaying, and exhausting itself, while something else, still indistinct, were arising from the rubble. Continue reading
Strategic Variety – To give up the bird in the hand you must first see a flock in the bush
A. Build a portfolio of new strategic options. Without a lot of exciting new options, managers will inevitably opt for more of the same. That’s why renewal depends on a company’s ability to generate and test hundreds of new strategic options. There’s a power law here: Out of 1,000 crazy ideas, only 100 will merit serious consideration. Of those, only 10 will be worth a serious investment, and out of that modest bundle, only 1 or 2 will have the power to transform a business or spawn a new one. Google gets this. Within its core search business, the company tests more than 5,000 software changes a year, and implements around 500—this according to BusinessWeek. The fact that Google has thus far managed to maintain its overwhelming lead in online search is in large part the result of this blistering pace of innovation. In the end, the pace at which Google, or any other company, is able to adapt and evolve is a function of the number of new strategic options that it is able to generate and test. Continue reading
Intellectual Flexibility – To change an organization you must first change minds.
A. Regard every belief as a hypothesis. The biggest barriers to strategic renewal are almost always top management’s unexamined beliefs. Music can only be sold on shiny discs? Don’t bet on it. The news has to be delivered on a big piece of flimsy paper? Not necessarily. You have to load programs onto your computer before you can use them? Maybe not. In an age of unprecedented change, it’s important to regard everything you believe about your company’s business model, its competitors and its customers as mere hypotheses, forever open to disconfirmation. Continue reading
The Humpty Dumpty Effect
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King’s horses and
All the King’s men
Could not put him together again. Continue reading
stitching together a new South African fabric….
I MADE OVER SIXTY-THREE TRIPS to South Africa between 1981 and 1999, launching the South African initiative first called “Strategic Evolution.” During that period, my basic role was to reshape the definitions the various sectors of society were using to stereotype each other, replacing the usual racial/ethnic categories with an understanding of these value system or memetic differences, all of which were alive in that global microcosm. The complexity of the South African situation had been simplified down to what is morally right or wrong along race lines, and that was a grave mistake. Continue reading
What exactly are the five dysfunctions of a team?
Lack of trust. Team members are uncomfortable being vulnerable with one another, unwilling to admit their weaknesses, mistakes or needs for help. Continue reading
In order to change, the system needs to learn more about itself from itself
“Once we recognize that organizations are webs, there is much we can learn about organizational change just from contemplating spider webs. Continue reading
A man of few words will rarely be thoughtless…..
“I must say that, beyond occasionally exposing me to laughter, my constitutional shyness has been no dis-advantage whatever. In fact I can see that, on the contrary, it has been all to my advantage. Continue reading
ONE TUSK 