If you chase "technology" for disruption and value and ignore the core BUSINESS VALUE drivers of your own business you will very quickly find yourself with a lot of shiny ideas and not much value (or revenue, or earnings, or customers). While I agree that technology plays a key role in how their business delivers value, I think it is a dangerous position to take that that means that you are now a "technology company".īusiness value needs to be defined through your business model - it needs to consider your customers, suppliers, delivery model, channels, and all of the dimensions of the business model canvas which will ultimately define the "WHY" of your business success. In banking for example I have heard more than one industry executive claim that their organization was now a "technology company" despite the fact that all of their revenue, customer service, and shareholder benefit came from traditional banking business lines. Many businesses that are supported by technology and which are seeing disruptive technological forces in their industry have started to think of themselves as "technology companies" even though their core business value is derived from something else. The challenge with this one comes from the emergency of "technology as value" in leadership circles over the past 5-10 years. Inherently all of those activities don't support the three goals we were given at the start of the year. We need to change our lens, try new things, reexamine business models, do ethnographic research with our customers, survey parallel markets, and EXPERIMENT. Identifying the "right" ideas, however, probably requires us to rethink the problems. It is much easier to deliver with excellence and make plan when it is incremental improvements and changes we are after. If we are to make plan, deliver execution, and improve productivity we are forced to focus on incremental improvements and small changes that ensure our success. Given the demand for "flawless execution" on these drivers we find that there isn't much room for "innovative" ideas or for experimentation to figure out what the "right" ideas are. Let's go back to the initial demands of our leaders: Let's look at each one individually: Execution of the RIGHT Ideas We have lots of executives and leaders who have focused on the need for Creativity - they are always looking for ways to increase ideation in their organization, implementing "innovation" centres, building "digital hubs" which encourage new technology ideas, and bringing in technology "soothsayers" who have a seemingly endless array of shiny "tech proof of concepts" to show everyone which will "disrupt" their business.īut when it gets to the second and third component of the equation many leaders have lost their way (or weren't aware that it was important in the first place). Innovation = Creativity + Execution of the right ideas + Delivery of business value I found another piece that suggested the following equation for Innovation which I think captures the reason for these results quite well: globally leaders are less than happy with the execution of their Innovation programs. One piece of research that I found was from McKinsey which stated:Ĩ4% of global executives believe innovation is extremely important to the future of my company but only 6% are satisfied with their innovation performance.Ĭlearly the answer to my questions are that the leaders I had experienced were not alone. Did they even know what Innovation was and/or what it required?) Did they mean to stifle innovation and change? Were they even aware that they were preventing the innovation that they were talking about prioritizing? (And perhaps. In some of my reading recently I came across this same topic and it made reflect on those bosses and their approach. "Aren't those the exact opposite approaches?".Īnd then nothing changed. "How can I take chances, try new things, adapt and increase pace, and be more agile while I am delivering with excellence, making no mistakes, achieving my plan, and delivering productivity?" was the thought going through everyone's mind. And then they spoke about how innovative we were going to be - how we were going to try new things, adapt and increase our pace, and become more agile.Īnd when they were done you could look around the room and see confusion and fear. They spoke of delivering with excellence, achieving plan, and a relentless pursuit of productivity in our work. I've had many bosses who spoke about the need for "flawless execution" in our organization.
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