Future Proof

I recently had the opportunity to present at Lincoln StartUp Week in Lincoln, NE on the two primary failure modes of innovation efforts in corporations: Culture and Strategy. The presentation featured a simple methodology for "overcoming the gravity of the status quo:" Articulate the Vision Frame your Approach Execute Many corporate innovation efforts fall flat due to inadequate attention paid to one, or two, or all three of these areas. This may be somewhat less of an issue in the case of innovation strategy , but seems to be a prominent issue with respect to culture. Edwards Deming famously wrote: "Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets." The implications on innovation in a corporation is, quite simply, if you want to change the result, you must change the system. Failure to change the system may allow for temporary gains as the system is stressed to produce new results, but with an overwhelming inertia to persist with habits, bu...

In May, I had the opportunity to present at the Front End of Innovation conference in Boston on the emergence of Exponential Technologies and the corresponding effects on corporations. Here is an overview of the discussion: To simplify substantially, there are two primary traits of Exponential Technologies. First, the most defining characteristic is the pace of price halving and performance doubling (a.k.a. price-performance doubling) over a short period of time, often 12-24 months, and for an extended duration. During the early period of growth, small yet exponential changes are imperceptible. However, during later stages the changes seem unfathomable. A g reat example: The mobile phone in your pocket is now 1,000,000x cheaper and 1,000x faster than a supercomputer from the 1970s. It's a strong bet to think that no one in that era expected such drastic improvement so quickly. Second, Exponential Technologies all share the trait of having experienced a marked shift from scarci...

There's a commonly held notion among frustrated executives that "middle managers stifle innovation." After all, it's the obvious conclusion to draw when confronted with the following evidence: The company has stated that "innovation is the priority," and has even featured it in strategic communications The executives have all made innovation a big part of their departmental strategies, but... The pace or quality of innovation isn't matching executive team expectations Key innovation projects are delayed or stalled despite having nimble, dedicated teams trying to push them through And employee survey data shows conclusively that "managers do not support innovation." Given that overwhelming evidence it's easy for executive teams who have spoken tirelessly about the need to innovate to point the finger at the middle management layer: "If we have made it a priority, and if the front line employees are struggling, then it MUST be...

I've heard it said that organizations that were designed to succeed in the 20th century are doomed to fail in the 21st. Sure enough, in the past 20 years, disruption has altered the faces of many industries. No industry seems immune as we've seen hotels, taxis, movies, gaming, long distance calling, cameras, etc. all upended. Many of the affected companies knew where the source of disruption was coming from, but they lacked the focus, vision, agility, nimbleness, or decisiveness to get the job done themselves.  Very few of the disrupted companies would claim that they failed to manage risk effectively. After all, they likely did not fall because of a lawsuit, operational blunder, or single financial misstep. Companies are successful due in large part to their ability to manage such risks. But the task of risk management seems to have changed faster than organizations could adapt. A mighty adversary has emerged that now threatens traditionally rock-solid companies, and many...

When Vice President Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" came out in 2006, I didn't rush to go see it. My Environmental Studies course in undergrad already had me convinced that humans were altering the environment. With excessive water consumption, fossil fuel depletion, greenhouse gas emissions, and overpopulation all driving us towards some dystopian future, I felt there was little left for me to learn or understand from Vice President Gore' Powerpoint movie. When I finally saw "An Inconvenient Truth," it was as I'd expected: a doomsday story with little or no hope. My biggest complaint was that there was no WIIFM (what's in it for me?) in the movie. The ship of climate change had already sailed, and the political and economic structures driving Earth's metamorphosis were far too large for me to make a difference. The positive was that the movie further justified my vote for Ralph Nader (Green Party) in the 2002 election. I had voted for...

Business problems can come in many forms. Some are linear. Others are complex. Some are apparent. Others are latent. Some are knowable. Others are unknowable. The best leaders identify business problems frequently, and classify them readily. Technical business problems are linear, apparent, and knowable. For instance, if a critical server goes down, this is a problem with a clear solution: Bring the server back up as quickly as possible. For leaders, technical problems are treated by exercising authority and expertise. We feel pressure to drive these problems out of existence. The best leaders prioritize, triage, and optimize their approach to technical problems. Nowadays, more and more business problems we encounter are not of the technical nature. They are complex, latent, potentially unknowable, and as a result, they frequently require learning before solving. Take the buzz worthy notion of "disruption," which threatens nearly every business model. Practically by defi...