STRATEGY CENTRAL

Ever been stopped in your tracks by someone who’s “sworn allegiance to the status quo?”  We’ve all run into them.  Old guard remnants of a previous time, committed to keeping things running the way “we’ve always done it”.  What’d you do?  Give up?  Head fake them and then attempt an end-around?  Try to go right over the top of them?  Got to admit I tend toward the middle route these days.  How about you?

In my early days I would definitely just give up.  Then I switched to a pattern of trying to bull my way past them.  These days it makes a lot more sense to do a version of the head fake.  How’s that?  Usually it’s a matter of continuing to talk, looking for common ground, and then trying to find a way past the blockade.  Does it always work?  No way.  But for sure it begins with a commitment to continued conversation.

By the way, some people have a knack for a really well turned phrase, don’t they?  The idea of “sworn allegiance to the status quo” comes from Hamel’s Leading the Revolution.  Good stuff.

Are you still running after the goals that once drove you?  Do you have the same passion for it?  Or have you settled?  I like to think I’m somewhere around halftime…maybe not quite there, but close…and I’m finding that there are times when it’s tempting to do what’s needed…tomorrow.  At the same time, there are definitely times when I march on toward the goal for the prize.

Where are you on this question?

I found this set of questions for senior executives in Hamel’s Leading the Revolution:

• After two or three decades of industry experience, am I more radical or more conservative?
• Am I more willing to challenge conventions or less willing?
• Am I more curious than I’ve ever been in my adult life, or less so?
• Am I a radical or a reactionary?
• Am I learning as fast as the world is changing?

Every one of these questions could really be a post.  They’re at the heart of what we all need to be asking ourselves.  Hope you take the time.

Sunday evening.  5:55 pm.  77°F with 41% humidity.  Normally I’m cheering for low humidity…with last week’s fires any little bit is a good thing.  Got Jimmy’s Take the Weather with You keepin’ me company out here.  The regular noise from the tanker planes still working the Santiago Canyon fire in the background.  Not the DC 10…but still an impressive sight.  Actually, if you didn’t catch the DC 10 you really need to watch this video.  Very impressive.

How serious is your organization about innovation?  Maybe it depends on how you define serious.  Gary Hamel is saying that "innovation is truly everyone’s responsibility" in organizations that are serious about innovation.  Think you’re there?  In a recent interview over at The McKinsey Quarterly Hamel suggests going to first level employees and asking these four questions:

1. How have you been trained as a business innovator? What investment has the company made in teaching you how to innovate?
2. If you have a new idea, how much bureaucracy do you have to go through
   to get a small increment of experimental capital? How long is it going
   to take you to get 20 percent of your time and $5,000 to test your
   idea? Is that a matter of months or is it very easy for that to happen?
3. Are you actually being measured on your innovation performance or your team’s innovation? Does it influence your compensation?
4. As you look at the management processes in your company, do they tend to help you work as an innovator or get in the way?

How do you think you’d stand up to that?  It’s a very interesting interview.  You can check it out right here.

There were a lot of great moments on Lost last year.  Few topped this one with Sawyer and Hurley:

Why is it so difficult for many organizations to learn to innovate?  It’s definitely a hot button.  We all want to do it.  But at the end of lots of days…it just doesn’t stick.  Why?  Maybe Gary Hamel has it right.  It’s just not in the DNA of some organizations.  And to begin to do it requires more than a commitment.  It actually might require gene therapy or an altered DNA.  Here’s what Hamel had to say in a recent interview over at The McKinsey Quarterly:

"For almost 20 years I’ve tried to help large companies innovate. And
despite a lot of successes along the way, I’ve often felt as if I were
trying to teach a dog to walk on his hind legs. Sure, if you get the
right people in the room, create the right incentives, and eliminate
the distractions, you can spur a lot of innovation. But the moment you
turn your back, the dog is on all fours again because it has quadruped
DNA, not biped DNA."

Classic.  Don’t you think?

One of the most influential voices in the development of the concept of innovation was Joseph Schumpeter.  In fact, when you read the work of Clayton Christensen, The Innovator’s Dilemma (and others), you’re following in the trail that Schumpeter blazed.  Prophet of Innovation: Joseph Schumpeter and Creative Destruction is a fascinating look at Schumpeter’s life and how he developed many of the concepts that are now at the forefront of innovation strategy.  Thomas McCraw—emeritus professor of history at the Harvard Business School—has done a great service to students of innovation by providing such a great resource.

I don’t know if you can see it or not, but when As the World Turns is on the airport TV you know it’s just about over!

Nothing like a little wildfire to bring a new perspective to life.  Here’s a scene from the tollway that leads to John Wayne International Airport.  Good times in the OC on a blustery day.

I love this question!  It really is right at the heart of things not only for each of us, but for the organizations we’re involved in.  In the same way that we’re each moving toward something better (a new competency for example), our organizations need to be becoming better at what they do.  They don’t necessarily need to do different things…although some clearly do.  They desperately need to become better at what they’re trying to do.

Love this idea from Hamel’s Leading the Revolution.  We need to be asking ourselves, "What are we becoming as a company—can we describe a from and a to?"

Can we describe a from and a to?  Let that sink in for a moment.

That is a profound question.  When you think about your organization what are you moving toward?  What are you moving on from?  This is something that could easily be a great 2 to 3 hour discussion…for starters.  Let’s say it this way.  If we don’t have an answer for this one we’re probably moving towards irrelevance.