Heard a GREAT podcast by C.K. Prahalad today, courtesy of American Management Association. Plenty of great stuff…available by podcast…you can check it out right here. Here’s a great quote that I picked out of a longer quote on innovation:
We tend to go from initiative to initiative in management. ‘This is the initiative for this year.’ Rather than saying, ‘What are the core values that we passionately believe in?’
It may be a sickness…but sometimes I come across ideas that are just so prophetic I have to share them. This morning was one of those times. Working my way through Competing for the Future (published in 1994) by Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad. Only on page 18, but already can tell this is so relevant to our world.
In a section on how Xerox led the copier pack in "underexploited innovation," Hamel and Prahalad wrote that in order to exploit its innovation stockpile Xerox would have had to create new businesses and to do that it would have had to "regenerate its core strategy and reinvent its very concept of self (p. 17)."
I don’t know about you, but when I read lines like that I can’t help but think about the organizations I serve. It can be disheartening. At the same time it is what makes me suit up for the game.
Writing about the 90s trend to spin off business units in order to become leaner, to innovate quicker, Hamel and Prahalad wrote that, "A company surrenders today’s businesses when it gets smaller faster than it gets better. A company surrenders tomorrow’s businesses when it gets better without getting different (p. 16)."
Know any organizations that are mainly trying to get better at what they do? Could it be that they need to be working to become different?
Need some ammunition? You can pick up your copy of Competing for the Future RIGHT HERE.
