Disruptive innovation, entrepreneurship and organizational transformation
Disruptive innovation, entrepreneurship and organizational transformation
Disruptive innovation, entrepreneurship and organizational transformation
The traditional decision-making model, rooted in the ideal of the rational actor calculating the best decision with perfect information, is increasingly inadequate in our complex, uncertain world. When information is scarce or inadequate, judgment and imagination must be used instead.
(more…)To respond to the disruptions in their business environment, organizations often establish dedicated innovation units. These units, though named differently, often face a common hurdle: their promising ideas fail to translate into impactful market outcomes. This predicament stems from the approach itself and the underlying model.
(more…)Uncertainty is naturally anxiety-provoking. In the workplace, it is added to other sources of employee insecurity, such as lack of trust or appreciation, management style, or lack of meaning. How can a leader provide psychological safety in an uncertain world?
(more…)New leaders of organizations almost always face at least one significant hurdle – understanding the intricate web of roles, projects, and methods that interact to produce its results. This combination of skills, culture, assets and processes form the bedrock on which their decisions are built and outputs achieved. This analytic challenge is especially critical in troubled organizations, where the gap between promises and actuality can be glaring. A good historical example of this is Microsoft’s Windows group turnaround.
(more…)Can seemingly weak signals have the potential to reveal significant future events? The answer lies in the delicate balance between detection and interpretation, where our assumptions shape our understanding.
(more…)Innovation, the driving force behind progress, often faces a formidable adversary: entrenched mental models. These cognitive frameworks shape our understanding of the world and can become barriers to the acceptance of breakthrough ideas. Managing the dynamic between innovation and prevailing mental models is the innovator’s challenge. Thomas Edison’s promotion of electric lighting over gas provides an example of how this challenge was successfully met.
(more…)Organizations in decline tend to create an imaginary double in which they lock themselves. This double is themselves, but in an idealized version. It is a mask that they create to hide and to insulate themselves from a reality that they refuse, letting the world go without them, even against them. The dissolution of this double, i.e. the acceptance of reality, however unpleasant it may be, is a prerequisite for any recovery. A good illustration of this is provided by the Apple turnaround in 1997.
(more…)The Covid-19 crisis completely disrupted the strategy of all organizations, reducing plans to nothing. Like any disruption, it corresponded to a process in development whose consequences unfolded, and continue to unfold, progressively on all levels: sanitary, social, economic, but also political and geo-political. It was followed two years later by another disruption, the invasion of Ukraine, which had a similar effect. For organizations, such disruptions impose a complete revision not only of their strategy, but of the way it is defined and of the fundamental beliefs on which the process is based, and in particular on how decisions are made in an organization. It requires a rethink of strategy, management and leadership.
(more…)Start with ‘why’! Having a big ‘why’, a noble and ambitious reason for being (purpose), is the secret of winning business strategies. That’s what Simon Sinek, author of the best-selling book Starting with Why, explains. According to him, all organizations know what they do, and most of them also know how they do it. But very few know why they do what they do. Only those with a big ‘why’ can really succeed, and defining that ‘why’ is therefore a prerequisite for any ambitious strategic thinking. It sounds logical, it’s certainly appealing, and it’s a widespread belief today, but it’s wrong. Let’s see… why.
(more…)In the quest for innovation, the encouragement of risk-taking by employees is often ineffective because of entrenched, counterproductive mental models. One example is a successful manufacturing company whose commitment to quality has morphed into a stifling perfectionism that impedes progress. While the organization advocates risk-taking for transformation, it struggles to create change. This article explores the core of this challenge-the ingrained mental models that foster resistance-and advocates a balanced approach that reconciles innovation and stability.
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