In human history, the gap between our dreams and what we can accomplish was never smaller. Today, a kid with a strong desire, a transformative cause, and an internet connection can disrupt not just a company but an entire industry. The perceived strengths of the incumbent organizations are becoming their weaknesses. They are losing playing a game they did not invent and whose rules they don't understand.
Revolutionary concepts, speedy execution, and rapid scaling-up are disrupting industries. While the old-economy companies continue their focus on flogging the last bit of efficiency from their business engine, the ground is quickly shifting under their feet. The business concepts being brought in by the new players are not based on incrementalism. They are transformative and exponential.
The new players are first taking away the markets from the old players. Good people are moving to these new companies. Finally, they will take away the assets of today's leaders. An example - just a few months back, Pharmeasy took over Thyrocare!
How do we start and lead a revolution?
The first way to start and lead a revolution is by radically changing our thinking. Just a look at our metrics and business systems will reveal the flaws. Here are a few glaring anomalies:
Many of our business goals are focused on incrementally improving productivity or targeting optimization. How many metrics do we have for tracking innovation?
Even an Angel Investor receives a few dozen unsolicited business ideas every quarter. How many does a typical organization get every year?
If a Venture Capitalist Firm invests in ten businesses, typically, five fails. Two or three barely return the capital. One doubles it, and one gives a 50X return. They are looking for that one big winner. In contrast, an organization needs assurance that every business idea will be profitable.
In the book, The Lean Startup, Eric Ries provided an excellent process for validating and scaling up business ideas. One of the core ideas is rapid experimentation. How many experiments are we conducting in our organization at this point in time? Do our people have the autonomy to conduct small experiments without permission, or it has to go through the same maze of approvals and paperwork?
Finally, the onus for making these changes is on the top management. However, they are too dependent on the middle management for the inputs from the frontline. When business ideas from the frontline employees are made to pass through the layers of bureaucracy, they either die down or lose their sharp edges. In most organizations, the top management is aware of the business challenges. The middle management is the Shukracharya that blocks the unhindered flow of information. Therefore, we urgently need to set a system where uncensored ideas could be shared across the organization. That's the immediate first step.
Subodh
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