Category Archives: Change

The Interplay Between Culture and Organizational Change

Case Study 1: Acme Corp – The Culture Catalyst

Acme Corp, a leading player in the tech industry, was facing a critical phase. Despite strong technical capabilities, they found themselves lagging in innovation and customer satisfaction. The root cause was traced back to the company’s culture, which was mired in risk aversion and departmental silos, stifling cross-functional collaboration and creativity.

Recognizing this, the leadership embarked on a cultural transformation journey aimed at fostering a more agile and collaborative environment. Here’s how they did it:

Leadership as Culture Champions: Leaders demonstrated the desired behaviors, championing open communication and empowering employees to take calculated risks.
Redefining Values and Behaviors: They revisited their core values, aligning them with the new strategic vision, and communicated these through storytelling and workshops.
Structural Adjustments: The company restructured teams to promote cross-functional collaboration and introduced dynamic project teams to address complex challenges.

Within two years, Acme Corp experienced a marked increase in innovation output and customer satisfaction scores. By making culture a focal point, they were able to unlock the full potential of their organizational change initiatives.

Case Study 2: HealthCo – Navigating Cultural Resistance

HealthCo, a large healthcare provider, embarked on a digital transformation journey aimed at enhancing patient care and operational efficiency. However, the initiative faced significant resistance rooted in a deeply ingrained hierarchical culture. Employees were accustomed to rigid procedures and hesitant to embrace new technologies.

HealthCo’s approach to overcoming this challenge involved:

Inclusive Change Design: Involving employees at all levels in designing the change process, which provided a sense of ownership and reduced resistance.
Targeted Training Programs: Comprehensive training sessions were held to equip staff with the necessary skills and confidence to use new digital tools effectively.
Recognition and Feedback Loops: Establishing mechanisms for recognizing adaptation efforts and fostering an ongoing feedback culture to continually refine the processes.

While the transformation at HealthCo took longer than anticipated, the focus on gradually reshaping their culture ensured a sustainable, long-term embrace of digital practices, ultimately leading to improved patient outcomes.

Conclusion

The interplay between culture and organizational change is both intricate and profound. As seen through the experiences of Acme Corp and HealthCo, understanding and harnessing cultural dynamics is crucial to effective change management. Leaders must recognize that culture is not merely an abstract concept but a tangible influence on strategy and execution. By proactively aligning culture with change objectives, organizations can drive innovation, enhance performance, and thrive in a fast-paced world.

Whether you are in the nascent stages of a transformation or managing ongoing change, always remember: culture is the lens through which change is viewed and valued. Cultivate it wisely, and it becomes your greatest ally in transformation efforts.

Bottom line: Futurology is not fortune telling. Futurists use a scientific approach to create their deliverables, but a methodology and tools like those in FutureHacking™ can empower anyone to engage in futurology themselves.

Image credit: Pixabay

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Why Most Corporate Mindset Programs Are a Waste of Time

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What to Focus on Instead

Why Most Corporate Mindset Programs Are a Waste of Time

GUEST POST from Alain Thys

You may know that I’m hunting for a Transformation Algorithm

Its goal is to help us move beyond the >70% failure rate of corporate transformations and create transformative experiences for employees, customers and society. Ambitious? Moi?

To get there, I’m walking around the problem.

Looking at it from all perspectives (Japan style). So without claiming expertise in any domain, I’m blending systems thinking with neuroscience, behavioral psychology, philosophy and my background in experience design. There’s even a little math (I couldn’t resist .

It’s a work in progress, but I’m getting there.

Meanwhile, here are some more thoughts as I put together the puzzle. The article starts a bit gloomy, but it ends more upbeat… I promise.

It’s all work in progress in which I’m still improving both language and content.
So don’t hold back on comments, compliments or corrections.

These days, every company wants to see a ‘mindset change’.

People need to be customer-centric. Digital. Agile. Sustainable. Innovative. More in love with the color blue. After all, the consultants, executive trainers and software vendors say this is the future. Not to mention Mark’s metaverse:

To make this happen, organizations unleash a barrage of initiatives

They do enthusiastic presentations. Introduce new KPIs and dashboards. Launch internal communication programs and training academies. Create new journey maps. Introduce AI. Get some fancy software.

Some even call me (obviously the smartest ones ).

At first, the signs are good.

After all, with enough pressure, you can get water to go uphill. Also, any decent third-party consultant or vendor will make sure that employees leave those workshops with a smile and some quick wins. Especially those that show progress in pretty graphs and numbers.

But then – one by one – the ‘old ways’ assert themselves

They raise dozens of practical, budgetary, emotional and IT concerns which are all valid and require the change program to be calibrated. After all, leaders need to be pragmatic. These thousand slight cuts erode the big transformative vision and expectations get lowered. Things might even become as they were.

#endofmindsetchange?

What if we were aiming at the wrong target?

If you look up mindset in a dictionary, you find it is a mental attitude or inclination. The combined set of assumptions, methods and notions with which each of us approaches problems and the world at large (our perspective). Something rooted in the way we view the world and our perception of reality (our paradigm).

This means that every mindset change is in fact a change in perspective or paradigm.

Let me illustrate with a consumer electronics company that wanted to go from product- to customer-centric value propositions. Digging deep, we found that from the engineer’s perspective, the requested mindset change meant letting go of their long held belief that as the world’s best technical experts they knew how to make the best products on the planet (and had the awards and accolades to prove it).

Instead, they had to embrace that the customer knew better what great looked like and their opinion didn’t matter as much as they thought.

If you’ve worked all your life to become that smart and esteemed technical expert, this is an existential pill to swallow. Especially if the only rationale from the top is that “our Net Promoter Score should improve”.

These shifts in perspective lurk in any transformation

Being agile means seeing that we live in a chaotic world where we can never really be sure of our best next step. True sustainability means accepting that there are limits to growth, also ours. Going digital means letting go of activities we have long considered to be uniquely human (ours?). Innovation requires unlearning the orthodoxies and beliefs we may have held since childhood. And so on.

For some people, these steps may be easy. But for most, they can challenge the core of who they are (even if they may not admit this to themselves).

Ignoring this deeper reality can doom your transformation from the start.

If the new KPIs, processes, systems and incentives you introduce do not match the worldview of the people you target, they will reject them. Sometimes they rebel. Sometimes they stand in the way without realizing it themselves. Either way, your culture will eat your strategy for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

So what to do instead?

Frustration

If you want mindset change, focus on the paradigm shift first.

Before you expect people to approach problems differently (mindset), work on the way they perceive these problems and their context. Clearly describe the required paradigm shift in a FROM… TO… statement and make it as compelling as possible. All while acknowledging the uncomfortable bits head on.

Then, give people opportunities to embrace this new narrative through experiential programs (remember: the old brain doesn’t do PowerPoint).

Once they see the world with fresh eyes, the mindset and changes will follow.

Or as my ultimate change guru Antoine de Saint-Exupéry used to say: “if you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”

But always remember that your perception as a leader is flawed too.

When you say: ‘I want a mindset change’, you are actually saying: ‘I want you to see the world as I do’.

This is often a big ask, as chances are you live in a world that is more affluent, more educated and more informed (I won’t mention diversity … oops, I did). You probably have a different education, live in a different social media bubble and even shop in different stores. You may even have the freedom to make your own decisions.

Seeing life your way, may not be as easy for someone who has grown up, works and lives in a different context (no value judgment here, just observation).

Inversely, unless you’ve done their jobs and lived their lives, you will have difficulties to imagine the world through the eyes of your people. No matter how you try.

So before you talk about mindset change.

Understand and start from your people’s perspective and then expand it in the direction you propose. And if the gap between the two is too big, consider adapting your strategy.

Perhaps your world view and sense of possibility need an update too.

Image Credits: Pixabay

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Empowering Employees During Times of Change

The Power of Employee Empowerment

Empowering employees essentially means giving them the tools, confidence, and autonomy to navigate change and contribute to organizational goals. When employees feel empowered, they are more engaged, resilient, and committed to the company’s vision. They become active participants rather than passive recipients of change.

Case Study 1: Tech Innovators Inc.

Tech Innovators Inc., a leading software development firm, underwent a major change when they decided to shift to a fully agile workflow. While the management understood the benefits of this transition, they knew it would be a significant shift for their employees accustomed to traditional project management methods.

To empower their workforce, Tech Innovators Inc. implemented a comprehensive training program that included workshops on agile methodologies and provided resources such as online courses. Employees were encouraged to take ownership of their learning journeys and apply new methods in pilot projects. In addition, management created cross-functional teams to foster collaboration and autonomy, allowing team members to self-organize and make decisions about task execution.

The result was a seamless transition where employees felt confident in their new roles and responsibilities. The organization saw increased productivity, innovation, and job satisfaction as employees leveraged their skills effectively in a supportive environment.

Case Study 2: Green Earth Industries

Green Earth Industries, a company focused on sustainable energy production, faced an industry paradigm shift due to evolving environmental regulations. To address this, they needed to implement new technologies and processes rapidly.

Understanding the potential for resistance, Green Earth Industries prioritized open
communication with their workforce. They held town hall meetings where leadership discussed the necessity of change and invited feedback and suggestions from employees at all levels. By involving employees in the decision-making process and acknowledging their input, the company built trust and buy-in for the changes.

Furthermore, Green Earth Industries initiated a mentorship program that paired experienced employees with those new to the industry. This initiative allowed for a smooth knowledge transfer that not only facilitated adaptation to new processes but also fostered a sense of community and shared purpose.

As a result, Green Earth Industries successfully transitioned to compliance with new regulations without major disruptions, and employee morale remained high.

Strategies for Empowering Employees

From these case studies, several key strategies emerge for empowering employees during times of change:

Education and Training: Invest in learning opportunities that equip employees
with the skills necessary to thrive in new environments.
Transparent Communication: Keep employees informed about the reasons for
change and the benefits it brings. Encourage open dialogue and feedback.
Inclusive Involvement: Involve employees in the change process, valuing their
insights and contributions to create a sense of ownership.
Supportive Leadership: Encourage leadership to act as coaches and mentors,
providing guidance and support to navigate through change.
Cultivate a Collaborative Culture: Foster teamwork and cross-functional
collaborations to leverage diverse skills and perspectives.

Change does not have to be a daunting process. Empowering employees through effective strategies ensures not only the success of organizational transformations but also helps build a resilient, engaged, and innovative workforce ready to tackle future challenges.

Let us continue to prioritize human-centered approaches in change management, ensuring that our employees are not just surviving but thriving in a dynamic world.

This article focuses on empowering employees during times of change. It provides an introduction to the topic, explores the power of employee empowerment, illustrates two case studies, and suggests strategies for organizations to empower their workforce effectively.

Image credit: Pixabay

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Why Change Must Be Built on Common Ground

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Why Change Must Be Built on Common Ground

GUEST POST from Greg Satell

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, one of the first things he did was develop a marketing campaign to rebrand the ailing enterprise. Leveraging IBM’s long running “Think” campaign, Apple urged its customers to “Think Different.” The TV spots began, “Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes…”

Yet Jobs actual product strategy did exactly the opposite. While other technology companies jammed as many features into their products as they could to impress the techies and the digerati, Jobs focused on making his products so ridiculously easy to use that they were accessible to everyone. Apple became the brand people would buy for their mothers.

The truth is that while people like the idea of being different, real change is always built on common ground. Differentiation builds devotion among adherents, but to bring new people in, you need to make an idea accessible and that means focusing on values that you share with outsiders, rather than those that stir the passions of insiders. That’s how you win.

Overcoming the Desire to Be Different

Apple’s ad campaign was effective because we are tribal in nature. Setting your idea apart is a great way to unlock tribal fervor among devotees, but it also sends a strong signal to others that they don’t belong. For example, for decades LGBTQ activists celebrated their difference with “Gay Pride,” which made gay people feel better, but didn’t resonate with others.

It’s not much different in the corporate world. Those who want to promote Agile development love to tout the Agile Manifesto and its customer focused ethos. It’s what they love about the Agile methodology. Yet for those outside the Agile community, it can seem more than a bit weird. They don’t want to join a cult, they just want to get their job done.

So, the first step to driving change forward is to make the shift from differentiating values, which make ardent fans passionate about an idea, to shared values, which invite people in. That doesn’t mean you’re abandoning your core values any more than making products accessible meant that Apple had to skimp on capability. But it does create an entry point.

This is a surprisingly hard shift to make, but you won’t be able to move forward until you do.

Identifying and Leveraging Your Opposition

Make no mistake. Change fails because people want it to fail. Any change that is important, that has the potential for real impact, will inspire fierce resistance. Some people will simply hate the idea and will try to undermine your efforts in ways that are dishonest, deceptive and underhanded. That is the chief design constraint of any significant change effort.

So, you’re going to want to identify your most active opposition because you want to know where the attacks are going to be coming from. However, you don’t want to directly engage with these people because it is unlikely to be an honest conversation. Most likely, it will devolve into something that just bogs you down and drains you emotionally.

However, you can listen. People who hate your idea are, in large part, trying to persuade many of the same people you are. Listening to which arguments they find effective can help unlock shared values and that’s what holds the key to truly transformational change. But most importantly, they can help you define shared values.

So, while your main focus should be on empowering those who are excited about change, you should pay attention to your most vocal opposition. In fact, with some effort, you can learn to love your haters. They can point out early flaws. Also, as you begin to gain traction they will often lash out and overreach, undermine themselves and and end up sending people your way.

Defining Shared Values

Your most active opposition, the people who hate your idea and want to undermine it, have essentially the same task that you do. They want to move people who are passive or neutral to support their position and will design their communication efforts to achieve that objective. If you listen carefully though, you can make their efforts work for you.

For example, when faced with President Woodrow Wilson’s opposition to voting rights for women, Alice Paul’s band of Silent Sentinels picketed the White House with phrases lifted from President Wilson’s own book. How could he object, without appearing to be a tremendous hypocrite, to signs that read, “LIBERTY IS A FUNDAMENTAL DEMAND OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT?

In a similar vein, those who opposed LGBTQ rights often did so on the basis of family values and it was, for decades, a very effective strategy. That is, until LGBTQ activists used it against them. After all, shouldn’t those of different sexual orientations be able to live in committed relationships and raise happy and health families? If you believe in the importance of families, how could you not support same sex marriages?

The strategy works just as well in a corporate environment. In our Transformation & Change workshops, we ask executives what those who oppose their idea say about it. From there, we can usually identify the underlying shared value and then leverage it to make our case. Once you identify common ground, it’s much easier to move forward.

Surviving Victory

Steve Jobs, along with his co-founder Steve Wozniak, started Apple to make computers. But if that’s all Apple ever did, it would never have become the world’s most valuable company. What made Jobs the iconic figure he became had nothing to do with any one product, but because he came to represent something more: the fusion of technology and design.

In his autobiography of Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson noted that he revolutionized six industries, ranging from music to animated movies, far afield from the computer industry. He was able to do that because he continued to focus on the core values of using technology and design to make products more accessible to ordinary people.

In other words, in every venture he undertook he looked for common ground by asking himself, “how can we make this as easy as possible for those who are not comfortable with technology.” He didn’t merely cater to the differences of his hard core enthusiasts, but constantly looked to bring everybody else in.

Many companies have had hit products, but very few have had the continued success of Apple. In fact, success often breeds failure because it attracts new networks of competitors. Put another way, many entrepreneurs fail to survive victory because they focus on a particular product rather than the shared values that product was based on.

Jobs was different. He was passionate about his products, but his true calling was tapping into basic human desires. In other words, he understood that truly revolutionary change is always built on common ground.

— Article courtesy of the Digital Tonto blog
— Image credit: Unsplash

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Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2021

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After a week of torrid voting and much passionate support, along with a lot of gut-wrenching consideration and jostling during the judging round, I am proud to announce your Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2021:

Janet Sernack
Janet Sernack is the Founder and CEO of ImagineNation™ which provides innovation consulting services to help organizations adapt, innovate and grow through disruption by challenging businesses to be, think and act differently to co-create a world where people matter & innovation is the norm.

Greg Satell
Greg Satell is a popular speaker and consultant. His first book, Mapping Innovation: A Playbook for Navigating a Disruptive Age, was selected as one of the best business books in 2017. Follow his blog at Digital Tonto or on Twitter @Digital Tonto.

Braden Kelley
Braden Kelley is a Human-Centered Experience, Innovation and Transformation consultant at HCL Technologies, a popular innovation speaker, workshop leader, and creator of the Human-Centered Change™ methodology. He is the author of Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire from John Wiley & Sons and Charting Change from Palgrave Macmillan. Follow him on Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
Jesse Nieminen
Jesse Nieminen is the Co-founder and Chairman at Viima, the best way to collect and develop ideas. Viima’s innovation management software is already loved by thousands of organizations all the way to the Global Fortune 500. He’s passionate about helping leaders drive innovation in their organizations and frequently writes on the topic, usually in Viima’s blog.

Robert B Tucker
Robert B. Tucker is the President of The Innovation Resource Consulting Group. He is a speaker, seminar leader and an expert in the management of innovation and assisting companies in accelerating ideas to market.

Rachel Audige
Rachel Audige is an Innovation Architect who helps organisations embed inventive thinking as well as a certified Systematic Inventive Thinking Facilitator, based in Melbourne.
Howard Tiersky
Howard Tiersky is an inspiring and passionate speaker, the Founder and CEO of FROM, The Digital Transformation Agency, innovation consultant, serial entrepreneur, and the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Winning Digital Customers: The Antidote to Irrelevance. IDG named him one of the “10 Digital Transformation Influencers to Follow Today”, and Enterprise Management 360 named Howard “One of the Top 10 Digital Transformation Influencers That Will Change Your World.”

Paul Sloane
Paul Sloane writes, speaks and leads workshops on creativity, innovation and leadership. He is the author of The Innovative Leader and editor of A Guide to Open Innovation and Crowdsourcing, both published by Kogan-Page.

Pete Foley
A twenty-five year Procter & Gamble veteran, Pete has spent the last 8+ years applying insights from psychology and behavioral science to innovation, product design, and brand communication. He spent 17 years as a serial innovator, creating novel products, perfume delivery systems, cleaning technologies, devices and many other consumer-centric innovations, resulting in well over 100 granted or published patents. Find him at pete.mindmatters@gmail.com

Nicolas Bry
Nicolas is an International Innovation Executive, expert in corporate innovation programs, and innovation labs, designing place where good innovation thrives! He currently helps the 20 innovation managers of Orange Africa to develop their projects locally. In 2019 he wrote The Intrapreneurs’ Factory, a practical guide to leverage intrapreneurship for your company, and is the writer of the innovation blog RapidInnovation.fr.

Arlen Meyers
Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs at www.sopenet.org

Linda Naiman
Linda Naiman helps executives and their teams develop creativity, innovation, and leadership capabilities, through coaching, training and consulting. She brings a multi-disciplinary approach to learning and development by leveraging arts-based practices to foster creativity at work, and design thinking as a strategy for innovation.
Anthony Mills
Anthony Mills is the Founder & CEO of Legacy Innovation Group (www.legacyinnova.com), a world-leading strategic innovation consulting firm working with organizations all over the world. Anthony is also the Executive Director of GInI – Global Innovation Institute (www.gini.org), the world’s foremost certification, accreditation, and membership organization in the field of innovation. Anthony has advised leaders from around the world on how to successfully drive long-term growth and resilience through new innovation. Learn more at www.anthonymills.com. Anthony can be reached directly at anthony@anthonymills.com.

John Bessant
John Bessant has been active in research, teaching, and consulting in technology and innovation management for over 25 years. Today, he is Chair in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and Research Director, at Exeter University. In 2003, he was awarded a Fellowship with the Advanced Institute for Management Research and was also elected a Fellow of the British Academy of Management. He has acted as advisor to various national governments and international bodies including the United Nations, The World Bank, and the OECD. John has authored many books including Managing innovation and High Involvement Innovation (Wiley). Follow @johnbessant

Mike Shipulski
Mike Shipulski brings together people, culture, and tools to change engineering behavior. He writes daily on Twitter as @MikeShipulski and weekly on his blog Shipulski On Design.

Scott Anthony
Scott Anthony is a strategic advisor, writer and speaker on topics of growth and innovation. He has been based in Singapore since 2010, and currently serves at the Managing Director of Innosight’s Asia-Pacific operations.
Jeffrey Phillips
Jeffrey Phillips has over 15 years of experience leading innovation in Fortune 500 companies, federal government agencies and non-profits. He is experienced in innovation strategy, defining and implementing front end processes, tools and teams and leading innovation projects. He is the author of Relentless Innovation and OutManeuver. Jeffrey writes the popular Innovate on Purpose blog. Follow him @ovoinnovation

Phil McKinney
Phil McKinney is the Author of “Beyond The Obvious”, Host of the Killer Innovations Podcast and Syndicated Radio Show, a Keynote Speaker, President & CEO CableLabs and an Innovation Mentor and Coach.
Gijs van Wulfen
Gijs van Wulfen helps organizations to structure the chaotic start of innovation as author, speaker and facilitator. He is the founder of the FORTH innovation method and author of the innovation bestseller The Innovation Expedition. He was chosen by LinkedIn as one of their first 150 Influencers. Follow Gijs @gijsvanwulfen
Kate Hammer
Kate Hammer is a joint founder of KILN, working with large-scale companies in the USA and Australia to transform their internal innovation processes. Kate works as a business storyteller. In 2012, she created StoryFORMs to help others articulate their commercial & organisational stories. Kate offers workshops & 1:1 coaching.

Phil Buckley
Phil Buckley is an award-winning author and change management strategist with over 32 large-scale change initiatives, including co-leading global change management for the $19.6 billion Kraft Foods acquisition of Cadbury. He is the author of two books: Change on the Run and Change with Confidence. You can find Phil’s podcast and monthly newsletter at www.changewithconfidence.com.

Tamara Ghandour
Tamara Ghandour of GoToLaunchStreet is a TED speaker and entrepreneur. From building and running multimillion dollar businesses, advising Fortune 500 like Disney, Procter and Gamble and RICOH on fostering innovative ideas and people. Tamara’s life is about breaking through the status quo for game-changing results, and that’s what her keynotes, online programs and assessments can do for you.

Tom Koulopoulos
Tom Koulopoulos is the author of 10 books and founder of the Delphi Group, a 25-year-old Boston-based think tank and a past Inc. 500 company that focuses on innovation and the future of business. He tweets from @tkspeaks.

Michael Graber
Michael Graber is the cofounder and managing partner at Southern Growth Studio, a Memphis-based firm that specializes in growth strategy and innovation. A published poet and musician, Graber is the creative force that complements the analytical side of the house. He speaks and publishes frequently on best practices in design thinking, business strategy, and innovation and earned an MFA from the University of Memphis.

Yoram Solomon
Dr. Yoram Solomon is the author of The Book of Trust and 12 more books, a TEDx and keynote speaker, the founder of the Innovation Culture Institute, and an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship. You can follow him everywhere on @yoramsolomon.

Shilpi Kumar
Shilpi Kumar an inquisitive researcher, designer, strategist and an educator with over 15 years of experience, who truly believes that we can design a better world by understanding human behavior. I work with organizations to identify strategic opportunities and offer user-centric solutions.

Shawn Nason
Shawn Nason, founder and CEO of MOFI, lives his life with a commitment to make everyone he meets a part of his family. Armed with the gift of discernment, he has the uncanny ability to walk alongside people as they struggle to connect with their deepest passions and engage their most debilitating demons. He challenges the world around him to be fully present, get real, and knock down the barrier that separates the various compartments in their lives.
John Carter
John Carter has been a widely respected adviser to technology firms over his career. John is the author of Innovate Products Faster: Graphical Tools for Accelerating Product Development. As Founder and Principal of TCGen Inc., he has advised some of the most revered technology firms in the world.

Jeff Rubingh
Jeff Rubingh is a technology innovation expert, consultant and analyst. Focused on the intersection between technology and business, Jeff helps clients identify ground-breaking solutions that maximize ROI across existing and emerging technology disciplines.

Ludwig Melik
Ludwig Melik is CEO of Planbox, whose mission is to help organizations thrive by transforming the culture of agile work, continuous innovation, and creativity across the entire organization… Connect with him on LinkedIn or join the conversation by following Planbox on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Soren Kaplan
Soren Kaplan is the bestselling and award-winning author of Leapfrogging and The Invisible Advantage, an affiliated professor at USC’s Center for Effective Organizations, a former corporate executive, and a co-founder of UpBOARD. He has been recognized by the Thinkers50 as one of the world’s top keynote speakers and thought leaders in business strategy and innovation.

Shelly Greenway
Shelly Greenway is a front-end innovation strategist and partner at The Strategy Distillery – a brand innovation consultancy that specialises in opportunity hunting and proposition development. Their success rates are driven by their proprietary consumer co-creation IP. Follow @ChiefDistiller

Eric Eskey
Eric Eskey is a Managing Director at Strategyn, an innovation consultancy. Eric is in the business of creating the future. I aim to use the resources he has – his work, investments, voice, and imagination – to encourage innovation and defeat the hidden forces that resist it.
Mick Simonelli
Mick Simonelli is an innovator with 20+ years of implementing change and positive disruption at USAA. As a military veteran, he held transformation roles in numerous military organizations; and as a business executive, he purposely hired vets to help launch numerous innovations as the Chief Innovation Officer for a Fortune 500 company. Mick currently serves as an innovation consultant and can be found at www.micksimonelli.com Follow @MickSimonelli
Mitch Ditkoff
Mitch Ditkoff is the Co-Founder and President of Idea Champions and the author of “Awake at the Wheel”, as well as the very popular Heart of Innovation blog.
Peter Cook
Peter Cook leads Human Dynamics and The Academy of Rock, providing Keynotes, Organisational Development and Coaching. He is the author of seven books on business leadership. His three passions are science, business and music, having led innovation teams for 18 years to develop life-saving drugs including the first treatments for AIDS and the development of Human Insulin. Peter is Music and Business editor at Innovation Excellence. You can follow him on twitter @Academyofrock.
Mukesh Gupta
Mukesh Gupta is Director of Customer Advocacy, SAP India Private Limited. He also served as Executive Liaison for the SAP User group in India, and as a Global Lead in Sales & Business Development. He blogs, and shares podcasts and videos, on his site rmukeshgupta.com
Paul Hobcraft
Paul Hobcraft runs Agility Innovation, an advisory business that stimulates sound innovation practice, researches topics that relate to innovation for the future, as well as aligning innovation to organizations core capabilities. Follow @paul4innovating

Ralph Christian Ohr
Dr. Ralph-Christian Ohr has extensive experience in product/innovation management for international technology-based companies. His particular interest is targeted at the intersection of organizational and human innovation capabilities. You can follow him on Twitter @Ralph_Ohr.

Randy Pennington
Randy Pennington is an award-winning author, speaker, and leading authority for helping leaders deliver positive results in a world of uncertainty and change. To learn more or to engage Randy for your organization, visit www.penningtongroup.com, email info@penningtongroup.com, or call 972-980-9857 (U.S.).

If your favorite didn’t make the list, then next year try to rally more votes for them or convince them to increase the quality and quantity of their contributions.

Our lists from the ten previous years have been tremendously popular, including:

Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2015
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2016
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2017
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2018
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2019
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2020

Download PDF versions of the Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2020 and 2021 lists here:

. . .

Happy New Year everyone!

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Developing 21st-Century Leader and Team Superpowers

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Developing 21st-Century Leader and Team Superpowers

GUEST POST from Janet Sernack

According to McKinsey & Co, in a recent article The new roles of leaders in 21st-century organizations they say that the focus of leaders, in traditional organisations, is to maximize value for shareholders. To do this effectively, they say that traditional leaders typically play four different roles – the planner (developing strategy and translating it into a plan); the director (assigning responsibility); and the controller (making sure everyone does what they should minimize variance against the plan). Whilst these represent the core and foundational business management and leadership roles essential to successful organisational performance, the world has changed significantly, and traditional organisations are being severely disrupted. Requiring the development of new, adaptive, and supplementary, and new leadership and team roles, which embrace the set of 21st-century superpowers for leaders and teams – strategically supported by digital technologies, and an ecosystem focus to thrive in the face of exponential change and a VUCA world.

Maximizing the dormant space

This creates a space of unparalleled opportunity towards reshaping the world anew by activating what might be considered the dormant space, between traditional leadership roles and the possibility of a set of 21st-century superpowers for leaders and teams.

To be embraced, enacted, and embodied by conscious leaders and collaborative teams in more purposeful, meaningful, and innovative ways that serve people, customers, and the common good.

The new roles of leaders and teams in the 21st century

The leadership paradigm has shifted, in the past 20 years, to focus more on “co-creating meaningful value with and for all stakeholders, expanding beyond shareholders to include customers, employees, partners, and our broader society”.

Taking the stance that in an open system, everyone must win through co-creation, collaboration, experimentation, and innovation that results in delivering great customer experiences. To retain and sustain current customers, and to attract and attain new ones in an increasingly competitive global marketplace!

Making the key “leadership challenge of our times” as one which cultivates transformative eco-system-led learning and change, nurturing connections, exploration, discovery, creativity, collaboration, experimentation, and innovation at all levels of the system.

Requiring the traditional organisational leadership roles, to shift towards bravely and boldly “stepping into the uncharted territories of future possibility” and weaving these possibilities into the way people work and commune together.

To co-create new “holding spaces” for igniting, harnessing, and activating people’s collective intelligence to embrace and execute change and deliver the desired commercial outcomes their organisation wants.

Openings for unparalleled opportunities

It seems that we not only survived through the emotional and mental anxiety and overwhelm of living in “a world of disruption, drama, and despair” we also saw the range of disruptive events as a “crack” or opening in our operating systems, for unparalleled opportunities.

By intentionally embracing the “key changes that currently reshape all our innovative learning systems” including the action confidence (courage and capacity to step into something new and bring it into being, creating reality as we step into it) to:

Deepen the learning cycle (from head-centric to the whole person: heart, head, and gut-centric).
Broaden our perspectives and actions (from an individual focus to an eco-system focus).

A moment in time – taking a deep breath

One of the many challenges our collective at ImagineNation™ faced during the Covid-19 pandemic-induced lockdowns (we had six long ones here in Melbourne, Australia over 18 months) was the opportunity to slow down, hit our pause buttons, retreat and reflect and take some very deep and slow breaths.

To make time and space to rethink, respond, regroup, experiment, and play with a range of wondrous, imaginative, and playful ideas, to unlearn, learn and relearn new ways of being, thinking, and acting to sense and actualize a future that is wanting to emerge – even though, then and right now, it was and still is unclear how.

Acknowledging that whilst many of us, and the majority of our clients were experiencing the range of significant emotional reactions, mental stalling, and the anxiety and overwhelm of living in “a world of disruption, drama, and despair” as well as sensing and perceiving the world that is emerging as one of unparalleled opportunity”.

Stepping up and into new spaces of possibility and learning

Individually and collectively, we focussed on a range of rethinking, responding, and regrouping strategies including adopting new 21st-century leadership roles.

Initially by taking responsibility for sustaining our own, our partners, and our families, emotional energy, mental toughness, engagement, and overall wellness.

Then consciously enact and embody the new set of emerging 21st-century leadership roles as visionaries, architects, coaches, and catalysts:

Being visionaries: by co-creating a collaborative and global collective of aligned ecosystem partners with clear accountabilities within a virtual, profit share business model.
Being architects: by iterating, pivoting and sharing our IP and learning programs to close peoples’ “knowing-doing gaps” to help them unlearn, learn, relearn, reshape and develop their 21st-century superpowers for leaders and teams.
Being coaches: by exploring working with the range of innovative new coaching platforms, including BetterUp and CoachHub to better democratize, scale, and share our strengths, knowledge, and skills to help a significant number of people deal more effectively with the impact of virtual hybrid workplaces.
Being catalysts: by focussing on partnering with clients to break down their self-induced protective and defensive “silos” to support them to become aware, acknowledge, accept, and resolve their feelings of loneliness, isolation, and disconnection, and overall anxiety.

21st-century superpowers for leaders and teams

It seems that these are just some of the 21st-century superpowers for leaders and teams which act as the foundations necessary to survive and thrive through the emerging decade of both disruption and transformation.

Summing these up into more concrete actions for leaders and teams include cultivating and sustaining these five superpowers:

Transformational Literacy: The ability to increase our capacity to collaborate and co-create across institutional and sector boundaries through “shifting consciousness from ego-system awareness to eco-system awareness.” to pioneer solutions that bridge the ecological, the social, and the spiritual divides existing in the 21^st
Nimbleness and Agility: The ability to shift and re-think and re-learn in changing contexts, to quickly experiment, iterate and pivot to adapt and move forwards collaboratively through mindset flips to emerge creative ideas and innovative solutions that are appreciated, valued, and cherished.
Scalability: The ability to rapidly build desired and most relevant internal capabilities, to shift capacity and service levels through increasing creativity, invention, and innovation in ways that meet changing customer expectations, and satisfy their demands and future requirements.
Stability: The ability to maintain “action confidence” and operational excellence under pressure that frees people from the constraints of “getting it right” and allows them to continuously unlearn, learn, relearn and change through “failing fast” or forward, without being blamed or shamed.
Optionality: The ability to “get out of the box” to build and develop value chains, stakeholder engagements, or an ecosystem focus to acquire new capabilities through external collaboration.

Walking the path forward

According to Otto Scharmer, in a recent article “Action Confidence: Laying Down the Path in Walking” the leadership qualities we also need to nurture in order to lean into the current moment and to source the courage to act are: Humility. Vulnerability. Surrender. Trust.

It might be time to hit your own pause button, retreat and reflect, inhale a deep breath in this precious moment in time to develop your path forwards and develop an ecosystem focus and an ecosystem focus and a human-centric, future-fit focus.

To embrace, enact and embody a set of 21st-century superpowers for leaders and teams and reshape your innovative learning systems by developing the action confidence to adopt an ecosystem, whole person, and a whole perspective that contributes to the good of the whole.

Join our next free “Making Innovation a Habit” masterclass to re-engage 2022!

Our 90-minute masterclass and creative conversation will help you develop your post-Covid-19 re-engagement strategy. It’s on Thursday, 10th February at 6.30 pm Sydney and Melbourne, 8.30 pm Auckland, 3.30 pm Singapore, 11.30 am Abu Dhabi and 8.30 am Berlin. Find out more.

Image credit: Unsplash

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Entrepreneurs Must Think Like a Change Leader

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Entrepreneurs Must Think Like a Change Leader

Some entrepreneurs start a business because they want to be their own boss doing something they understand. But many startup entrepreneurs start a business because they want to change something, to deliver more value for customers than existing solutions, to disrupt an industry, to become a unicorn, etc. Entrepreneurs like this will need to become masters of change.

You have a great idea.

And you’re hoping to launch a business and change the world, making a dollar or two along the way.

Does this describe you?

If so, you will need to know how to build and operate a business. You will need to be able to profitably manufacture and sell your product and/or service. But you will also need to be really good at something that many people don’t think about when they’re creating a startup.

You must become good at leading change because you are going to be asking people to change their behavior, and people don’t do this easily and may even resist.

But it is possible to understand and harness the Eight Change Mindsets™ that cause people to choose change. These include:

Mover ’n’ Shaker: give these people the chance to be first

Thrill Seeker: these people like to try new things and experiment

Mission-Driven: these people need reasons to believe

Action-Oriented: these people just want to know what needs to be done

Expert-Minded: teach these people how to do it, and they will seek mastery

Reward-Hungry: these people want recognition for adopting the change

Team Player: these people are happy to help if you show them why the change will be helpful

Teacher: show these people how to get others to choose change

Getting people to choose change is important because you’ll be asking people to abandon their existing solution to adopt yours – even if it is the do-nothing solution. This is not easy because people get comfortable using their existing solution and will be uncomfortable with the idea of doing something different.

Eight Change Mindsets to Harness for Success

If you read through this list and imagine what might happen if you haven’t addressed these mindsets in your business plan, you should quickly find yourself with eight potential explanations for why people might resist your new product or service and start having ideas about how to create initiatives to leverage them to overcome potential resistance.

When we break out the trap of thinking about all customers as the same or out of demographic segmentation traps we can start to see our potential customers as people and to identify their different motivations that will determine whether our business is a raging success or a humbling failure.

This is of course assuming that you’ve leveraged my Innovation is All About Value approach to make sure that you’re hitting on all three cylinders with the product or service that you’re bringing to market:

Value Creation is pretty self-explanatory. Your innovation investment must create incremental or completely new value large enough to overcome the switching costs of moving to your new solution from the old solution (including the ‘Do Nothing Solution’). New value can be created by making something more efficient, more effective, possible that wasn’t possible before, or create new psychological or emotional benefits.

Value Access could also be thought of as friction reduction. How easy do you make it for customers and consumers to access the value you’ve created. How well has the product or service been designed to allow people to access the value easily? How easy is it for the solution to be created? How easy is it for people to do business with you?

Value Translation is all about helping people understand the value you’ve created and how it fits into their lives. Value translation is also about understanding where on a continuum between the need for explanation and education that your solution falls. Incremental innovations can usually just be explained to people because they anchor to something they already understand, but radical or disruptive innovations inevitably require some level of education (often far in advance of the launch).

Doing well on two of them and poorly on the third will still lead to failure. Too often people only focus on value creation – to their own detriment. Helping people access the value you’re creating and to understand how it fits into their lives are equally important.

If you invest in doing all three well for your product and/or service and leverage the Eight Change Mindsets™, introduced in my latest book Charting Change, you will be unstoppable!

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We Were Wrong About What Drove the 21st Century

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We Were Wrong About What Drove the 21st Century

GUEST POST from Greg Satell

Every era contains a prism of multitudes. World War I gave way to the “Roaring 20s” and a 50-year boom in productivity. The Treaty of Versailles sowed the seeds to the second World War, which gave way to the peace and prosperity post-war era. Vietnam and the rise of the Baby Boomers unlocked a cultural revolution that created new freedoms for women and people of color.

Our current era began with the 80s, the rise of Ronald Reagan and a new confidence in the power of markets. Genuine achievements of the Chicago School of economics led by Milton Friedman, along with the weakness Soviet system, led to an enthusiasm for market fundamentalism that dominated policy circles.

So it shouldn’t be that surprising that veteran Republican strategist Stuart Stevens wrote a book denouncing that orthodoxy as a lie. The truth is he has a point. But politicians can only convince us of things we already want to believe. The truth is that we were fundamentally mistaken in our understanding of how the world works. It’s time that we own up to it.

Mistake #1: The End Of The Cold War Would Strengthen Capitalism

When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, the West was triumphant. Communism was shown to be a corrupt system bereft of any real legitimacy. A new ideology took hold, often called the Washington Consensus, that preached fiscal discipline, free trade, privatization and deregulation. The world was going to be remade in capitalism’s image.

Yet for anybody who was paying attention, communism had been shown to be bankrupt and illegitimate since the 1930s when Stalin’s failed collectivization effort and industrial plan led him to starve his own people. Economists have estimated that, by the 1970s, Soviet productivity growth had gone negative, meaning more investment actually brought less output. The system’s collapse was just a matter of time.

At the same time, there were early signs that there were serious problems with the Washington Consensus. Many complained that bureaucrats at the World Bank and the IMF were mandating policies for developing nations that citizens in their own countries would not accept. So called “austerity programs” led to human costs that were both significant and real. In a sense, the error of the Soviets was being repeated—ideology was put before people.

Today, instead of a capitalist utopia and an era of peace and prosperity, we got a global rise in authoritarian populism, stagnant wages, reduced productivity growth and weaker competitive markets. In particular in the United States, by almost every metric imaginable, capitalism has been weakened.

Mistake #2: Digital Technology Would Make Everything Better

In November 1989, the same year that the Berlin Wall fell, Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web and ushered in a new technological era of networked computing that we now know as the “digital revolution.” Much like the ideology of market fundamentalism that took hold around the same time, technology was seen as determinant of a new, brighter age.

By the late 1990s, increased computing power combined with the Internet to create a new productivity boom. Many economists hailed the digital age as a “new economy” of increasing returns, in which the old rules no longer applied and a small initial advantage would lead to market dominance.

Yet by 2004, productivity growth had slowed again to its earlier lethargic pace. Today, despite very real advances in processing speed, broadband penetration, artificial intelligence and other things, we seem to be in the midst of a second productivity paradox in which we see digital technology everywhere except in the economic statistics.

Digital technology was supposed to empower individuals and reduce the dominance of institutions, but just the opposite has happened. Income inequality in advanced economies markedly increased. In America wages have stagnated and social mobility has declined. At the same time, social media has been destroying our mental health.

When Silicon Valley told us they intended to “change the world,” is this what they meant?

Mistake #3: Medical Breakthroughs Would Automatically Make Us Healthier

Much like the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of the Internet, the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003 promised great things. No longer would we be at the mercy of terrible terrible diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s, but would design genetic therapies that would rewire our bodies to find off disease by themselves.

The advances since then have been breathtaking. The Cancer Genome Atlas, which began in 2005, helped enable doctors to develop therapies targeted at specific mutations, rather than where in the body a tumor happened to be found. Later, CRISPR revolutionized synthetic biology, bringing down costs exponentially.

The rapid development of Covid-19 vaccines have shown how effective these new technologies are. Scientists have essentially engineered new viruses containing the viral genome to produce a few proteins, just enough to provoke an immune response but not nearly enough to make us sick. 20 years ago, this would have been considered science fiction. Today, it’s a reality.

Yet we are not healthier. Worldwide obesity has tripled since 1975 and has become an epidemic in the United States. Anxiety and depression have as well. American healthcare costs continue to rise even as life expectancy declines. Despite the incredible advance in our medical capability, we seem to be less healthy and more miserable.

Worse Than A Crime, It Was A Blunder

Whenever I bring up these points among technology people, they vigorously push back. Surely, they say, you can see the positive effects all around you. Can you imagine what the global pandemic would be like without digital technologies? Without videoconferencing? Hasn’t there been a significant global decline in extreme poverty and violence?

Yes. There have absolutely been real achievements. As someone who spent roughly half my adult life in Eastern Bloc countries, I can attest to how horrible the Soviet system was. Digital technology has certainly made our lives more convenient and, as noted above, medical advances have been very real and very significant.

However, technology is a process that involves both revealing and building. Yes, we revealed the power of market forces and the bankruptcy of the Soviet system, but failed to build a more prosperous and healthy society. In much the same way, we revealed the power of the microchip, miracle cures and many other things, but failed to put them to use in such a way that would make us measurably better off.

When faced with a failure this colossal, people often look for a villain. They want to blame the greed of corporations, the arrogance of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs or the incompetence of government bureaucrats. The truth is, as the old saying goes, it was worse than a crime, it was a blunder. We simply believed that market forces and technological advancement would work their magic and all would be well in hand.

By now we should know better. We need to hold ourselves accountable, make better choices and seek out greater truths.

— Article courtesy of the Digital Tonto blog
— Image credit: Pixabay

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How Companies Achieve Successful Change

Strategies for Successful Change

Visionary Leadership: Change must be spearheaded by leaders who are committed to a clear vision of the future. Their role is to communicate this vision and inspire others to share in it.
Engaging People: People support what they help create. Engaging employees at all levels in the change process can lead to more innovative solutions and greater buy-in.
Cultivating a Change-Ready Culture: A forward-thinking organizational culture welcomes change and views it as an opportunity for growth.
Continuous Communication: Open, transparent, and ongoing communication reduces uncertainty and builds trust, making transitions smoother.
Flexibility and Adaptability: Change initiatives must be adaptable to evolving circumstances and feedback.

Case Study 1: Nokia’s Transformation

Once a dominant player in the mobile phone market, Nokia faced existential threats as smartphones revolutionized the industry. Recognizing the urgency for change, Nokia embarked on a bold strategy to reinvent itself.

Through visionary leadership and a willingness to pivot, Nokia embraced a transformation from a phones-first business to a technology and networking giant. Key to this success was a leadership team that communicated a compelling vision for Nokia’s future, combined with a strategic partnership with Microsoft to streamline operations and accelerate technological development.

The change was not only structural but cultural; Nokia fostered an internal culture of agility and innovation, empowering its workforce to experiment and collaborate. This commitment to change readiness and adaptability ultimately led Nokia to regain its footing in the industry.

Case Study 2: Adobe’s Creative Cloud Shift

Adobe was known for its powerful suite of creative software, sold traditionally via one-time licenses. As the tech landscape evolved, Adobe foresaw the benefits of a subscription-based model. The shift to Adobe Creative Cloud was not just a product transition but a complete overhaul of its business model.

To navigate this change, Adobe’s leadership emphasized transparency and communication. They explained the benefits of the shift not only to their employees but also to their vast customer base. The company also invested heavily in training programs to help both staff and users transition smoothly to the new model.

Moreover, Adobe worked to cultivate a culture of continuous learning and resilience, enabling their teams to constantly adapt and adopt new methodologies that supported the subscription model. The result was a successful transformation that aligned with digital trends and provided a recurring revenue stream, setting a new industry standard.

Conclusion

Successful change is attainable for companies willing to lead with vision, engage their people, and invest in a culture ready to embrace new realities. The stories of Nokia and Adobe illustrate how a strategic approach to change management can turn potential crises into remarkable opportunities for growth and innovation. In mastering these elements, organizations not only drive transformation but also seize a competitive edge in their ever-evolving industries.

Image credit: Pexels

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