What Time is Your Company’s Domesday Clock At?
It’s time to shift your organization from the Industrial Age to the Innovation Age with an Innovation Transformation.
If you are playing digital and/or agile transformation right now, you are likely already behind the curve. Instead you need an Innovation Transformation to untether the creative potential of your people. There are people in your org ready to innovate, but right now they are likely stifled by bureaucracy. Break the bureaucracy beast and untether your people.
Have you heard of Haier? A Chinese based multinational home appliance and consumer electronics organization — the world’s largest appliance maker. Well, that is how to describe them now, but don’t be surprised to see this definition change over the next few years as this innovative hothouse of a company continues to expand into ever more markets. Watch this 6 minute video to see how remarkable a company they are — https://youtu.be/AhdjLXdxnFc.
This story of expanding into ever more markets is similar to that of Semco in Brazil. Semco started its life as a centrifuge manufacturer. In the 80’s it went through an Innovation Transformation and modernized its management practices. The result — Semco expanded into environmental consultancy, facilities management, real estate brokerage, and inventory support.
I believe both these examples share the same underlying magic sauce that will define the winners and losers of the Age of Disruption that we are in — the capability to ruthlessly innovate. Both of these companies have a radically different governance style to the defacto in America today. Their radical governance style is the source of their sauce!
Just like empires, your company has a beginning and an end. All the time that you are not continually reinventing and disrupting, your company’s Domesday Clock is moving closer to midnight.
The Solution — An Innovation Transformation
Mimic Haier and Semco! Untether your people and tap their collective intelligence. Forget innovation labs, instead allow every employee to be an innovation lab. Let some creative chaos into your org. Set things up for serendipity and random encounters (like Pixar). Allow people to share and follow their crazy ideas. Grant people slack and time to research. Experiment, experiment, experiment. Randomness and luck are bedfellows. Become your own venture capitalist. Don’t rely on buying other companies (solely) to fill your innovation gap — use that money to fund internal innovation. It’s working for Haier, it’s working for Semco — it can work for you.
The path to get there is non-trivial if you are still following the “best practices” of most all American Institutions. What worked in the previous era (the Era of Mass Production) no longer serves in the era of Disruption however. The “best practices” of the previous era are the shackles of the current era, and is what is holding you back from innovation.
If you are looking for a partner to help you in your Innovation Transformation journey, I highly recommend you check out the Semco Style Institute in your country. An Innovation Transformation encompasses agile, agility, culture and more. It is a wholistic transformation to move you to the next phase, and shift back the hands on your organization’s Doomsday Clock.
