by Roger Dennis

Cities, companies and innovation

Geoffrey West is a physicist by training, but has crossed over into theories of biology, and then to theories about cities.  More recently he has started to look at companies, and some of his research is illuminating with respect to the need for innovation in organisations.

His observation about cities is that they need diversity in order to grow, and companies need similar:

“…in what way can you make a company more like a city?” West asks. “You allow at least part of it to be a little more organic, to grow in a natural way, and let it be much more open to having mavericks, naysayers, and people with odd ideas hanging around. Allow a little bit more room for bullshit. You need some mechanism to somehow break this straitjacket that big companies take on as they grow.”

You can get further context from the full article here:  The Fortune 500 Teller

by Roger Dennis

VUCA – volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous

One of the themes emerging from a range of sources in the foresight arena around the world is that it’s increasingly hard to understand where the world is going.  An acronym that helps describe this is VUCA:

It’s an acronym developed by the U.S. military after the collapse of the Soviet Union to describe a multipolar world: volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. Volatility reflects the speed and turbulence of change. Uncertainty means that outcomes, even from familiar actions, are less predictable. Complexity indicates the vastness of interdependencies in globally connected economies and societies. And ambiguity conveys the multitude of options and potential outcomes resulting from them. Where once we could count on the seeming certainty and predictability of binary choices — capitalism versus communism, democracy versus autocracy, Corn Flakes versus kasha — choices and consequences are now far less clear.

Source: Leading in an Increasingly VUCA World

by Roger Dennis

Economist on the relevance of the blockchain

 

 

 

 

If you are not familiar with the BlockChain, the Economist has an excellent primer on it which goes beyond the simple first-mover of BitCoin.

The graphic below is a good explanation about how the chain is built, and how it’s kept unique.

Towards the end of the article is a section that nails why it’s important beyond currency:

One of the areas where such ideas could have radical effects is in the “internet of things”—a network of billions of previously mute everyday objects such as fridges, doorstops and lawn sprinklers. A recent report from IBM entitled “Device Democracy” argues that it would be impossible to keep track of and manage these billions of devices centrally, and unwise to to try; such attempts would make them vulnerable to hacking attacks and government surveillance. Distributed registers seem a good alternative.

The sort of programmability Ethereum offers does not just allow people’s property to be tracked and registered. It allows it to be used in new sorts of ways. Thus a car-key embedded in the Ethereum blockchain could be sold or rented out in all manner of rule-based ways, enabling new peer-to-peer schemes for renting or sharing cars. Further out, some talk of using the technology to make by-then-self-driving cars self-owning, to boot. Such vehicles could stash away some of the digital money they make from renting out their keys to pay for fuel, repairs and parking spaces, all according to preprogrammed rules.

 

Source: The great chain of being sure about things

by Roger Dennis

Why Curious People Are Destined for the C-Suite

In my mind innovation, creativity and curiosity are absolutely linked.  In an increasingly volatile world, these traits assume new value as they allow people to assemble disparate knowledge and recombine it in order to avoid ‘failures of imagination’ about possible futures.  PwC carried out a survey earlier this year of CEOs which threw out some fascinating insights:

When asked recently to name the one attribute CEOs will need most to succeed in the turbulent times ahead, Michael Dell, the chief executive of Dell, Inc., replied, “I would place my bet on curiosity.”Dell was responding to a 2015 PwC survey of more than a thousand CEOs, a number of whom cited “curiosity” and “open-mindedness” as leadership traits that are becoming increasingly critical in challenging times.

Source: Why Curious People Are Destined for the C-Suite

by Roger Dennis

Bran Ferren on the Art of Innovation

 

There’s a plethora of good advice in this article on innovation, especially the sections on art, business and innovation.  However the one piece that will probably ring true for large organisations is this:

At most companies that care, you can set up creative, innovative environments and teach everyone to function better within them. You can hire a Picasso. Or, better yet, you can hire several Picassos: Several extraordinary people with complementary talents, who each have strengths that the others don’t have. Having picked them, you can empower them. You can put them with 15 other people as good as they are, but in different ways. You then get a type of generative activity and creativity that you don’t get otherwise. Even then you still have to take that creativity, massage it, and create an output that’s valuable for a customer. Which is hard for most companies to do.

Meanwhile, odds are that the rest of your organization, especially middle management, will strive to eliminate them. So you need to give them top cover.

Never underestimate the need for top cover.

Source: Bran Ferren on the Art of Innovation

by Roger Dennis

Why A PayPal Executive Is Being Mentored By His Millennial Employees

When I give presentations at conferences, I often get asked by people one simple question: “how do I keep abreast of all this new stuff?”  My response is that people should think about getting mentoring from people younger from themselves – ‘reverse mentoring.’

Fast Company had a short piece on this recently, and it highlighted some of the benefits:

Shivananda says reverse mentoring also helps leaders connect with millennials. “Often leaders look at millennials and don’t understand them,” he says. “Reverse mentoring gives me an opportunity to do that, not just by learning in terms of technology, but by engaging and maximizing the workforce. It gives me an ability to demonstrate that this is a place to come to work and be appreciated. Somebody wants to understand and learn from them.”Reverse mentoring works best when it’s a reciprocal experience, says Shivananda, and this can help the junior employee grow in his or her own career by discussing their aspirations.

“Reverse mentoring should always be a mutual experience; I provide value by sharing my years of experience,” says Shivananda. “They give me value through sharing what’s new, what’s happening, and what’s relevant.”

Source: Why A PayPal Executive Is Being Mentored By His Millennial Employees

by Roger Dennis

Scanning to stop being ‘Ubered’

Over the last couple of years, and connected to the work on Sensing City, I’ve been advising Infratil on technology advances that could disrupt their business or provide opportunity.  This was referenced in the annual meeting where the Chair, Mark Tume said

…the challenge was to stop their investments from energy to the retirement sector getting “Uber-ed” or being able to “Uber” some else, in a reference to the Uber taxi service. Infratil would not be able to recognise the next Uber, Tume said and it was “incredibly difficult” to pick winners in new technology.

But Infratil’s board and management had to be open to the risks and how to react.  “So we don’t act like possums in the headlights” he said.

For example, Infratil had seen the rapid rise of solar power in Australia and the potential for new battery technology which would change the power sector landscape.

“The one I’m scared of is the one that blind-sides you”

Many organisations are increasingly susceptible to being blindsided, but only a few – like Infratil – have the foresight to seek to understand the risks and opportunities.

 

Full article here.

by Roger Dennis

strategy and business article: 20/20 Foresight

strategy and business have published a very readable article with specific tips for developing foresight capability, and it’s well worth the five minute read:

Many business leaders need to improve their perceptual acuity. Here’s how you can develop the ability to look around corners — and become a catalyst for change.

Source: 20/20 Foresight

by Roger Dennis

Linking strategy and innovation (article)

I’ve posted previously about the need to link foresight to strategy to innovation, but rarely seen concise articles that elaborate on this.  Strategy and Business has just posted one, and it’s worth looking at.  Here’s the first section of the article:

Strategic planning is different from innovation. When developing a strategy, you decide what your activities will be in the future, and you have to stay true to your predetermined course to see results. Furthermore, your plan includes a set of activities that you know how to do. But with innovation, your course of action is inherently unpredictable, and you know in advance that you’ll have to learn to do things that you don’t yet know how to do. Only after your innovation succeeds will you know what those things are.

That’s why your business strategy and your innovation practice must be kept apart: otherwise, the consistency of your plans may constrain your creativity and verve, and the surprises of innovation may distract you from your plan. At the same time, your strategy and innovation must also be aligned, or your organization will be incoherent and risk dissipating your efforts. So how can you integrate strategy and innovation, but still keep them separate?

The answer is simple in principle, but hard in practice. You probably have an annual strategy cycle of some kind; in most cases, the corporate office gives guidance to each unit, and then each unit maps out a strategic plan for the next one to five years. It is during this strategy cycle that you must ask the leaders of each unit to do two things:

1. Come up with a plan over the coming year for what that business unit knows how to do. This will involve about 99 percent of its time and activity.

2. Identify one or more innovations that the unit’s team would most like to tackle over that same year.

Source: The 1 Percent Innovation Solution