Achieve Breakthrough Blog Post: 6 Impossible Things
#change Inspiration
1) DISRUPT OR BE DISRUPTED: LESSONS FROM INDUSTRY ON THE NEED TO ADAPT
Those of you who have worked with Achieve Breakthrough and been on our two day will know the story of Kodak because we use it as an example of how conventions of a category can prevent people from innovation. An inability to step outside of conventional wisdom has lead to the weakening of competitive positioning and in some cases the death of companies and even entire industries.
This month, we stumbled across an article citing the full story of the man behind the invention of digital photography at Kodak back in 1975. Engineer Steven Sasson was employed by Kodak back in the 1970’s and two years after he joined, he created a process that would disrupt not only his multi million dollar company but an entire industry. Sasson invented the process that allows us to make photos with our phones, send images around the world in seconds and share them with millions of people.
When sharing the invention with the board, their response was cited as “tepid” with many being stuck in the conventional thinking that determined the mindset of the category, namely that “Print had been with us for over 100 years, no one was complaining about prints, they were very inexpensive”, not to mention the fact that the entire business model relied on things running just as they always had. So nothing was broken, lets not fix it or adapt or evolve. The status quo was just fine thank you very much.
Sasson continued undeterred, sharing innovation after innovation, all of which were turned away because they ate into Kodak’s film sales. Kodak did, eventually, launch professional and consumer digital cameras but their inability as an organisation to fully embrace digital photography until it was too late. Arguably, their choice to operate within convention and to protect ageing business models instead of supporting emerging innovations, was one of the determining factors in Kodak’s filing of bankruptcy in 2012.
We share this story as a reminder of the limitations of conventional wisdom. Biography does not equal destiny. An inability to challenge the conventions of your company and your industry leads to a risk of being displaced. Take AirBnB who singlehandedly redefined the hospitality industry by harnessing the sharing economy. Or WhatsApp who are fast displacing telecoms companies. Digital technology is allowing multi billion dollar industries to be disrupted and the trend is set to continue.
Those set with predicting the future, Futureologists if you will, are suggesting that manufacturing, fashion retail and banking are the next to face the music. So how could this affect your business? We are working with our clients to commit to a bigger possibility, embrace the unconventional, utilise digital to disrupt their business model and stay ahead of the change because any other strategy could see companies suffering at the hands of others who are quicker to adapt, more resilience to setbacks and brave enough to make the first move!
Inspiration for this article came from articles in Tech Radar and BRW
2) AB IN THE PRESS: COLLABORATION - JUST THE SOFT OPTION?
This month, we met with the team at Management Today to discuss all things collaboration. Not a new subject by any means but true collaboration is an art and, if an organisation genuinely commits to fostering a collaborative culture, then the pay offs can be remarkable.
The ability to embrace rather than avoid conflict, recognising it as a proof point of true collaboration, is one of the core distinctions that we work with our clients on during our programmes. If our organisations are to thrive in the face of rapidly evolving and tech-driven world, we must welcome the opportunity to expand our capacity and build our internal expertise through external collaborations.
Founder of Achieve Breakthrough, Mike Straw, shared an interesting example of this dynamic at play, saying
“Apple’s partnership with IBM is a case in point, and would have been unthinkable a decade or two ago. Apple famously attacked IBM in an iconic TV commercial entitled ‘1984’, painting IBM as a big-brother-like figure protecting the status quo while Apple’s Macintosh provided a pathway to freedom. But subsequently they have collaborated on a number of projects, recently announcing 32 MobileFirst enterprise apps. And IBM has even begun to offer staff the choice between a Mac or PC at their work stations.”
The ability to embrace change as the only constant in our businesses is a core leadership capability that breakthrough leaders need to develop. The willingness to collaborate and to embrace the inevitable discomfort that lines this path is the sign of a leader who is committed to a future free from the narrative of the past and one who can create breakthrough results.
To read the article in full and join the conversation, click here
3) A LESSON FROM TED: BREAKTHROUGH FROM MIDDLE MANAGEMENT TO THE BOARD
The team enjoyed an insightful look at leadership this month through the TED talk of Susan Colantuono, a leadership expert from the USA and founder of an organisation committed to empowering women. In this short but incredibly interesting talk, Susan shares a different perspective about the contrast between the proportions of women that make up our middle management layers (around 50%) versus the same proportion of those that sit at board level. Rather than taking the popular stance of, hey what’s wrong with the latter, Susan shifts the perspective of the audience by asking us to consider the opportunity that sits within the former by asserting the “tremendous, awesome resource of leaders who are leading in middle management”. She says that the key to realising potential in our middle management layers and in helping them to progress up through the company lies in understanding the “missing 33%”, namely helping our middle managers to be, “recognised for using the greatness in them to achieve and sustain extraordinary outcomes by engaging the greatness in others.”
Susan argues that the key to progression for our middle managers, particularly women, lies firstly in understanding how to move beyond conventional careers advise and then secondly, understanding the power of mind-set. She says,
“Whether we're women or men, we have mind-sets about women and men, about careers in leadership, and these unexamined mind-sets won't close the gender gap at the top.”
She goes on to assert that, “We have to begin to focus more on developing and demonstrating the skills we have that show that we're people who understand our businesses, where they're headed, and our role in taking it there. That's what enables that breakthrough from middle management to leadership at the top.”
The idea of the missing 33% really resonated with the team at Achieve Breakthrough because at the heart of the idea is the ability to think differently. For some, the missing 33 per cent may lie in an idea waiting to be put into action, for others it may lie in mastering some of the distinctions of leadership like collaboration or responsibility. Either way, looking for the missing’s is a great practice to get into for helping your meet your commitments within your organisation and this article reminded us to make this part of our daily practice again too.
To watch the TED talk in full, click here
4) CHANGE MANAGEMENT: YOU ARE NOT A TREE!
The final weeks of the summer break mark the closing of chapter for many, personally and professionally. As we welcome in the final quarter of 2015, we get to thinking about what has been working well for us and our teams, what we may choose to do differently in the closing months of the year and the changes that may bring about the results that we are committed to.
Change can be a heady subject in organisations and in the light of some of the worries that change evokes, the seemingly easier choice is to take the path of least resistance, to do what you’ve always done because the fear associated with change can be too big. And in this thought lies the answer to how to manage change, personally and within our teams – choice.
In a recent piece in Success magazine, author Jim Rohn offered a poignantly effective piece of advice for those wrestling with change – “If you don’t like how things are, change it! You are not a tree”.
Rohn went on to share a series of beautifully written assertions about our relationship with the reality and lives that we are living today as the sum of the choices we have made to date. Rohn says,
“We created our current circumstances by our past choices. We have both the ability and the responsibility to make better choices beginning today. Those who are in search of the good life do not need more answers or more time to think things over to reach better conclusions. They need the truth”
When you next have a few minutes of free time, on your coffee break or your commute to work, take a look at this short article and ask yourself if you are harnessing your ability and responsibility to make useful choices in your life and career. And learn to recognise when you may be cursing the effect of your inability to make a different choice and in doing so see that you are in fact nourishing the cause. You can find the article here
5) THE REDEFINITION OF BUSINESS IN SOCIETY
This summer, a well known CEO published a long term ambition for her organisation which was to create “a society that is better for all”. A statement typical of an NGO? A not for profit? Or how about a $17bn global retail company?
The answer? The latter. Author of this statement is none other than Kingfisher CEO Veronique Laury. This statement embodies a movement that is fast gaining training across companies and industries around the world, addressing one core challenge. The end of business as usual and the redefinition of the role of business away from a conventional attitude which gives primacy to profit towards one which acknowledges that societal and economic value are both of significant to businesses, large and small
In a recent Guardian sustainable business article, Andrew Winston shares the stories of organisations who have embraced more socially driven strategies. The usual suspects appear – Unilever for their sustainability plan, Kingfisher for their socially driven business culture. The interesting element of the piece lies in a link to what Winston calls, the Big Pivot, namely the ability of our organisations to effect a “profound change in strategy, tactics and philosophy that will make our organisations more resilient and flexible in a volatile world. Winston argues that we need to pivot our mind-sets to solving societies biggest challenges in the first instances and then making profit as opposed to only engaging in social change where we feel we can make a quick and easy "win".
The shift towards more purpose driven strategies is an opportunity for leaders to redefine the parameters of their organisations and to create healthier economic futures. You can read Winston’s article here and watch a short video on The Big Pivot here
6) STORY FOR INSPIRATION - GROWING UP. THE PROCESS THAT NEVER ENDS.
Growing up. The one thing you want to do when you’re a kid but the stark reality when you reach your twenties hits you square between the eyes. But this month, we enjoyed seeing the funny side of growing up through a quirky piece on Upworthy entitled “Growing up is a process that never ends”. But imagine if we had the benefit of hindsight. Imagine if our 12 year old self could talk to our 8 year old self to reassure them that’s its okay to study hard or if your 30 year old self could tell your 21 year old self that “jeggings” are NEVER a good idea…
That’s the essence of our story for inspiration this month, The article takes you to a 4 minute video with advice through the ages that includes, “Dear seven-year-old. Stay weird. Love from an eight-year-old” and that of a 93 year old gentleman who tells you to ignore anyone else's advice because “No one knows what they’re doing anyway”
Our inspiration sat in one paragraph in this article, summarising the experiences of those on the video,
“You really just never know what you're going to get. And maybe that's the fun part.”
So live a little. Embrace the not knowing because when nothing is sure, everything is possible. Enjoy the video in full here
