How breakthrough thinking can re-define what’s considered possible

What does your organisation need? A steady pair of hands to maintain business as usual? Or ambitious thinking to meet new challenges and bring about transformation?

If it’s the latter, then your leaders need breakthrough vision and capability. Sara Moore explains what that means and how your organisation can acquire it.

Changing the paradigm

Many organisations get settled into a groove. Things are working just like they always have, and they’re achieving their goals. There’s a temptation to think, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!’ However, this is not a strategy and often leads to survival and nothing more.

Perhaps you’ve fallen has fallen into this rut. You’re facing challenges – maybe from technological developments and AI – and finding your usual plans and practices are no longer working. You’ve tried making changes and they’ve failed, leaving your organisation spinning its tyres.

A breakthrough is when you realise that your organisation’s current assumptions are not “the truth”. It challenges your thinking. It’s like a photographer changing a lens and suddenly gaining a clearer focus. And it enables you to change the paradigm and re-set for innovation.

What prevents a breakthrough?

If you’re of a certain age, you may remember the first wave of touchscreens. They were, frankly, poorly conceived and frustrating to use. Many experts assumed they were a technological dead-end.

But Apple didn’t. It made a commitment to overcome the technical challenges that had thwarted so many companies. It researched, developed, innovated. And its game-changing iPhone swept away assumptions about touchscreen technology for good, ushering in a new era.

Just because someone else has been unable to achieve something, it doesn’t mean it is unachievable. If the means exist and the commitment is there, then it’s only your assumptions that are holding you back.

Breakthroughs deliver the possible, not pipedreams

Breakthroughs are not pipedreams – they’re about shifting mindsets to change what’s perceived as possible. When we train leaders, we show them a spectrum for goals. On one side is ‘business as usual’. Next is ‘stretch goals’. Then it’s ‘breakthrough’. And finally, ‘pipe dreams’. We’re aiming for organisations to get to the ‘breakthrough’ stage.

‘Business as usual’ looks like an organisation doing the same thing they’ve always done – but maybe expecting better results. ‘Stretch goals’ could be taking that same approach but putting teams under more pressure and taking on longer hours to get there. And ‘pipe dreams’ are pursuing goals that are too gar away (deciding to build a car that can fly around our streets in next 12 months when we are still getting to grips with driverless cars for example).

Breakthroughs, however, are called for when we make a commitment and there is a gap between our current belief about what is possible and the commitment we have made. This is where we are committing to a result that is not predictable based on our past performance and thinking. A breakthrough commitment creates a gap by design the second it is spoken. The gap forces us to re-examine our approach to everything.

A breakthrough commitment cannot be achieved, knowing what we know, doing what we have done before, being who we are. If it could, the result would be predictable. A breakthrough commitment gives people a glimpse of the possibility of going beyond their limitations. People get excited about taking on the breakthrough commitment because of what it means for them; what it makes possible for them.

If you want breakthroughs by design, it always starts by making a breakthrough commitments. You need to decide you will achieve an extraordinary result. You need to be like John F Kennedy committing to putting a man on the moon before the end of the decade. That commitment created a clearing for a breakthrough. It launched a hunt for solutions, in which experts figured out trajectories and navigation systems, and ended up changing the world.

Breakthroughs like this are built on years of experience, trial and error, and achievements. To get there requires mindset change, not magic.

The importance of language in shifting assumptions and possibilities

Crucially, Kennedy’s commitment was expressed in open-minded and positive language. Because while it’s hard to change our mindset, we can control what we’re saying. And that in turn affects our behaviour. For we all have assumptions. What’s important is that we are aware of them, and don’t let them creep into how we speak.

For example, if a colleague tells you they want to go for a promotion, you can close them down by telling them the interview will be hard. Or you can build them up with positive language. Speaking is a behaviour. And if we change our behaviour, it changes our thinking.

Breakthrough thinking is doing away with opinions, biases, and judgements and bringing in commitments, visions, and objectives. If our language is positively geared towards this innovative way of thinking, our actions will be too.

And that’s what working with Achieve Breakthrough is all about. So if you’re looking to push the boundaries of what’s possible, get in touch to explore how we can help you ignite your ambitions.

Delivering breakthroughs in practice

The supply chain department at a medical device company had an ambitious strategy – but a bureaucratic workplace culture with little staff engagement.

Achieve Breakthrough partnered with them to build a leadership and middle management programme with two key objectives: to transform the culture to a ‘can-do’ attitude; and to gain employee ownership for the business plan.

The results were impressive:

• Reduced cost base by £7 million (35%)
• Increased customer service from 80% to 97%
• Won ‘Manufacturer of the year’ for Operations and Supply Chain
• A positive culture shift to one of high responsibility and rapid action
• Creation of high-performing teams who coached others