5 Images to Guide Organization Renewal

I've spent decades helping executive teams renew their organizations to keep them healthy and relevant.  I've learned  a lot while working for marquee clients around the world.  In fact I often feel swamped by my learnings - they sometimes seem to be contradictory.

So recently I sat down to answer the question: "what are the basic principles for organizational renewal?"  What is the core to my work?  Where are the safe harbors to which I return when the seas of change are in turmoil.  I came up with five principles and added an image to each.  They should be self-explanatory.  

Here you go.  Enjoy!

Well, that's my career in organizational renewal.  

I'm looking to share what I have learned through: keynote addresses, workshops, and intense consulting assignments.  I'd like to hear from you, so click here to send me a direct email so we can find time to talk.

Ron Johnson – Questions about Innovation & Change

Did the Apple fall too far from the tree?

I live in Dallas.  My personal case study for the past two years has been Ron Johnson as the CEO of JC Penny.  The business section of the local paper tells me that my study is over.  Johnson has been fired.  His style, innovations, and vision of change managed to drive the stock from $35 to $15.  Oooops!

Most people know Ron Johnson as the genius behind the Apple Genius Bar.  He’s the guy that changed the face of retail.  He gave us wide-open spaces, a place for kids to play, and chest high tables to play with our tablets.  I’ve been to his flagship stores in New York City and London, not as a customer but as a tourist. 

Ron Johnson has gravitas.  So when he took over JC Penny in June 2011 I bought a front row seat.  I’m a change and innovation practitioner.  I wanted to learn at the foot of the master.  Closing out 2011 everything looked good.  Johnson announced: 

• his vision to make JC Penny “America’s favorite store;” 
• new people he wanted on the bus; 
• “fair and square” pricing supported by a new logo dominated by a “square” – no more confusing coupons and complex pricing, just everyday low prices and value; and 
• shift from a promotional department store to boutique stores within the store.

It didn't work.  What was left of JC Penny’s loyal customer base abandoned the store in droves.

I don’t know Ron Johnson.  I’m not his apologist.  But what did he do wrong?  Why did he fail?  Didn’t Johnson do all the things that change managers and innovators implore of their clients? 

• Set a vision, commit to it, and get in front of it 
• Change out the old executives with their defense of legacy
• Challenge orthodoxies like coupons, discount pricing, and spiff’s 
• Know the unarticulated needs of customers – like Apple has done so well

All of this advice resulted in failure, but I can only find two rationalizations for why it didn’t work: 

1. Change is a journey – even in an exponentially changing world.  The impatience of the Board for shareholder returns trumped this needed transformation
2. Test and learn – the innovators mantra.  Johnson seems to have pushed ahead with the arrogant leaders mantra of “got-a-hunch, bet-a-bunch”

But is this the full explanation?  Maybe there is a part of the real world that says that organizations, like natural species, have a shelf life.  Maybe the world just moves past the installed base of business.  Maybe death is natural, and should be accepted.

When we study success we ascribe it to the actions we want to observe.  When we study failure we do so to make the point that the leader didn’t follow the certified game plan.  That’s not the Ron Johnson case, from what I understand.   

Can we, as change agents and innovators, learn from JC Penny, or are we afraid to?

Change Management Wisdom From My Top 5 CEO’s!

Help Me Figure It Out!

“Whatever happened to naked fear?”  The CEO on one of my first change jobs caught me off guard with this question.  It influenced my career.  So I got thinking about the top CEO’s I’ve worked with and culled out some other mind breakers that have shaken me and formed my prejudices about organization transformation.  I chose the top 5.  Here they are – in chronological order.

1. Whatever Happened to Naked Fear?

This happened early in my career.   A lot of the executives in the 1970’s had learned about management and leadership as officers in World War II.  They understood the need for clarity of mission and discipline in execution.  Usually the mission devolved from on high and execution was within defined parameters.

I was naïve and had bought into some of the new theories about “humanity” in “personnel management.”  There was an emerging idea that people should participate in defining the mission and be empowered to execute within broad parameters.

I came up against a grizzled veteran who was struggling to see the benefit of a new way.  The old way worked.  We had won the war.

My struggle isn’t with the executive, because in many ways I’ve come to believe in his type of strong leadership – particularly in this era of record low employee engagement.

My struggle is with the incessant volumes of literature that paint participation and empowerment as new.  It isn’t.  We know more about it.  We’ve polished it more.  We aggrandize it, but it isn’t new.

Lesson #1:  Empowerment and participation aren’t the only way.

2. There’s Nothing Attached to the Strings!

I was consulting to a CEO to implement some new management techniques in the business.  I worked with him, his executive team, and project teams for several months to come up with the definitive implementation plan of: issues, goals, projects, and accountabilities.  As he signed off on the tome he sighed:

“People think all I do all day is sit up here and pull strings.  Well I do, but there is nothing attached to those strings.”

That simple comment taught me the fallacy of the CEO.  We tend to believe that with all of their positional power and personal influence that they can do miracles.  In change management the #1 reason for failure is cited as the “lack of leadership commitment.”  Don’t believe it for a minute.  Leaders are committed, but they need help tying the strings together.

Lesson #2:  Knowing the answer is only half of the solution; knowing what to do with it is the other half.

3. Don’t Believe What You Believe!

I was consulting to the CEO of a private company that had won a multi-billion dollar, long-term contract to privatize and manage an iconic government service.

We had about a dozen bi-party “tables” examining the major transition issues.  We were in heavy negotiations with government officials.  Things were not going well.

My CEO and his counterpart convened a meeting of “table leaders.”  There were about 30 people in the boardroom.  It turned into an emotional, pressure filled “knock ‘em down drag ‘em out.”  The two CEO’s were bulls at center stage.  We were scolded and told to get back to work.

That night my CEO called me and asked if I wanted to play golf the next day.  I agreed to meet him for lunch on the verandah of his club.  As I walked up to his table you know who was sitting with him – his counter-CEO.   The whole meeting had been staged.  They were both angry about the “table gridlock” and decided to blow the whole thing up and lay down the law.

As we teed off my CEO told me to “never believe what you believe.”  Since that day I’m the first to examine: orthodoxies, paradigms, myths and legends.

Lesson #3:  When you're working with CEO’s there are no rules.

4. It’s About More than the Money!

About a decade ago I was asked to lead a customer loyalty initiative for a large global manufacturing company. 

In my first meeting with the CEO I asked why customer loyalty had become a priority.  He said that he was near the end of his career; he’d made a lot of money for himself and others.  But he felt that leaving might be like taking his hand out of a bucket of water.  Before long there would be little evidence of his time at the helm. 

He was searching for something that had sustaining power.  He wanted the customer experience to differentiate the company in what had become a price-driven commodity industry.

One thing he knew was that deeply ingrained silo metrics were getting in between employees and their customers.  Sure, numbers were essential for setting goals and understanding performance; however, they got in the way of people doing the right things.

He rejected the adage: “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”  He had concluded: “if you're measuring it, you're not leading  it.”

Much of our job was to set up a tension between internal metrics and external outcomes.  Resolving the tension was usually a matter of how strongly the company believed in its stated values about employees and customers.

Lesson #4:  Beware of metrics – they work.

5. I Can Create Meaningful Work!

Recently I finished a two-year assignment in Asia.  We were asked to transform a large complex organization.  The project started in the usual way – working with the CEO and executives to describe the current and future states.  It was boring and uninspiring.  Their business sounded just like all others in their industry.

Yet, the CEO was an energizing leader.  He was far from boring and totally inspiring.  He emoted a passion that wasn’t in the written words of mission, strategy, and business plans. 

One evening the CEO invited our team to dinner.  I took this informal opportunity to dig deeper into why he took on this challenging job.  His passionate response was surprising and revealing.

He knew that his position gave him tremendous power to shape the working lives of young people in his country.  His view was that his country had gained its economic strength by doing the outsourcing work from the west.  He believed that he could influence the creation of thousands of creative-content jobs, not only in the company he led but also throughout the nation.

This was a turning point in our work.  When we better understood him, we better understood our job.

Lesson #5:  CEO’s have a passion that drives them.  You’ve just got to find it.

Our leaders influence our lives.  These CEO’s deeply shaped the way I do my work.

Dam Busters: The Best Innovation Movie - Ever

60 Feet From The Surface

Where do good ideas come from?  The best answer I’ve found is in Steve Johnson’s book: Where Good Ideas Come From: the natural history of Innovation.  Johnson takes us through a great journey explaining the power and capacity of our brains; how ideas stimulate our brains; and the great “ah-ha” moments of people Darwin and Einstein. 

The book is good stuff, but it’s confined on pages.  If you want to bring idea generation and implementation to life then you have to watch the best innovation movie ever: DamBusters.

Note: I’m not aggrandizing the movie or its veracity (nor do I condone the name of the dog in the film).  It was released in 1955 when much of the story was still classified in the filing cabinets of the British war office.  In fact recent documentaries challenge most of the portrayals in the film except for the courage of the war fighters. 

Having made my disclaimer here is a summary of the film.

Dam Busters is about the scientific and execution innovations needed to support the bombing of dams in the Ruhr valley of Germany in 1943.  The science innovations are attributed to Barnes Wallis who believed that he could invent a bomb to skip across the waters above the dams and then climb down the wall of the dam before exploding.  The execution innovations are attributed to Guy Gibson who was the wing commander of the 19 Lancaster bombers of 617 squadron that flew the mission.

The parts of the film about Wallis are interesting from a “game changer” innovation point of view.  Wallis scopes the problem then sorts through several hypotheses before arriving at the idea of the “bouncing” bomb.  Then we see him deal with the bureaucratic barriers of: orthodoxy and resourcing.  He is constantly saved by experiments that make his idea tangible to decision makers.

Getting the bomb is only half of the problem; the other half is knowing what to do with it.  That is, execution.  This is where Guy Gibson comes to play.  Gibson was only 24 years old (he died in a plane crash a year after the raid) and he had never distinguished himself academically.  His only passion was flying.  He innovates many new training techniques for his crews to perfect low level flying and navigation at night. 

However, flying precision is only part of the solution.  The real question is how to drop a bomb 6000 feet from the target, at a height of exactly 60 feet while flying at 240 miles per hour.  This is 1943.  Neither GPS nor Siri were around to help.  Gibson’s solutions are a schooling in how innovation should take place within organizations.  His answers are practical, elegant, and resourceful.

• Flying at 60 feet: 

Flying at 240 miles per hour was not a problem.  Flight instruments were precise enough for this.  However, being exactly 60 feet off the surface of the water was a challenge.  Altimeters were not accurate at this height and eye-balling the height was inconsistent.

Gibson and his men worked on this but were frustrated.  Out of exhaustion Gibson decided to take a night off.  He went to a theatre production.  While watching the star performer he realized that she was captured in intersecting spotlights.  Bingo!

Gibson outfitted the Lancasters with lights on the under part of each wing.  When the lights intersected on the water the plane was at 60 feet.

• Dropping 6000 feet out: 

Speed and height had been solved, but not distance.  Again, the answer was in ingenuity.

While mulling over the distance problem Gibson was playing with a wire coat hanger.  As he spun it around he had an idea.  Could the coat hanger be used as a bombsite? 

Gibson hypothesized that if held the hook at his nose there must be a way to determine distance from the dam.  The answer lay in the towers that were at either end of the dams.  Gibson figured that if the tips of the coat hanger were bent up at the right point then when the tips sited on both towers the plane would be exactly 6000 feet form the target.

The bomber crews didn’t actually use coat hangers.  They developed more sophisticated (but still rudimentary) tools; however, the principle was the same.  The dilemma of 6000 feet was solved.

Although I like the Wallis story, I love the Gibson story – it really illustrates the ideas in Johnson’s book.  I work with companies all the time who want to “innovate.”  They know their future is tied to their capability to innovate; however, they just don’t know how it happens.  They set innovation and commercialization goals; they ask teams to brainstorm and draw on open innovation; and if they do come up with ideas the ideas often languish in the land of dreams.

Clearly Wallis tells us that we need to hypothesize, we need to experiment, and we need to break orthodoxies.  But Gibson gives practical advice for everyone in business.  If we want innovation we need a few other things first, such as:

• Knowledge:  Innovation isn’t for neophytes.  You need fundamental knowledge, and even mastery in your domain.  Gibson knew how to fly.  His solutions were rooted in his passion.
• Stimulation:  Innovation isn’t for hermits.  Gibson had ideas.  His ideas were often unworkable, but he kept talking to people.  Stimulation begets more stimulation.  Serendipity comes from disciplined searching.
• Soak Time:  Innovation isn’t for people on the run.  “Ah-ha” moments come from deep incubation.  Often our brains deliver us answers when we’re not looking - even in a theater.

What does the innovation capability look like in your organization?  Where will good ideas come from?  Are you giving innovation a chance?  If you need some guidance rent the film and learn from Barnes Wallis and Guy Gibson.

Powerful Ideas Drive Transformation

Olleh KT (formerly Korean Telecom) has to change. Its goal is to double revenue by 2020; however, its core business is in decline.

To grow, and even survive, it will need to fill the revenue gap with new products & services. Doing this requires ideas. New ideas. Powerful ideas.

For more than a year, Bud Taylor led teams of KT professionals in the Mobile & Enterprise business units in their quest for radical ideas that could be implemented in a short cycle.

Crashing Lenses = Ideas
Generating radical ideas starts by asking new questions to find new answers. This is done by using the power of four lenses:
1. Discontinuities
2. Customer Insights
3. Core Competence
4. Orthodoxies

By crashing these lenses we can see opportunities that used to be concealed.

At KT we generated 1000’s of idea candidates from every corner of the organization. Small, dedicated teams synthesized and grouped these candidates into domains and from here they selected the first business opportunities.

Next the high impact business opportunities were explored and expanded; business models were refined; action plans developed, approved, & implemented.

The teams made big changes in:
• Customer service
• Online sales channels
• Retail operations
• Smartphone & tablet sales
• Account management, &
• Operational processes

Idea Graveyard
It wasn’t always easy. Often we had to call on the executive team for help to stop ideas from going to the natural graveyards caused by:
• Silo politics
• Committed resources
• Lack of priority, &
• Bureaucratic controls

In fact we leaned heavily on the executive team. We involved them as sponsors in all of the work & we held working sessions every month to break through barriers & develop their skills as leaders of Innovation.

The Result
It’s been a long & continuing journey that has engaged employees, changed the culture & built capability for the future.