Ever gone to a conference and heard stories from other great organizations about the innovative practices they are implementing? Ever come away from those conferences thinking, “How can I help our organization become an industry leader in such-and-such a practice?” If you have experienced these thoughts, you are not alone – many business and function leaders in organizations are constantly
Companies that successfully offer well-established platforms to their customers (like Apple, Airbnb, Uber, and Amazon) continue to receive a lot of attention and with good reason. Their platform business models have allowed them to gain greater market share, establish an ecosystem of goods/services, and offer differentiated experiences to their customers. But, how does a business model platform differ from more
Digital transformation is receiving a lot of press as businesses relentlessly redefine how they deliver value and relate with customers. The question that needs to be asked is, “How will digital transformation produce value and differentiation for my organization? In the midst of increased digital transformation “noise,” strategic and organization design implications are often assumed but not specified. Just like
Leveraging your executive team to co-create or co-design your organization is an organization design best practice. It creates buy-in from the organization, facilitates change management efforts, helps eliminate blind spots in the design, and ultimately creates a more competitive organization. For most executives and leaders that we work with, they understand this important design principle intuitively. However, we have found
In the past, I have written about how to measure your business transformation efforts and how alignment leaders and change partners alike can determine, as an organization, when a transformation is completed. This discussion sits squarely between these two subjects and attempts to examine the point at which customers and employees notice that organization change is happening—the moment of truth.
Best practices can be a powerful tool to help organizations improve their marketplace performance, differentiate their business, and help functions become more effective and efficient. However, best practices can also cause the opposite. Essentially, the constant quest for industry best practices can, at times, actually lead to less differentiation, effectiveness or efficiency. How can a business know when an organizational
What do you do when an aspect of your business doesn’t go as planned or in the way you had hoped? As executives, we’ve all experienced this. What does it take to properly diagnose the issue and ultimately develop a solution? Where do you start in order to get back on track? Most of the time, we jump to the
Ever been a part of an organizational transformation effort that just seemed like a long walk uphill in the rain? Too many organizations are undertaking more and more organization transformation efforts that are supposed to significantly change the organization’s ability to compete and deliver value. Yet, in reality, many of these efforts lead to missed deadlines, cost overruns, unclear or
One of the biggest stumbling blocks that we regularly see in organization transformations includes thinking that we need to speed through an organization design to get back to the “real” work of the organization. Although the benefits of true organization transformation are great, the reality is that it takes time, energy, and alignment leadership to make true transformation happen. When
When members of an organization – executives and staffers alike – feel like their organization lacks direction and focus, the refrain, “We don’t have a strategy” is heard echoing the halls. However, we have found that the causes of such opinions are more nuanced than simply a lack of strategy. In our experience, there are two underlying issues that are