STRATEGY NEEDS CREATIVITY
When business school students are taught strategy, they dutifully study mapping the five forces, for example, and drawing a value net, but they know that game-changing strategies come from somewhere more creative.
To generate groundbreaking strategies, executives need tools explicitly designed to foster creativity. A number of such tools already exist, often in practitioner-friendly forms. They take their inspiration more from how our thought processes work than from how industries or business models are structured. Thus they can help strategists invent a genuinely new way of
doing business.
The author explores four approaches to a breakthrough strategy:
(1) Contrast. Identify and challenge the assumptions undergirding the status quo.
(2) Combination. Connect products or services that seem independent from or even in tension with one another.
(3) Constraint. Look at limitations in an organization and turn them into strengths.
(4) Context. Consider how a similar problem was solved in an entirely different context surprising insights may emerge.
By Adam Brandenburger | HBR Reprint R1902C
When business school students are taught strategy, they dutifully study mapping the five forces, for example, and drawing a value net, but they know that game-changing strategies come from somewhere more creative.
To generate groundbreaking strategies, executives need tools explicitly designed to foster creativity. A number of such tools already exist, often in practitioner-friendly forms. They take their inspiration more from how our thought processes work than from how industries or business models are structured. Thus they can help strategists invent a genuinely new way of
doing business.
The author explores four approaches to a breakthrough strategy:
(1) Contrast. Identify and challenge the assumptions undergirding the status quo.
(2) Combination. Connect products or services that seem independent from or even in tension with one another.
(3) Constraint. Look at limitations in an organization and turn them into strengths.
(4) Context. Consider how a similar problem was solved in an entirely different context surprising insights may emerge.
By Adam Brandenburger | HBR Reprint R1902C
THE COLLABORATION BLIND SPOT
Leaders are well aware of the central role that cross-group collaboration plays in business today. So in planning for collaborative initiatives, they think carefully about logistics and processes, incentives and outcomes. And that makes perfect sense. But in doing so they forget to consider how the groups they’re asking to work together might experience the request—especially when they are being told to break down walls, divulge information, sacrifice autonomy, share resources, or even cede responsibilities. All too often, groups feel threatened by such demands: What if the collaboration is a sign that they’ve become less important to the company? What if they give up important resources and responsibilities and never get them back?
This is the “collaboration blind spot.” To make sure collaborative initiatives are successful, leaders must first identify threats to group security and take steps to minimize them and discourage defensive behaviors. Only then should they focus on process and outcomes.
By Lisa B. Kwan | HBR Reprint R1902D
Leaders are well aware of the central role that cross-group collaboration plays in business today. So in planning for collaborative initiatives, they think carefully about logistics and processes, incentives and outcomes. And that makes perfect sense. But in doing so they forget to consider how the groups they’re asking to work together might experience the request—especially when they are being told to break down walls, divulge information, sacrifice autonomy, share resources, or even cede responsibilities. All too often, groups feel threatened by such demands: What if the collaboration is a sign that they’ve become less important to the company? What if they give up important resources and responsibilities and never get them back?
This is the “collaboration blind spot.” To make sure collaborative initiatives are successful, leaders must first identify threats to group security and take steps to minimize them and discourage defensive behaviors. Only then should they focus on process and outcomes.
By Lisa B. Kwan | HBR Reprint R1902D
THE INNOVATION EQUATION
As start-ups grow into larger, more bureaucratic companies, they’re more likely to favor safe, incremental innovation over riskier, potentially breakthrough work.
In addressing this problem, leaders often point to their culture as the key to driving radical innovation. But structural levers can also help growing companies avoid the shift from truly innovative to incrementally so. These include the extent to which compensation reflects the outcome of projects as opposed to rank within the organization; ratio of project-skill fit (how suited employees are to the tasks they’re assigned) to return on politics (the benefits accrued by networking and politicking);
management span (the number of direct reports per leader); and salary step-up (the financial
benefits of rising in the hierarchy).
By Safi Bahcall | HBR Reprint R1902E
As start-ups grow into larger, more bureaucratic companies, they’re more likely to favor safe, incremental innovation over riskier, potentially breakthrough work.
In addressing this problem, leaders often point to their culture as the key to driving radical innovation. But structural levers can also help growing companies avoid the shift from truly innovative to incrementally so. These include the extent to which compensation reflects the outcome of projects as opposed to rank within the organization; ratio of project-skill fit (how suited employees are to the tasks they’re assigned) to return on politics (the benefits accrued by networking and politicking);
management span (the number of direct reports per leader); and salary step-up (the financial
benefits of rising in the hierarchy).
By Safi Bahcall | HBR Reprint R1902E
LEADING TEAMS
THE RIGHT WAY TO LEAD DESIGN THINKING
The authors studied almost two dozen major design-thinking projects within large private- and public-sector organizations in five countries and found that effective leadership is critical to their success. They focused not on how individual design teams did their work but on how the senior executives who commissioned the work interacted with and enabled it.
To employees accustomed to being told to be rational and objective, design-thinking methods can seem uncomfortably emotive. Being asked not to quickly converge on an answer can be difficult for people accustomed to valuing a clear direction, cost savings, and finishing sooner rather than later. Iterative prototyping and testing call on employees to repeatedly experience something they’ve historically tried to avoid: failure.
Consequently, those who are unfamiliar with design-thinking need guidance and support from leaders to navigate the landscape and productively channel their reactions to the approach. The authors have identified practices that executives can use to stay on top of such innovation projects and lead them to success.
By Christian Bason and Robert D. Austin | HBR Reprint R1902F
THE RIGHT WAY TO LEAD DESIGN THINKING
The authors studied almost two dozen major design-thinking projects within large private- and public-sector organizations in five countries and found that effective leadership is critical to their success. They focused not on how individual design teams did their work but on how the senior executives who commissioned the work interacted with and enabled it.
To employees accustomed to being told to be rational and objective, design-thinking methods can seem uncomfortably emotive. Being asked not to quickly converge on an answer can be difficult for people accustomed to valuing a clear direction, cost savings, and finishing sooner rather than later. Iterative prototyping and testing call on employees to repeatedly experience something they’ve historically tried to avoid: failure.
Consequently, those who are unfamiliar with design-thinking need guidance and support from leaders to navigate the landscape and productively channel their reactions to the approach. The authors have identified practices that executives can use to stay on top of such innovation projects and lead them to success.
By Christian Bason and Robert D. Austin | HBR Reprint R1902F
The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem. Treat problems as a challenge to be stronger and wiser.
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You can't fall if you don't climb. But there is no joy of living your whole life on the ground. Take a risk and climb even if you fall it will not take away your climbing experience and skills.
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Set goals so big that you cant achieve them until you grow into the kind of person who can. Grow in skill, in knowledge and in character
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No matter how many mistakes you make, how many times you fail or how slow you progess, you will still be ahead of everyone who isn't trying.
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