"Priorities are determined by the relative strengths of your needs in relation to the range of opportunities afforded by your current circumstances." - Mark Solms. In his book, "Homo Deus", Yuval Noah Harari explains that lawns offered no practical value - they weren't used for grazing animals or growing food. The size and neatness of the lawn became an undeniable symbol of status, a peacock display of wealth that couldn't be imitated. Devoting precious land or time to a lawn was unthinkable for peasants. For them, a 'lawn', if they had any, was not for relaxation but for survival, used to grow food. This historical nugget came to mind recently as I spoke to Neuropsychologist and author of 'The Hidden Spring', Mark Solms. Mark explains that needs and actions are interconnected and must be prioritized based on urgency. For example, we become aware of the need to go to the bathroom when it becomes urgent, a concept referred to as "latchkey urgency". This concept of prioritising needs also applies to organisations, which must determine critical needs based on their current circumstances. For example, I briefly worked as head of Innovation in a large bureaucratic organisation. I should have done my homework on the organisation and presumed we could foster a culture of innovation. However, I soon realised the reality of this week's Thursday Thought. You must also prioritise in an organisation. You cannot paint #innovation over the rust of a toxic culture. You must first tend to the "cultural lawn" before adding the innovative decor. This is even more pronounced if an organisation is fighting for survival. In "Organisational Fight or Flight Mode", businesses tend to double down on what we already know and become resistant to anything new. Research from former Innovation Show guest Bruce Lipton provides an interesting parallel. His work shows that cells switch between 'protection and' growth modes' based on the surrounding environment and signals from the environment, body, and brain. When a cell perceives a threatening environment, it focuses on protection, thus preventing growth. Conversely, the cell thrives in a non-threatening environment, promoting growth. The same can be applied to humans and their work environments. In a psychological climate of fear, people are less likely to take creative risks or invest in long-term planning. However, when the environment is supportive and non-threatening, individuals are more likely to thrive, plan, and grow. This is where the privilege of having a 'private lawn' comes into play. The 'private lawn' is the ability to have the time and space to plan, think and grow. For some of us, daily survival consumes all our time and energy, leaving no room for strategic thinking or planning. As business leaders, creating an environment where everyone can access their 'private lawn' - a space for growth, planning, and forward-thinking is crucial. However, we must also plan by priority.

Private Lawns, Planning: Protection or Growth

Paul Nunes has found that what matters is not just climbing your current S-curve, which is what you do to reach the top of a single successful business. Instead, he emphasises the equal importance of the moves you must make to your next business: making the jump to your future S-curve. His book reveals crucial insights for making such transitions, including: * Why traditional strategic planning won't allow you to find the "big-enough" market insights that are critical to superior performance * Why your top team must be refreshed before performance starts to wane * Why you need much more talent than you think, especially "serious talent" that will find you worthy of their time We welcome “Jumping the S-Curve: How to Beat the Growth Cycle, Get on Top, and Stay There”, Paul Nunes. &nbsp; In this episode, we discuss 00:00:00.000 Filling the Gap: Repeated Peaks of Business Performance 00:06:38.522 The Origin: Defining High-Performance Business 00:09:34.223 Kroger's Mistake: Not Investing in the Future 00:12:23.282 Creating Sustained Value and Jumping an S-Curve 00:16:49.711 The Nature of S-Curves and Technology's Impact 00:20:07.341 Jumping Three Curves Simultaneously: A Mind-Blowing Challenge 00:23:44.811 The Zenith Example: Jumping S-Curves or Getting Left Behind 00:26:29.471 The Importance of Big Hairy Audacious Goals 00:28:26.303 The Problem with BHAG and Matching Aspirations to Capabilities 00:34:11.000 The Importance of Listening to Insights and Sourcing Strategy 00:38:48.440 Average and low performers rely on their phones too much 00:41:53.306 The missed step of Apple with iTunes and the acquisition of Beats 00:44:59.325 Balancing short-term profits and investing in future waves 00:48:20.841 Balancing streaming profits and investing in new content creation 00:50:59.949 Surprising Price Difference in India 00:51:06.609 Scaling too hastily can lead to problems 00:54:16.844 The importance of understanding what creates value before scaling 01:00:30.502 Designing with shared components in automotive industry 01:03:32.600 Price point and competence before scaling in consumer products 01:06:29.449 Collecting vinyl records and now books

Jumping the S-Curve - Paul Nunes Part 1

Paul Nunes has found that what matters is not just climbing your current S-curve, which is what you do to reach the top of a single successful business. Instead, he emphasises the equal importance of the moves you must make to your next business: making the jump to your future S-curve. His book reveals crucial insights for making such transitions, including: * Why traditional strategic planning won't allow you to find the "big-enough" market insights that are critical to superior performance * Why your top team must be refreshed before performance starts to wane * Why you need much more talent than you think, especially "serious talent" that will find you worthy of their time We welcome back for Par 2, “Jumping the S-Curve: How to Beat the Growth Cycle, Get on Top, and Stay There”, Paul Nunes. &nbsp; 00:00:00.094 Introduction and Importance of Recognizing Stall Points 00:01:51.468 The Real Question: Where Are You in Your Products? 00:09:00.634 Shifting Focus from Cool Phone Features to Reliable Networks 00:12:42.280 Potential Impact of 20% Price Increase on Buyers 00:12:49.050 The Power of Pricing and Competitors 00:15:46.209 The Importance of Scaling and Servicing Demand 00:19:14.833 Strategic Flexibility and Divestment for High Performers 00:23:15.986 The Danger of Fixating on Efficiency and Cost Management 00:25:00.592 Focusing on current success, time to think about next steps 00:29:03.240 The importance of seeing the bigger picture and avoiding tunnel vision 00:32:45.856 Waiting too long for the next big move 00:35:03.439 The Challenge of Technological Obsolescence 00:38:50.137 The Need for Resale Markets and Recycling 00:42:11.000 Letting Go of Stranded Assets in Business 00:46:44.796 Borrowing vs. Profits: Paying off the Mortgage 00:50:47.794 Add-Centric Strategy: Edge of the Organization and Edge of Chaos 00:57:29.565 The Nature of Strategic Transitions and Leadership Selection 01:02:34.211 Changing Management Succession and Ownership of Capabilities 01:05:34.274 Establishing Hotbed Conditions for Talent Development 01:10:28.171 Investing in People and Building Capable Teams

Jumping the S-Curve - Paul Nunes Part 2

We have entered a fourth stage of innovation— the era of Big Bang Disruption. The new disrupters attack existing markets not just from the top, bottom, and sides but from all three at once. By tying their products to the exponential growth and falling costs of new technologies, their offerings can be simultaneously better, cheaper, and more customized. Not just for one group of users, but for all (or nearly all) customers. This isn’t disruptive innovation. It’s devastating innovation. &nbsp; 00:00:00.000 The Evolution of Innovation: Addressing Disruption 00:02:36.657 Three Styles of Innovation: Traditional, Cost, and Blue Ocean 00:06:23.894 Simplifying Business Strategies: Differentiation, Cost, and Customer Focus 00:07:20.966 The Challenge of Competing with Better Products 00:17:12.447 Leveraging cameras for innovative bottle tracking technology 00:19:56.153 The cost advantage of digital products and services 00:23:54.145 The phenomenon of better and cheaper innovation in various industries 00:26:44.172 The Impact of Information Spread and Market Realities 00:34:52.300 The Importance of Meeting Customer Breakthrough Points 00:36:20.074 Introduction to the concept of disciplined innovation 00:38:56.498 The power of recombining components in innovation 00:39:26.799 The Rise of Drones: A Phenomenon Explained 00:42:13.962 Rapid Fire Experiments and the Democratization of Customer Insight 00:47:26.683 Information and Access: The Challenges of Finding Information 00:49:04.340 The Power of Low Cost Components 00:49:31.700 Putting Screens on Refrigerators - Why Not? 00:52:04.248 Exponential Technologies Drive Down the Cost of R&amp;D 00:54:40.337 The Challenge of Finding the Threshold for Product Success 00:57:51.377 Broadening Horizons and Taking Time to Think for Workplace Change

Big Bang Disruption with Paul Nunes Part 3

Pivot to the Future is for leaders who seek to turn the existential threats of today and tomorrow into sustainable growth, with the courage to understand that a wise pivot strategy is not a one-time event but a commitment to a future of perpetual reinvention, where one pivot is followed by the next and the next. 

Based on Accenture's own experience of reinventing itself in the face of disruption, the company's real-world client work, and a rigorous two-year study of thousands of businesses across 30 industries, Pivot to the Future reveals methodical and bold moves for finding and releasing new sources of trapped value-unlocked by bridging the gap between what is technologically possible and how technologies are being used. The freed value enables companies to reinvent their legacy and current and new businesses simultaneously.

00:00:00.256 Harnessing Disruption: A Strategy for Future Relevance
00:03:08.439 Extending the Horizons: Balancing Old, Now, and New Businesses
00:11:22.493 The importance of a visionary CEO and leadership team
00:15:16.543 Majority of profits go to reinforcing existing businesses
00:19:15.760 Old trees provide shade and protection for the next generation
00:21:06.756 Conventional Wisdom vs New Wisdom: Exiting vs Exploiting Old Businesses
00:28:00.496 The Fallacy of Cash Cows in Rapidly Changing Markets
00:31:49.016 The Challenges of Electric Cars and Hybrid Technology
00:43:01.017 The Trapped Value Gap: Turning Disruption into Opportunity
00:47:41.371 Societal Value: How Society Benefits from Digital Transformation
00:49:00.914 The Evolution of Customer Segments and Channels

Pivot to the Future with Paul Nunes Part 6

To truly profit from disruption, an enterprise must be prepared to manage increasingly short windows of profitability, scaling up rapidly as customers embrace the new all at once, then scaling down nearly as fast when demand declines. Paul Nunes is the global managing director for thought leadership at Accenture Research. He leads the company in developing ground-breaking insights into technology and strategic business change. He is co-author of three books, Big Bang Disruption: Strategy in the Age of Devastating Innovation, Jumping the S-Curve: How to Beat the Growth Cycle, Get on Top, and Stay There, and Mass Affluence: 7 New Rules of Marketing to Today’s Consumers. It has been an absolute pleasure learning from him. &nbsp; 00:00:00.256 Introduction and Overview of the Series Finale 00:11:25.254 Creating a Company that Values Innovators 00:16:20.936 Balancing Wall Street Expectations and Innovation Goals 00:18:31.172 Jeff Bezos' Approach to Investor Relations 00:21:14.030 Managing Wall Street vs Managing to Wall Street 00:22:46.440 Effective Communication and Leadership in Challenging Times 00:32:40.338 Predicting Heart Attacks and Improving Sleep Patterns 00:36:12.004 The Profound Importance of Cell Phones 00:40:47.441 Companies Breaking New Ground through Strategies and Resource Allocation 00:45:35.337 Jio's success in leveraging 4G technology 00:48:06.392 Final thoughts

Pivot to the Future with Paul Nunes Part 7

Gautam Mukunda is an internationally recognized expert in leadership and innovation. He often jokes that his life’s ambition is to have the world’s most confusing resume and that he’s most of the way there. Gautam is a Research Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership, Senior Advisor to America’s Frontier Fund, the author of Indispensable: When Leaders Really Matter (Harvard Business Review Press, 2012) and Picking Presidents: How To Make The Most Consequential Decision in the World (University of California Press, 2022), and the host of Nasdaq’s podcast World Reimagined with Gautam Mukunda. Gautam has been a professor at Harvard Business School and Distinguished Visiting Professor at Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University. He was Head of Research at Rose Park Advisors, a specialized investment firm founded by his mentor Clayton Christensen, that invests using the theories of disruptive innovation. He has published articles in Harvard Business Review, Foreign Policy, Security Studies, Slate, Fast Company, Parameters, Politics and the Life Sciences, and Systems and Synthetic Biology on topics including leadership, reforming the financial sector, military innovation, network-centric warfare, the security and economic implications of synthetic biology, and the TV show Mad Men. His work has been profiled in the New York Times, Atlantic, New Yorker, Economist, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and on All Things Considered. He is the Exclusive Leadership Consultant to U.S. Soccer. Find  &nbsp; &nbsp;

Picking Presidents with Gautam Mukunda

Today’s book explains why supply chains are complicated to operate (and getting more challenging!). Fortunately, future managers can employ a combination of suitably educated employees and digital technology to manage ever-higher complexity successfully. People and companies can use digital technologies to make themselves more efficient and more effective in addressing the expanding and changing needs of the planet. Our guest is the author of a 1985 textbook on transportation networks and eight management books dealing with supply chain resilience, sustainability, and industrial clustering; we welcome the author of The Magic Conveyor Belt: Supply Chains, A.I., and The Future of Work, we welcome Professor Yossi Sheffi. &nbsp; 00:00:00.067 The Challenges of Operating Supply Chains 00:03:23.626 The Complexity of Supply Chains and Appreciation for Efforts 00:05:21.979 The Complexity of Global Supply Chains 00:06:57.421 Complexity of Supply Chains in Automobile Industry 00:13:35.997 The Surprising Complexity of the Banana Supply Chain 00:18:23.385 The Supply Chain: Synchronizing Supply and Demand 00:24:35.818 Unforeseen Impacts: How Disruptions Ripple Through the Chain 00:30:00.944 Supply Chain Managers: Victims of their own Success 00:32:40.419 Insights on Outsourcing and Offshoring in China 00:33:34.670 China's Rise as a Manufacturing Powerhouse 00:38:56.587 Mysterious Fibers Replacing Materials in Airplanes 00:39:11.269 China's Dominance in Bonding Agents and Rare Earth Materials 00:40:52.177 The Unpleasant Choices in Balancing Priorities 00:43:40.989 Outsourcing, Offshoring, and the Complexity of Supply Chains 00:51:38.755 The Complex and Efficient Manufacturing of Cheap T-Shirts 00:53:42.528 Conspicuous Consumption and Food Waste in the United States

Yossi Sheffi - The Magic Conveyor Belt Part 1

Part 2 covers the “Further Complexity and Challenges” of supply chains, and you explore how the last 50 years have added even more complexity. This part covers the rising demand for goods and the increasing consumer expectations for fast, perfect delivery services. 00:00:00.751 Introduction: Further Complexity and Challenges in Supply Chains 00:01:41.748 The Evolution of Industrial Revolutions 00:14:39.859 Short-term Focus of Wall Street and Cost Cutting 00:16:51.371 Ethical Companies with Veto Power in Supply Chain 00:19:05.497 Complexity of Supply Chain Leads to Lack of Transparency 00:22:18.074 The Hidden Structure of Supply Chains Revealed 00:22:58.371 Supplier Secrecy and Business Management 00:24:55.140 The Horsemeat Scandal: Lack of Awareness 00:26:35.611 IKEA's Past Controversies and Sustainability Efforts 00:29:55.209 The Function of Free Trade Zones 00:35:23.620 The Dilemma of Climate Change and Consumer Behavior 00:39:22.406 VUCA: Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity in Supply Chains 00:41:55.300 Moving Final Production Step to Vietnam for Political Reasons 00:42:27.457 Environmental concerns and reliance on Chinese materials 00:45:22.956 Costly Investments in Emergency Operations and Drills 00:48:11.291 The Success Story of Private Equity and Innovation 00:50:47.965 The Bullwhip Effect: Supplier Reactions and Market Fluctuations Mentioned by Yossi: In a visit to MIT, FedEx founder Frederick Smith shares thoughts on innovation:  &nbsp;

Yossi Sheffi - The Magic Conveyor Belt Part 2

In 2020, the World Economic Forum estimated that AI might destroy 85 million jobs by 2025. A 2022 study by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that between 9 and 47% of jobs could be automated, particularly jobs requiring lower education levels or more routine tasks. Not surprisingly, workers, particularly low-skilled ones, perceive automation—specifically robots—as threatening their jobs. Fear and resentment toward job-stealing machines are not new. Throughout the series of overlapping industrial revolutions in history, many jobs were indeed diminished or replaced by machines. Yet, other jobs were created over time. Prof Yossi Sheffi shares his thoughts on the future of work and workers. We welcome back Professor Yossi Sheffi for the finale of our series on his book, "The Magic Conveyor Belt: Supply Chains, A.I., and The Future of Work." &nbsp; 00:00:00.000 The Impact of Automation on Jobs 00:02:39.488 The Fifth Industrial Revolution and Amplifying Human Creativity 00:03:46.708 Job Creation and Unemployment Rates 00:06:23.573 The Slow Pace of Job Displacement and Regulation 00:09:00.668 Technology Always Wins, Companies Must Invest in Workers' Skills 00:11:47.371 Negotiating for Skill Upgrades in the Advanced AI World 00:14:13.311 Regulation as a Short-Term Game, Reinvesting in Skills 00:16:12.024 The Impact of Automation on Logistics Jobs 00:17:26.473 The Rise of Autonomous Tracking and Workforce Preparation 00:19:36.312 The Impact of Model T on Job Creation 00:21:40.769 The Three Stages of Job Transformation: De-skilling, Scaling, Elimination 00:24:40.238 Job Changes and Creation in Automation 00:27:13.249 AI and Automation: Journalists' Fears and Future Job Opportunities 00:35:49.159 The Importance of Purpose After Retirement 00:36:50.790 The Importance of Investing in the Future 00:40:07.188 Staying Relevant in an Evolving Job Market 00:44:16.591 The Social Dimension of Automated Jobs 00:47:35.298 Embracing Change and Adapting to Working with Machines &nbsp; That HBR article Yossi mentions:&nbsp;

Yossi Sheffi - The Magic Conveyor Belt Part 3

This episode offers practical guidance for teams and organisations who are&nbsp;serious about success in the modern economy. With so much riding on innovation, creativity, and spark, it is essential to attract and retain quality talent—but what good does this talent do if no one is able to speak their mind? The traditional culture of "fitting in" and "going along" spells doom in the knowledge economy. Success requires a continuous influx of new ideas, new challenges, and critical thought, and the interpersonal climate must not suppress, silence, ridicule or intimidate. Not every idea is good, and yes there are stupid questions, and yes dissent can slow things down, but talking through these things is an essential part of the creative process. People must be allowed to voice half-finished thoughts, ask questions from left field, and brainstorm out loud; it creates a culture in which a minor flub or momentary lapse is no big deal, and where actual mistakes are owned and corrected, and where the next left-field idea could be the next big thing. Today we explore a culture of psychological safety and provide a blueprint for bringing it to life. We explore the link between psychological safety and high performance Create a culture where it's "safe" to express ideas, ask questions, and admit mistakes nurture the level of engagement and candour required in today's knowledge economy How can we fertilise creativity, clarify goals, achieve accountability, redefine leadership, and much more. Psychological safety helps bring about this most critical transformation. We welcome the author The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth and the mother of the concept of Psychological safety, it gives me great pleasure to welcome Amy C. Edmondson More about Amy here: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/profile.aspx?facId=6451

The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth - Amy C. Edmondson

A Global weekly show interviewing authors to inspire, educate and inform the business world and the curious. 

Presented by the author of "Undisruptable", this Global show speaks of something greater beyond innovation, disruption and technology. It speaks to the human need to learn: how to adapt and love a changing world. It embraces the spirit of constant change, of staying receptive, of always learning.

The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth - Amy C. Edmondson

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