Category Archives: Opportunity

  • 18
    Aug 20
  • 1

Direction, Not Destination

Category:Learning,Opportunity,Poem,Potential

We’re all on a journey.

Or we should be.

Many of us have stopped,

And remain stuck,

Afraid of what

Might lie ahead.

Some of us are on a journey

Dictated by others,

In an effort to please.

As we embrace our own journey

Avoid the advice

To pick a destination.

Our journey is without end.

There is no destination.

But let’s not wander aimlessly.

We need to find a direction

So that we can make progress

And keep looking ahead.

That direction

Needs to be our own direction,

Not someone else’s.

It’s the direction

That fills us with excitement

And drives us

To keep moving forward.

When we find that direction,

We’ll be unstoppable

And make great progress.

Our journey will be without end

Because there’s so much to explore

And experience.

We’ll savor what we see,

But we’ll always be drawn

Beyond the horizon.

  • 28
    Jul 20
  • 2

Far Beyond Fear

Category:Collaboration,Community,Connections,Emotions,Opportunity,Poem

Look far to overcome fear

And go far.

Fear shrinks our horizons,

Both in time and distance.

We become consumed

By the moment

And by what’s near us.

We lose perspective on

What’s ahead

And what’s in the world

Around us.

We need to

Expand our horizons.

If we look far enough ahead

We will see really big opportunities

If we look far enough around,

We will see many people who can help us

Achieve those opportunities

We’re not alone.

To look far

We need to look within.

Within, we will find

What we need.

We all have

A hunger for impact.

We all want to make a difference,

A big difference.

That will drive us to look far

And move far beyond our fear.

  • 21
    Jul 20
  • 10

From the Gig Economy to the Guild Economy

Category:Collaboration,Community,Connections,Creation Spaces,Flow,Institutional Innovation,Learning,Opportunity,Trust,Workgroups

More and more people are talking about the future of work. In those conversations, something that’s getting quite a bit of attention is the “gig economy,” where more and more work is being done by independent contractors and not by full-time employees. While that’s certainly an interesting trend, I prefer to look ahead and anticipate what’s next. In that context, I’d suggest that we’re going to evolve from a “gig economy” to a “guild economy.”

Forces at work

The growth of the gig economy is a result of many forces coming together. A core driver of the gig economy is the evolution of the scalable efficiency model that drives most of our large institutions. As I’ve written about elsewhere, the scalable efficiency model has shaped our large institutions around the world for at least the past century.

This model is driven by the belief that the key to success is to do things faster and cheaper at scale. Enormous wealth and institutional success have been the result, which is why institutional leaders are so wedded to this model.

But there’s a problem – actually, many problems. Efficiency is a diminishing returns proposition. The more efficient we become, the longer and harder we need to work to get the next increment of efficiency. Diminishing returns is a problem on its own, but it’s compounded by the fact that we live in a Big Shift world of mounting performance pressure – competition is intensifying, change is accelerating, and extreme disruptive events occur with increasing frequency.

The early growth of the gig economy

Rather than questioning the continuing value of scalable efficiency models, institutional leaders have a natural tendency to want to squeeze harder. One approach to cost-cutting that has gained increasing traction in the past several decades is the shift from full-time employees to contract labor. If the work to be done is variable, rather than constant, why pay a full-time employee when we could turn a fixed labor cost into a variable labor cost and simply hire a contract worker when a task needs to be done?

Even better, there’s an opportunity to save on labor costs because the employer doesn’t have to pay all those expensive employee benefits like health care insurance. When the work can be done remotely, the company can save even more money by finding contract workers in parts of the world where lower wages are the norm.

These are some of the reasons why gig work has grown rapidly over the past several decades. There’s also another reason which should be a bit of a red flag. I haven’t seen any statistics on this, but anecdotally I am seeing a growing number of workers leaving large institutions and striking out on their own because they are frustrated with the worker experience in large institutions. They’re driven by a desire to learn faster. They report to me that they’re developing their capabilities much more rapidly as an independent contractor than they ever could when they were stuck within one institution.

But, while there are some exceptions, most of the “gig work” being done today is done by individuals working on a transactional, project basis. They’re on their own. That’s what’s going to change.

The Big Shift and the imperative to learn faster

As I’ve already mentioned, the Big Shift is creating mounting performance pressure on all individuals and institutions. But, at the same time, the paradox is that the Big Shift is also creating exponentially expanding opportunity – we can create far more value with far less resource and far more quickly than would have been possible a few decades ago.

As we confront the paradox of the Big Shift, the imperative is to learn faster – that’s the most effective way to respond to mounting performance pressure, while at the same time addressing exponentially expanding opportunity. By learning faster, I mean creating new knowledge through action and reflection on impact achieved. Those who master the ability to learn faster will achieve much higher impact in a rapidly changing world.

But, here’s the challenge, the scalable efficiency model of our institutions is fundamentally hostile to this form of learning. It requires taking risk and improvising when the scalable efficiency model insists on tightly specifying and highly standardizing all tasks to be performed. It also insists that everyone deliver their results predictably and reliably without failure.

The impact on the gig economy

The gig economy, as it’s currently structured, also limits the potential to learn faster. Gig workers typically work as individuals and they are very transactionally driven. While gig workers can certainly learn by engaging as individuals in project work, that’s not the optimal way to learn. If we’re serious about accelerating learning and performance improvement, we need to come together in small groups (what I call “impact groups”) of 3-15 people who develop deep, trust-based relationships with each other based on a shared commitment to increasing impact.

We’re already starting to see some of that start to happen in the gig economy. Individual workers are discovering that there are others who share their passion and coming together so that they can work on projects as a group, rather than individuals.

I anticipate this is just the beginning. As gig workers begin to realize the need to accelerate their learning and performance improvement, they’re going to be driven to come together into small groups and offer their services as a group, rather than as individuals.

On the other side, institutions are going to begin to see that the real value of contract workers is the diversity of experience and expertise that they bring to the work. These contract workers can help the institution’s employees to learn faster by exposing them to different perspectives and approaches to addressing work. These institutions will begin to expand their focus beyond just cost savings and see gig workers as an opportunity to learn faster. While some of that may be accomplished in a “one-off” project with individual contractors, there will be even greater potential for learning if enduring, trust-based relationships are developed with specific gig groups over time.

The role of guilds

That sets the stage for a new way of organizing the gig economy. We’re going to begin to see impact groups forming and coming together into broader networks that will help them to learn even faster.

That’s where guilds come in. In Medieval times, guilds were a prominent way of organizing in urban areas to bring people together who were seeking to earn a living from a particular craft or trade. These guilds had many different roles, but a key one was to help their participants become better at their craft or trade. They were powerful learning organizations where participants learned through practice, rather than sitting in classrooms.

As independent workers become more aware of the imperative for accelerating learning, they will tend to affiliate into guilds that will help to connect them with others who might become part of their impact group and, more broadly, with other impact groups that share their passion for increasing impact in a particular set of activities. These guilds can help to knit together larger and larger networks of impact groups, generating something that I call “creation spaces,” to help scale and accelerate learning. For example, think of a guild that will help graphic designers to come together and learn from each other.

These guilds can play many different roles over time. One major role would be to provide the participants in their guilds with access to a variety of benefit programs like health care and life insurance that would be much more difficult to obtain as individuals. These guilds can also help to define and manage reputation systems that will help their participants to build a broader range of trust-based relationships. They can become rich environments for mutual aid among participants.

Beyond the gig economy, there’s another area that will see the re-emergence of guilds. That’s in product and service businesses that will increasingly fragment as customers demand more and more tailored products and services to serve their specific needs (see more about fragmentation trends in the economy here). The participants in these small, but very profitable, product and service businesses will see value in connecting with others in their particular domains so that they can all learn faster and create even more value with less resource. For example, think of a guild for craft chocolate companies that are serving very specific customer niches.

The potential limitations of guilds

In Medieval times, guilds had a mixed role. In part, they helped their members to learn faster together but, in another part, they often served as barriers to entry for others who wanted to practice the craft or trade. Often acting in collaboration with city governments, they would impose severe restrictions on those who could participate in a certain craft or trade. They often became very protectionist, limiting competition. (As you can see from the picture above, many of them excluded women)

The next generation of guilds needs to avoid the temptation to erect barriers. Rather than focusing on protecting existing stocks of knowledge, they need to be committed to enhancing and scaling flows of knowledge so that everyone can learn faster.

To address the opportunity to help participants to learn faster, these guilds need to find a way to move beyond fear of competition and foster the excitement that can come from addressing the exponentially expanding opportunities created by the Big Shift. Rather than embracing a scarcity mindset, these guilds need to cultivate an abundance mindset. They need to recognize that, the more people that come together, driven by a commitment to learn faster, the more opportunity there will be for value creation. It’s a very different heartset and mindset from the ones generated by the fear that is engulfing more and more of the world’s population.

The bottom line

The imperative to learn faster is going to motivate individuals to come together in very different ways. In at least one dimension, our future may represent a return to the past, when we see the re-emergence of guilds. Rather than isolated individuals driven by fear as they confront mounting performance pressures, we are likely to see people coming together, excited about the opportunity to learn faster and embrace exponentially expanding opportunity.

  • 08
    Jun 20
  • 0

Learning Communities – The Journey Ahead

Category:Collaboration,Community,Connections,Creation Spaces,Learning,Narratives,Opportunity,Passion

Now, more than ever, we need to learn faster. In a rapidly changing world, learning becomes a key driver of survival, not to mention success. But it’s a very different form of learning from the one we experienced in school or in our training programs – that learning is about sharing existing knowledge. That can be helpful but, in a rapidly changing world, keep in mind that existing knowledge becomes obsolete at an accelerating rate.

In this kind of world, the most valuable form of learning is creating new knowledge through action and by working together. How do we do that? We need to find ways to come together and participate in communities – but they’re a very different form of community than the ones that most of us know today.

Communities of interest

Many of us participate in communities of interest. They take many different forms. They could be a book club that meets monthly to discuss an interesting book. They could be an online social media group that comes together around a shared interest like gardening or blockchain. They could be a group that comes together in conferences framed around particular areas of interest – anything from certain genres of music to personal growth or business domains like marketing or digital technology.

These communities can vary significantly in size, ranging from 5-10 people in a book club to thousands of people at a large conference or in a social media group.

Participants in these groups share an interest and enjoy connecting with others to discuss this interest. Sure, there’s some learning that occurs in these groups but it’s fairly random and mainly about sharing existing knowledge.

Most of these communities are not driven to learn faster together. They’re just an opportunity to enjoy time together around shared interests. I wrote about the virtual version of these communities of interest more than 20 years ago in my book, Net Gain.

What’s missing in most of these communities of interest is an experienced and motivated moderator who can help the group to learn faster together. Moderators can be powerful catalysts for conversation and can help to focus the conversation on powerful questions that can inspire participants to come up with new ideas and insights as they embark on a shared quest to venture into areas they have not explored yet.

These groups also generally don’t create opportunities to step back and reflect. Do the participants carve out time on a regular basis to step back and reflect on what they’ve learned and on what new questions are emerging from their conversations? That’s very rare, but can be hugely valuable in focusing new learning.

Communities of impact

These are very different forms of communities. Participants in these communities are driven by a desire to act together in ways that can achieve increasing impact in a particular domain. It’s not just about action for the sake of action, it’s about achieving specific forms of impact. They are relentless in measuring that impact and seeking ways to increase their impact over time. That’s what motivates them to learn – they are seeking to discover new approaches that will help them to achieve more impact with less effort and fewer resources.

The core unit in these communities of impact is a small group of people – typically 5-15 people. In some of my other writing, I have referred to these units as “cells” or “teams.” These impact groups remain small because their success hinges on forming deep, trust-based relationships with each other. The participants in these impact groups get to know each other extremely well, both in terms of their strengths and their weaknesses, as well as their motivations. As I’ll discuss in another blog post, deep trust is a key to accelerating learning when it involves creating new knowledge. If the impact group gets much beyond 15 people, those deep, trust-based relationships become more challenging to build and maintain among all the participants.

These impact groups meet on a frequent basis – usually at least weekly and potentially even daily. As they form deep, trust-based relationships with each other, they become more willing to express their vulnerabilities and ask for help from others in their group. Participants in these impact groups connect on an emotional level and not just an intellectual level. They challenge each other if they sense that participants are becoming too passive or losing the excitement that motivates them to move beyond their comfort zone and they support each other when they sense that participants are becoming frustrated or overwhelmed by the roadblocks or obstacles they are encountering.

Participants in these impact groups are often driven by a very specific form of passion. I call it the “passion of the explorer” and I’ve written widely about it, including here and here. These impact groups can be found in areas that display sustained extreme performance improvement, including extreme sports and online war games.

Communities of impact scale by finding ways to connect the small impact groups into broader networks, that I have called “creation spaces.” In these creation spaces, impact groups can interact with the broader community and learn from the initiatives and experiences of the other impact groups in the community. These impact groups can pose questions to the broader network to see if anyone has any ideas or suggestions on how to come up with high impact answers. They can observe the approaches and impact achieved by other groups and develop new insights on how to achieve even more impact. There’s an interesting balance that emerges within these communities of impact – at one level, the impact groups are competing with each other to see who can achieve even greater impact but, at another level, they are collaborating with each other because they are driven by a shared commitment to increase impact.

Unfortunately, these communities of impact are very rare in our business and personal life. If we’re really committed to creating new knowledge through action together, we need to find ways to cultivate more of these communities of impact. This usually begins by finding an area that we are passionate about and then seeking to connect with others that share this passion and a desire to achieve increasing impact in that domain.

Often participating in these communities of impact can deepen our passion.  It can be very invigorating to connect with others who share our passion and to act together in ways that deliver increasing impact. That can help us to overcome our fear and deepen our excitement about the opportunity to make a real difference in areas that are meaningful to us.

These communities of impact can emerge from local initiatives, but they can also be catalyzed by organizers who see the potential for scaling learning. One powerful organizing tool to help cultivate communities of impact is something that I call opportunity-based narratives, that I have written about here and here. These narratives are very different from stories. They frame an inspiring opportunity out in the future, but they make it clear that addressing this opportunity requires many people to come together and take action. They are a call to action and a call to learn since they make it clear that the opportunity itself, and the approaches to addressing the opportunity, are not yet fully defined.

These opportunity-based narratives can help to focus the initiatives and learning of the participants in the communities of impact. They leave a lot of room for local improvisation, but they help to cultivate a shared commitment to the kind of impact that will make a real difference in helping this opportunity to materialize.

Physical communities

So, what does this have to do with the physical communities that we all live in? Most of these communities have a long history and they have basically become communities of convenience. We live there because we were raised there or because we were drawn by an opportunity for work or because of an attraction to a particular climate, setting or lifestyle. We likely have friends there but, unless it’s a very small town or neighborhood, we certainly don’t know everyone there.

Unfortunately, for an increasing number of physical communities, we’ve lost a deep sense of connection with the community and commitment to the success of the overall community. We have become increasingly passive and/or polarized.

Here’s an idea. What if we framed an opportunity-based narrative for our physical community – what amazing things could we accomplish if we all came together and committed to increasing our impact in addressing a shared opportunity? We could transform physical communities into communities of impact, starting with small impact groups, but rapidly scaling into networks that draw together more and more members of the community.

It can be done. Forty years ago, I was drawn to a physical community – Silicon Valley. There were many factors that attracted me, but one of the most powerful ones was the sense that this was a community driven by an opportunity-based narrative. More and more people were coming to Silicon Valley from all over the world because they were drawn by the opportunity to change the world by harnessing the growing potential of digital technology. It provided a sense of connection and shared commitment to increasing impact that I’ve found deeply inspiring for a number of decades.

Bottom line

We live in a world that is rapidly changing, bringing both exponentially expanding opportunity and mounting performance pressures. Harnessing the opportunity and overcoming the pressure will require all of us to learn faster, together. We can do that through communities of impact. If we can find ways to evolve our existing communities of interest and physical communities into communities of impact, we will find ways to come together to achieve far more of our potential. Let’s get started.

  • 21
    May 20
  • 1

Connecting for Impact

Category:Connections,Emotions,Movements,Narratives,Opportunity,Potential

For decades now, we’ve seen two types of movements unfolding around the world. They’re having impact, but they’re limited by their separation. Scalable and sustainable impact will hinge on finding ways to more effectively connect these parallel efforts.

Human potential

The human potential movement is one of these movements. In its current incarnation, it began to take shape in the 1960’s and 1970’s and has been steadily evolving since then. While many view this as a movement, the truth is that it’s actually a collection of strands that are addressing different dimensions of human potential – everything from stress reduction and bad habit elimination to spiritual growth and enhancing physical wellness.

What connects all these strands is a focus on the opportunity to help each of us achieve more of our potential as human beings. Participants in this movement are driven by the view that we as human beings have only tapped into a small portion of the potential that is available to all of us. There’s so much more potential to be accessed and drawn out.

Change movements

But there’s another set of movements that have been unfolding in parallel. These movements are focused on driving broader change in our economy and society. Once again there are many strands in this set of movements. Many of them are focused on addressing “wicked problems” like climate change, discrimination, disease, and unemployment. Others are focused on driving institutional change – think of movements to drive change in our schools or to cultivate more social responsibility in our commercial institutions. And many have broader social or political agendas, like challenging autocratic regimes or reducing barriers to movement across national boundaries.

Regardless of their specific focus, these movements are driven by the belief that we need to evolve beyond the institutions, economies and societies that today are often viewed as barriers to human development.

Barriers to impact

These two sets of movements have been moving in parallel over decades. But, here’s the thing. There’s very little interaction across these two sets of movements. One set of movements appears to believe that it’s all about us as individuals (or small self-help groups) and that it’s completely up to us to achieve more of our potential. The other set of movements seems to believe that it’s all about the institutions, economy and society that surround us and, if only we could change those, we would eliminate the forces that are creating massive problems for humanity.

I have a very different perspective. I believe that, until we find a way to more effectively connect these two sets of movements, we will only achieve a small fragment of the unlimited potential that is truly available to us.

Let’s dive into this. Look at the human potential movement. It’s absolutely the case that we need to recognize that we have far more potential than we have so far achieved, and it is up to us to take action to improve ourselves. But we can only do so much. If we’re surrounded by institutions, economies and societies that are seeking to limit our potential, we’ll soon run into roadblocks and obstacles that, at best, will limit our ability to advance and, at worst, will undermine our efforts and eventually lead us to give up in frustration.

On the other side, let’s look at the broader change movements. If we seek to transform our institutions, economy and society to remove obstacles to human development, we’ll see limited impact from these efforts unless all of us as individuals are motivated to achieve more of our potential. If we as individuals fail to see the potential that is ours to achieve, we’ll continue to live our lives as before and fail to enjoy the potential benefits of our new surroundings. Even worse, we may join calls to return to our earlier institutions, economy and society because we find this new environment so alien and uncomfortable.

Connecting human potential and change movements

Now, imagine what we could accomplish if we connected these movements. On the one side, we would be cultivating a hunger within individuals to achieve more of their potential and launching them on a quest to grow and develop so that they can have much more of an impact that matters to them. On the other side, we would be transforming our institutions, economy and society with the specific intent to create environments that will encourage the efforts of everyone to achieve more of their potential and, most importantly, provide them with opportunities to accelerate their growth and amplify their potential.

We would be launching a virtuous cycle. The more people see obstacles and roadblocks to their development being removed, the more motivated they will be to raise their aspirations and pursue their quest with even more energy. And the more we see how our institutions, economy and society are drawing out more of the potential that resides within all of us, the more motivated we will be to continue on the transformation journey and evolve our environments in ways that draw out even more of that potential. Rather than limiting our impact and undermining our ability to sustain it, we would be creating the conditions to unleash exponential potential, forever.

Focusing on the opportunity that can bring us together

But there’s more. One of the challenges facing the broader change movements is they have tended to adopt an approach that plays to fear and anger. The reason we need to change is because, if we don’t, we’re all going to die or, worse, fall into some dystopia that will never end.

As I’ve written before, I’ve been studying (and participating in) movements for most of my life and the most successful movements throughout history have been driven by something I call opportunity-based narratives. As many of you know, I make a key distinction between stories and narratives, even though most of us view these two words as meaning the same thing.

For me, the distinction (briefly) is that stories are self-contained – they have a beginning, a middle and an end – and they’re not about the audience, they’re about other people. In contrast, narratives for me are open-ended. There is no end, yet. There’s a major threat or opportunity out in the future and it’s not yet clear how this will be resolved. The resolution of the narrative hinges on you – it is a call to action to the audience, telling them that their choices and actions are going to play a key role in resolving the narrative. (For those who want to read more about this, check out here and here.)

Narratives differ in terms of whether they focus on a threat or opportunity out in the future. I believe the most successful movements have relied on opportunity-based narratives because opportunities can inspire and motivate people to come together, overcome their fear, take risks and make bold moves. If we focus on threats, this tends to intensify fear, erode trust, polarize, and increase risk-aversion.

The broader change movements will have much more impact if they shift from threat-based narratives to opportunity-based narratives. By focusing on opportunities, these movements can help to overcome the polarization that increasingly challenges our societies and motivate people to come together in a quest to achieve an inspiring opportunity. They will help to connect us in ways that scale rapidly and harness the network effects that are required to drive fundamental change.

Framing broader opportunities

But there’s even more. As I mentioned before, both the human potential movements and the social change movements are not single movements, but instead a diverse set of movements that are at risk of becoming siloed. Take the example of the human potential movements. While they broadly fit under the umbrella of “human potential”, their focus tends to be on more narrowly defined opportunities like physical wellness or cultivating creativity.

While it’s certainly OK to target these specific opportunities, the ability to connect and scale more broadly hinges on framing an inspiring opportunity that embraces all these more specific opportunities. It would show how our efforts are part of something much bigger and that we are ultimately all in a quest for the same thing.

The umbrella name “human potential” needs more attention and effort to frame the broader opportunity to help all of us achieve more of our potential. We need to understand that human potential is a many-faceted opportunity and that we will be limiting our potential by focusing only on one dimension of our potential. It would also help to underscore that human potential is ultimately unlimited, especially if we take a more holistic view of that potential and come together to help each other achieve that potential.

Social change movements tend to be even more siloed, driven by their focus on very specific threats like pollution, poverty and sickness. There’s an opportunity here as well to expand our horizons as we shift from threat-based narratives to opportunity-based narratives. Once again, it’s fine to frame a specific opportunity like finding ways to more effectively integrate marginalized portions of our population into our economy and society. But how does this specific opportunity connect with a range of other opportunities driving the need for social change?

We need to invest more time and effort in framing an over-arching opportunity that can show how a growing range of social change movements are in fact connected and that they are all ultimately driven by a quest for a much broader opportunity. What if the bigger opportunity is to evolve a society, economy and institutions that helps all of us to come together in ways that will achieve more of our potential?

The biggest opportunity of all

And the biggest opportunity of all is one that can help to foster greater connection across personal growth movements and social change movements. What if the bigger opportunity that inspires all of us is to foster the motivation and conditions that will help all of us come together to achieve more and more of our infinitely expanding potential? In part, this is driven by a recognition that our potential as individuals will be dramatically expanded when we find ways to connect and collaborate in our quest to achieve greater impact. And, in part, this is driven by a recognition that achieving more and more of our potential hinges on both intrinsic motivation and environments that provide us with the support we need to have even greater impact.

Bottom line

The good news is that we have growing movement to unleash more of the potential that resides within us. We need to find ways to connect all this activity so that it can achieve even more impact. That begins by framing a broader, inspiring opportunity that shows how many of the initiatives already under way are in fact helping us to address a much bigger opportunity. By focusing on that broader and inspiring opportunity, we also will be able to attract a growing number of participants who see that they too can make a difference on something that matters to all of us.

  • 30
    Apr 20
  • 1

Strategies for the Launch Decade

Category:Crisis,Launch Decade,Opportunity,Strategy

Several months ago, I wrote a blog post celebrating the beginning of a new decade – I called it the Launch Decade. This was just as the current COVID-19 pandemic was beginning to surface in Wuhan, China. As an optimist, I view global crises like this one as a launchpad to drive significant positive change.

But that certainly won’t happen on its own. We need to adopt approaches that will help us to navigate through these trying times and target the significant opportunities that lie ahead. For a long time, I’ve been a proponent of three approaches that become even more compelling in times of great change – zoom out/zoom in strategies, shaping strategies and leveraged growth.

Zoom out/zoom in strategies

This is an approach to strategy that has been pursued by some of the most successful tech companies in Silicon Valley, as I have written about here. This strategy focuses on two time horizons.

The Zoom Out time horizon is 10-20 years and the two questions on this horizon are: What will relevant markets or industries look like 10-20 years from now? What are the implications for the kind of business or company we will need to become in order to thrive in this market or industry?

The Zoom In time horizon is very different – it’s 6-12 months. On this time horizon the key questions are: What are the 2-3 initiatives (no more) that we could pursue in the next 6-12 months that would have the greatest ability to accelerate our movement towards the longer-term opportunity we have identified? Do we have a critical mass of resources committed in the next 6-12 months to these 2-3 initiatives? How would we measure success – what are the metrics that matter?

This approach to strategy becomes even more compelling in times of great pressure like today, where there is a strong urge to shrink our time horizons and just sense and respond as quickly as we can to whatever is going on. While understandable, a reactive approach risks spreading ourselves too thin as we try to sense and respond to everything.

The zoom out/zoom in approach to strategy helps us to focus on a very big, long-term opportunity so that we can prioritize our near-term actions for the greatest long-term impact and avoid the risk that we incrementalize our way into oblivion. At the same time, this approach to strategy also emphasizes the need for aggressive short-term action and the opportunity to learn from that action. At a time when all our institutions are going to be coping with the challenge of limited resources, this approach can help to focus those scarce resources to move quickly and target significant emerging opportunities.

Shaping strategies

Crises like the one we are in can be catalysts for significant restructuring of markets and industries. Those who move forward assuming their market or industry will continue in its current form are likely to be in for a big surprise.

In this environment, there’s a significant opportunity to pursue shaping strategies, which I’ve written about in more depth here. Rather than passively trying to anticipate what the future might look like, shaping strategies seek to restructure markets and industries in ways that put the shaper in a privileged position.

Without going into too much detail here, shaping strategies consist of three components. First, they begin with a long-term shaping vision of what the industry or market could look like 10-20 years from now (note the intersection with zoom out/zoom in strategies) and they frame this vision in a way that highlights significant opportunities for a large number of other participants, and not just for the shaper. The goal here is to motivate many third parties to come together and invest to support the shaping strategy.

Second, shaping strategies deploy a shaping platform with the explicit goal of improving the economics of participation for these third parties. These platforms are designed to reduce the investment required to participate and to accelerate the ability to earn returns on investments made.

Third, shaping strategies involve a set of initiatives designed to overcome the potential skepticism of third parties by demonstrating the commitment of the shaper to the strategy and the ability of the shaper to successfully pursue the strategy. This could involve making a bold move on its own or potentially announcing partnerships with large players that would give the shaper access to key resources.

Shaping strategies are especially powerful in times of crises. Crises tend to challenge our current approaches to markets or industries and make participants more open to new approaches than they might be when the market or industry is doing well. By emphasizing the need to mobilize investment from a large number of third parties, shaping strategies also help the shaper to significantly increase impact, even when faced with the challenge of limited resources in the short-term.

Not all companies will choose to be shapers, but the choice is to shape or be shaped. If we choose not to be shapers, then we need to recognize that, in times of rapid change, other companies will emerge as shapers of our relevant markets or industries. We need to anticipate who those companies might be and find ways to participate effectively in the markets or industries they will restructure.

Leveraged growth

When companies address the need for growth, they tend to focus on two options – make or buy. We can grow either through internal investment and organic growth or by going out and making a major acquisition. In either case, growth requires significant resources – something that can be especially challenging as we come out of an economic downturn.

But the good news is that there’s a third option that is rarely considered, much less actively pursued. It’s what I call leveraged growth, an approach that I’ve written about here. This approach involves connecting with and mobilizing a growing number of third parties who can deliver value to your customers and capturing some of that value for ourselves. This approach to growth has been pioneered by companies in Asia and there’s a lot that Western companies can learn from their experience.

Think about the implications of this approach as we emerge from the current crisis. Companies that can show significant growth without a major commitment of resources are likely to be richly rewarded.

Beyond companies

So far, I’ve been framing these approaches in the context of companies. I hasten to suggest that these approaches are not just relevant for companies. They apply to all our institutions that are wrestling with the challenges of the current crisis – governments, schools, community organizations, NGO’s, etc.

But, there’s more. They also apply to us as individuals. Now, more than ever, we need to zoom out and zoom in to bring more focus into our lives so that we can achieve more impact that’s really meaningful to us. We need to find more creative ways to shape our context so that we can achieve even more impact. And our personal success will hinge on our ability to mobilize others who can provide value to those who matter to us, so that we’re not trying to do it all ourselves.

Bottom line

Crises can be launchpads for significant positive change. But that change will not happen on its own. It’s up to us to overcome our fear and to take action. And we’ll have a lot more impact if we come together with others, inspired by shared opportunities. If we do this right, we have an opportunity to unleash the exponential potential that resides within all of us and that is hungering to be drawn out.

  • 28
    Apr 20
  • 1

Exponential Potential

Category:Collaboration,Learning,Opportunity,Potential

We’ve all been encouraged

“Achieve your full potential”

While offered with the best of intentions,

That limits our potential.

If we achieve our full potential

Is that all there is?

There’s so much more.

What if our potential

Is exponential?

What if we find that achieving

More of our potential

Unlocks even more of our potential?

What if we find that,

By connecting with others,

We create even more potential,

For all of us

Individually and collectively?

If we unleash this potential

It will soon go exponential

Without any end in sight.

But it will only remain potential

Unless we commit to act

Together

To explore

The frontiers around us.

The sky is not the limit

And maybe the universe isn’t either.

The more we embrace our exponential potential,

The more motivated we will be

To act together

To pursue it

Regardless of the risk.

We all have a hunger

Deep inside us

To achieve more.

We need to feed

That hunger

And watch in awe

As we grow

Beyond any limits

We might have imagined.

  • 21
    Apr 20
  • 6

Small Smart Moves

Category:Collaboration,Opportunity,Small moves

Our world is overwhelming.

Competition intensifies

Complexity escalates

Change accelerates

Viruses spread

Pressure grows.

Such a world

Pulls us to passivity

As we feel the fear.

Small moves appear futile

And big moves are overwhelming.

But, what if the small moves

Were smartly made?

What if we pulled

Out of the pressures of the moment

And looked ahead

To see really big emerging opportunities?

What if we looked around

And found others

Who could be motivated

To join us?

What if we found some small moves

That could yield rapid impact

And help us to learn faster?

Those small moves,

Smartly made,

Could set very big things in motion,

Helping us

To address exponentially expanding opportunity.

It’s time to move.

  • 13
    Apr 20
  • 1

Bore Down Into Boredom

Category:Collaboration,Emotions,Opportunity

In a time of crisis,

Why are so many

Complaining of boredom?

If you’re bored,

Look within,

Look ahead,

And look around.

Explore inside

To discover the potential

That is waiting to be drawn out.

Then reflect on the emotions

That are holding you back.

Look ahead to imagine

The impact that you might achieve

As you cultivate your potential.

What’s the big opportunity

That could inspire you

To move forward

And overcome the emotions

That are holding you back?

What are the first steps

You could take today

To move forward

In your quest?

Look around to find others

Who might be inspired

By that same opportunity for impact.

Reach out to them

And begin a conversation

To explore together.

As you embark on this journey

Notice the boredom receding

And the awesome blossom

Of a new life

Beginning to take shape.

NEW BOOK

(if you've read the book, click here)

My new book, The Journey Beyond Fear, starts with the observation that fear is becoming the dominant emotion for people around the world. While understandable, fear is also very limiting.

LEARN MORE
BUY NOW

The book explores a variety of approaches we can pursue to cultivate emotions of hope and excitement that will help us to move forward despite fear and achieve more of our potential. You can order the book at Amazon.

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