Category Archives: Small moves

  • 17
    Mar 24
  • 1

Diving Deeper Into Digital Transformation

Category:Collaboration,Community,Context,Edges,Emotions,Exploration,Fear,Future,Growth,Institutional Innovation,Leadership,Learning,Opportunity,Passion,Potential,Small moves,Strategy,Transformation

Digital transformation has become a business buzzword. Everyone is talking about it, but there is a significant missed opportunity. To understand the missed opportunity, we first need to understand the context of the world we live in.

The Big Shift

Long-term forces are re-shaping our global economy and society in profound ways. I have done a lot of research on the Big Shift. It has many dimensions – one of them is the creation of exponentially expanding opportunities. We can create far more value with far less resources and far more quickly than would have been imaginable a few decades. But to do this, we will need to embrace broad business transformation.

From digital transformation to business transformation

Here’s the first problem. Virtually every large, traditional organization has a digital transformation program, but when you probe into what the program is doing, it turns out that virtually all of these programs are focused on applying digital technology so that the organization can do what it has always done, but just faster and cheaper.

Increased business efficiency may be helpful, but it is not business transformation. Business transformation starts with asking the most basic question of all – what fundamentally different business should we be seeking to become?

To answer this question, I strongly recommend that leaders adopt a very different approach to strategy, something I call the Zoom Out/Zoom In approach to strategy. This approach has many benefits, but one of them is that it takes leadership out of their comfort zone, and forces them to look for small moves, smartly made that they can pursue in the short-term to begin their journey to much more profound business transformation.

If we’re serious about pursuing exponentially expanding opportunities, everything in the business will need to change. We’ll need to shift from an institutional model of scalable efficiency to scalable learning. We’ll need to redefine work for everyone in the organization so that people are no longer performing tightly specified, highly standardized tasks and instead are focused on addressing unseen opportunities and problems to create more value. We’ll need to redesign our work environments so that they can support this new form of work. We’ll need to adopt different approaches to growth – rather than focusing on make versus buy as the two key growth options, we’ll need to embrace leveraged growth where the focus is on connecting our customers with a broader range of third parties that can help to address their unmet needs.

That’s profound change in all aspects of our current businesses. What are the barriers and obstacles to overcome? Based on my experience in helping leaders to pursue business transformation, I have only one piece of advice – never, ever under-estimate the power of the immune system and antibodies that exist in every large, traditional organization and which will mobilize at the slightest indication of change to resist that change.

These people are not evil people. They are very well-intentioned, but they are driven by the emotion of fear. They have become very risk averse and believe that the best way to succeed is to continue doing what has always been done to create value.

From business transformation to emotional transformation

To address this barrier and obstacle to business transformation, we need to dive deeper into another level of transformation – emotional transformation. How do we move beyond the emotion of fear to cultivate other emotions that will help us to have more impact that is meaningful to us? That’s the focus of my latest book – The Journey Beyond Fear. I wrote the book because I saw fear becoming more and more prevalent as an emotion around the world.

A key reason for the spread of fear is mounting performance pressure that is also generated by the Big Shift – competition intensifying on a global scale, pace of change accelerating and extreme, disruptive events emerging more frequently. While understandable, this emotion is also very limiting – people who are driven by fear can’t even see the exponential opportunities emerging in the future, much less have the motivation to pursue them.

How do we overcome this fear? We need to find and draw out a very specific form of passion – the passion of the explorer – that resides within all of us and is waiting to be drawn out.

It turns out that the Zoom Out/Zoom In approach to strategy can be very powerful in moving us beyond fear. It focuses people on a really big and inspiring opportunity 10-20 years from now and quickly provides evidence of progress towards that opportunity in the next 6-12 months to help overcome skepticism.

To make the journey beyond fear we also need to cultivate new leadership models – shifting from an expert model where the leader has the answer to all the questions to the explorer model where the leader is focused on sharing inspiring questions and asking for help in coming up with answers.

We also need to adopt different approaches to transformation. Rather than pursuing top down, big bang approaches that draw out the immune system, we should focus on scaling an edge that can become the new core of the business and will embrace all the changes required to pursue exponential opportunities.

Bottom line

Digital technology is a significant catalyst for the need for transformation, but we need to avoid becoming focused too narrowly on digital transformation. Instead, we need to dive deeper into business transformation and then recognize that will require an even deeper dive to a third level – emotional transformation.

This is a huge opportunity. It can help us to move from mounting performance pressure to exponentially expanding opportunity. It’s not just an opportunity – it’s an imperative given the rapidly changing world around us.

I am an optimist. I believe that we can and will move beyond the caterpillars that we are today, focused on just finding ways to move faster. Instead, we will all become butterflies in a thriving world.

  • 31
    Jan 22
  • 0

Increase the Power of Your Narratives

Category:Collaboration,Community,Connections,Emotions,Fear,Movements,Narratives,Opportunity,Passion,Small moves

I’ve written a lot about the untapped power of narratives, including in my new book, The Journey Beyond Fear. But, what are the specific elements that contribute to that power? I’ve been participating in the development of quite a few narratives, and it’s led me to focus on four elements that will make or break a narrative.

Stories and narratives

Let me start, though, by reminding everyone what I mean by narrative. Those who have been following me will remember that I make an important distinction between stories and narratives, even though most people view them as the same thing.

For me, stories are self-contained – they have a beginning, a middle and an end. Stories are also about the storyteller or about some other people, real or imagined, but they’re not about the people in the audience.

In contrast, for me, narratives are open-ended. They focus on a big threat or opportunity out in the future, but the threat or opportunity has not yet been achieved. The resolution of the narrative hinges on the people in the audience – it provides a call to action that will ultimately determine the outcome of the narrative.

As I discuss in greater detail in my book, narratives can play a powerful role at multiple levels, starting with us as individuals – we all have a personal narrative. But narratives can also have significant impact at the level of institutions, geographies (cities, regions and countries) and movements. The elements that I’m going to explore below apply to narratives at all these levels.

The four elements of a powerful narrative

As I indicated, narratives can focus on either a significant threat or opportunity in the future. Since I believe we are in great need of more opportunity-based narratives, I’m going to focus here on opportunity- based narratives. Based on my experience and research, the four elements that will determine the power of an opportunity-based narrative are:

  • Framing the opportunity
  • Identifying trends enabling the opportunity
  • Identifying obstacles and challenges that stand in the way of achieving the opportunity
  • Framing the call to action

Framing the opportunity

The foundation of an opportunity-based narrative is of course the opportunity itself. This is ultimately what will motivate people to come together and act for impact. For this reason, it is important to find an opportunity that really inspires and excites the people we are trying to reach – it should not just be something that is “rational” or supported by data. Finding this kind of opportunity requires a deep understanding of the people we are trying to reach so that we find an opportunity that is aligned with their aspirations. Of course, they may not yet be aware of the opportunity, but we should explore whether this opportunity would excite them, once they become aware of it.

Effective narratives focus on a very big opportunity that will require long-term effort by many to achieve. If the opportunity can be quickly achieved by a few people, it will not become the catalyst for large-scale action by a growing number of participants. What we need are narratives that can sustain us and excite us over a long period of time. Of course, that also implies that we should be able to make progress in addressing the opportunity relatively quickly so that we will be encouraged to continue on the journey together.

The opportunity framed by a narrative also needs to be a positive-sum opportunity. This means that the opportunity will expand as the number of participants expands. If an opportunity is fixed in its size and rewards, it will discourage more people from joining and collaborating with each other.

Identifying trends enabling the opportunity

One of the big risks with framing large, long-term opportunities is that it can generate a lot of skepticism, especially from those consumed by fear. For this reason, it’s important to be able to identify some long-term trends that suggest this opportunity is achievable, and not just a fantasy.

But there’s a balance that needs to be maintained. While these trends should reinforce our belief that the opportunity is achievable, they should not be viewed as making the opportunity inevitable. If the opportunity is inevitable, we will tend to become passive. Why would we need to act and take risks if the opportunity is going to emerge anyway?

Identifying obstacles and challenges

That leads to the third element of powerful narratives. Somewhat paradoxically, the strongest narratives are those that identify and assess significant obstacles and challenges that will make the opportunity difficult to achieve. This will underscore that significant effort will be required to address the opportunity identified by the narrative. We can’t just sit back and assume that the opportunity will emerge on its own.

This will also help to prevent early participants from becoming discouraged too quickly. If they’re expecting obstacles and challenges, they’ll be motivated to forge ahead and find ways to overcome the obstacles and challenges.

Framing the call to action

A call to action is a critical pillar of powerful narratives. The people addressed by the narrative need to be clear that the outcome depends on the action they take.

For this to be effective, another balance needs to be struck. The call to action needs to be high level enough that participants can improvise and adapt the action to their specific context, especially as unexpected situations emerge. On the other hand, the call to action needs to be specific enough that it can provide tangible direction to people regarding the kind of action that will be needed to achieve the opportunity.

The call to action also needs to be framed in a way that people can initially make small moves and begin to see progress in addressing the broader opportunity. If people believe that their action will not yield any positive results for decades, they’re much less likely to maintain their excitement on continuing the journey.

This increases the importance of focusing on impact, not just action. Effective narratives have a call to action where the progress can be measured and monitored. The call to action needs to be specific enough that it can help to define metrics that matter. This will help all participants to assess how much progress is being made and to reflect on how to achieve even greater impact. It will also give them encouragement when they can see the progress that is already being made.

Bottom line

Properly framed, opportunity-based narratives can be very powerful. At their most basic level, they excite people about coming together and acting to achieve a really inspiring and meaningful opportunity. It’s ultimately about moving people beyond fear to hope and excitement.

As with most things in life, it’s ultimately about balance. We must believe that the opportunity is achievable, but also that it will not materialize without concerted action because of roadblocks and challenges that stand in the way. We need to be able to take small steps, especially at the outset, but we also need to see how those small moves can set big things in motion.

  • 07
    Jun 21
  • 5

Cultivating Emotions Through Learning Platforms

Category:Collaboration,Community,Connections,Emotions,Exploration,Fear,Growth,Learning,Small moves,Workgroups

My new book, The Journey Beyond Fear, covers a lot of ground, but perhaps the most speculative and also the most promising involves the untapped opportunity to deploy and participate in learning platforms. Learning platforms are very different from the platforms everyone talks about today and they  can play a key role in the journey beyond fear.

What are learning platforms?

Most of the platforms we know and talk about today fall into two categories: aggregation platforms and social platforms. Aggregation platforms focus on supporting two-party transactions. It could be buying and selling products and services (retail platforms) or accessing data (database platforms). These are all about facilitating short-term transactions.

Social platforms are focused on helping us to connect with and maintain relationships with family, friends and acquaintances. These platforms support long-term relationships across an increasingly complex web of participants.

Learning platforms are very different. I should clarify that when I talk about learning here, I am not talking about learning in the form of sharing existing knowledge. There are lots of platforms that provide access to a growing array of online courses and lectures – that’s all about sharing existing knowledge. These platforms fall into my category of aggregation platforms – they facilitate short-term transactions by connecting individuals with courses that might be of interest to them.

The learning platforms I’m excited about, involve learning in the form of creating new knowledge. This kind of knowledge can’t be created in a classroom or lecture hall. It is created through action – testing out new ideas and approaches, seeing what kind of impact they achieve and then evolving the ideas and approaches to generate even more impact.

I also suggest that creating significant new knowledge requires us to come together into small groups – something that I call “impact groups” ( a lot more on these in my book). No matter how smart and talented we might be as individuals, my experience suggests we will learn a lot faster and generate a lot more impact when we come together into small groups.

These groups are by necessity small – I suggest that they typically include between 3-15 participants, no more. These groups can learn a lot on their own, but they will learn even faster and generate more impact when they can connect with a growing number of other small groups in broader networks.

That’s what learning platforms are all about. Helping small groups to come together and create new knowledge by learning through action and reflecting on impact and connecting these small groups into growing networks.

Why learning platforms matter

So, why are learning platforms so important? Well, it starts with the Big Shift. As I’ve written about before, we are in the early stages of a profound transformation of our global economy and society shaped by a variety of long-term forces.

One key element of the Big Shift is the accelerating pace of change. As change accelerates, our existing knowledge becomes obsolete at a more and more rapid rate. This increases our need to learn in the form of creating new knowledge.

But it’s not just a need, it’s an opportunity. We can create far more impact that is meaningful to us when we learn faster. As I discuss in my book, those of us who have discovered our passion of the explorer are driven to learn faster because we are excited about the opportunity to have more and more impact in domains that matter to us. People pursuing this passion tend to come together into impact groups to help each other to learn faster and have more impact.

But their ability to learn faster is hampered by the absence of well-developed learning platforms. In some cases, they’ve cobbled together platforms that can help to connect their impact groups. In this context, I discuss the efforts of big wave surfers to connect through a variety of media and means to learn from others beyond those in their local surf break.

So, as we make the journey beyond fear and draw out the passion of the explorer that’s waiting to be discovered in all of us, we’ll feel an increasing need to participate in learning platforms so that we can scale our learning and impact. We’ll see a very exciting opportunity. That opportunity is to unleash network effects in our learning activity. The more connected we become in our shared quest for learning, the faster we will all learn. And it won’t just be a linear increase in learning – it will go exponential. Why would we ever pass up that opportunity?

But there’s more. Learning platforms can help to strengthen the emotions that will help all of us to move beyond fear. Even if we’ve found our passion of the explorer, participating in a learning platform with others who share our passion will deepen and strengthen that passion. That’s especially important in these times when most of the environments we live and work in are deeply suspicious of the passion of the explorer and actively seek to crush it. We need to seek out the support of others and offer them support in return.

And if we haven’t yet found our passion of the explorer, learning platforms can help us to find it and draw it out by presenting inspiring opportunities and making it easier to connect with others who are also inspired by those opportunities and wanting to learn through action. The more impact that can be achieved through acting together, the more energizing those opportunities become and many will develop a passion to pursue those opportunities.

Design elements of learning platforms

So, what do learning platforms look like? I go into much more depth on this in my new book, but I will give you a high level view so that you can see how different these are from the platforms that dominate our lives today.

First, the primary design goal of the platform is to help participants learn faster by acting together and receiving rapid feedback on the impact they are achieving. The core unit of the learning platform is the shared workspace that each impact group can use to determine what actions they are going to take and what impact they are seeking to achieve. These shared workspaces protect the privacy of the group participants as they come together to challenge and support each other.

But then there are broader discussion forums where participants from different impact groups can come together and ask questions about challenges they are facing and draw on the diverse experiences of a much broader range of participants. These discussions are archived and can be easily searched to see if earlier discussions might provide insight into a current challenge.

The platform would also provide directories so that participants can quickly and easily find other participants who might help them in addressing their questions. Reputation profiles based on the demonstrated ability to address challenges  would help in connecting the right people.

These learning platforms will be designed to provide rich and real-time feedback loops so that participants can quickly assess the impact that they are achieving. A key question for all participants will be to identify the metrics that matter as they embark on their quest to have more impact.

Why have learning platforms not yet been developed?

Platforms emerge in response to felt need. In a world dominated by fear, we seek platforms that can help us execute short-term transactions or build networks of relationships that help to reassure us that we are worthy of attention.

Very few people have found and cultivated their passion of the explorer where they are inspired by long-term opportunities to have more impact and where they are driven to learn faster together. And our institutions and communities have not yet embraced the need to learn faster by creating new knowledge.

But that’s all going to change. As many of you know, I am a strong proponent of “small moves, smartly made that can set big things in motion.” I believe there are enough of us with the passion to learn faster together and that we can start building platforms or evolving some existing platforms to address this unmet need. As other people begin to see what can be accomplished on these platforms, they will be drawn to them and find their passion of the explorer beginning to surface. It won’t happen overnight, but I believe learning platforms will begin to play a significant role in all aspects of our work and lives.

Bottom line

As my new book suggests, we all have the need and opportunity to embark on the journey beyond fear. We won’t eliminate fear, it will still be with us, but we can cultivate emotions like hope and excitement that will motivate us to move forward in spite of fear to achieve impact that is much more meaningful to us. As we cultivate those emotions, we will begin to discover the passion of the explorer that is patiently waiting within all of us. Learning platforms can help us to come together and achieve exponential impact. As that impact begins to become apparent, it will motivate more and more of us to make the journey beyond fear and venture onto these learning platforms. A virtuous cycle will be unleashed that will become unstoppable. Our journey will venture into terrain that has yet to be explored and we’ll achieve more and more of the potential that is within all of us.

  • 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.

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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