Blog Post

Moving at the Speed of Digital: What Time Is It?

Roy Maurer, Partner at The Clarion Group, Ltd. • April 23, 2019

“For from now on the world will be split between the fast and the slow.” Alvin Toffler, Powershift, 1990.

What time is it? It’s 2019: time for leaders to assess their speed of change, fast or slow.

On June 27, 2016, futurist Alvin Toffler passed away. In the three years since, any number of research studies have affirmed the overwhelming consensus of business leaders that their organizations face an urgent need to transform in order to compete in a digital age and concern that most are moving too slowly. There is need to accelerate, and the question is how to move at the speed of digital.

In our most recent article on Exponential Leadership we identified new characteristics we are seeing in those successfully driving accelerated change in both emerging and legacy businesses. These include bolder, visionary agendas with a sense of urgency and impatience, grounded in personal courage and conviction. This is not to imply that individual leaders have all the answers themselves, but that they enable their people to experiment, learn, and take necessary risks aligned with a bold vision. Our point of view on leadership attributes is echoed in the most recent research released by Korn Ferry, “The Self-Disruptive Leader”: Anticipate and accelerate, while understanding that organizational innovation is achieved collectively.

One differentiator we see is the willingness or courage of legacy leaders to effectively tap into the full toolset of transformational options available to them. These are business model “levers” across the operating model…strategy, organizing structures, culture, leadership capabilities and team performance that can be designed to work at faster speeds. Legacy businesses are being described as moving at best at the speed of sound, contrasted with new start-up digital business models moving at the speed of light. Legacy businesses adopting a portfolio of business model initiatives are better equipped to leverage transformation from both sides: historic and new, inside and outside, the speed of sound and light.

Here is one way for leaders to visualize a holistic approach to accelerate change across the organization by pursuing a portfolio of multiple initiatives in parallel, something we call the socio-tech business model approach:

An exponential leader sees and has the ability to create significant organizational value by accelerating change to and integrating a historic business model with an advanced digital platform model.

Pipeline Industrial Model

From inside the larger core business operations (starting from the left), there is need for leaders to undertake steps to transform current ways of working and thinking. This requires collective organizational learning, beyond the competent management of existing functions, to lead collaborative initiatives that anticipate change. This only happens with some measure of leadership “self-disruption,” as Korn Ferry so aptly describes.

  • There is considerable talk about and investment in employing agile techniques internally. In concept, this is an effective approach to increasing speed; but the range of understanding, application and execution is wide. When initiated piecemeal, impact can be slow.
  • Ultimately organizations need to transform holistically, creating congruence between strategy, structure, culture and behavior. Starting “inside out” with this approach alone often takes too much time. It requires a compelling sense of urgency and an investment – from the ground up – in skills, behavior and mindset and most important, leadership exponential talent.

Platforms Digital Model

At the same time, inserting innovative digital startups from the outside into the mix might be thought of as “jump starting” or shocking the system. But seen differently, this introduces close-up, hands-on views of just how different work processes and behaviors can be, right now, today…if only allowed.

  • There is much to be said for acquiring a successful early stage digital platform business, moving at the speed of light, as a catalyst for transformative change. Outright acquisition is not the only option, as other forms of effective partnering are available.
  • The larger ecosystem of digital networked platforms has evolved significantly. Many of these innovative startups now provide pieces of the industry value chain. Instead of attempting transformation of legacy functions internally, traditional businesses have the option of substituting with a “plug and play” strategy. This leverages ready-to-use digitally networked modular SaaS components in CX or Supply Chain as examples, piece by piece.

Toffler was a visionary who saw this coming many years ago: “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” John Kotter also identified this early on: his research identified a common cultural attribute that correlated with organizational success – an organization’s ability to change and adapt.

Today this is not just some obscure future threat; it is “in our face.” AM Best, the insurance rating agency, has recognized this now by introducing a risk assessment factor based on an organization’s capacity to innovate and demonstrate results quickly. Boards are recognizing that they lack directors with sufficient digital technology business experience and are asking the same about their leadership teams.

Korn Ferry states quite emphatically that leadership will make or break the business. Industries are being disrupted. Companies are being disrupted. For executives to lead disrupted companies in disrupted industries, they are hearing they must self-disrupt. What we are talking about here is not technical expertise, but rather the business acumen required to shape new digital socio-tech business models. There is no great supply of this talent out there somewhere else. Yet there is a tremendous need for current leaders who have the courage and willpower to self-disrupt from inside existing legacy companies.

It can be done. It starts with taking a hard look at the existing reality:
  • Do you have the right team in place, and have you enabled each leader to drive the effort needed to pursue a digital socio-tech transformation?
  • Are you strategically ambidextrous, anticipating and accelerating, taking sufficiently bold steps and appropriate risks to transform and grow?
  • Are you pushing the operating model design levers to create the strategies, organizational structures, culture and behaviors that support continuous learning, risk taking, and adaptive change?
  • Are you effective in leading people collectively through the necessary changes at the speed of sound and the speed of light to maintain long-term viability and market relevance?
It can be done. Now is the time. Can you move at the speed of digital?

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