Eating yourself for lunch, unpalatable but essential to adapt

February 4, 2014Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, Building Innovation Capability, gaining innovation momentum, innovation execution delivery, Leading innovation, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation


Eat yourself thinI always enjoy Steve Denning and his writing as essential reading. He has been discussing the fundamental changes taking place within the management of our organizations.

Just go over to the Forbes site for Steve’s articles http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/

Also just take a read of “Why Is Corporate American Eating Itself Alive?” about how Corporate America is practising self-cannibalism, triggered by Dennis Berman in an article in the Wall Street Journal with a message that resonates more and more today:

“isn’t it time we stop according extraordinary compensation to Corporate America’s leaders for meeting their quarterly numbers through the short-sighted tactic of self-cannibalism and instead focus the business on its true goal of adding value to customers with investments and innovation in real products and services?”

More destruction as against enlightenment or simply exposing themselves to a very thin core, leaving themselves totally vulnerable?

Steve preaches radicalism simply because he sees the fundamental changes taking place, setting in train a new set of social and economic changes. He points out we are creatures of habit but being delivered more and more is his “better, faster, cheaper, smaller, lighter, more convenient and more personalized,” and we tend to say, “Hey! Yes! I want that! And not only do I want it. I want it now! In fact, not only do I want it now. “I’ve got to have it now!”

For whom the bell tolls

January 9, 2012Posted inAchieving innovation engagement, Advancing innovation, amplifying the innovation signal, Building Innovation Capability, Foster Performance, Fresh thinking, Improve Collaboration & Communication, innovation execution delivery, Integrated Innovation Thinking, Leading innovation, Shifting dynamics in innovation, Tackling innovation

I felt the heavy sound of the bells tolling away coming through two articles I have been reading and it reminded me of For Whom the Bell Tolls a famous novel by Ernest Hemingway.

I read two short articles over this weekend, one was entitled “Avoiding Innovation’s Terrible Toll” written by Spencer E Ante, published in the Wall Street Journal (http://on.wsj.com/zJ9IIT ) and the other by Jeffrey Phillips “When executives talk about innovation, watch out” in his innovate on purpose blog here (http://bit.ly/wpaqWu)

The first was the sad demises of Kodak
If you have not seen the day of Revolution in a small town where all know all in the town and always have known all, you have seen nothing.- For Whom the

Bell Tolls
Rochester may not be the ideal place to live, the headquarters for Kodak but it was the place where thousands of people earned their living by being associated with Kodak. They worked there, they supported it in the community, and they mostly benefitted from it.

What saddens me of course is that they at Kodak did not have that ability to react to such dramatic changes within their industry.