Success is …

We are at a pivotal point in human history and we have the unique opportunity to choose what we want the future to be. Vision, Strategy and Culture will be of critical importance in determining the success of your business.

Since, it is “choice and not chance” which will be the key factor in achieving business success. The choices you make in terms of strategy are underpinned by your long-term vision for the business. This in turn needs to be supported by your culture; that is if you wish to execute your strategic choices successfully and take a leap forward, towards securing the longevity of your organisation.

We may choose to reflect deeply, but to re-imagine the way we lead our lives at work and at home, we need to have the courage to change. Fundamentally, we need to change the way we think, the way we see things, the way we act or behave.

When we discussed sustainability pre-pandemic, the conversation tended to be more about the environment, condemning the “bad” behaviours, which had led to natural resources being depleted and the delicate balance of biodiversity gravely altered.

More recently, the focus has shifted to the precarious nature of human health and wellbeing, triggered by the pandemic. It is as though there is a sudden realisation that the enterprise must at once protect and re-build its human and more broadly its social capital.

As a result, it has suddenly become more acceptable to say that you need help whether you are facing a particular challenge at work or at home.  And so there appears to be increasing attention given to human sustainability.  At the height of the crisis, there was some talk of duplicating the role of CEO, just in case!

The so-called “social crisis” has been building for some considerable time. We have as human beings outgrown the old way of organising work (mechanistic approach) a long time ago; but governments, institutions and businesses have been reluctant to address this.

Whether due to a lack of incentive or a fear of the unknown, breaking the more familiar mould, conventional command-control structures and management systems, aimed at retaining a state of efficiency or rather the “status quo” rather than generating real progress.

Regrettably, this has led to paralysis and a degree of complacency; hence the transition to new business models has been slower than is now needed. Growth, new and imaginative ways of creating revenue, discovering unmet needs and new sources of value, has been lacking in many areas.

The failure to respond adequately to change as a result of sitting on the fence, may have disastrous consequences. Jobs are lost never to be replaced following business failures and the livelihoods destroyed have devastating effects not just in private lives, but also for the economy as a whole.

Leaders may even fall under the illusion the workforce is not aware of potential failures and become over-confident, intimating they know all the answers. However, Kahneman explains these intrinsic biases brilliantly, and the dangers of remaining in denial; hence why Culture is so important.

New generations entering the workforce are less tolerant of “false” values, especially if they cannot see any correspondence with the causes they hold dear. They are much less likely to accept the pursuit of efficiency for the sake of market driven metrics alone; and they will reject these outright, should they sense they are getting nowhere.

They seek a higher purpose, a clear sense of direction; a true definition of values, preferably those which resonate with their own; and they want to see their cause lead to action. They do after all want to see there efforts come to fruition, and they most definitely want to go somewhere.

However, getting somewhere has always been the quest for mankind. So while this is not necessarily new, there is a sense of urgency and there are new forces at play, which I suspect will probably push governments and certainly businesses to pro-actively foster change, as they compete for talent.

The direction of your business in terms of vision, strategy and ultimately purpose, is the key here. It is not about setting a finite destination, as this is limiting; but rather it is about seeing and continuously developing new pathways to help the business evolve.

This will in turn ensure the business remains relevant and becomes more responsive to market and consumer needs; preferably, anticipating unmet needs in a timely manner. The ability to quickly adapt to change in consumer preferences is critical for business success, especially in these turbulent times.

So, you need to develop a new muscle, a new business capability, which I would like to term “adaptive resilience,” as this will become the real differentiator, pivotal to your business success, in terms of forging a new and sustainable competitive advantage.

Your approach to the emergent complexities, the concentration of risk and the speed of change will therefore require a radical dose of thinking differently.  In this respect, Steve Jobs was particularly talented.

Thinking differently, also requires working on problems in a different way. Taking a multidisciplinary approach to solving complex problems, will bring a greater degree of success and offer better solutions. In this instance, one can blend the art of business with the sciences to drive true innovation effectively.

By embracing cognitive diversity, including a critical view of data-driven insights, we may appreciate different perspectives and thereby benefit more fully from the lessons learned, different experiences and/or past failures.

We need to become more accustomed to finding the root cause of a particular issue, unravelling the complexities; whilst adopting a different approach to the analysis, that isn’t necessarily textbook, particularly in times of great uncertainty.

More importantly, shifting the focus of the enterprise from short-term measures to a longer-term vision, will prove crucial if want to have better outcomes and explore new possibilities. Evaluating the different possibilities over time, may become more of an art than a science, since you cannot prove everything by data alone.

Thus, the singular and collective imagination of the enterprise becomes the focal point for new sources of value, before setting out the new pathways to take forward in pursuit of the desired goals. This means you need to be clear about your purpose.

Companies able to look ahead inevitably do better than those who are fixated on short-term gains. The rate of growth is reported to be 5X greater for those who innovate quickly and have a clear sense of purpose, compared with their peers, the so-called laggards in a given industry.

There are many examples of high-growth companies notwithstanding current challenges. As an example, Amazon recently described by Ram Charan as a “cash machine,” not least because they have repeatedly shunned the analysts.  

Jeff Bezos and his team have disregarded share price fluctuations at critical points along their journey, and have chosen instead to remain steadfast in pursuit of their mission. They have resolved to pursue innovation continuously, and since the company started as a bootstrapped digital bookseller (when books were supposed to be dead), calculated risk-taking, which includes failures, is firmly imprinted in their DNA.

Amazon is an example, and the fact is that the pursuit of long-term value creation can become a powerful purpose.  It fosters real innovation, since new market opportunities are being sought intentionally, and if done well, it does turn into sustainable growth over the long term.

Sustainable growth is a continuous process of incremental improvements, achieved through innovation. It needs to be systematised, become embedded within the core business strategy, at a structural and systemic level across the enterprise ecosystem.

Embracing the speed of change as a force for good is a necessity in today’s modern world. The pace of digital disruption as well as the all-encompassing nature of externalities, requires an adaptive systemic approach to digital business transformation.

The adoption of new technologies, albeit at a much faster rate than peers in your industry will not be sufficient. To gain competitive advantage anew will require the development of new business capabilities. Consistent investment in developing human capabilities, alongside further developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning.

This will transform the structure of the organisation and its systems and force a re-conceptualisation of the business model. The challenge for leaders will be to satisfy the ever-changing needs and interests of multiple stakeholders, which may also be conflicting.

An overly simplistic analysis, with too many assumptions in a cost-benefit trade-off, may no longer suffice, given emergent complexities; and so it will be more appropriate to look at blending more nuanced priorities to build consensus often from conflicting interests. This requires new leadership skills, a new level of fitness to meet the challenges of the 21st Century, and some would say protean powers.

Timely responsiveness, learning from experience is the way forward; as this builds resilience within the organisation. To build this capability successfully, it needs to be managed proactively at a systemic level: determining an appropriate level of risk, whilst allocating resources productively. This in turn will lead to faster and freer decisions, and therefore more timely actions.

Adapting to the dynamics of change through agile methodologies, is a far better way of implementing new technologies and shortening the time needed for new products to reach the market. Speed is of the essence. There is too much volatility in the market for more cautious approaches to prove successful at this stage.

We are in a state of flux; and this necessitates far greater flexibility in our approach to the transition, more so than we have become accustomed to in the past.

By daring to contemplate new possibilities and embracing a degree of risk in evaluating the “unknown unknown,” actually means you’re not missing out on valuable new business opportunities.  If, on the other hand, you choose not to do so, you’ll be ending up with less relevant products and services, which will ultimately result in business failure.

Short-term gains cannot be sustained over the long term and may end up costing the organisation dearly given the suddenness and the speed at which change is now occurring.

That is not to say change cannot be managed gradually. It most certainly can, but it requires discipline, clarity of purpose, true leadership and cross-functional collaboration right the way across the enterprise ecosystem. Without everyone’s involvement, participation and understanding, the enterprise will fail.

Many digital business transformations actually do fail.  Studies show at least 70 % of enterprises fail to achieve their desired or expected results. This is not due to the implementation of the technology itself, but, rather it is because leadership has been lacking in its vision and strategy has been distilled into siloed actions.

The failure to co-ordinate efforts within a holistic and congruent vision of the enterprise and its future, has hindered progress and the business transformation process ongoing.

A comprehensive vision and clear purpose is actually the most critical element for success. It begins with the CEO modelling desirable behaviours to inspire the whole organisation. Namely, asking the right questions, demonstrating curiosity and a willingness to learn; as well as an openness to change, particularly in the way things are done. Most importantly, having the courage to make bold moves, given the context, whilst having to navigate choppier waters than expected.

Technology is the great enabler, but it is not in itself sufficient.  It cannot offer a complete solution. Algorithms can analyse facts at a particular moment in time (the past), and machines may swiftly inform us how we got here, depending on the accuracy and quality of the data, and the sources being used.

However, the “human-in-the-loop” AI / ML systems deployed in companies today, require a more integrated approach, with in-built viability for the future, to successfully transform the organisation into a modern, future-fit enterprise. At a fundamental level we need to bring ethics to the fore, and therein lies the challenge: to integrate human values and a higher purpose into the enterprise throughout the transformation process.

Technology can free us from mundane, repetitive tasks; but, in order to overcome the challenges of the modern world, we need to intentionally develop our unique human capabilities alongside the deployment of our new tools.

Hence, the art of business seamlessly integrated into the science of business, will foster long-term business success.

The four pillars of success are: people, planet, process and technology. Purpose and profits, as we have now learned are not mutually exclusive. So we should stop thinking that they are and instead forge a synergistic relationship, to reinforce the dynamics of positive change; and aim to reach a new kind of equilibrium both in the economy and society.

The best performing companies have adopted a radical mind-set change. They are in pursuit of a more “blue ocean” strategy and remain open to innovation, to capture the value of what they see as infinite growth possibilities, in a world of abundance.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, where value is to be extracted, they firmly believe, value is to be created on the most solid rock bed of values. These companies are leaders in their field, but they are also conscious they have a duty, a responsibility for realising future prosperity.

They also know that they will be held to account by their customers, investors and the future generations, should they fail to deliver on the social and economic development goals within their sphere of influence and action.