The pressure to change has been there for years, even before COVID-19. Organizations were always thinking about how not to be too slow, too siloed, too bogged in complicated matrix structures, or too bureaucratic.
What many leaders feared, and the pandemic confirmed; is that companies were organized for a world that is disappearing. A world that is being overwritten by:
1. MORE CONNECTIVITY: Rising interconnectivity speeds disruption, disjointing the principles for disruptive innovation. Free moving information bypasses and challenges existing hierarchies.
2. LOWER TRANSACTION COSTS: Barriers to entry and costs to achieve scale are evaporating. Internal bureaucracy presents more friction than external interactions and free-market transactions.
3. UNPRECEDENTED AUTOMATION: Increased automation undercuts the mechanistic thinking upon which organizations were created. Decades of management thinking on control and predictability become obsolete.
4. FUNDAMENTAL SOCIETAL SHIFTS: Gen Z and beyond will have new, fundamentally different career aspirations. Expect more variety and learning, more leadership and promotion opportunities, more social impact, and more career mobility.
These four interrelated trends are poised to unwind the old rules of management.
Surely it is, business needs to reorganize in a different way for the future. And although no one has yet cracked the code, everything suggests that future-ready companies share three characteristics:
1. They know who they are and what they stand for.
2. They operate with a fixation on speed and simplicity.
3. They grow by scaling up their ability to learn, innovate, and seek good ideas regardless of the origin.
Companies have zero time to lose. Any organization that is not seeking new approaches is on borrowed time.
What will separate future-ready companies from the rest?
WHO WE ARE:
· Take a stance of purpose.
· Sharpen your value agenda.
· Use culture as your “secret recipe”.
HOW TO OPERATE:
· Flatten your structure.
· Treat talent as scarcer than capital.
· Turbocharge decision making.
HOW WE GROW:
· Take an ecosystem perspective.
· Build data-rich tech platforms.
· Accelerate organizational learning.
As a leader, are you ready to separate your company from the pack?
