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September 2023
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NAME YOUR GAME2/22/2021 What's the name of your game? What business are you in?
Let's start with McDonald's. You might think that they're there for flipping burgers and selling $1 coffee. Think again. They hold the best real estate everywhere they go, all over the world. If you're on-purpose organization is about saving the world, think again. There's no such thing as saving the world in general terms and hope that it sticks. The more precise you are about you're raison d'etre, the more power you have to bring your mission out into the world. Focus on what you are built up to do, not what you are tempted to do. Focus on external impacts for your main customers/clients. You exist to give value, no less than that proposition. What differentiates with you from other organizations doing the same things are you values, ethics, and culture. These three things permeate all throughout the organization, creating tremendous impact on your bottom lines and your impact achievement. Name your game and be ultra-excellent in carrying out your mission, that no one can ignore you!
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THE RIGHT CULTURE MIX2/18/2021 What's the relationship between creativity, innovation, change, and leadership?
Creativity: People don't stare at the unknown and wait for the 'aha' moment. They create new things out of old, and turn old things to new activities, services, or products. Innovation: People apply their creativity as solutions to daily problems. Innovation is not just a step up, but creating new out of nothing. Change: People have pragmatic expectations of changes in the organization and are willing to join into uncertainty which is a demonstration of commitment. Leadership: The change process is muddier than we all imagine it to be. Even muddier in the layered context of the pandemic. Leadership without doubt, provides a good lever to buffer against resistance and cooptation. If your organization is struggling to bring about a transition to better in the pandemic context, keep reiterating and don't stop until you get the culture right. Without fostering the right culture, creativity, innovation, change, and leadership will remain as idealized concepts. instead of transplanting new values, consider what shared unconscious beliefs are existing and double-dip on it. Hearts and minds follow emotions, not logic
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BRICOLEUR VERSUS PLANNER2/11/2021 Are you a bricoleur or a planner?
Do you look at your fridge and make do with what you have or do you list down what you don't have and have a trip to the grocery? Do you look at what's already working in your organization and build from your bench strength or you're always looking for some best practice out there and apply it across the board? Do you have a tendency to conform to the standards of 'doing things right' or your organization create your own good practice consciously? In resource-scarce and start-from-scratch organizations, bricolage is not just pragmatic but it helps managers and leaders get on with their agenda. They shun the demand to be 'follow the dream' with more inputs, but understand that their paths can lead them to second-best options. In a perfect environment, the best planners win. In a non-perfect world, the bricoleurs and improvisers get things done and accumulate rapid success with less. Talent, creativity, and improvisation are great combinations in times of crisis and ambiguities. Know yourself and the connections, networks, knowledge, and resources that you have at your disposal. Dig in deep and marvel at what you can achieve, now.
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ELEGANT SIMPLICITY2/8/2021 There's no paucity of resources in growing under challenging times. Growing, though runs the risk of getting into all sorts of complications.
On-purpose organizations should aim for simplicity, not just in operations but in strategy. The moment the strategy gets lost in the minds of stakeholders in the organization, confusion and frustration set in. I was working for a non-profit organization a few years ago where a grand vision was unveiled only to be reduced to a few doable 'strategic chunks' at the end of the honeymoon phase between the Board and the new managers. No resources and incentives were set in place to fuel the commitment to action. It became one of those 'false starts.' High on good will, the leaders lost it by failing to bring down the vision into its elegant simplicity, which means showing the first key steps to making it real in the lives of customers and seeing progress through. Simplicity is far from failure work and simplistic notions. By working on simplicity, organizations with scarce resources and under-pressure to provide value for less can support their mission with greater clarity and effectiveness. People are not necessarily afraid of change. It’s the journey that gets to them, most of the time. Show them that the future is that good that incentives for switching outweigh the perceived or imagined problems.
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RELATIONSHIPS ARE EVERYTHING2/3/2021 When you think about it, really, relationships are everything.
Everything and everyone is interrelated and interconnected. The survival of one is dependent on the survival of the system to which that organism belongs and vice-versa. When complex issues are taken together systemically, new insights appear, normally, unseen and oblivious to the decision-maker. It sounds like a cliché, but what goes around, comes around. In reality, what comes around, goes around faster than ever before. We know that serendipity is not that unpredictable. There's no such thing as chance encounters. Interconnections and interlinkages shouldn't just be in our social relations. In many instances, the best innovation starts within the interstices of divergent and contrasting approaches and disciplines. Take the case of a watch that does tell a time but also act as monitor for abnormal heart conditions. These permutations are bridging what we conceptually think as 'irrational and weird' combinations. Ideas are everywhere. Systems collide and coalesce, depending on forces that impinged on or that works within. As I write this, many systems are failing us, and new systems have yet to be imagined and invented. Where will you be in the post-pandemic world- what systems are you trying to resuscitate or have you thought of leaving the old one for a better alternative?
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URGENCY AND CHANGE2/1/2021 When everything is urgent, nothing is urgent.
When everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. Change efforts go by the wayside if there's not enough urgency within the organization to ensure that it will be given an undivided attention and resources it needs. Moving the strategic priorities into implementation requires consistent and constant pressure from management that understands strategic management. 85% of strategic plans do not get implemented. When the rubber hits the road, the tendency is to focus on the day-t0-day mundane issues, relegating the higher objectives into the backburner. This stop-and-go scenario will delay your progress and unconsciously reward inventing obstacles. Managers and leaders- stop treating all crisis as equal. You should know how to treat priorities as real priorities, or your employees will not believe another memo with an urgent stamp. It's not what they hear, it's what they see in action that gets believed. |
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