In this presentation Gary discussed why creating continuous relevance with the markets is becoming business-critical. He shared how companies can perpetually tune their strategy, structure and operations to perform effectively in a changing business environment. He also talked about the hurdles that must be overcome in order to become responsive and value-driven.
Gary is Global Advisory Lead at ThoughtWorks and works with large enterprises to drive change to the culture, planning, governance, and structure to better align with customers’ needs. He has over 20 years of experience in helping teams to build humanistic organisations more capable of responding to the increasing pace of change.
5. LIMITING RESPONSIVENESS
● Rigid policies make it difficult to respond flexibly to customers
● Making the numbers takes precedence over investing in growth
● Individuals shape their opinions to fit the biases of managers
● Few individuals feel empowered to initiate change
● The need for certainty has slowed the pursuit of new opportunity
6. In a digital world tech is the
enabler, the organisation
is now the constraint.
TECH AVAILABLE TO
NEW DISRUPTORS
ENTERPRISE’S
ABILITY TO ABSORB
TECH EVOLUTION
THE INCREASED RATE OF
CHANGE IN TECHNOLOGY
INCREASES THE GAP
This event will have live subtitling. Please sit where you can view the text clearly.
7. ● Align all work to maximising
the delivery of value to
customers.
● Apply measures that
support this.
CUSTOMER
OUTCOMES
REMOVE
CONSTRAINTS
LEVERAGE
TECHNOLOGY
SHIFTS
● Align the org to supporting
the volume and frequency
of value delivered.
● Use knowledge as the key
decision criteria, not
structure.
● Put technology at the core
of your business, not as a
separate cost centre.
● Platforms that support
constant change and
autonomous teams.
BUILDING THE RESPONSIVE ORG.
9. ALIGN THE WORK
Let people “feel” what it is like
CREATE AN
EXEMPLAR SLICE
EMPOWER
WORKFORCE
TO DEAL WITH
AMBIGUITY &
COMPLEXITY
MAKE BUSINESS
DECISION
OBVIOUS
CAPTURE
WEAKER SIGNALS
11. REMOVE THE CONSTRAINTS
Let the work decide
LET MEASURES
DECIDE THE
WORK
LET WORK
DECIDE THE
PEOPLE
SEPARATE
BUDGETS FROM
THE WORK
A ‘CHANGE’
ARCHITECTURE
FOR SMALLER
CHUNKS
14. TECH AS A STRATEGIC DIFFERENTIATOR
TECH@CORE
3RDINDUSTRIALREVOLUTION
(Informationasaresource)
4THINDUSTRIALREVOLUTION
(Technologyattheheartofvalue)
BUSINESS
SUPPORTING ROLE COLLABORATION
TECH-LED
DIFFERENTIATION
Formal
walls and
moats
Tech creates
digital assets
Tech / business
boundaries blur
Collaborative
execution
Tech pervades a
digital business
TECH
16. A NEW KIND OF LEADERSHIP
DEAL WITH
AMBIGUITY THROUGH
TRANSPARENCY
STRONG COMMUNITY
BUILDERS WHO FORM
GREAT TEAMS
ABLE TO LISTEN,
STEWARD, MENTOR
CLEAR THE PATH FOR
PACE AND ADAPTABILITY
PROVIDE OUTCOMES
WITH A MINIMUM
CONSTRAINTS
RETURN PROBLEMS
UNSOLVED
23. LEARN HOW TO EVOLVE
NOT TRANSFORM
● A simplified business model that optimises delivering value to customers
● An organisation aligned to maximise the flow of value
● A delivery approach that can respond to change, using smaller chunks
● The servant leadership that enables great culture to thrive
24. "Get rid of budgets and job titles;
Work small, learn often;
Gather people around a clear outcome;
Measure success as something your customers get
...and watch what happens.
Or at the very least, head in that direction!..."
GARY O’BRIEN
Voiceover Themes:
The rate at which tech is changing, even the most aggressive orgs struggle with new tech adoption
Each change is a mindset, org dna, set of tools, components
Give an example of their role and what they may be thinking about in tech adoption
E.g., as a business enabler you think about optimization
It’s impossible for the company to keep re-inventing so with time it becomes more difficult
One main constraint is that legacy doesn’t go away, it’s now embedded in your dna
Enterprise tax = legacy software tax + org disfunction tax + process disconnect + people capability tax
What we are seeing is that these new org around either digital, customer, etc. are where the investments are being made - the convergence of business and tech
Org structures are changing
Questions / discussion:
What are disrupters doing and what are you doing?
(give examples here of what we know of their industry)
STOP-ABILITY – shoot for the moon
SHORTEN FEEDBACK LOOPS
SMALLER COMMITMENTS
KNOW WHEN ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
Align work to measure – leading to lagging
Incent to meet outcomes
Learning over completion and numbers