Enterprises worldwide have a strategic imperative to innovate, but the challenges remain the same…innovate while limiting business disruption. The solution often requires finding innovative yet practical ways to handle potentially extensive costs, workplace politics, department silos, lack of visibility into interconnectedness, sub-optimized goals and objections, lack of training, and sporadic executive support. These innovative and practical solutions are often stopped in their tracks by legacy systems, corporate culture, a lack of collaboration, and a lack of data and intelligence.
Organizations are as slow, hierarchical, and political as ever. Worse still, organizations are only tapping into a fraction of the potential of their teams, who are now transcending five generations of worker, from Traditionalist to Generation Y, each of which have completely different working styles, expectations and motivations.
The way in which change is happening at large scale enterprise is still entrenched with the same issues and facilitation techniques that have existed for decades.
Despite the massive transformation that digital technology has brought to our world, leadership and culture remain stuck in the industrial era. The advent of programing techniques like Agile and others have done little to change the way corporations create, implement and benefit from innovation and process improvements. As organizations we are as slow, hierarchical, and political as ever.
If you answered yes, quickly, then you are probably wrong. Recent surveys show that while management think they are engaged, employees feel they tell management what they want to hear!
the majority of employees – your biggest asset and biggest investment – are not engaged. They are brought into nod heads and agree as they are numbed by PowerPoint and managers that only care about their “sub-optimized” goals and objectives. Employees that have not been emotionally or financially beaten into submission do their best to give input, but soon the status-quo voices dominate that feed on “Fingerpointerosis,” “Competitive Obsession,” and a zero-sum gain culture where everyone loses.
Employees find ways to “level-set” their work to the lowest benchmark possible allowing the mediocre to survive and many times get promoted. Innovation dies, inspiration is muted, process improvements stay hidden, risks are not brought up, the “ME” culture never becomes the “WE” culture.
A profound shift is taking place in the way business transformation is happening. Executives are beginning to understand the value of implementing a Mutual Benefit Culture. Corporate Entrepreneurial Leaders are beginning to engage with employees from every level. These leaders know that buy-in from employees at every level is critical to effectively transforming an organization. Executing and delivering on the company’s strategy requires Interconnectedness through team alignment and support.
Tapping into the corporate wisdom of the workforce in a meaningful way is essential in establishing both inclusivity and input, insuring a significant impact is achieved by implementing a new technology or process improvement.
Corporations are seeking out the best practices of companies that went from startup to worldwide enterprises. They are looking for ways to turn their ship faster and more efficiently. They are looking to turn their employees into Corporate Entrepreneurial Leaders. They are looking for ECG’s Thought Leadership Pod.
The Thought Leadership Pod, built on the S.M.A.R.T. Platform and wrapped in a mutual benefit philosophy, is the driver behind the accomplishments of many successful companies. It guides what we build and how we build it. It forms the set of shared values we have with our employees, management teams and partners. The following ideas represent the principles that make up the Thought Leadership Pod and directly impact what we strive to achieve.
The Corporate Entrepreneur Podcast will have this podcast available (at no charge) in Mid-January. It will discuss how to incorporate the Thought Leadership Pods and the S.M.A.R.T. Framework in:
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