In In various presentations, papers and books on innovation or leadership I have come across an organisational pattern I like to call “Startup then Core”. It is a pattern based on the idea that a new dawning business needs a special kind of leadership and special people, skilled and prepared to innovate in an uncertain world. Those in favour of this pattern also suggests that a mature business with “Execution” as its main mission needs leadership and people aimed to dwell in a more repeatable and secure world.
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These and many more difficult questions arise and management will need to handle them in a unique context, because success of Startups are diverse and rare. These ample difficulties are well known and it is not a surprise that most Startups will not fly. Forbes is one of many sources writing about the fact that 90% of Startups fail and the authors behind Blue Ocean Strategy claim that 90% of all businesses fail within ten years.
Another well known fact is that many prosperous businesses will not keep on flying. A widely used measure is the list of the Fortune 500 companies. A number of articles point out that just 12% of the Fortune 500 companies included in 1955 were still on the list in 2017. Mark J. Perry, who is Professor of economics and finance, calls this phenomenon “creative destruction”. And all signs show it will get worse. In a report in 2016 Innosight writes that half of the S&P 500 companies are expected to be replaced over the next 10 years.
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In theory it is very logical that any business should want to take care of both the current, the next and the future business, commonly called the three horizons as it is coined in the book The Alchemy of Growth. I want would like to believe that every business leader have the long term sustainable growth as their main mission . In and in many cases it is what they express. But in practice, I have seen that it so emotionally difficult to, just slightly, give the current business a lower priority. The current business is where the customers are complaning, where the money is coming in and where the employees have their loyalty. As if this was not enough, the current business is also where managers get most of their credit and create opportunities to jump to new positions with even higher pay.
It is exactly these emotional difficulties that requires the true future leadership that seems to be rare. I can see watch managers trying lead their organisation in a certain direction, but further down in the hiarchy the sight normally gets shorter and it is very much the current business and the outspooken operantional responsibilty that counts. Even if the top management are working hard to establish a long term vision; including corporate identity, values, culture, tradition and such, the middle management is not very keen on changing for the future. I even heard frustrated leaders call middle management "permafrost" due their inability to drive change.
What top managers do not seem to fully grasp is how strong the signals coming from anual or quaterly reporting . In
As top level manager or business owner you probaby want to keep all your enties together when it comes to corporate identity, values, culture, tradition and such.
You probably want the entire business to follow the same values, goals and take advantage of the corporate culture and tradition. If were to set a separate entity to handle your future, what would people say?
Silos..picture of value chains and functional entitiesare. Most of our society is awaiting montary results form current businesses. Even Gartner, who make all their business from predicting the future, have a traditional anual report with mostly historic and operational figures. I wonder what will drive the future of future predicting services?
Let's agree, to prioritise the future over the current business is a delicate challange. It requires extrdonary leadership to mitigate the friction between new and old. The leadership includes being brave and lean on figures that cannot be proven.
What are the thought leaders saying
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