Blowing up best practices with "Detonate"​

Blowing up best practices with "Detonate"

My interview with Steve Goldbach and Geoffrey Tuff

Organizations, just like people, are often resistant to change. They frequently prefer to do what is comfortable, tried and true. If it’s worked in the past, it will surely work in the future! Yet, in today’s environment of exponential change and disruption, what is tried and true may simply no longer be good enough. 

My colleagues, Steve Goldbach, Deloitte’s Chief Strategy Officer and principal in Deloitte Consulting, and Geoff Tuff, Deloitte Consulting principal and a senior leader in our Applied Design practice, are the co-authors of "Detonate: Why – and How – Corporations need to Blow up Best Practices (and Bring a Beginner’s Mind) to Survive" (Wiley 2018), which, as the title suggests, addresses what organizations need to change in order to thrive in today’s marketplace. I caught up with Steve and Geoff as their book launched to get their views on a few questions.

Jen: We often talk about this time of exponential change that we’re living in, but what does that really mean?

Steve: In the past five years, we have seen evidence of some changes, particularly in the realm of technological advancement, no longer being linear, and rather being exponential. Imagine taking 30 linear steps. It will essentially take you across a room. Taking 30 exponential steps will take you around the earth 26 times. At the root of this is Moore’s law, which tells us that the amount of computing power that you can buy for $1000 tends to double roughly every two years. This enhanced computing power is enabling all kinds of technologies that were not possible before, which, in turn, is changing the behavior of consumers all over the world who are responding to new possibilities driven by these new technologies.

As a result, industry is now a bit of a dirty word in strategy. Conventional wisdom tends to confine companies to worrying about the actions of their traditional competition. Now, companies need to worry about any company that can replicate their customer value proposition, industry aside. Therefore, companies can’t presume that what made them successful in the past will make them successful in the future.

Despite all this, we see many organizations continuing to play it safe by following past practices when faced with a tough call. And when they get bad outcomes, they dig in further on past practices because it’s what they are comfortable with. This causes a downward vicious cycle. Detonate shines a light on that cycle and helps organizations break free by enabling them think and act differently.

Jen: You note that it is important to develop a beginner’s mind. Why is that important and how can people do that?

Geoff: As we learned in Shunryu Suzuki’s famous Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there few.” And, the beginner’s mind is core to recognizing orthodoxy.

In the 1960s, the average life span of a company listed in the S&P 500 was right around 60 years. Conventional wisdom or reverting to “how things are done” worked. However, the average lifespan is now 20 years and to mitigate disruption it is essential to bring a beginner’s mind in order to see the “many possibilities.”

Leaders can start adopting a beginner’s mind in two ways. First, they can do this by looking at their organization as the underdog rather than the incumbent. Look at things afresh no matter how well you are doing. And second, ask better questions to get better outcomes. Doing so can have great consequences – like it had here at Deloitte when we invested in a physical space – Deloitte University – at a time where conventional wisdom suggested virtual learning was the way to go.

Jen: You have an interesting take on the concept of failure, can you explain your point of view?

Steve: We’ve all become accustomed to companies “celebrating failure” as a way of encouraging risk taking. However, what we are seeing is that celebrating failure can become the excuse for a poorly designed test. To be clear – we think there is nothing wrong with being wrong about a hypothesis about the world. However, many companies, in the desire to “be bold” design tests that are way more than is required to get the learning to make the next move. As a result they fail – if you define failure by losing more money than was necessary to get that learning.

So what we want to get rid of is “celebrating” failure as a way to deal with executives and others having egg on their faces for losing a lot of money. Nobody should do that. Instead, let’s just make learning part of the organizational culture and figure out what minimally viable moves you could take to generate that learning.

Jen: Many leaders feel overwhelmed by the need to innovate and are unsure of where to begin. In your book you offer some advice on how to make small moves that matter. What approach do you recommend when it comes to innovation and change?

Geoff: Always start innovation with a clear definition of the customer behavior you want to impact. What problem are you going to solve? How are you going to make their lives better? Being really clear about this will help you get laser focused on what you have to do. And don’t get enamored with a technology – get enamored with what human problem that technology can solve. What does it do better, faster or cheaper and how will that help improve someone’s life.

And once you have this, go test it in a small way in the real world. Don’t ask someone whether they would buy it. Create a real-world prototype and put it out in the world for people to react to.

Jen: How does the development of an organization’s strategy fit into the concepts of Detonate?

Steve: As you well know, Jen, strategy is nothing more than the sum of all the choices you make. Increasingly we think the choices of how a company has competed in the past are going to become challenged and they will have to try new choices to win the hearts, minds and wallets of their customers. So companies should become more adept at trying new things – making minimally viable moves – in the marketplace.

Second, they really should pay attention to the “bottom of the choice cascade.” In order to get the people in their organization to change their behavior, they should consider putting in new management systems in order to motivate different behaviors. This could impact everything from compensation and evaluation, to organization structure and culture.

Finally, leaders should consider changing the questions they ask. Rather than asking questions like “how do you know this will work,” which can stifle creativity, ask questions that promote discussion and learning, like “where could we test this to see if it might work?”

To learn more about the book “Detonate: Why – and How – Corporations need to Blow up Best Practices (and Bring a Beginner’s Mind) to Survive" visit Wiley Publishing or Amazon to order your copy.

Denise Berger, EdD, MBA, CPQC Organizational Leadership Consultant

Business leader. Organizational consultant. Executive coach. Professor. Social impact advisor. Inclusive leadership advocate.

5y

Great article and concepts that mirror Dweck’s Growth Mindset.

Subrata Ray سبراتا راي (All Posts views are personal)

ZEV, Academics, LCA, AI/ML, Hydrogen, ESG , Sustainability,FINTECH, Oil and Gas, HSE, Renewables, Consultant to World Bank and European Reconst & Dev Bank, SDG, UNPRI, Author, Ontology, IT Soln Architect

5y

I have been advocating that the performance of an employee must not be gauged by traditional means of ticking the boxes. Instead a 50% weightage must be given for core performance  and rest 50% weightage must be given to Customer Centricity which is where the Corporates are lacking. There are ways and means to gauge the Customer Centricity capability of an individual which takes care of innovation , design thinking. The redesigning of Human Analytics will automatically DETONATE changes to bring the Organisation into an alternative track to success and achievement.

Like
Reply
James Nasipak

Director of Auxiliary Services I Innovator I Strategic Leader I Change Agent I Organizational Behavior I Developer I Collaborator I Process Thinker I Brand Manager

5y

Excellent article and I look forward to reading the book of the holiday time.

Like
Reply
Armando Fagundes

Director of Credit, Strategic Accounts & Supplier Risk

5y

Great read - thank you for sharing Girija!

Like
Reply

To view or add a comment, sign in

Insights from the community

Others also viewed

Explore topics