BREAKING DISRUPTION, Part II Making It Real: Becoming “The Box”

Bear with me…

Though indelicate it may have seemed, admittedly, my BREAKING DISRUPTION, Part I:? What To Do When Disruption Is Promised dispatched with the old cliché -- “thinking outside of the box” -- as an effective strategy for effectuating renewed competitive advantage, essentially characterizing it as having the utility of a bent manhole cover and made the case for going beyond thinking outside the box to…become “the box.”

RUBBER MEETING THE ROAD

The enterprise-wide transformation of a going concern is not for the faint of purpose; bold decisions and strategic intolerance must rule the day, and playing to not lose -- better suited for competitive rivalry -- must be abandoned and all-out winning adopted as the company’s entire focus, which cannot be attained if vision is to be a function of the legacy confines of “the box.”

Note that, but for the irreverent and much celebrated black sheep -- Ford, Gates, Jobs, and Musk -- the modern-day human experience might have stalled only a few clicks above something neanderthalic and, for example, satisfied with “...faster horses and less horse hockey on the streets;” typewriters, manual spreadsheets & DOS; tethered phones, and government-controlled Space Travel.?

These men, themselves, created industries, thus, becoming rule-breakers and creators of brand new modalities of businesses and ways of life.

RIP HR

In an age wherein WAVE 3, or The Third Wave, has been unleashed and fueled by technological advances…at the speed of thought…many current Captains of Industry find themselves out-gunned by derivatives of these advances that push beyond their competencies, not to mention stakeholder and shareholder expectations under the fiduciary squeeze that furnish their corner office.

So, in order for these executives and their companies to be liberated from yesterday’s best practice approaches, they must have the power to slaughter time-entrenched sacred cattle, barring none, and slay the ideological “black knights”, chief among which is corporate HR.

For most companies, fears of employee litigation have rendered the HR function into operating like an appendage of Corporate Legal by imposing certain constraints on executive management in order to mitigate that risk; however, this quite often has meant management ceding certain management decisions to HR, which should remain with those accountable for company performance.

This unwittingly stifles innovation for the purpose of “playing it safe.”

While job descriptions might suffice directing HR operatives’ understanding of the fundamental and technical aspects of the positions, certain position nuances, best detected by management, inevitably escape HR’s arm’s length manipulation of these hires.

So, in preparation to convert your company’s culture into one of nimble, unrestrained innovation, remove the jack boot strangulation of HR risk aversion by the courageous decision to integrate the HR into the Legal Department and reserve human capital development and management as a consequence of strategic business strategies and the requisite repurposing of all personnel to align with those strategies and performance accountabilities.

DUMP EGALITARIANISM:? Free at last, free at last…

To confound and exacerbate corporate situations, the vast majority of executives are having to tow organizations and cultures that are constrained by “how it’s always been done…HERE,” as well as being neutered by a regard for certain “protected classes,” vs. instead of a fostered meritocracy.

However, once the company is emancipated from grips of HR control, smarter and more business-attuned decisions can be executed in accordance with meritocratic, vs. sociopolitical protections… without fear or favor.? No longer must time and resources be wasted on politicized appearances, and competence can be established as the sole, performance management north star.

PUT THE MONEY WHERE THE MEANING[ IS]

Now, what is the path to incentivize a staff that may have seen themselves through the eyes of victimhood -- thinking and voicing among themselves that the company is benefiting from their, the staff’s, contributions and not “sharing the spoils of the competitive war?”?

Without the ability to enfranchise the personnel into the new mission, strategy will be “eaten” by culture, as downstream from culture is politics.

So, how can a company breathe life into a newly created company credo? How might it avoid any rueful, unintended consequences, the least of which being staff, management, and strategy division?

THE NEW UNILATERAL FRANCHISE

It’s imperative that company management not misunderstand disruption to be an external force, only; instead, as does its brand, disruption must internally originate and grow outward.

Hence, staff personnel are first to experience this change and, therefore, are its legs that must be led to move beyond walking to running via aggressive, smartly intuitive change management, if the race is to be won by creating and owning “the monopolistic box.”

There must be a trade-off for staff innovation, such that it creates and establishes an unbreachable relationship between staff and management -- an enfranchised singularity bonding the two halves into the necessary whole that moves the company forward in partnership -- mutually sharing all returns for this newly transmogrified enterprise.

GAMIFY THE NEW "BOX"

That being said, and while money does go a long way toward performance incentives, people can often become jaded by money, alone.??

With this comes the opportunity for gamified challenge(s), further driving progressive performance beyond established levels -- employees challenging employees in return for recognized super-achievement as the new culture.?

FINAL WORD

In none of this, is all risk denied; instead, the potential returns fully outweigh such risks, IF that risk is calculated and pegged to achievable strategies for courageous innovation restlessness and controlled recklessness.? This is the restless refusal to accept the “status quo”; however, if and when risk-taking may lead to “misses,” punishment should be levied if and only if outright negligence is found to be the cause.? This should be the company’s driving creed, its culture, that mistakes are the true building blocks to incentivized innovations.

If a company is to gird itself against the prospect of disruption, risk repudiation must yield to risk tolerance and breed a culture of range-riding cowboys out to discover new territories over which to become the new sheriffs in town --? warriors on the battlefield for taking no prisoners on the way to chaos bred to yield...brilliance.?

About The Author:

Milt Thomas is former executive of The Coca-Cola Company and Home Depot, USA and holds a 2012 MBA from Emory University’s Goizueta Business School as a Business Strategy Visionary.? His proposition offers perspectives on “thought leadership courage” to business leaders, advising them to avoid competitive rivalry and to become “the box” that defines the terms of monopolistic advantage, rather than being enslaved, distracted, and weighted down by the minor prospects in mere competition.

He can be reached at:? [email protected]