Building The Organization of The Future Through Learning

The biggest assumption that we are making right now is that the organizations we work for today are going to function in the same way 3-5 years down the road. This is a very dangerous assumption. The following illustration illustrates this very clearly.

In early 2007, Steve Jobs announced the iPhone to the world. In response, Nokia, the undisputed market leaders in cellular phones then decided to acquire Navteq a GPS company who dominated the in-road traffic sensor industry. This would enable Nokia to dominate mapping, mobile and online local information which are assets that would act as barriers to entry against the increasing market penetration of Google and Apple. Unknown to Nokia was the existence of Waze, a small start-up in Israel that was relying on smartphone users and their in-built GPS sensors to gather traffic data without the need for expensive infrastructure of Navteq. As the story unfolds, Drivers became accustomed to using Waze and crowdsourced information became extremely useful in finding alternative traffic routes. We know now that Nokia is a pale shadow of what it was and even the acquisition by Microsoft could not revive the company. So what is the learning point here in this story? Eventually, Waze was acquired by Google in June 2013 for a princely sum of US$1.1billion while Nokia's market valuation fell from US$140billion to US$8,1billion in less than a decade.What Nokia did was to place a very rational bet on Navteq but unbeknownst to them, the world is changing right before their eyes and companies are learning and redefining the way they engage the market.

Welcome to the world of Exponential Organizations! It is turning the world upside-down and many companies here are beginning to realize that they may soon disappear into oblivion as innovators start leveraging on information and their networks to reshape the New Organizational Construct. Those of you who have followed my previous posts must have realized that I have been very pessimistic about the future of corporate training. Learning should be strategic and leader-led and not left to rot in the deep recesses of the training department. Many companies place insignificant resources to learning and relying heavily on government grants so much so that they tend to miss the giant elephant in the room; Their very existence is being threatened right before their eyes. Technology (in particular mobile and micro-learning) has enabled learning to be cascaded to the masses. In fact organizational structures are changing so much, the biggest companies are splitting up because they finding it too hard to catch-up.

Exponential Organizations thrive in two different domains; the physical domain as we see it today and the information domain. Ownership of physical assets have become less important than having access to the right information that help make decisions in the market. Alibaba or Amazon do not own or manufacture most of the products they sell on their platform. Rather, they have access to it; and they know exactly what the user wants because they are able to track usage patterns through GPS, frequency of clicks, etc. If you strip down these organizations and count their physical assets and employee size, they are nowhere near the size of the Walmart or even the plantation companies in South East Asia. Yet, their influence reaches above and beyond many of the organizations we see now in our midst. Therefore, it really doesn't take a lot of physical assets to build an exponential organization. What is needed is a mindset change, true grit and access a network that provides you timely and useful information.

As of today, the world is just discovering the nature of exponential organizations. Are they sustainable? Only time will tell. Meanwhile, many Nokias, Borders bookshops, Sembawang Music Centre, etc. have all fallen victim to the onslaught of the internet revolution. Oil prices will likely never go beyond the US$100 per barrel in the foreseeable future due to the rise of renewable energy technology, its producers and distributors. Such stories appear on our screens daily.

May I invite you to sit down and reflect on your job and the organization(s) you currently work for.

• Do you spend more time on internal politics or external impact? Has your organizations lost touch with the ground?
• What is going to become of your organization?
• What is going to become of you in the not too distant future?

Fortunately, we have been blessed with the capacity to think and respond to changes and human beings are known to adapt and survive in averse surroundings with their capacity to think, ability to respond and the good sense of collaborating with others to make good of whatever situation we are in.

The following are key questions to for us to reflect and ponder on:

1. How do we learn "Strategically" so that we are not out-maneuvered by disruptors in the market?
2. As a leader, how do I quickly cascade what I learn to the rest of my employees so that everyone understands and work towards common objectives?
3. How do I build a strong network to tap on to get access and information that could propel my organization to be nimble in this new market paradigm?

Over the last half a year, I have personally reflected on what these questions mean to me and have taken a step to venture as a start-up Exponential Organization providing advisory support to traditional (linear) organizations's quest to become more "Exponential". If you see value in my rantings and wish to brainstorm on we could work together on this transformation journey from linear to exponential, do feel free to write to me at [email protected].