EMBRACE YOUR CORPORATE DISSIDENTS! Why harnessing dissenting voices can revolutionize your business

There is a growing realisation that most large organisations are poorly equipped to question, reimagine and then reinvent their core business. Businesses are facing waves of ever increasingly frequent and impactful shifts in technology and culture that are kicking the stool from under their feet.

Kicking the assumptions that are the basis of the way they operate, kicking them like the sex pistols after a particularly bad gig....and the booze has run out!

Think Netflix’s move to streaming, or more recently let’s say the stock photography industry, yes, AI is coming for you Getty!?

The problem is that balancing the need to optimize an existing business whilst seeking to radically alter it or replace it exposes a management and cultural tension at the heart of most organizations.?

It is antithetical to the prevailing management doctrine of business schools and the agendas of…well almost everyone in the business to focus on the things which challenge the current model. Just think about the vast investments made in optimizing value chains, building best practices, operating models etc. Calling these into question fractures the collective mindset and unifying focal point of any organization. What we do is who we are right??

If you accept the premise that the key capability organizations need today is the ability to reinvent themselves, then I ask you to ponder one question, just one. How does your organization treat atypical employees? The answer to this question is a great indicator of your organizations ‘reinvention readiness’.

You know them when you see them. They probably know more about your products that anyone else, they have a sixth sense for the customer, they can predict what a competitor is going to do before it happens.

Their mindset is to think beyond today, beyond the current model, beyond the category. How are they not running this company??We all know the answer, they do to, they have the bravery to dissent. To question the organizational obsession for predictability.

They don’t iron out the creases of irregular insight. They push forward with new news that dares to spill coffee all over the plan and then they use the plan to aid a bodily function (which by the way is the same plan as it’s always been).

That's right, make more money with as little change to what we always do as possible...But it’s ok, we've got a venture team, an innovation team, a lab, some freakin Post-it notes, and leadership went on a safari somewhere to meet human beings who actually think there are more important things in life than your latest campaign.?

(Thought: I shouldn't be listening to Sonic Youth when I write this)

So what's the answer? Are they sought after? When they deliver a view that's so dramatically opposing to the received wisdom of the organizational operating system are they rejected like a virus or are they embraced?

If you can't think of anyone that fits the description in your business, maybe your corporate antivirus has already done its work, the OS is purged from any variable that would call into question the unquestionable, that tomorrow will be just like today.

Working in innovation you see a lot of back slapping, a lot of theatre, a lot of ambition, but so little conviction, so precious little ability to manage today's business whilst building tomorrow. The word 'brave' comes up, but what we often mean is suicidal.

Sure, many organizations will have a corporate strategy team polishing PowerPoints, an innovation team focusing on ‘radical innovation’, and likely a ventures team, somewhere, don’t know where. Often the options for growth that such teams identify are supported and evaluated using the same processes and cultural mindset as initiatives designed to optimize today’s business. Traditional and predictable processes of consumer learning which rely on consumer opinion lead us only to a cul-de-sac of mediocrity.

Focusing on monitoring and benchmarking against competitors blinds us to the first simmering bubbles of disagreement with your industry, fed by entrepreneurs who are finding new ways to reinvent what you do.?

The false economy of relying on these processes needs to be replaced with the ability to seek ‘patterns of consequence’ outside the confines of a business’s category. Employees wired to think ‘beyond’ (the confines of today's business) are what a 21st?century business needs more than ever before.?

Some organizations have built?‘anticipation engines’ populated with atypical employees, ‘dissidents’ in any other business but in these organizations, they are the lifeblood of growth. Such businesses embrace the voices that are?questioning tomorrow, and they put these voices in ‘edge’ systems.

Their proclivity for pattern recognition and extracting consequence, so alien to many is now powering the organizational radar for change. They are empowered to identify, contextualize and exploit inflection points, supported by leadership who have the mandate and boldness to balance today and tomorrow.

Such organizations are receptive and diligent in the identification and exploitation of these cultural and technological shifts. They understand that the certainties of a 20th century business operating to optimize a value chain are done, done and gone.

What often typifies such organizations is how they handle atypical employees. Embrace the dissidents of today because they might just give you a tomorrow

?#innovation #leadership #culture #businesstransformation #reinvention