Derisking xxx: Making a case for the missing growth.

Around the world, CXOs trying to accelerate their xxx (next buzz word) transformation face barriers to address the range of shifts - could reconfiguring the trade-offs be the catalyst for raising the odds of outperformance?

At most acting schools, acting is taught from an opposite spectrum. Budding actors are taught how to create an effect, how to use the costume, how to stand so that the light catches their eyes, how to speak so that they are heard etc. These all are critical, but they are external variables. The actors should not dismiss any one of them. However, the real spectrum of acting begins from the internal workings of an actor – Naseeruddin Shah, Masterclass with Naseer at Film and Television Institute of India.?

This beautiful perspective explores the impact of the right spectrum and adequate needs for the right growth of an actor and the art. ?

CXOs are the actors. Every xxx transformation is a new action. Any action is not an end, it is a culmination of series of exercises that begin with an imagination of these actors - an anticipation, the probability that strengthens the actions that they perform every day, like analyzing the headwinds, mobilizing the tailwinds.?

What impedes the growth, that actors imagine-anticipate-commit?

Energy price hitting its peak, unwanted inflation adjustments, Oct 7th,2023 event, and tensions thereafter, in the middle east, and similar macroeconomic turmoil, tests these actors. But these are external variables. Gen-AI, mRNA, Gene-editing, Sustainability, becoming key fuerzas de disrupción, for the balance sheet reset. These are yet again external variables.

Like in acting, these are critical and can’t be risked. The growth boosting spectrum, however, is internal workings of the actors, in the theater of business. The internal workings, that impact the value delivered, and value realized. The internal workings, to navigate optimism and pessimism of these actors by

• Playing offense and optimizing capex.
• Raising the odds for competitiveness in every new industrial geometry.
• Influencing talent mindset for velocity to value.

What are the paths of trade-offs, for xxx transformation Immunity?

The xxx transformation patterns continuously reconfigure trade-offs in search of the path to immunity. The reconfiguration, like a pendulum, shifts between influencers alignment and influencers diversification. The degree of reconfiguration depends on the actor’s imagination-anticipation and commitment to cultivate the trade-offs for building the new memory muscle and embracing the evolution.

To understand and calibrate the speed and direction of the value chain shifts, immunity contours concentrate on resilience fragmentation, that involves imperfect but quantitative implications of funding, implementation, and impact, instead of:

• Change intensity due to trade-offs.
• Horizontal and Vertical spread.
• Intra and inter organization trade-offs.?

Making a case for the missing growth

Disclosure: I am not offering an answer but attempting to make a case for actors to explore reconfigurations and trade-offs, to strengthen and reinforce the associated experiments for scaling and influencer participation across internal workings and external variables (read: actions).

Establishing the Common Base:

xxx transformation success relies on comprehensible approach and #of actions the actors take throughout the lifecycle of the transformation. The higher the volume, higher the average success rate.

Per McKinsey global survey, actors who take under 16 actions per xxx transformation, the average success rate remains below 20%. However, just a small increase in volume, say 17-20 actions per xxx transformation, the average success zooms to 31+%. Now increase the volume a tad bit higher, to 21-24 actions it hits 50+%. Every single actor that hit 24+ actions, kept their velocity to value with success rate of 59+%.

Legend: what is an action? McKinsey survey defines actions across 3 stages of transformation – Goal Setting, design, and implementation. Action examples – target setting, objective clarity, roles, incentives, communication, time to impact, resource allocation, role modeling, embedding change, risk management etc.)

The Proposal:

No transformation action tracker would determine systemic success or failure; however, I am confident that prioritizing a few can surely deliver the most value potential of any xxx transformation. Transformation complexities can portend chronic inequities. Critically, correlating opportunity and embracing meaningful outcomes, it’s imperative to launch an intervention for the right growth of the actors in the theater of business:

1. Start with the influencers – the team that makes it happenMost actors (generalizing to Senior Execs) assume, a single message broadcast from their inbox: “from the desk of…” or maybe a Barnie Family Townhall (all hahhahehhehe, I love you; you love me, we are…), is sufficient to cement the gravity, connectedness, impact, and relevance of any xxx transformation. It’s proven otherwise, always.My recommendation – Influence the talent mindset with “Why”. Connect with them to establish the behaviors that make or break the “What” and “How”. Eradicate one way communication across the velocity to value influencers.
2. Play offense – play bottoms-up to validate the customer desirability, emotional impact.Typically, the actors write a big check to big named thought partners, apply some hypothesis, draw out models, roadmap, blueprint, structural change on basis of what the actor wants for business. What gets left out is external influencers – customer who pays, who struggles, who needs solution for legacy and/or their current problems. ?My recommendation – Among your internal influencers get the casting director who spend more of their lives in poor corporate health and with degrees of customer disability. Don’t ask the tribe, engage and observe with that community of customers – how many, who, the casting director knows it. If they struggle, you know what to de-risk first. Pay close attention to emotional cues, conduct careful analysis of the behavioral signals. This validation will be your call to action for your elusive growth.
3. Compete graciously – play infinite game with a finite goalA preoccupation with competitors is a distraction for the actors. Most often, actors become rogue to beat the chest to be #1, that sucks the life out of influencers to keep up with the positioning, while damaging the very fabric of game for short term TSRs, and killing the inclusive customer journeys, orchestrating unauthentic, inorganic user flows, plus over-indexing forced or paid referrals.?My recommendation: Play infinite mindset, no one actor or a company wins. Ignore who is #1 in this and leader in that. Mobilize, incentivize - an authentic, organic, and inexpensive new industrial geometry that makes the market, shapes the innovation around a common denominator: people - customers, and influencers alike.

Conclusion:?

In current business environment, xxx transformations are essential for actors’ success. The endurance of influencers and conviction of actors should not be compromised. Actors must embark on xxx transformation act with serious focus to reinforce an infinite mindset, playing offense with faith for customer desirability and emotional impact through powerful forces of influencers. Actors must address building blocks of growth by demonstrating uncompromising belief to de-risk change intensity, horizontal and vertical spread and reconfigure inter & intra trade-offs to capture the velocity to value and insatiating desire to mitigate the associated risks.?

Actors must hone skills to imagine, anticipate, and commit, for building the resilient and reliable reconfigurations to deal with an unexpected set of trade-offs for a measurable velocity to the missing growth. - Manav