It happened tomorrow - What can we learn from the future about leading successful companies?

We talk a lot about that we need to learn from history. Like Winston Churchill said:

“Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it”

But what about learning from the future? Anyone doing that? Let’s take a closer look at three successful future companies and what we can learn from them.

Since time is not an infinite resource we’ll limit what we look into to these three things:

1. How aligned the employees were with the company

2. How autonomous the employees were

3. What happened when the companies faced crisis (and what impact the alignment and autonomy of the employees had)

We’ll use this model that is quite popular among companies existing today:

Credits to Henrik Kniberg for model and picture

Alignment in this case is both alignment when it comes to goals but also when it comes to shared values.

We’ll take it one company at a time. Let’s go!

Company #1: Weyland Yutani-Corporation

The Weyland Yutani-Corporation was a large (mega-corp) British/Japanese company with main offices in Tokyo, London, San Francisco, the Sea of Tranquility on Luna and on Thedus.

Company “Why”

Weyland-Yutani’s “why”, that is their core purpose, was “Building better worlds”. Seems legit.

Company “Whats”

What Weyland-Yutani were actually doing was divided into seven business areas: Research and development, Deep space transport, Synthetic manufacture, Terraforming, Extrasolar colonization, Weapons manufacture and Xenomorph procurement and research. They were primarily a tech supplier with products ranging from household products to entire solutions for space colonization.

Company “Where”

One clear goal of the company was to obtain a living example of the species Xenomorph XX121. Officially with the purpose to create weapons out of their biology to ensure humanity’s superior position in the universe. Not at all primarily because of profits. Not. At. All.

Company “How”

Weyland-Yutani was a company where profit always came first and where bribes where part of the daily routines for senior management. For example to avoid thorough safety inspections. Who wants those? They slow things down!

One of their employees

Ellen Ripley, Employee at Weyland-Yutani Corporation

Ellen Ripley was a warrant officer on USCSS Nostromo, one of Weyland-Yutanis spaceships. If we look at her alignment and autonomy in normal operations I would place her in the High Alignment-Low Autonomy-box.

Ellen Ripley a normal day at work

Why? Because there is a clear chain-of-command that she accepts. About the alignment it seems like the employees at Weyland-Yutani were quite aware of their company’s dubious ways of handling things. They knew the company was corrupt. During normal conditions this must have been something they chose to accept. Maybe to keep a cool job. Or maybe to have a job at all?

The crisis

In year 2122 Weyland-Yutani detected a signal from a moon circling the planet Calpamos. It was clear that it was a warning signal. They sent the USCSS Nostromo there with the mission to obtain a living sample of the Xenomorph, no matter what cost. However, this mission was not known to the crew with the exception of one crew member.

The actual crisis started when an alien burst out of the chest of one of the crew members causing his immediate death (and ruining that tablecloth forever). Whilst the rest of the crew were being slaughtered one by one the true purpose of the mission was revealed to Ripley. I think that this was also when she got in touch with her own values. She was definitely “team humanity”.

This is where the alignment ends. In short this is what happens:

Company: Willing to sacrifice human life and even humanity for monetary profits

Employee: Willing to risk own life for humanity

If it was only the goals that weren’t aligned, that would be one thing, but when it comes down to core values, defining who you actually are, you are not as willing to do trade-offs.

The crisis also lead to increased autonomy. The minute Ripley stops trusting the company the chain of command is broken and she takes her own decisions. So now we have Ripley in the bottom right corner.

Ellen Ripley after a crisis disrupted stuff

Result

Since everybody at Nostromo except Ripley and the cat Jonesy died, there and then they represented the entire company. The alignment was gone and the autonomy was high so Ripley took the decision to shoot the Xenomorph into space (management team going like: nooooo, our precioussss) and then to blow up the entire (super expensive) space ship. So what she did was the complete opposite of what the company wanted her to do.

Company #2: Cyberdyne systems

Cyberdyne systems was an American company with headquarters in Sunnyvale, California.

Company “Why”

It doesn’t seem like Cyberdyne was a very why-driven organization. The only thing close to a “why” is this pretty lame sentence that is sometimes combined with their logo: Building global digital defense networks

Company “Whats”

Cyberdyne Systems were operating within the high-tech sector. After having a Terminator (Series 800) crushed in a hydraulic press in one of their factories they pivoted into making reverse engineering of the CPU found in the press. They used the knowledge to create powerful microprocessors for weapons systems. By that becoming a major contractor for the US Military.

Company “Where”

Cyberdyne Systems seem to have been a “follow the tech and money” company without much deeper reflection about the end-goal. They were like “Let’s go with the flow! What could possibly go wrong?”

Company “How”

Cyberdyne don’t really strike me as a pure evil company. More like one of those companies being too much in love with the tech to think about all the possible consequences. I mean they have that super cool CPU and it is just so exciting to develop new stuff from what they can learn from it. They probably had a culture that nurtured creativity but that suppressed too much boring questioning. By the way, the Military’s only purpose is to defend and keep us free.. right? Right?

One of their employees

Miles Dyson was an expert in cybernetics at Cyberdyne Systems and working as Director of Special Projects. Like Skynet.

Miles Dyson, employee at Cyberdyne Systems

If we look at his alignment and autonomy in normal operations I would place him in the High Alignment-High, Autonomy-box.

Miles Dyson a normal day at work

The organization must have been pretty innovative since they were able to reverse-engineer sellable stuff from that Terminator CPU. It is also likely that the autonomy is high since Dyson is the actual brain behind Skynet. In order for Skynet to become the “success” it was he couldn’t have been too controlled from the top. About alignment the company was following the tech and the money and Dyson seems to have been aligned with that.

The crisis

The Crisis hit Cyberdyne systems when a Terminator from the future gatecrashed the home of Miles Dyson. It became clear to Dyson that the work he was doing will result in, well, Judgment Day.

This is where the alignment ends. In short this is what happens:

Company: Willing to sacrifice human lives for profit and/or just for the development in itself (they might not be taking the risk on purpose, but you know, borrowing something and not giving it back is stealing no matter what the intention was)

Employee: Willing to risk own life for humanity

And as in the case with Ripley, Dyson realises that his job is not aligned with his real core values. Like wishing to see his son grow up and have children of his own etc. Even though they have that real cool robot arm it’s suddenly just not worth it. Looking at the model this is what happens:

Miles Dyson after a crisis disrupted stuff

Result

Dyson, now fully autonomous and in touch with his values and goals (save humanity) takes the decision to blow up the entire company including himself. This was most likely not the decision the management team would have taken. Just imagine telling the shareholders. This was NOT why they invested in the company.

Company #3: International Genetics Incorporated

International Genetics Incorporated, also know an InGen was an American bioengineering start-up company founded by Dr. John Parker Hammond. Their headquarters were located in Palo Alto, California.

Company “Why”

“We make your future” was InGen’s slogan and probably also what they used as their purpose. They could have added “No matter if you like it or not” but they didn’t.

Company “Whats”

What they were actually doing was part research on how to recreate extinct animals and part operating a theme park on a Costa Rican island with those animals.

Company “Where”

The main goal was to become the world’s number one researcher of leading-edge genetic and biological science and technology. However, investors want to see money coming in, which is probably why the idea of recreating extinct animals and expose them in a theme park came up.

Company “How”

InGen seem to have misunderstood the “fail fast” theory by actually taking huge new products (like 10 tons, 5 meters high, 30 centimeter long teeth) to the market real fast leading to lethal errors showing up in the production environment. But you can’t complain about their creativity or speed.

One of their employees

Dennys Nedry was a programmer working for InGen.

Dennys Nedry, employee at International Genetics Incorporated

If we look at Nedry’s alignment and autonomy in normal operations I would place him in the Low alignment-High autonomy-box.

Dennys Nedry a normal day at work

Low alignment because Nedry had financial problems and had been starting to think the company wasn’t paying him enough. The dissatisfaction had come to the point where he had become open to selling company secrets to a competitor. At the same time I think the autonomy was high since he started taking the decisions of going forward with the deal with the competitor which can be seen as quite entrepreneurial in a way.

The crisis

When the Jurassic park was near completion it ran into some problems, probably caused by sabotage by a competitor. The sabotage resulted in dinosaurs running free and killing one of the employees. This lead to Hammond losing the trust from the investors who’s money he needed desperately. Talk about crisis. To rebuild that trust Hammond took a group of experts to the park to certify that it was safe to welcome visitors.

Dennys Nedry after a crisis disrupted stuff

When it comes to Nedry there was no alignment before the crisis. It is possible that it became even lower during the crises since that is when he takes the chance and shuts down the parks security systems to gain access to some embryos that he is selling to the competitor. But in this case the crisis was more of a trigger than a total game changer.

Result

The result of Nedry shutting down the security systems was among other things velociraptors and a T-Rex running free and they, unfortunately, turned out not to be vegetarians. The experts could not certify the park as a safe place so the grand opening was canceled.

What can we learn from all of this?

First of all it becomes obvious that alignment is super important! It is a key to success. I have summarised four other key take aways:

1. Don’t be evil

But if you are — make sure your employees are aligned with your values. Be authentic in how you lead your company, how you recruit. In everything. If Ripley had started working for Weyland-Yutani because she hated humans there wouldn’t have been a problem. But my recommendation would be to be good. Really. It’s a win-win.

2. Don’t be stupid

What you are doing every day is leading somewhere. Don’t be like Cyberdyne Systems and just go with the flow. The flow might lead to a huge waterfall. Find out where you want to go and start moving in that direction.

3. Values matter

You might be walking through life thinking values don’t really matter. That it is only “fluff” as we say in Swedish. Until that one day when your values mean everything. When you have to make that tough decision or when you are suddenly in a situation where you are forced to do something that is not aligned with your values. That hurts. Values matter.

4. Crisis changes people.

Extreme situations make us rethink things. This is not good or bad. It just is. You have to stay curious about people all your life if you want to understand them.

Thank you for reading! Remember:

“Those who fail to learn from the future are condemned to not try to change it”

You can quote me on that one.