When excellence holds you back
John Gordon
President & GM, HP Managed Solutions | Helping companies and professionals build their futures
In this series, we've been discussing how to help iconic global companies find new growth and industry leadership. Thanks to all of you who have shared your comments and stories so far. Please keep them coming.
Iconic companies become iconic because they are usually exceptional at something. They have a strong commitment to excellence and to executing against their commitments. They have optimized their operations over time to deliver great products at global scale. They hand off work from one team to the next like a championship relay race team passes the baton. They often deliver predictable and expected results, even when situations in the world around them change.
I witnessed this personally as an operating executive at three previous companies that I consider “iconic”:
My current company, Lenovo, fits this trend too. Lenovo is exceptional at making computing practical for individuals and businesses. I saw this first hand as my colleagues pivoted aggressively to ensure they could support people around the world that had to transition to remote work or school. This was a monumental task as supply chain disruptions and ever changing lockdowns created challenges. Yet, as always, the Team found a way to deliver with excellence and support our customers and partners.
Each of these iconic companies executed their business models with incredible precision at global scale. They fine tuned their operations to deliver results, reliably and consistently. They tracked large data sets of financial and operational numbers showing signals for demand, supply, revenue, costs, cycle time, and customer satisfaction. Experienced leaders knew how to address most of the problems that they had encountered. They had seen all of them before. The relationship between the sales, product development, and delivery teams were formalized, tested, and for the most part, relatively efficient for the scale of operations. They were set to help the company grow… as long as the company didn’t change anything!
Yet for all of us that work to help these global icons find growth, it is exactly this commitment to excellence in the existing business that we need to navigate. Our companies are built, managed, and optimized to run their current business. Employees are rewarded for growing the current business and improving operating results. The companies' systems and governance processes are designed to support the existing business. Investments are often driven by how much “extra profit” is available to test out new ideas. Even company cultures can get in the way of new ventures getting off the ground.
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If you launch a new business as a startup, you have less internal friction to overcome. Your focus on hiring great talent that shares your vision can help you prepare for growth. (Of course, you have a long list of other challenges that we won't cover in this series!) Leading transformation at a global company is not the same as creating a startup, despite the number of global company leaders who want to claim, "We are an internal startup."
Global companies have different approaches to things like:
But there is a good reason for hope. Our companies' excellence also gives us a strong foundation for growth if we can find a way to leverage it to build our new businesses. So, here's your homework assignment (if you are playing along at home) before our next edition of this newsletter:
Write down (a) your company's top strength or strengths and (b) how you can leverage those strengths into a new growth business?
I'll share a few examples I have seen next time. As always, I look forward to your comments, stories, and suggestions. And please share this series with anyone you know that is working to help their company reinvent!
Public Sector industry expertise specializing in Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A), Grant Lifecycle Management, and Strategic Workforce Planning.
2 年Hi John, having shared time (and experiences) with you at IBM, I'm sure you recall it also starts and ends with leadership (or a lack thereof). Leadership will help one create, maintain, and pursue a unique identity associated with its core business. With technology constantly reinventing itself (especially in areas such as AI and VR), leadership becomes even more critical in plotting a corporate course and maintaining that direction. Hope all's well... Tom
Helping campus safety professionals improve collaboration, reduce institutional risk and enhance safety culture.
2 年Thank you for sharing, John. I love the tremendous insight. I can't help but think of my time with Dell Computers and how they differentiated (at the time) with their supply chain and direct to consumer model. I departed at the front end of one of their reinventions - I recall there being lots of internal pain - but they strike me as a company that has gone through this process more than once.
Director, Digital Platforms @ Veolia Water Technologies
2 年The key is the pipeline to productizing an innovation. Two inputs to the pipeline:,1.ideas germinating from the old biz targeting the old biz and 2. pure innovation targeting a new biz have to follow 2 different paths. The new biz ideas have to be partitioned asap into a NewCo with startup experienced talent properly incentivized and away from the oldy biz mgmt. who will just be too nervous and risk averse.
Hi John, great article! To your article's question "a", my current companies top strength is delivering documented business value to our customers.