Why I'm an Ambassador for OpenExO

Exponential Transformations - Why I decided to add one more powerful role to my LinkedIn profile

It's not like I didn't have enough going on in my professional life already - leading my own consultancy supporting fast-growth tech companies in their insane journeys to global success - but this gig was too good to pass up. In fact I've been waiting for this moment in time for about 5 years - starting with my reading Salim Ismail's book Exponential Organizations - a book that essentially reverse engineered what exponential growth companies were doing to create 10x returns year-over-year. And it boiled down to 10 attributes, captured in two acronyms; SCALE and IDEAS. Underpinning all that was an MTP (Massive Transformative Purpose), that acted as the visionary torch to focus the business, its people and customers, on the deep change it aimed to make (eg. Google's “To organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.”)

The book lit me up from the inside out - because it stood out from any other I had read to date. It described how Uber, Airbnb, Netflix, Github, Amazon, and a host of unicorn companies rethinking everything about who, what, why and how they brought goods and services to market - skipping out the massive infrastructure, middle-management layers and went straight from offering to customer - usually within a few clicks of a smartphone keypad. Granted, not all business models can embrace what the tech unicorns have been able to - as most of the world's businesses were created in the 19th and 20th centuries - and have huge legacy structure to contend with - making a radical re-creation or re-invention a virtual impossibility...Or did it?

Looking back on my life - I've always lived in two states of reality; one being that which said, "You have to make a living, so get to work and do whatever they tell you to - regardless of how senseless it feels," and the second being my inner innovator, rebel, re-inventor who screamed for an audience with whomever made the decisions such that I could unleash my (delusional) genius upon them and save everyone from immanent disaster (ala Kodak, Sears, Blockbuster, Toys 'R Us, Borders Books, etc.). But how would I bring about this amazing insight, help companies re-imagine their products, services, vision and hope for a huge pot of gold at the end of their rainbows? Would we simply be pressed into a dualistic yin/yang where the new unicorns would slowly take over what the 20th century companies had tried in earnest, yet failed to comprehend - leaving disaster in their wake? There had to be a way to 'teach' people how to embrace the new way of being, doing, thinking and acting.

Then last September, I received an email from someone on the West coast - inviting me to apply for membership to something called ExOLever (since recently re-branded to OpenExO), which was the brain-child of Salim and a fearsome group of super-brained innovators and consultants who were building a "Global Transformation Ecosystem helping organizations, institutions and people to transform and unlock abundance." I don't often get pulled into crazy missions that don't involve a direct linkage to a specific outcome - but somehow this language all made incredible sense to me. When I found out OpenExO came about as an off-shoot of Exponential Organizations - I was immediately and powerfully intrigued. I applied, read about it voraciously, joined the book launch of their new 'recipe' manual for Exponential Transformation, looked everyone up on LinkedIn - and was never deterred by a disappointing turn. These folks were the real deal - incredibly bright innovators operating on the leading edge of globally transformative technologies - with all the credentials afforded a crew such as this from MIT, Stanford, Insead, Oxford & Cambridge, IIT, too many leading edge universities to count - and with work histories that read more like professionals teleported back from the future than any population of folks I've read about. I was intimidated, worried I wouldn't stack up - but WOW! This was my tribe if there ever was one.

I immediately signed up to become a Sprint Coach - which I excused as being a northern Californian - Silicon Valley nuance that my New York City sensibility would have to ignore if I were to really understand what these folks were all about. Turns out - there was no intended nuance involved. This organization was like nothing I'd ever encountered previously. My book arrived and I dove in. The essence of this global movement (literally described as such - no bones about it), is to educate as many professionals in exploring exponential change and transformation as possible - in preparation for a new Cambrian explosion of incomprehensible shifts in every endeavor of human existence; government, geopolitics, socioeconomic migrations, food, energy, transportation, medicine, genetics, technology, telecommunications, computing, planetary travel - the works. And the underpinning value system was based on something called Abundance vs. Scarcity. This was about bringing forth awareness, positive change, intelligent disruption and life-changing good - all in preparation for the incredible speed of transformation we're experiencing today.

I loved this concept and have lived most of my life thinking that thinking abundantly was the way forward - reaching out positively to everyone and everything around you and supporting growth, expansion and capability - not expecting a dime in return - but rather feeding positively on the Karmic returns that ultimately support not only a good living - but a better human experience.

The other powerful shift in exploring the OpenExO model of transformational support was that there wasn't much, if anything, written about 'consultancy' in their approach. Turns out that this was NOT about deploying super smart consultants into your organization (usually in vast numbers), draining your budgets dry and leaving you with a useless and overly complicated manual that gathers dust in the archives of your corporate basement. This was about providing coaches to help facilitate extracting incredibly thinking that comes from within your company - while also teaching you a powerful 10-week sprint methodology that you can reuse to support continued improvements, structured disruptions, product and service ideations and to re-think your way into the 21st century in a short, but powerful block of time. OpenExO is about enablement and empowerment. It's as much an education as it is a mind-blowing exploration into the art of the seemingly impossible. Perhaps most importantly - it's about ensuring that the corporate immune system doesn't stamp out the fires of new creation - rendering the 10x concepts DOA before they have a chance to live.

I went through the 6 week coaching certification course and lived the process first hand. I then signed up to shadow a real-life coaching exercise to learn how the experts do it, what best practice looks like and to improve my own capabilities and learning. I read the Exponential Transformations book cover to cover - and keep it close at hand as my reference guide (it's got loads of cool infographics and pictures - so it's hard to put down!). And most importantly, I'm meeting some incredible people along the way - learning so much from them and offering as much back as I can.

This was like no experience I've ever had before in my professional life. It feels as much like a spiritual journey as it does a commercial one - but without the pyramid scheme silliness that belies the corrupt scarcity driven mongers of old. This truly is about paying it forward, trusting in everyone's inner creative, using the best practices of design thinking, lean start-up methodology, agile working and powerful learning to conjure up a future that aligns with out exponential journeys.

But does it work? Absolutely. Salim and his team have been piloting this program and fine tuning it for over two years - as ExOWorks. They have been working with P&G, HP, Stanley Black & Decker, and a host of early stage, fast-growth organizations - here are some case studies. There are several other FTSE and Fortune 500 groups undertaking early journeys today that can't be mentioned, as well as many early stage growth companies looking to ensure their Blue Ocean strategies or explore pivots and better ways of bringing their magic to market. The essence of engaging with OpenExO is really about addressing how you can massively improve your Core operations - or embrace a new business model to create an Edge operation. Sometimes it's a mix of both - such as Amazon realizing that it's server capacity was so vast they could offer cloud services as an offering - with a clever interface and algorithms that allow customers to set up, tune and best utilize their server needs from their laptops. AWS now represents over 50% of Amazon's total revenue stream and is currently well ahead of Google, Microsoft and IBM. Who would have thought that an eCommerce company would end up being one of the world's largest tech infrastructure providers? Not many, I'm sure - but this is the level of thinking and acting that needs to take place to help keep organizations relevant, ahead of their competition and on top of their industry disruptors.

OpenExO also works with cities and governments through a partner called CIVX to help them re-position their focus on offering useful digitally enhanced services, direct to consumer offerings and helps enable citizens to engage with government services that provide them more control, information and context. Another fascinating partner is the Fastrack Institute, which is exploding deeply traditional notions of running institutions at mind-boggling speed.

What's super cool about all of this is that it's early days - and the momentum is huge, the velocity high and excitement seems unbounded. Importantly - this structure, offering, value system, purpose and the people all seem to be offering me exactly the sort of inclusive, forward thinking, non-elitist and supportive humanitarian oriented experience I never thought possible. This new role feels like a culmination of everything I've ever thought about, experienced or imagined in a more perfect world. So I need to embrace it, do what I can to spread the word, and hopefully jump into loads of sprints to experience exponential creations from the inside out! I can't wait - and hope to see you soon! If you are interested in learning more about OpenExO, CIVX or Fastrack Institute - or want to know more about the 10-week innovation sprint process - I'd be more than happy to help. Be exponential!