What We Are Doing

Exploring Successification

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The five attributes of successifcation: see, sort, solve, share, simplify - are each being explored in pockets in different industries and emerging fields.  Here are a few representative examples:

See 

Systems thinking is an emerging field of decision-making focused on developing tools and techniques to help researchers in many fields (academia, science, consulting, military, medicine, etc) to develop ways to explore complex problems through synthesis (examining the connections between the parts of a system) over analysts (breaking a system down into its parts and studying each element).  

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Sort 

Value stream analysis is used in manufacturing and supply chains to work backward from the customer, identify "friction" in that process, and then systematically eliminate it.   These processes generally yield tremendous results because they not only identify cost savings but also improve customer satisfaction simultaneously. 

Solve 

Design thinking is an emerging field focused on developing approaches to get groups of people together to solve complex problems that are human-centric.   

Share

With the rise of new media and community platforms - there is an explosion of many ways to communicate and distribute information to many people.   

Simplify

There are a variety of emerging methods that focus on step-by-step systematic simplification.   Examples include the development of operating models, the creation of ecosystem architectures, or customer experience audits.  

Critical issue:  hosts are rejecting the transplant 

When doing an organ transplant, medical professionals all know that the patient's immune system is likely to treat the new organ as an antigen and work to eliminate the threat.  They have developed procedures to condition the host to avoid categorically rejecting the new organ and to give the life-saving surgery a chance to succeed.  

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Unfortunately, this is happening with most businesses today, as the need to transform elements of the businesses is either avoided (in favor of a more classic approach) or - leadership doesn't take the steps required to prepare the company for a change, and the host rejects the transplant. 

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Why is this happening?   For the past 20 years, business practices have focused on operation effectiveness gains.  Management techniques have stressed 'data-driven' decision-making, which puts a premium on analysis.  Metric-based management has emerged and the ubiquity of technology to collect and distribute these metrics has created an entire internal business ecosystem optimized for stable, predictable states.  These rigid systems fail dramatically when confronting dynamic, complex challenges brought by digital disruption and creating massive blindspots with executive decision-makers.

There are four (4) main reasons why corporate hosts reject their transplants. 

1) People.   Businesses have created many specialized roles in sales and marketing each focusing on a specific details with no incentive to explore the big picture. 

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2) Process.  Commercial processes are internally designed to be activity-based and follow linear steps.   The actual customer experience of a complex pursuit is action-driven and follows non-linear steps.  

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3) Information.   The sheer volume of information collected to inform the commercial process is overwhelming (One large technology firm is tracking over 5000 different metrics for its cloud-based products) yet very little if any of that data provides forward-leaning indicators. 

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4) Technology.   Today there are over 2000 sales and marketing technology choices available for businesses.  These technologies are referred to as "stacks" which - taken together - result in challenging user experiences for salespeople and the stakeholders they have to work with.   

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What are we doing? 

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Collecting pockets of innovation 

We are investigating the fundamental capabilities various business models provide, and see where companies in those areas are innovating.   In pockets, the various businesses are showing green shoots of innovation. So, we're going to pay attention to them: research businesses (Forrester), management consultants (McKinsey), Private equity firms (TCV, VISTA), Systems Integration Firms (Deloitte, KPMG), Process consultants (Alexander Group or Sales Benchmark Index), Sales Training Firms (Challenger, Sandler), Academics (Dr. Howard Dover, Dr. Robert Petersen, Dr Joel Lebon) to develop ideas and concepts to test.   

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Creating new theories of value 

By identifying green shoots of innovation in all fields and organizing them into people, process, information, or technology issues, we can develop new strategies of value and publish them as a hypothesis.  Of course, these theories will be challenged, which they should.    But the iterative nature of the challenges creates better, more stress-tested theories.  

Field testing

We strongly embrace the idea that "if you can't produce the intended result, it doesn't matter."  One of our core beliefs is that when it comes to success, the issue is to focus on the actions that people take (which must be verifiable) that provide proof that a step has been achieved, and then also create metrics to provide forward-leaning predictive indicators.   

Tacit knowledge capture and transfer 

We also start with fieldwork as well.   We are discovering that outliner performers have figured out dramatically different approaches than those prescribed by the company - and no one in the organization can extract those proven techniques that constitnly work.   This expert "know-how" is called "tacit knowledge" in knowledge management circles.  Capturing and then sharing "know-how" is particular changing because, as businesses have become more metric-driven - measurement focus on learning has become biased towards more easily scored "know-what" (explicit) knowledge.

We value tactic knowledge because it's acquired through the sweat equity of people engaged in the activity where they have to overcome all of the imperfections and complexities of the real world.   When explicit knowledge is often created (thing research firms or consulting organizations) this information is collected focusing only on uncovering a very discrete question or scope.  Neither of these organizations observes the behavior of the people involved in the practice.  

So, our focus is to collect and share both - and develop a skill over time to communicate tactic knowledge (know-how) more effectively.