Ambidexterity – the Battles We Have to Win

 Doing nothing is the biggest risk.  21^st C truism

Nowadays, can we rest on our proverbial oars? Can we afford to coast, confident that our voyage & destination are assured? Are we immune to the deadly diseases of our day – Volatility, Black Swans, and Obsolescence?

Our good luck & curse is to be ‘born in interesting times’. Doing nothing is our riskiest option. When the ocean is in furious flux, alertness, manoeuverability and speed are of the essence. And the clearest expression of these qualities is ambidexterity – the ability to both protect the core business with Lean/OpEx, and also, to ignite new Growth using Digital methods.

This is the first of a series of articles in which I describe the transformation blockers I have experienced.  These are the ‘battles’ we have to win whether we are launching a Lean ‘model line’ or an Innovation ‘showcase’:

• Ignorance
• Fear
• Space
• Scatter
• Guesswork

I'll describe them briefly today and set the stage for a deeper discussion in articles to come.

Ignorance

When I launched our advisory service in year 2,000 the Toyota Production System was all the rage. TPS was indeed the ‘machine that changed the world’, and companies around the world were anxious to absorb & apply its secrets. In a marvelous spirit of generosity, Toyota shared its methods and opened its factories to the world. And yet, it took a long time to lift the veil of ignorance.  Indeed, it’s estimated that between 50 and 90% of Lean transformations fail to achieve their goals.

Fear

Senior leader mentorship is a big part of my personal practice these past few decades. I’ve worked with CEOs, COOs, CFOs, CMOs, CROs and with independent & executive Board members. With very few exceptions, they are smart, capable and committed to doing the right thing for their companies, team members and communities.  (To be clear, I carefully screen mentees – no bozos, a-holes, or ‘dark triad’ types.)

Fear is perhaps their most common shared emotion.  They don’t want to let people down; they don’t want to look bad. They want to leave the company is better shape than they found it.

Space

Transformation requires space – physical, temporal, financial, strategic, and cultural space. Such space requires ‘executive air cover’ against the inevitable ‘corporate antibodies’ that will shut down a model line or showcase in overt and covert ways.

Scatter

Scatter means the inability to pair down one’s activities & focus on the critical few.  The Pareto principle is often cited but rarely practiced consistently. There is something in human nature that likes to push buttons repeatedly, to see what happens, I suppose. This debilitating tendency has reached epidemic proportions in our screen-addled worlds.

Guesswork

Guesswork entails jumping to conclusions in the absence of data. Sometimes the deeper cause is HIPPO management (decisions based on the highest paid person’s opinion). Other times, we simply lack the data – very common when we’re trying to ascend the now mythical ‘hockey stick’ curve.

There you have it – the biggest blockers to ambidexterity that I have experienced.  In articles to come, I’ll do a deeper dive on each one.  Hope you join me.

Best wishes,

Pascal Dennis         E: pascal.dennis@leansystems.org

In case you missed earlier blogs... please feel free to have another look….

Daily Management Walks - a Primer
Ambidexterity-in-practice
AI and Innovation, part 2