Would you hire Tesla’s Elon Musk or Virgin’s Founder, Richard Branson, Sundar Pichai, Steve Jobs, or Bill Gates? Well, you cannot ignore them. Why you cannot ignore them? How many people in your organisation have this type of mindset of people? How many seniors leaders have built this incubation hub of creating future leaders in your organisation? Why as a leader you have to think for identifying such people?
Don’t dare to think that Incentives within organization created these talents. Every company has these people but the insecurity level of the seniors kills these types of people and hence they grow in some other organization. This reflects that change of guard is necessary to let others grow. Insecurity cannot be eliminated since it’s a mind-set problem and cannot change so easily. Hence don’t dilute energy changing them. Politics. Please try to keep this outside the door of the Office.
Today’s customers are a lot more aware of the products and services they avail and the marketplace is infested with fierce competition. Technology is changing both consumer preferences and the way firms develop products and cater to their services. Those who are having significant consumption today, be aware that don’t think that this will continue forever. Legacy and Royalty are two different aspects of the business. The days of legacy being guaranteed are over and Royalty factor is price and margin dependent. Hence we need manpower who can think and work like Elon Musk or Virgin’s Founder, Richard Branson, Sundar Pichai.
Let me give you an example-General Electric, which was the leader in the year 2000, is not even a part of the present list of the S&P 500. The reason is many, but the key point is that it leaders failed to create future leaders vision. They did not create any leader like the names I mentioned above.
We discuss product life cycles and business life cycles but did we ever focus on Companies life cycle which is just getting short. Remaining on the Top is no longer the criteria for success since that is driven by short term Myopic business strategy of employees and leaders.
Changing technology and business process does not need Class Monitors anymore. Monitors hide their seeds of failure under the fruits of success enjoyed over several decades. Many organisations are still not able to accept the fact that hierarchical managerial orientation required in the success of scale phase has run its time and there is a new leadership style required in the crisis phase. We need a different approach towards building an entrepreneurial mindset type of employees in an organisation.
There are three phases within an organization of business cycle entrepreneurial phase, scale phase, and crisis phase.
Employees from back offices to board rooms are becoming an increasingly important source of innovation. These innovators are known as ‘intrapreneurs’: people inside corporations who apply entrepreneurial skills to develop new products, services, and business models from within.
Every company should be in the entrepreneurial phase so that scaling of business happens through the same. A team of seniors should have an open mind to accept the failures of the journey as well as a guide this team to develop the thoughts.
- Leaders Qualification: Hence the 1st point of the Organizational life cycle is that leaders should be chosen more carefully. Closed mind-set followed with egoistic nature will kill the entrepreneurs. They should be like coaches, not bosses. We don’t need monitors.
- Employee Entrepreneur Mind: Employees should have an entrepreneurial mindset since only this category of employees will match the changing climate of business life cycles. Thinking out of the box to grow business and create long term sustainable business should be the key mind-set. This eliminates short term based myopic target based business. These people do not bow downs to short term targets. They look for long term sustainable business.
- Visionary Employees: Employees who share the outlook of the industry and Staying tuned to the rapidly changing needs of customers requires eyes and ears on the ground are the key. If they don’t have this character then drops them. People across the ranks have to be sufficiently enabled to spot and capitalize on the emerging opportunities that they come across in their everyday interactions with customers. Key Metric. These people will move the organization to scale the phase under changing circumstances.
- Multi-level connecting Business Mindset: An entrepreneur will explore all ways to connect his business with a purpose on a broader scale. He will do multi-level work to get his business in shape. Those who find the profession to be connected with social is the key employee. Since what was social is now a highly strategic business.
How Does Motivation work under the changing business life cycles?
Link innovation to a motivating company purpose: Employees—particularly millennial— are motivated by something bigger than work. They want to feel they are making a difference in the world. Purpose provides a ‘north star’ for employees to rally around. A framework for decision-making and a way to connect personal values to professional success.
AAE Model: Agility, Accountability, and Entrepreneurship. How we work’—are statements, such as ‘quickly act with an open mind’, ‘active experimentation’, ‘come up with innovative ideas’, ‘take smart risks’. These are not just words on a wall—they are part of our framework that guides every employee in the organization.
Design rewards as per Objective: Innovation requires experimentation, risk-taking, collaboration and failure, but employees are still typically measured on short-term outputs. As you set expectations for innovation across the company, are your incentives aligned with your message?
Reward leaders for creating space for Entrepreneurship: Office or organization is a diplomatic space and killing all diplomacy cannot be done. Hence the change of ecosystem will happen when leaders are rewarded. Leaders should check are they giving space or taking away space from the entrepreneur’s mindset.
Place check on targets blockages: Business Targets should not stop the thinking process. This is another grey area where entrepreneurial minds are often crushed. Leaders have to be proactive in identifying the same and keeping the momentum alive.
Create Incubation Hub: Why we need this?
While incremental innovations may happily sit within an existing business unit (for example, sourcing from minority suppliers or introducing new materials), more transformative or disruptive innovations (technology platforms like mobile money or new business models) require space to grow without being prematurely quashed by the company’s traditional metrics and institutional biases. Many companies are now setting up ring-fenced social innovation incubators. Barclays, for example, launched its £25 million Social Innovation Facility (SIF) in 2012 as a separate fund for social innovation.
How you kill Diplomacy and Politics: When you create a core team and the whole team turns out to be a jealous point for others who are not working and only class monitors. The core team gives two messages
- Change and think like us, work like us
- ____________________ I keep this blank for you to fill up.
If you want to have Tesla’s Elon Musk or Virgin’s Founder, Richard Branson, Sundar Pichai, Steve Jobs, or Bill Gates is your organization then you cannot ignore any of the above.
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