Singularity University
  • SU Blog
  • Singularity Hub
    • Medium icon
    • Facebook icon
    • Twitter icon
    • LinkedIn icon
    • YouTube icon
    • Instagram icon
    • App Store icon
    • Play Store icon
  • My SU
  • Enroll & Attend
    • Enroll & Attend

      • Apply to a Program
        • Executive Program
        • Exponential Innovation Program
        • Incubator
        • Global Startup Program
      • Online Courses
        • Foundations of Exponential Thinking
        • Practicing Exponential Foresight
        • Impact Lab
      • Attend a Summit
        • SU Global Summit
        • SingularityU International Summits
        • Exponential Medicine
      • Events
        • Abundance 360
        • Abundance Digital
        • In-person Events
      • Book a Speaker
  • Enterprise
    • Enterprise

      • Our Approach
      • DASH Innovation Platform
      • Partner Program
      • 10x Strategy Development
      • 10x Leadership Training
      • 10x Innovation Sprint
      • Book a Speaker
  • Startups
    • Startups

      • SU Ventures
      • Incubator
      • Portfolio Companies
      • Global Startup Program
      • Global Impact Challenges
      • Mentors
  • Community
    • Global Community

      • Vision and Values
      • Members
        • Become a SingularityU Member
        • Member Directory
      • Country Partnerships
        • Country Partner List
      • How to Get Involved
        • Lead a Chapter in your city
        • Host a Summit
        • Organize Local Programs
        • Host a GIC
      • Chapters
        • Find a Local Chapter
      • Get the Community App
      • How to Get Involved
  • Impact
    • Impact

      • What is Impact?
      • Impact Dashboard
      • Impact Partnerships
      • Global Grand Challenges
      • Global Grand Challenge Awards
  • Resources
  • About
    • About SU

      • What is SU?
      • How We Do Business
      • Exponential Primer
      • Diversity and Inclusion
      • Faculty
      • Leadership
      • Team
      • Careers
      • Sponsors
      • Blog
      • Press Room
      • Frequently Asked Questions
      • Contact Us
  • SU Blog
  • Community
  • Views
  • Exponential Enterprise
  • Company
  • Entrepreneurship
Categories
  • SU Blog
  • Community
  • Views
  • Exponential Enterprise
  • Company
  • Entrepreneurship

Carin WatsonWritten by Carin Watson

Driving Transformation in the Changing Global Business Landscape

January 17, 2019 | Exponential Enterprise

“Thanks to digital technologies developing at exponential rates of change, the landscape of 21st-century business has taken on a dramatically different look and feel.”

— Peter Diamandis, Executive Founder and Director, Singularity University

Leading organizations and teams to success in times of exponentially accelerating change is an incredible challenge.

Most CEOs today feel a profound sense of urgency to transform everything about their organizations—strategy, culture, leadership, innovation—to ensure they’re able to avoid disruption and harness technology in order to thrive in the future.

Every company on the planet seems to have a “digital transformation” initiative underway. Based on hundreds of conversations we’ve had with executives, it seems many of these initiatives are not progressing as fast as expected, not achieving the anticipated impact, or simply failing.

There are many reasons why transformation initiatives fail, and the challenge to succeed is often more difficult and complex in larger organizations. While no one has a crystal ball, we have gleaned some specific insights from hundreds of engagements with some of the world’s largest and most innovative organizations. With that in mind, what follows are some ways to drive successful transformation initiatives in large organizations.

Start by shifting your mindset

We often say, “Nothing changes without people.” While our enterprise solutions largely focus on evolving and fortifying strategy, leadership, and innovation functions, the foundation for sustained success begins and ends with people.

In redesigning their organizations for the future, most leaders tend to focus on what they should do. Should we teach design thinking? Run ideation challenges? Launch an accelerator? Experiment with AI?

However, the first step must be to learn how to think, not what to do. Albert Einstein famously said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

Today’s leaders must learn how to shift their mindsets from linear to exponential. That means learning new mental models, a new common language, and metrics that better measure and incentivize exponential results.

Create a strategy for 10x growth

To many executives, “strategy” calls to mind traditional management consulting frameworks such as Porter’s Five Forces. But the way we strategize now has changed drastically and continues to evolve. Traditional models and approaches are no longer sufficient.

Given the increasing pace of change, companies now need to toggle their focus frequently between the next six to 12 months and the next 10-20 years to ensure they are investing at the right time and iterating quickly and incrementally as new information emerges. Deloitte’s Center for the Edge calls this process “Zoom Out, Zoom In.”

Our team works with CEOs, executive teams, boards, and business leaders to help them contemplate the potential impact of—and opportunities created by—exponential technologies, digital tools, and new business models. Our goal is to help organizations define what business they want to be in within the next five, 10, and 30 years, and bring that vision to life through narratives and experimentation roadmaps.

Leadership

Develop leaders who can navigate uncertainty and lead change

To transition their business in ways that today’s business climate requires, leaders must first unlearn outdated approaches and legacy behaviors that impede progress. They must become what we call exponential leaders—people who can adapt to any situation and drive 10x results for themselves and their organizations. Exponential leaders are futurists, innovators, technologists, and humanitarians…not necessarily by title or official function, but by the skills and behaviors they value and promote in their organizations.

Many organizations are realizing that their existing leadership development programs are ill-equipped to prepare current and future leaders to meet rapidly evolving business needs.

Traditional programs often use outdated methods, set an inadequate context, offer insufficient coaching, and are too slow to keep up with the rapid pace of change.

It’s critical for today’s leaders to:

  • Learn about exponential technologies and thinking, and create 10x projects to allow on-the-job experimentation and learning.
  • Conduct ongoing coaching to lock in new concepts and methods.
  • Leverage diverse peer and expert networks for on-demand support.

With the right mindset, tools, and training, these exponential leaders are better prepared to champion and lead the organization’s transformation agenda through uncertain times.

Innovation

Create an aligned innovation strategy and resource it appropriately

Building the future of your organization requires the ability to innovate incredibly fast, and to ideate far beyond business-as-usual. You must:

  • Dedicate funding to early-stage “crazy” ideas and learn through rapid experimentation and failure. In this article, you can learn more about how to use exponential thinking and unreasonable ideas to manifest the next big thing.
  • Move projects through development stage gates, using the right metrics at the right time.
  • Determine the best structure for new ventures, and design optimal relationships for them within the core business or spin them out.
  • Mobilize your internal organization and external ecosystem to support these new future businesses, which often reflect a new vision and narrative.

Our future-focused methodologies are designed to help innovation, technology, and new product development teams ideate, prototype, and validate potentially breakthrough ideas, then prepare to bring them to market.

DASH

Make the leap from 10% to 10x

For teams that are recognized and rewarded for quarterly results, a 10% improvement seems like solid performance. But just as traditional business models are insufficient in exponential times, so are incremental outcomes.

That’s why we challenge organizations to aim for 10x impact and outcomes by leveraging exponential technologies and tools. We engage our faculty and portfolio companies to support these initiatives in enterprise organizations. We also tap experts and practitioners from our network as ideators, collaborators, and builders…and rely on them to bring both industry expertise and diverse perspectives that will inspire and expand your thinking, and challenge your current assumptions.

If you’re leading change in a large organization, there’s no option other than to be bold and think big—to shift your mindset from incremental to exponential. We believe every organization has the capacity to achieve what it now considers improbable or impossible—or has yet to imagine.

Let us be your guide to the future. Learn more about the roles of strategy, leadership, and innovation in building exponential enterprises and see how we can help you take bold leaps forward.

About the Author / Carin Watson

Carin Watson
Carin is the EVP of Learning and Innovation of Singularity University, overseeing the global enterprise and consumer businesses as well as brand and marketing. She is a connector, teacher, preacher of radical candor, champion of diversity, learner and unlearner.
  • Popular
  • Latest

Reflections from the January 2019 Executive Program

February 14, 2019

Innovation Strategy: 7 Steps for Exponential Transformation

January 17, 2019

The Innovation Leader’s Checklist for 2019 Success

December 10, 2018

Exponential Technology Trends That Will Define 2019

December 10, 2018

Reflections from the January 2019 Executive Program

February 14, 2019

Creating Conversations For A Diverse And Inclusive Community

February 11, 2019

Why Unholy Alliances and Uncommon Partnerships are Vital to Your Organization’s Future

February 7, 2019

The Importance of Educating Students to Love Space Exploration

February 4, 2019

Subscribe to the Blog

Share This

Collaborators

In collaboration with:

  • Deloitte
  • Google
  • Contact Us
  • Book a Speaker
  • Support
  • Careers
  • Press Room
  • Membership
  • Events
  • Resources
  • Faculty
  • Enterprise
  • Blog
  • Program Directory
  • Sitemap
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy Policy

Get the latest news and views from SU

Get the latest news and views from SU

Sign Up

Corporate Headquarters:
Singularity University, NASA Research Park, Building 20 S. Akron Rd. MS 20-1, Moffett Field, CA  94035-0001

Singularity University, Singularity Hub, Singularity Summit, SU Labs, Singularity Labs, Exponential Medicine, Exponential Finance and all associated logos and design elements are trademarks and/or service marks of Singularity Education Group.

© 2019 Singularity Education Group. All Rights Reserved.

Singularity University is not a degree granting institution.

  • Medium icon
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • YouTube icon
  • Instagram icon
  • App Store icon
  • Play Store icon

We use cookies to tailor your experience, ensure this site runs properly, measure site performance, and present relevant offers. By clicking “Accept and Continue” or continuing to navigate this website, you agree to our uses of cookies collected. For more information about how to manage these cookies, please visit our Cookie Policy.

I agree