10 Gems to be Agile and thrive in the Nexttech Revolution

There were some interesting presentations at last week's Drucker Forum 2020.

The conference discussed (amongst other things) the rise of China as well as the need for Europe and USA to regain its leadership in technology. 

One of the key ways to do that is to build a culture of agile - and those bureaucratic giants will suffer the same fate as the dinasour! 

Steve Denning wrote a brilliant piece based on the presentation of Kevin Nolan, President and CEO of GE Appliances (GEA) now taken over by Chinese Company , Haier CEO. Kevin Nolan spoke about the massive cultural shift that needed to happen for it to survive.... 

GE seems to have lost their way - drowning in a sea of bureaucracy - there needs to be a change - big change!!! It seems to be slowly dying. Revenue and EBIT are flat - new competitors are coming in and challenging the status quo. How can GE rise to the occasion and not rely on its old model. 

GE is slowly being killed by obsolete ideas and layers of bureaucracy.

Dinasours become extinct - how did Nolan break this behemoth into small, agile, innovative powerhouses - with a common value system?

Rendenhayi Is  the answer says Nolan 

• its all  about the individual. 
• the  individual wants to contribute. 
• the individual wants to  interact. 
• the management needs to believe in that so as to unlock the value
• accountability, agility, and competition amid key 
• customers were the only boss.
• everything is about getting close to the customer.
• who is the customer? 

What did GE Appliances do to change? 

They  broke the company from four major product lines into fourteen, and  continue to try to make the pieces smaller and smaller. 

The goal was to achieve “zero distance with the customer” driving accountability down to micro-enterprises.

Each microenterprise had its own goals and make sure that they supported the firm’s overall goal.

Their compensation was tied to their results,  so individuals felt the impact. And what matters in GE now is the result achieved for customers.

Today , even during the Covid crisis, GE Appliances now has the highest employee satisfaction rating in the history of the firm.

Below are Nolan’s 10 tips for change 

1. defeat the bureaucracy. The firm needs to let people control their future and their decision making, so as to unlock their creativity.
2. the customer is the boss. get outside and meet their new boss. It means meeting the boss they always had, even though they had not understood that.
3. burn your org charts. Org charts are stagnant. They represent hierarchy. They represent bureaucracy. They represent internal power lines. When the customer is the boss, the org charts aren't meaningful anymore.
4. live in a zero distance world. how can we get closer to our customer so that we can anticipate the needs of our customers. They look at their individual customers. Who are they serving? What's the response from those customers.
5. the commercial teams are the firm’s eyes and ears. The commercial teams are about  understanding the customer. Identifying problems - there job is about developing relationships 
6. create ecosystems. The focus is on what's the experience of the customer. It's not about the product. It's about the experience and feeling that the product provides. So the whole effort now is: how do we get more ecosystems out there to interact with our customers?
7. people are smart; companies are not. let people be human again. Let people flourish. Let  people reach their potential.
8. fight  bureaucracy. Defeating bureaucracy isn’t easy. Think of it like weeds. They're ingrained in how everyone thinks. Procedures and policies are needed to scale - but it can stifle
9. cope with crises. Covid has been a test!! The micro-enterprises respond!! Things are changing at the micro-enterprise level with no central control. They all leaned in to the Rendanheyi philosophy during the crisis and were able to solve issues at the speed of the market. They had plants up and running before competitors. They were able to keep associates healthy and keep the business doing what it needed to do and being there for customers, because everyone knew that was the most important. They let their customers and alliance partners identify the opportunities and create the solutions.
10. trust your people. believe in the human spirit. be vulnerable and trust your employees. Trust their capability. Trust the entrepreneurial spirit they have. When you do that, you will get results 

These are 10 amazing gems 💎 that any organisation , community or country can adopt to improve its triple bottom line ! 

What are some of your gems