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Lisa thank you so much for joining us at
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knowledge of warden today thank you for
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having me you open your book kill the
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company with a group of people
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ferociously plotting to decimate their
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main competitor as they aim for Market
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domination but there's a Twist we
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discovered that this group is engaged in
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exercise to help them look at their own
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company's vulnerabilities it was their
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own company that they had torn apart in
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fact what is kill the company all about
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oh I'm glad you asked it's of course my
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favorite exercise because it's the name
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of the book um you know kill the company
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is about um having an outof company
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experience it's about um really
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examining your weaknesses so you can
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make them your strengths so the idea of
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kill the company is um rather than how
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it happens in most businesses that each
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year we we do a SWAT analysis you know
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our strengths weaknesses opportunities
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threats and most people use it as like a
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political construct to say where they're
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strong and they're not really weak it's
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where they're challenged and that
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doesn't really work and so kill the
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company is pretend that you are your
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number one competitor you have 30
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minutes how will you put yourself out of
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business and what that does especially
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with Executives it kind of gets their
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War mentality on and they're given
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permission
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to really look at what's wrong and then
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ideally what you find out is where are
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you really weak what can you do about it
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who can you partner with and even best
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how can you then turn that back onto
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your competitors so it's just a neat way
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a neat twist in terms of looking at what
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how your weaknesses are but you give it
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kind of a gaming mentality right and
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part of what you're looking at is
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removing those obstacles to Innovation
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what what are some of those obstacles
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that you see well there's many there's
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many I mean I think inherently a lot of
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people are adverse to taking a risk and
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they don't realize it they'll say
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especially leaders that uh they want
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their teams to take a risk when they may
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be the biggest barrier to risk because
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they have so much on the line you know
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quarterly earnings they've got all kinds
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of things that they have to manage but I
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think U one of them is just aversion to
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risk another thing is is a lack of
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definition around how much risk you can
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take so those are some of the biggest
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barriers if you can have leaders all of
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a sudden be open to more risk and Define
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it I think they'll operate less with
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handcuffs and more with guard rails and
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be willing to do not just incremental
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change but really dramatic disruptive
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ones that's great and if a company is
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committed to making that kind of a
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change and looking at you know where
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they are uh where how would they go
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about looking at where they fall in The
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Innovation
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Spectrum well it depends on what you're
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talking about it could be around risk I
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think what they have to do is look at
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their culture and I talk a lot about
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this in the book and that I think you
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can really look at a company's culture
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and determine how much risk they're
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willing to take and I think they can
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look at a few things um how much do
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their Executives lead by example how
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much failure or experimentation are you
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allowed to take how much resources that
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can be time or money do they put towards
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new Ventures um what metrics are they
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measuring and do those metrics have to
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do with um uh new things new to Market
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New to the world types of Adventures and
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that will kind of give you a feeling for
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what is their culture like and are they
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really involved in leading Innovation or
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is it more of a lip service you'll get a
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real feel for that Spectrum quickly
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right right and just in terms of those
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those uh different types of cultures
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what what do you see are some of the uh
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main types of cultures within
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organizations well I uh I'll tell you
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it's interesting what I did over the
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last few years is I studied corporate
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cultures and change and what was
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fascinating to me is we seem to talk
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about change um or cultures in terms of
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good versus bad but I I don't think it's
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that simple actually I think there's
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another culture that permeates all the
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organizations that many of us have
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worked at and is probably like the
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silent killer um the worst kind of
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culture isn't a bad culture it's a
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complacent one and I think the world has
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gotten so complex that we keep putting
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more and more processes in place and the
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result of that is is that people become
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complacent they no longer think they can
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affect change even though they might
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want to they kind of give up it's the
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everything's just fine mentality and we
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see that at a lot of big corporations
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they've got the money and the brand and
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they can write it out for a long time
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until all of a sudden where did that
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small company come from who knew and
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they had a compl culture so I think
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that's that's something people really
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have to watch for in the
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future and if if an organization is
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ready to change if they have identified
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these things and um sort of reckon with
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their their own culture what are the
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what are the tenants to make change
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stick well there's a few in fact we did
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some um some case studies over the last
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couple years and because we didn't know
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what really made change stick and why
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corporate culture change was so hard and
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what we found through some of these case
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studies was it was interesting it wasn't
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what I thought when we first set out to
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do it the first was is that I think
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change has to happen not from the top
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down but from the middle out and what I
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mean by that is it has to really stick
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with people that are in the trenches and
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they're respected by leadership but
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they're admired from those that are
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rising stars these are the guys that are
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in the meetings and emails and slugging
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it out every day that I think can really
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affect change the most as long as of
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course leadership wants you to make that
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change in the first place the second
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thing is I think we think change is a um
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it's a process and I don't believe
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that's true I think that um if
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Innovation or change was a process we
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all could do it because I'm sure people
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are very smart and can follow the rules
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I think it's a toolkit I really think
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it's in this world that's so complex
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they need OnDemand tools that they can
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draw on with different things that come
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at them and then the final thing I think
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with change is um I can't I don't think
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it can be big mandates I think it has to
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be something called little bigs it's
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change with a little C we have to start
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affecting change on on an everyday level
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in those meetings with emails with
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reports with procedures we have to
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affect it by Leading by example in small
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ways to get people to them want to take
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big change and that's not something we
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expected we thought it would be big
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change initiatives and in fact it was
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the opposite that worked so that was a
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great cool learning for
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us in in fact uh just to pick up on the
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first part of what you talked about you
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cite Recent research from whon
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management Professor Ethan mik that
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shows that midle managers have more
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impact on a company's performance
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than nearly any other part of the
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organization you know according to this
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work you've done and the research you've
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done uh why is that important and can
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you tell us more about how um that that
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works well I think it's very um it's
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important for people that are in
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organizations and you know there's more
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managers than there are leaders right
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and those are the people that really are
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on the ground and that know how to run
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the business and can really affect
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change with so many different people so
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I I think it's important one to
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acknowledge it um I think two what you
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find is like people don't want to fire
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lit from underneath right they don't
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want to uh fire lit from underneath them
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by leaders they want to fire lit within
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them and people can't tell you to do
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that they have to really believe that
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they can affect change to do it so I
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think the managers are the ones that
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really we need to concentrate on with
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change versus always these top- down
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approaches we got to put more money here
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not just here you argue that employees
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need certain skills what are some of
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those uh I again you know when we did
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some research it wasn't what I thought
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it's um it's some basic things it's
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perseverance I think especially with
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Innovation and change um you can't
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expect it to happen the first try so you
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have to have some perseverance that's
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hard in this really on demand do it this
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quarter World um I think you need to
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have agility you got to be able to Pivot
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have a plan B that's really important we
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talk a lot about um provocative inquiry
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I think that there's a lost art of
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asking questions so we're so focused on
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getting the answer and being right that
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we've forgotten how to ask the right
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question some of it is because we don't
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want to make people
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comfortable um and I think some of it is
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we've just forgotten how so provocative
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inquiries another one another one I'll
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mention is strategic imagination and I
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only say that because I want to separate
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it from you know creativity because I
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think people can come up with ideas but
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you've got to be a dreamer with purpose
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in today's day and age because there's
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only so much money and time so people
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that can really have strategic
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imagination I think will be the ones
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that rise to the top and can you tell us
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um as a final question about one or two
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of the companies that you think are are
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really um headed in the right direction
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when um and have done this type of work
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oh sure um I'm a big fan of shell and
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not many people mention oil or energy
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companies I a fan of them because I
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think what they do that's really
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interesting is they have um game
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changers or futurists on staff that are
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constantly looking to disrupt their
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business model so they imagine and they
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have plenty of money and they can make
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money for a long time without changing
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but they imagine for example uh will we
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live in a world soon where we are no
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longer extracting energy but growing it
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and they start to build that kind of a
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business I think that companies like GM
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and BMW um they are looking at their
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business models and saying well gosh if
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everybody is really moving towards Urban
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models and living in cities maybe they
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won't be able to drive as many cars so
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maybe we won't be a car company it will
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be a Mobility systems company so they're
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really doing Forward Thinking in terms
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of how they destroy or kill their own
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companies to become ones that they need
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to be before someone else kills them
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very inspiring thank you very much for
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speaking with us today Lisa oh thank you
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I appreciate it
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