by Adam L Stanley | Feb 6, 2018 | Leadership, Teamwork, Technology, Vendors and Partners
The Big-D hit list: Disrupting the word disruption
Purging overused buzzwords is a big step we can take to open our minds to the realities and challenges of succeeding in business today.
The problem with business jargon, which most of us use ad nauseam, is that it’s not merely annoying, it carries the real potential to block progress. Those nifty little words and phrases may make us sound ingenious within our respective tribes (and own minds), but they can also narrow our thinking to the point where we start cramming our strategies and plans into the same universally-defined small boxes. So, just when we believe we’re thinking “outside of the box,” we’re not!
OK, in the name of creative thinking and staying focused on what matters, like our clients and growing our businesses, the time has come to retire some long-hacked-to-death words. In my first blog, I summarily purged the word “digital.” This time, it’s my pleasure to join a growing mob that can’t wait to see “disruption” in the rear-view mirror. Please, by all means, agree, disagree and/or share your own hit-list words.
“Disruptive innovation,” a term coined by Harvard Business School’s Clayton Christensen in 1997, describes a process by which a product or service takes root initially in simple applications at the bottom of a market and then relentlessly moves up market, eventually displacing established competitors.
Don’t we love talking about disruption! Very rarely does a day go by when the word doesn’t pop up, and it’s applied to everything, from cool new apps to getting a new dog. There are copious books on the subject that everyone, including me, reference a lot. Christensen and his theories on how disruptive innovation are upending large incumbent companies is a favorite.
Here’s the rub: Disruption makes sense when you’re talking about revolutionary change that takes place over months and years. Christensen defined the difference between sustaining innovation and disruptive innovation. The sustaining side is what established market leaders do by listening to their customers and creating products that satisfy their “predicted” needs in new and exciting ways.
Disruptive innovators create markets that initially appear too small to attract the interest of established firms, which are more focused on delivering steady returns and growth to their shareholders. It isn’t easy for larger firms to justify the risk and investment needed to launch a new concept, which ironically gives smaller firms and start-ups a head start at cornering a market.
Major disruption occurred in the 1990s and early 2000s when new players suddenly burst on the scene with products and services that revolutionized traditional industries. BlackBerry disrupted the mobile telephony market, iPhone disrupted Blackberry and Kodak in digital photography, and so on. The big companies didn’t see it coming.
You could say that Moore’s Law, introduced way back in 1965, gave us the first idea on what disruption would look like. Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel, nailed the speed of change we were about to experience when he observed that it would take a year (later revised to 18 months) for costs to be cut in half and productivity to double, and that this rate of growth would continue for decades. Welcome to the early days of the information age! Today, such changes can double in months instead of years. And, as I discussed in a prior blog, just wait until quantum computing hits the scene. It will be like comparing texting to snail mail. Point being, we’ve been in this “disruptive” bubble since the ‘60s!
So, let’s get over “disruption.” Let’s see it as a constant and rise to the challenge of operating in a world where change will only escalate. It’s business-as-usual in the high-tech fast lane and we need a firm grip. Our jobs as business leaders is to know our customers across the spectrum better than ever before; scan emerging markets; watch for new competition; react, not over-react; proactively search for new opportunities; and invest wisely in systems and strategies that are agile enough to withstand the change bombardment. For that, it always comes down to having the best and brightest people on your team.
Disruption is the second word on by Big D Hit List, following Digital. For my next blog, I’ll dig into another longer word that’s been choking conversation particularly in the business world for too long: Disintermediation.
Be well. Lead on.
Adam
Adam L. Stanley Connections Blog
Technology. Leadership. Food. Life.
AdamLStanley.com (Driving Value)
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by Adam L Stanley | Dec 26, 2017 | Leadership, Technology
This post originally appeared on cio.com.
Purging overused buzzwords from the lexicon
Business has always been plagued by jargon and buzzwords. They’re everywhere.
Utility compute morphed into the “cloud” today. We ask people if they have “bandwidth” as if they’re a network device. Consultants want us to “think outside the box” so that we “push the envelope” to create “cutting-edge” solutions. I mean, who wants to hire someone when they can “leverage” an existing employee instead? Why not open a “window of opportunity” to capture “low-hanging fruit”? Before we spend too much time trying to “boil the ocean”, we “take it offline” and “synthesize”. Then there’s all those texting abbreviations – SMH!
The problem is that buzzwords can be more than annoying – they can be real impediments to progress. Such words and phrases can narrow our thinking, forcing people to cram corporate strategies into neat little universally defined boxes. So it’s time to blow a few up that have been clinging on for too long! We all have a hit list of words we’d like to kill, and I thought I’d share mine in this series, so you’ll hopefully share yours. Hint: They all start with a “d”.
Part 1: DIGITAL: The Mother of All D Words
For me, the first Big D word on my hit list is digital. Gasp! How can that be so? Off the top, it brings to mind another phrase that went the way of the dodo bird. When I was an undergrad, my primary major was finance. My secondary major was international business. Now, I won’t say exactly when I graduated, but suffice it to say, it was when the idea of doing business outside of America was still hatching.
Back then, before the world was found to be “flat” and modern planes, trains, and automobiles had made far-flung places accessible, international business was taking off and subsequently became a popular major at colleges. We were taught how to think about the complexities of doing business when your clients were located in different countries with different customs, languages, and economies.
Today, given the tangled web of global supply chains, every business is international in scope. The phrase is no longer needed because it’s just understood. The world is flat and it’s hard to find a scalable business that doesn’t transcend borders.
There’s a parallel with the word digital. Almost 20 years ago, people first started talking about digital transformation and moving to digital business platforms. Back then, it seemed like science fiction and we madly studied the topic and posited on what it meant and how it would radically change business models.
In 1999, I wrote a paper with fellow Wharton students about the battle between online and brick-and-mortar grocery stores. We laid out a fairly robust case that it was unlikely that people would buy their groceries online anytime soon and, if they did, it would only be in limited quantities. We argued it was more likely that grocery stores and online stores would begin to merge. Customers would make choices based on relationships with a particular brand or company, and companies would evolve to provide services where customers needed them.
Now, I’d love to say that we were predicting that startups like Amazon would become behemoths and one day buy traditional grocery stores like Whole Foods. Alas, that wasn’t so, but we did hit on the idea that every business would eventually become digital. Today, saying a business should go digital is a lot like saying the Pope should be Catholic. As you can’t build a house without some form of concrete, you can’t build a business without being digital. Duh. Every business is digital.
The ability to truly differentiate your business in an era where brand and company loyalty are waning as consumer and business choice are increasing is an even greater imperative. As differentiation becomes ever more critical, the ability to leverage and manage information as an asset is a non-negotiable requirement. Don’t talk about digital. Just do it.
What does that mean?
- Be you. Whether a sole proprietor, small business, or major corporation, your journey must be yours. Not everyone can be Uber or Airbnb. Your strategy for handling business in the era where all things are digital will be different.
- Don’t forget your customers. If you realize that digital business is a redundant term and that really it’s just business, you must also remember that customers come first. Learn from them. Predict changes in their behaviors based on other industries, but never forget why they buy your product or service.
- Realize that today’s trend will be different than yesterday’s. Yeah, duh. But it’s amazing how many people jump from fad to fad playing an interminable game of whack-a-mole. Don’t hire a data scientist or invest millions in Hadoop because everyone else is doing so.
- Talent still matters. I have blogged on this multiple times. There still isn’t any special sauce behind hiring for business today, whether you call it digital business or just Business. You need intellectual curiosity, agility, and tenacity. The fundamentals of talent still apply.
Saying digital business is like saying international business- it’s silly; it’s redundant. Don’t be silly. Be smart.
Digital is the first word on by Big-D Hit List. Stay tuned for the next word I think should be purged.
Be well. Lead On.
Adam
Adam L. Stanley Connections Blog
Technology. Leadership. Food. Life.
AdamLStanley.com (Driving Value)
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Be sure to view related blogs here and on CIO.com
Leading Change in the Digital Age: Part 1
Leading Change in the Digital Age: Part 2
Do IT Like Darwin
by Adam L Stanley | Nov 23, 2017 | Leadership, Technology
The slippery slope of getting what we pay for
So, this blog may get me into a bit of hot water, but oh well. Here’s the deal: I wish I had the time to actually do more research, but I’ve been mulling over ideas around pricing and quality that I wanted to test with you out there in the blogosphere.
The perception bias is something that retailers continue to debate and examine in creating their pricing strategies. The theory is based on the concept of selective perception, the tendency not to notice or quickly forget something that caused emotional discomfort or that conflicted with prior beliefs. For example, a teacher may ignore bad behavior of a student because the student resembles a favorite nephew or grandchild. The teacher ignores the student’s shenanigans while punishing others that do the same things. But I’m not wading into theory – and there’s plenty of it. Instead, I want to put out my own observations, and if any of you out there have seen studies to illuminate this issue, please share.
Did I just pay $900 for a meal?
Ok, so think about the last time you or a friend went to a classy restaurant, one of those dining emporiums where dinner costs roughly the same amount as a monthly rent payment. If you don’t know anyone who’s done that, look at some of the reviews for high-end restaurants like Alinea, Next, or French Laundry on sites like Yelp or TripAdvisor – and note the prices, which are enough to destroy or whet your appetite depending on your own snack bracket (pardon the pun).
What I’ve noticed is that it’s pretty rare that anyone who goes to such a place will say anything negative about it unless it’s outrageously bad. The question is: did they really enjoy everything about the experience or is there some sort of bias at play that makes us believe that anything that costs so much has to be amazing? Same goes for expensive cars, clothes, homes, and so on.
What makes so many of us defend the quality of high-priced goods or services even when we can clearly see they don’t measure up? I think it’s got something to do with not liking to admit we made a mistake when we drop a ton on money on something. I’m labelling this blind spot the Embarrassment Bias.
So, let’s get to the point.
It cost more. It’s worth more.
This pervasive bias — where pricing obscures judgement — is also very active in the corporate world. Put it this way: the amount of straight-up honesty you get out of a team or vendor that has led a large initiative is often directly linked to the size of the budget involved. The more money spent, the less objectivity there is in the picture, no matter what the outcome.
How many executives out there have bought into an acquisition or a new product that has been sold by a team as a game changer that winds up being trashed? The fact is the team that built it invested massive amounts of money, time, and passion into the initiative – and along the way everyone lost the ability to see its real value. They become so blinded by the prestige and scope of the project, along with its high price tag, that their objectivity was blown out the window and they could no longer tell if it was meeting its original goals.
If someone designs you a souped-up ERP, for example, and it’s clearly not working for the stakeholders that need to use it — but you’ve invested tons of money and time on it — what’s a common reaction to the result? It’s mostly grin-and-bear-it positivity, which makes all attempts at real evaluation and ROI capture go out the window. Of course there are always people who knew things were going sideways, but until the bitter end will say “nothing is wrong”.
It takes great courage for teams to bust through the Embarrassment Bias and to halt massive programs underway and write them off, but there are notable stories of companies that have done just that. Think Cargill and their major write-off a few years back.
The human relationship to money, as explored here by MIT, is a twisted and complex dynamic. How we relate cost to value and quality has deep roots entangled with hierarchy and the primal idea that only the fittest will survive. As we all know, those who make the most money achieve the most power and respect, whether deserved or not. When it comes to high-stakes projects with big teams and crazy price tags, our egos, along with our deeply engrained attitudes about money, superiority, and quality (you get what you pay for) make it very difficult to stand back and clearly evaluate our performance and outcomes. And no one wants to risk embarrassment.
Check your biases at the door
Anyway, awareness is the antidote for most of our shortcomings, and it’s good to check in on our biases around pricing and quality now and again. I’m wondering though if you’ve seen the embarrassment bias at play in your own workplace? Have you ever seen a big-ticket initiative launch, then flop, and still be defended? Oh, and next time you go to a fancy restaurant, decide if you really like that foie gras!
Be well. Lead On.
Adam
Adam L. Stanley Connections Blog
Technology. Leadership. Food. Life.
AdamLStanley.com (Driving Value)
Follow me on Twitter | Connect with me on Linked In | “Like” me on Facebook
Be sure to view this related blog:
Avoid Value Destroying Arms Race
Leading Change in the Digital Era
by Adam L Stanley | Nov 14, 2017 | Technology
Leading Change in the Digital Age
Part Two: Beware Complacency!
Being an early adopter has its perils, but sitting on the sidelines thinking no major action is needed can be the kiss of death for any company navigating disruptive waters
In my last blog, I reviewed the magnitude of change swamping commercial real estate and how our firm has established four goals to keep our teams focused on delivering the most practical systems and tools for our buck, while also embracing the best cutting-edge innovations.
We touched on the speed of change (in case you haven’t noticed) and I raised the specter of quantum computing, which will make even millennials feel like dinosaurs in the digital age.
Search quantum computing and you’ll find out what I’m talking about. For the purpose of this blog, think of it as computers teaching each other to analyze problems more like humans. Quantum computing is to today’s computing what the IPhone 10 is to a pocket watch from 1920. All of the big players in tech, including IBM, Google and Microsoft, are in the global race to build the world’s first practical quantum computer, and the prestigious journal Science said Google expected to have a 50-qubit quantum computer by the end of this year.
Once quantum computing is made widely available, it will spark the next industrial-super revolution, which will be many times bigger than that caused by the birth of personal-computing in 1984, or the rise of the searchable internet in 1995.
Meanwhile, while we wait for this seismic shift to occur, the digital revolution is quickly gaining momentum. Take data for a moment (bear with me; it really is interesting): In 2010, you might have produced a gigabyte (1,000 megabytes) of data in a week or two – or even a month. That’s the equivalent to about 200 songs, 10 episodes of the Game of Thrones, or roughly 34,000 emails.
Today, an enterprise user produces 60 gigabytes per hour! So, before lunch, the average employee produces about 400 gigabytes. Multiply that by the hundreds of millions of people creating data every day and you can see how 90% of the world’s data was created in the last two years.
With such mind-blowing speed of change in mind, think of companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon. They only got started in the mid-90s, not long ago considering their ginormous size and power. And, just as these new giants rose up, other iconic brands were taken out by disruptive change, including:
– Kodak, which had more digital photography patents than any other company;
– US Steel Mills, with the highest quality and tremendous customer loyalty;
– Many national hotel brands that had consultants hooked on their points and rewards, and;
– Blockbuster, which is perhaps everyone’s favorite story of a giant that was killed by a fledgling startup.
As we move deeper in to the information age, the forces of change will continue to broadside unlikely companies. No matter what period in modern history we’re talking about, what’s always separated winners from losers is what leaders do at critical inflection points that demand change.
Will we be Blockbuster or Netflix? That’s top-of-mind question for leadership at my current company, which refuses to fall into any complacency traps (not in our DNA!). Should we be worried? Not if we focus on value, which to our firm means: a strong bias for action and results; value created by insights not transactions; and giving our people the right platform to drive growth. That, and always keeping an eye out for the next big thing!
Be well. Lead On.
Adam
Adam L. Stanley Connections Blog
Technology. Leadership. Food. Life.
AdamLStanley.com (Driving Value)
Follow me on Twitter | Connect with me on Linked In | “Like” me on Facebook
Be sure to view these related blogs:
Avoid Value Destroying Arms Race
Do IT Like Darwin
by Adam L Stanley | Oct 31, 2017 | Technology
Leading Change in the Digital Age
Part One: People Get Ready!
It’s no revelation that tech is moving at light speed, but all sectors including commercial real estate must track and manage the coming magnitude of change or find themselves paying the high price of ignorance
People in and outside of the commercial real estate world ask me all the time, what makes this period different. They know technology is hitting all aspects of our lives, but that’s basically old news, right? Well, sorry to say, but we haven’t seen anything yet.
Other folks like to point out that the business of commercial real estate hasn’t really changed that much in the last 100 years since Cushman & Wakefield was first established in New York City. After all, it still boils down to doing deals and client relationships. Obviously, that’s true, but those of us the front lines of IT are acutely aware of another story: the way we do things is undergoing non-stop radical change and our business models are being upended.
Here’s some big numbers for perspective: way back in 2014 (three years ago) $400 million was invested in real estate technology; this year, that amount has ballooned to $3 billion.
Still, $3 billion is a mere fraction for a global real estate market valued at $2 trillion. This tells us that there’s a lot more money out there waiting to be spent as investors increasingly recognize that they need technology to both drive value and transform $2 trillion in real estate physical assets into digital assets. Yes, that’s right: CRE is turning into a technology-based sector, too.
When it comes to technology adoption, global commercial real estate – like other industries — is at an inflection point. What that means in plain English, is that if we don’t keep up, we risk obsolescence. That’s why leading companies are putting tremendous resources behind staying on top of change and unlocking the potential of technology to empower our people and clients. This isn’t lip service – we must be very serious about leading change and hyper-focused on our future success.
Ok, with disruption transforming every asset class we serve, along with our own industry, how do we stay focused? How do we decide which digital innovations will best serve our firm and people when so many are emerging from likely and unlikely sources around the world? Our technology program at Cushman & Wakefield has identified four clear but complex goals:
- Optimize our portfolio by making the most of existing systems
- Monitor shifts and threats, identifying opportunities and proactively addressing disruptive forces
- Determine where to place bets; which of many technologies merit investment
- Harness the power of data for driving better decisions and adding value
These goals keep us focused on critical areas that support systematic, effective, and wise decisions. We know that we can’t fall prey to every cool new idea touted by hotshot tech startups and equally we know that can’t ignore all of them and expose ourselves to the “risk of ignorance”. We watch the trends like hawks, knowing there are lots of game-changing surprises to come.
Up until now, techies have used Moore’s Law to predict the pace of change. For those of you who don’t know, Moore’s law refers to an observation made by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore in 1965. He noticed that the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits had doubled every year since their invention – and would stay that way. Though the number now doubles about every 18 months – Moore’s law has been applied to the speed of technological change, and it’s held true.
But wait! Next up is quantum computing, which will blow Moore’s law out of the water. That’s a whole other story that I’ll discuss in part two of this blog.
Be well. Lead On.
Adam
Adam L. Stanley Connections Blog
Technology. Leadership. Food. Life.
AdamLStanley.com (Driving Value)
Follow me on Twitter | Connect with me on Linked In | “Like” me on Facebook
Be sure to view this related blog:
Avoid Value Destroying Arms Race
by Adam L Stanley | Oct 2, 2017 | Leadership, Relationships, Technology, Vendors and Partners
What Makes a Great Partnership?
The business world today is in a state of flux. New companies enter the ecosystem every day, bringing with them new technologies and business models, any one of which could transform an entire industry from the ground up. Most companies want to use this current of change to drive innovation. But the magic bullet is elusive as ever — the question is how best to drive innovation. For many, acquisition seems the only path to take through these disruptive forces of change. But I’d argue there is a different and more flexible way forward: PARTNERSHIP.
Partners help a large organization pivot and adapt in today’s constantly changing business environment. Great outside partners help navigate rapidly changing waters. Those partners could include universities whose research expertise can be leveraged into game-changing R&D, accelerators that can source bleeding-edge innovations from all around the world, and agile startups that can experiment nimbly with new processes and ideas. By collaborating with smart organizations of all sizes, corporations drive productivity gains both for their customers and for their own professionals. It’s a win-win for all parties.
So how do you build a successful partnership? Still no magic bullet and I am by no means saying I’m the best at this. However, based on my experience forging partnerships with startups, tech accelerators, universities, and more, here are four elements I believe are essential:
Mutual benefit
In a good partnership, both partners should gain, emerging from the relationship better than they were before. To ensure this, it’s vital to define all parties’ goals clearly and upfront. According to a KPMG study, some of the most common goals for startups partnering with corporates are gaining access to the market (65%), raising capital (54%) or taking advantage of economies of scale (54%). Meanwhile universities pursuing outside partnerships may be seeking funding to replace public and government sources that have dried up in recent years. You’ll never know what any particular partner wants to get out of the relationship, though, unless you ask—every relationship is different.
Corporations should do some soul-searching too and figure out what their strategic objectives for the partnership are beyond broadly promoting innovation. What unmet client needs will your partner help address? How will the partnership augment your company’s own internal resources and processes? Great partnerships are based on a solid business case, not irrational impulse.
Trust
True partnerships depend on trust and faith, not just carefully worded contracts. You and your partner will be engaging with each other at a deeper level than a simple vendor/customer relationship, and that means you won’t just share goals and objectives but common values, too. Don’t hold back that deeper bond with too much red tape. As a 2016 Imaginatik/MassChallenge report on the state of startup/corporate collaboration puts it: “Lengthy up-front negotiations over IP concerns, access to talent, and expected time commitments may protect against exposure, but almost always lead to gridlock and failure.” Though it is important to define the terms of the relationship up front, a great partnership shouldn’t be micromanaged. Mutual understanding and trust should be your guide.
Evolution
This goes hand-in-hand with the trust element. You can never know at the beginning exactly how the relationship will develop—it continues to evolve as you and your partner learn more about each other. Many corporations will need to adapt their processes to suit the needs of their partners over time. For instance, some experts suggest creating special “fast-track” versions of processes like procurement and invoices specifically for startup partners, which often need to move faster than the large organizations with which you might be used to working. By contrast, university academic research often proceeds at a slower pace than corporations are used to. A study published in MIT Sloan Review suggests corporate partners define a specific timescale for each university engagement with an eye to encouraging more long-term instead of short-term involvement. Overall, the key is: adapt, adapt, adapt. You’ve invested in this partner, so do what it takes to make the relationship work for you.
Rough spots
No matter how successful your partnership ends up being, you will have down days that cause you to question the relationship. That’s okay—that is part of the process. Heck, I certainly don’t know of a perfect personal relationship and a corporate/startup partnership is completely optional for both parties. Leverage some of that trust and faith to talk through issues with your partner and brainstorm possible solutions. Do they need more access to mentors and advocates in your organization? Closer connections to clients? Faster turnaround on invoicing? Do what you can to make it happen.
It’s possible, of course, that the problems go deeper than that. Sometimes, a rough spot turns into a series of rough spots, which then turns into a sense that neither partner is getting the things out of this relationship that they wanted. That’s okay, too. Partnerships don’t have to last forever to be worthwhile—they can be for a season. Just remember to end things with your former partner on good terms: you never know when you might want to collaborate with them again in the future.
There’s no way around it: building great partnerships takes a lot of time and effort. When it’s done right, however, the results speak for themselves. Partnerships are probably the most effective way a large organization can drive innovation and adapt to today’s changing tech landscape—getting there just takes a bit of dedication and faith.
Be well. Lead On.
Adam
Adam L. Stanley Connections Blog
Technology. Leadership. Food. Life.
AdamLStanley.com
Follow me on Twitter | Connect with me on Linked In | “Like” me on Facebook
Be sure to view all of my Top Traits series on talent:
Trait 1: Hard working AND talented
Trait 2: Pride in work product
Trait 3: Fun to work with
With such mind-blowing speed of change in mind, think of companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon. They only got started in the mid-90s, not long ago considering their ginormous size and power. And, just as these new giants rose up, other iconic brands were taken out by disruptive change, including:
When it comes to technology adoption, global commercial real estate – like other industries — is at an inflection point. What that means in plain English, is that if we don’t keep up, we risk obsolescence. That’s why leading companies are putting tremendous resources behind staying on top of change and unlocking the potential of technology to empower our people and clients. This isn’t lip service – we must be very serious about leading change and hyper-focused on our future success.
The business world today is in a state of flux. New companies enter the ecosystem every day, bringing with them new technologies and business models, any one of which could transform an entire industry from the ground up. Most companies want to use this current of change to drive innovation. But the magic bullet is elusive as ever — the question is how best to drive innovation. For many, acquisition seems the only path to take through these disruptive forces of change. But I’d argue there is a different and more flexible way forward: PARTNERSHIP.
This goes hand-in-hand with the trust element. You can never know at the beginning exactly how the relationship will develop—it continues to evolve as you and your partner learn more about each other. Many corporations will need to adapt their processes to suit the needs of their partners over time. For instance, some experts suggest creating special “fast-track” versions of processes like procurement and invoices specifically for startup partners, which often need to move faster than the large organizations with which you might be used to working. By contrast, university academic research often proceeds at a slower pace than corporations are used to. A study published in