Designing:

What are some successful pathways to driving delegation within your organizations? This interactive lecture will provide a comprehensive model for how to develop and guide an “unbossing” environment within organizations. It will also provide a detailed assessment of the attributes of successful leaders who operate this way and some thoughts on how to develop such a leadership pipeline within your organization. The focus is not just on senior leadership but also on those in the middle. It will provide a personal leadership roadmap for those seeking to develop those skills in themselves. Some of the topics discussed will include:

• Leadership as dynamic relationship between leading and following
• How to operate as a leader without much formal power
• Mobilizing and driving delegation at all levels
• Attributes and skill set of a real delegating leader

Many business leaders of established organizations do lip-service to the need for building an entrepreneurial mindset within their organizations. Yet turning these ideas into action remains an elusive proposition. In this interactive lecture we will first explore just what an entrepreneurial mindset is. Using cases from both startups and established organizations from around the world we will first explore some of the facets of this mindset which include proactivity, courage, learning orientation, collaborative non-zero sum thinking, and a positive identification with their organization. We will then turn to case studies of large organizations that have successfully embedded such a mindset within their organization. Finally, we will conclude with a discussion of how each participant can cultivate such a mindset within themselves and also within those around them.

Spurred by visions of an uncertain future and haunted by intense competition, companies are rushing to realize the goal of becoming agile organization.  Despite the increasing need for agility in a competitive business environment there are few paradigms of how companies can become more agile.  This session presents a roadmap of the stages through which companies evolve as they embark on this journey towards greater agility. Through a series of cases about firms in a range of industries that have successfully embarked on some of these changes, we will develop a comprehensive blueprint for agile organization. Some of the topics discussed will include:

• What is organizational agility?
• Is agility right for you?
• Obstacles to formulating and implementing an agile organization
• The road to building an agile organization
• The role of leadership across all levels in embedding agility within their organization

It is not an easy undertaking to achieve success in today’s volatile economy. There are few templates or models for sustained success. In this interactive lecture, we will explore a truism – customer centricity – to understand its relevance and meaning for organizations today. Most organizations embrace the notion that their customers come first, but few companies can actually deliver on that promise. 

Firms seeking to make customer centricity or outside-in thinking into something more than just a catchy corporate slogan have to confront a number of external and internal challenges. We will explore a broad range of hidden obstacles that can limit organizations from achieving their goals. Some of these include strategies for bridging internal silos that slow down decision making and foster an internal focus; hiring and developing “T-shaped” managers who can manage both vertically within authority boundaries as well as horizontally across authority boundaries; and overcoming the “knowing-doing gap” whereby we limit our ability to embrace lasting change.  

We will elaborate on the importance of a play-to-win mindset for achieving market success through genuine customer centricity. We will define what it means and discuss strategies that winning sports coaches use to get their teams to become winning teams, drawing out the lessons that offer broader application.

Many entrepreneurial ventures fail not because of an inability to attract customers, but because of their failure to evolve their organizations. In this session we will discuss the Micromax case to elaborate on challenges fast growth organizations face as they grow. Many new ventures like Micromax are adept at gauging unmet market needs and creating novel offerings. However, they fail to understand how to scale their organizations such that they can retain their entrepreneurial spirit that drives growth but also achieve scale through which they can be more productive and efficient. Finding this balance of apparently conflicting demands is a necessity in the increasingly competitive and dynamic marketplace we see today. We will end with a short lecture that discusses some of the best practices among those ventures that break away and achieve fast growth.

Sports coaches frequently refer to the notion of “playing to win” versus “playing not to lose.” Business executives have embraced this distinction as a way to comprehend a common pathology in many organizations that stop growing. We will elaborate on this distinction to uncover what it means for you as a leader personally, but also for how you might lead your organizations going forward. Some of the topics discussed will include:

• What is playing to win?
• What is playing not to lose? Why do many individuals and organizations  fall under the spell of playing not to lose?
• How do large and successful organizations overcome the spell of playing not to lose and shift towards playing to win?
• Leveraging customer centricity as a vehicle for growth
• What are some leadership imperatives for making this shift?

In the present context, firms are witnessing dramatic shifts in the competitive landscape with intensified competition and increasing commoditization of offerings. Consequently, firms are struggling with finding ways to organize themselves to be both product leaders while also getting closer to their customers. They must simultaneously be cost leaders while also being on the cutting edge of innovation. The challenges organizations face in such a context are not only strategic but also organizational.  In this session we consider some of the latest organizational strategies that industry leaders are pursuing. We will discuss in detail when to organize around customer, product, function, or geography or some combination thereof. Some of the topics discussed will include:

• The architecture of the new organization
• Linking your strategy with your organization
• Core business processes in the new organization
• The role of new leaders in these organizations

Those firms seeking to make customer centric solutions into something more than just a catchy corporate slogan, have to confront their internal siloes that are typically anchored around products or geography. They face the dilemma of whether to swap out their old siloes with new customer oriented ones or retain the old siloes but then seek out ways to transcend those existing siloes so that they operate in a more synchronous way. This lecture will not only elaborate on when firms should bust old siloes and when they should transcend them, but it will provide a detailed discussion of the tactics to manage such efforts. Managers will learn about to build internal bridges across siloes and gain insights into how to become those effective bridge builders. Some of the topics discussed will include:

• When to bust and when to bridge existing siloes
• Strategies for connecting internal siloes to ensure synchronicity
• Individual strategies for managerial survival on the intersection of siloes
• How to become a bridge builder across siloes

Companies looking to grow in commoditizing markets like to say that they want to become more customer centric. But few companies can actually deliver on that promise. Most companies are organized into product-focused business units that allow them to develop deep knowledge and expertise, but that obscure a holistic picture of customers and their needs. Building on my recent research into the challenges of top- and bottom-line growth, I have found that customer centricity can be a powerful vehicle to build outside-in solutions to stimulate growth. 

However, those firms seeking to make customer centric solutions into something more than just a catchy corporate slogan, have to confront a number of internal challenges. The first obstacle discussed will be organizational siloes that are typically anchored around products, geography, or function. This lecture will not only elaborate on when firms should bust old siloes and when they should transcend them, but it will provide a detailed discussion of the tactics to manage such efforts. We will also discuss the role of “T-shaped” managers, who can manage both vertically within authority boundaries as well as horizontally across authority boundaries, in building such silo bridges. We will conclude with a discussion of the “knowing-doing gap” to discuss how organizations that embrace customer centricity don’t always achieve it. A broad range of hidden obstacles that can limit organizations from achieving their goals will be discussed.

In the present context, firms are witnessing dramatic shifts in the competitive landscape with intensified competition and increasing commoditization of offerings. Consequently, firms are struggling with finding ways to organize themselves to be both product leaders while also getting closer to their customers. They must simultaneously be cost leaders while also being on the cutting edge of innovation. How do organizations deal with these seemingly competing sets of demands? In this session we consider some of the latest organizational strategies that industry leaders are pursuing. Some of the topics discussed will include:

• The architecture of the new organization
• Linking your strategy with your organization
• Core business processes in the new organization
• The role of new leaders in these organizations

Marketing remains of the most underutilized functions within organizations. In many organizations, instead of holding the elixir for driving organic growth it becomes a staff support organization that generates valuable insights that rarely get used. In this session we will build on my article in the Harvard Business Review and explore how some organizations have found ways to make marketing a strategic function that drives its agenda for growth. Intead of becoming a “staff” organization it is viewed as closely aligned with the “line” organization of the firm. We will discuss some of the key success factors that allow this to happen. Some of the topics discussed will include:

• Identify and explore the essential foundations for making marketing a strategic function within organizations
• Examine some of the newest organizational structures and strategies to mobilize and utilize marketing insights in strategic decision making
• Investigate how marketers in leading firms in a range of industries use creative strategies to make themselves more relevant
• Cultivate an understanding of how to drive a culture of marketing driven decision making inside organizations