Fast cats really need an organizational setup and an environment to thrive. So what does it really take to create a setup in this fast paced business world, to attract and retain top talent and how do you harness their full potential.
The organization and cultural context
For obvious reasons, every decision you take or action you promote should encourage a culture of autonomy while working as a team with a focus on innovation and forward thinking. Innovation and forward thinking are table stakes in today’s business.
The challenge is getting the first part right which reads as a contradiction in itself. Imagine that every player on the football field aspires to be the quarterback on the winning team. Keeping that intent in mind,
– Can you encourage and support autonomous thinking?
– Can you support actions that can flourish in a team setup?
– Can you continuously prompt your team to think outside the box?
– Can you be the coach of such a team?
– Can you build such a team with diverse backgrounds and cultural filters?
– Can you capture the most diverse viewpoints incorporated in a solution?
If you can create and sustain such a team then setup and maintain a test & learn focus alongside.
Failures will be often, but fail quickly and cheaply in a controlled sand box. Learn from failures. Be scrappy.
Build an analytical culture and allocate time for pure innovation for the team to work on pet projects
The idea selection and hypothesis testing
Once you have let the organization free, you will soon start collecting ideas. Inspire people to experiment, this goes beyond just getting ideas to the table.
How do you select an idea for testing?
Grab every opportunity and test every idea that targets solutions to redefine a market
Back all decisions with data. As Narayan Murthy said, “In God we trust, everyone else gets data to the table”. Use Rapid prototyping and analytics to test hypothesis.
To achieve what objective and test it on who? If you were Google, 2 concepts will prevail, 10x and 1%.
The idea should bring value in excess of a 10x improvement in a domain or segment to be considered path breaking. Don’t think about multiples in profits or exit valuation, think about multiples in value added and disrupting a market or a practice.
Test with 1% of the subset audience which supports the philosophy of quick validation.
Rapid prototyping and Black box testing and other concepts apply here.
Discard quickly if the hypothesis fails
Talent
Last but not the least, don’t cringe on paying for talent. Get the best people to solve the toughest problems and the returns and value added will be exponential. Get the fastest cats in the market and set them free in the innovation jungle.
Feed them well and watch them roar and soar.
