Organising for Innovation is hard
The messy parts of software teams
I stumbled upon the video below today. It’s safe to assume it’s your typical AI FOMO. But the important message happens at 1h 12m 52s and has nothing to do with AI. Peter speaks about the grit you need to have as a startup cut laser-sharp boundaries and maintain your focus when you are pivoting.
Peter co-authored the book Exponential Organizations 2.0: The New Playbook for 10x Growth & Impact. Prior to that
I have seen these sharp cuts in tech startups especially.
Massive Transformative Purpose
They suggest two methods:
Have a small team work hyper-focus on how to pivot the company by disrupting an adjacent area
Be a dictator to rally to the cause
Now— I don’t have much experience at Apple or Jeff Bezos scale. But I’ve seen the two approaches above a dozen times. They come to life seemingly from an unexpected angle.
This tactical and strategic focus is amazing when it is adopted during normal operations. But when a startup has financial issues it can take on a life of its own and produce 10x the intensity. Good and bad.
The dictator approach comes with an enormous human cost: stress, burnout, lack of trust, high turnover.
The focused team is expensive and requires immense trust and support from the organisation: radical restructuring, lay-offs, cost-cutting.
What can we learn from this?
It’s all about Mindset.
Companies that approach me with brilliant new ideas to share on a podcast or book form come to me with an Abundance Mindset.
“We are so grateful to have an innovative team.”
“We have no shortage of challenges to train or team on.”
“Every problem with our system is an opportunity to grow and provide more value.”
Companies that share their problems with me and seek coaching come to me a Scarcity Mindset.
“We don’t have time. We are stuck.”
“Our team isn’t experienced enough.”
“We don’t have enough tests. We cannot automate anything.”
Key takeaway from the talk above: “‘Take something that was scarce and make it abundant’ is what entrepreneurs do great.”
Get Bad News Early
Peter suggests a great hack:
Go around the room with your team
Have everybody write down the reason a project will fail in 6 months
Go into detail, get the doubts on from minds to a piece of paper
Share. Anything that comes up several times, test that first
Build checks along the way to ensure you are measuring the suspected failure-criteria
In face of challenge when your mind kicks in as a reaction to your emotions, reframe them from negative to positive.
