Structuring for Success
Old style companies cannot maximize success in a knowledge based economy and the developed world cannot thrive but in a knowledge based economy. The disparity between rich countries and poor countries is too great for a rich economy to compete with an ever educating poor country. Cheap speed of light digital knowledge sharing has changed the world forever.
The developed world is going through challenging times. Much of the difficulty was brought to light dramatically with the collapse of the US housing market collapse. However the problem is systemic and has been building for a long time, fuelled by the disparity of incomes and the rapid spread of knowledge.
"To maximize success in this new world, the entire organization must be aligned with is priorities- It sounds simple but in most companies 90% of employees are not aligned and the vast majority do not even know how their job connects to the company's vision and mission and their review process and compensation do not drive toward key goals, strategies and tactics."
- Blair Goulet.
To succeed business leaders need to stabilize their organization through cost efficiencies that may include significant layoffs and substantial off shoring of manufacturing and IT. But very quickly they must get back to creation, retention and growth of profitable revenue streams because without revenue the organization cannot breath, rebuild its consumer advantage and value proposition. This requires a well aligned structure laser pointed on its mission and values.
This is particularly true in knowledge based companies – so just what is a knowledge based company – "one with a thinking workforce that relies on the intelligence of this community that have come together voluntarily for a common purpose. The distinction is the balance between doing and thinking. Virtually all employees must do but for many organizations they must do thinking. The industrialized model was to strip the work complexity to its bone and the best example of this was the assembly line, the secretarial file clerk or the bank teller of old. In these paper and product factories 90% of the thinking was intended to be done by no more than 10% of the work force. Today in many companies the exact opposite ratios need to hold. Yet our corporations were built on the old paradigm and many still carry legacy systems and procedures influenced by that environment.
The creation of meaningful differentiation ("MD") is only possible through an intimate knowledge of customer needs gleaned on the front line. This is the surest route to customer retention, and growth of profitable revenue streams. "MD" should be the mantra of every leader and as close to the top of every leaders list of priorities as building an engagement culture fuelled by customer input. -Blair Goulet
Blair is a faculty member and key contributor to the Masters Certificate in Sales Leadership Program at SEEC where he teaches corporations how to better align the disparate parts of their company into a well oiled directed machine that is fuelled by its ability to create better customer value propositions through customer insight. He is President of Oxygen, a boutique strategy firm focusing on strategies for innovation, corporate alignment, and exceptional revenue growth.
As president of Open Source he consulted with over 300 financial service companies and grew the business dramatically, He served as COO of SOLCORP and spent 15 years in senior management positions with Xerox. He completed his Executive Education at the Wharton School, Kellogg Graduate School of Management and the University Of Chicago Graduate School Of Business.
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