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Purposeful Enterprise with Jeff Semenchuk

Purposeful Enterprise with Jeff Semenchuk

A purposeful conversation with the Chief Innovation Officer, Blue Shield of California. Jeff Semenchuk describes the requirements to build a purposeful enterprise.

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Put Business in Context

Put Business in Context

How should tech professionals prepare themselves for the business world? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLuqEL1MgWs Roger Mader provides an introductory briefing on business education for technology professionals. Hosted by Jeremy Alexis of the IIT Institute of Design, the Discovery Partners Institute produces next generation technology leaders in the Chicago Market. These aspiring…

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Find the Future First, part 3

Find the Future First, part 3

How do we explore our known unknowns?

In this final installment, you will conclude with the four quadrants of trend forecasting, to explore the intersections of possible futures.

If the video is not appearing here please follow this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEwGt91yo58

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Find the Future First: New Perspectives Part 2 in this series illustrate combined research methods to see new possibilities. Take several points of view. Explore the intersections. Bring a new perspective. "The future is already here. It's just unevenly distributed."

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Find the Future First; part 1 of 3

Find the Future First; part 1 of 3

Take the friction out of your forecasts.

How did Jules Verne, William Gibson and other science fiction writers anticipate transformations in technology, society and human behavior? They used the keen observation available to scientists and other deep experts in changing domains.

In the next two weeks I will share parts 2 and 3 of…

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Platforms Cultivate Ecosystems

Elevate and expand your innovation design by cultivating ecosystems. This case shows how Apple Music won prominence, against Steve Jobs’ instincts, by inviting partners to come out and play. https://youtu.be/wooJy4y5Pwk If you have difficulty viewing the video above, please click this YouTube link.

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Platforms Challenge Conventional Wisdom

Platforms pivot perspectives. See how GE Aviation redefined an industry by redefining the real problem to be solved.

Learn from GE Aviation. Bring diverse thinkers into your design team. Unshackle your thinking from what YOU believe you do. Discover what your customers really NEED. Challenge convention. Redefine the problem to create a more valuable, disruptive platform innovation. If you have difficulty viewing this video, see it on y…

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Platforms Rejuvenate Witness how Soichiro Honda's insight helped turn around his company by playing to strength. Then consider your own enterprise.

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Build Foundations: Platform Design

Build Foundations: Platform Design

Platform design methods can build a foundation for generations of future innovations.

This short video describes the concept through historical examples. Over the next few weeks we will explore case studies from GE, Apple and Honda, using Platform Design.

Thank you for your interest in these valuable methods. I welcome your comments…

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Design to Align Your Organization To get the culture you want, build the organization you deserve. The Propeller Model helps leaders to clarify purpose and direction and, align your people to strive together in unison.

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Get Gritty

Winning entrepreneurs’ need more than the ability to confront hard things and run lean; they need grit.

At the age of 27 Angela Duckworthleft management consulting to teach math to 7th graders in the New York City Department of Education. As a Manhattan parent putting a couple of 7th graders through this system, and a volunteer teacher in several of NYC’s challenged high schools, my appreciation…

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Startup entrepreneurs face countless challenges. They have to thread the needle between competing demands. Success runs hard, lean and gritty.

Three experts on the startup journey offer alternate but complementary perspectives on what it takes to win against hard odds.

HARD

LEAN

& GRITTY

Ben Horowitz, serial entrepreneur, executive and investor, and a man of remarkable timing, describes The Hard Thing About Hard Things.

Eric Reis describes a 12-step program for building The Lean Startup.

Angela Duckworth takes lessons from Wall Street to Public Education to describe the entrepreneur’s marathon. Her series of lessons describe the art of perseverance—true Grit.

Hard Things First

This week reflects on the hard things about leading into the unknown—building a business when there are no easy answers.

Valley Boy

Ben Horowitz—born in England, raised in Berkeley, educated in computer science at Columbia and UCLA—arrived in Silicon Valley in 1990 with auspicious timing to join the first dot com boom. He engineered products for Silicon Graphics before joining Marc Andreessen for a breakneck ride at Netscape, minting millionaires in their acquisition by AOL.

Again his timing was brilliant; Horowitz left AOL in 1999 to found Loudcloud with Andreessen, skipping out before the Time Warner debacle could unfold.

Timing’s Not Everything

Many young startup dotcommers got lucky. Horowitz enjoyed good fortune in both timing and location, but his continuing track record—to this day—only cements his hard-earned reputation as an insightful market leader.

He led Loudcloud from it’s birth, a front-edge infrastructure platform for Ford, the US Army, and other huge accounts. He took it public in 2001 (on the cusp of the dot bomb), broadened the offering into Opsware.

He sold Loudcloud’s outsourced service business to EDS, which became Opsware’s anchor account with annual services of $100M. Then he sold Opsware to HP for $1.6B. Bam. Trifecta.

Rather than retire to an island, he went on to lead and build HP’s $3B software business to 3,000 developers.

Money Meets Mouth

Today Horowitz famously invests in next generation leaders through the private venture capital firm he launched in 2009 with his serial partner. a16z more often is described by their names, Andreessen Horowitz.

Along the journey, Ben Horowitz took counsel from several of the Valley’s leading lights. He celebrates the importance of mentors. And he returns the favor with his very direct, very refreshing handbook for tech entrepreneurs.

THE HARD THING

NO FORMULA

FINE LINE

The Hard Thing About Hard Things stands apart as a modern management book. Silicon Valley has taught us that acute uncertainty demands leadership over management. Horowitz culls his uncommon range of experience and thoughtful reflection for uncommonly thoughtful insights. His memorable turns of phrase help.

“The only thing that prepares you to lead a company is leading a company.”

Horowitz describes three essential responsibilities of leadership.

Hard Decisions

Make best move when there are no great or obvious moves. He describes a combination of focus, courage and decisiveness.

Focus, to find the best move among many bad moves.

Courage, to make a decision when your inclination is to wait for more data that may never come.

Decisiveness to plunge ahead into uncertainty because wavering presents even greater danger.

“The hard thing isn’t setting a big, hairy, audacious goal.

The hard thing is laying people off when you miss the big goal.” 

Hard Exits

Among the hardest things is firing someone. As the leader, the least you owe them is to lead them to the door personally. It’s about being there for the hardest moments. Respect the pain. Own the solution.

“You have to be responsible when you’re running the organization.

Firing people who are your friends is part of that responsibility.”

Hard Conversations

Finally, Horiwitz promotes another vital symbol of respect for your people by describing feedback, as a vital tool for leaders at all levels to promote organizational learning. Often described as “a gift”, Horowitz prefers to characterize it as a dialogue, not a monologue.

You are learning as well as teaching, from the context and experience of the recipient. Horowitz similarly observes that teaching may give you your greatest source of leverage to propel growth.

“Take care of the people, the products, and the profit—in that order.”

Lean & Gritty

Next week we get lean. Then we’ll get gritty. Until then, in the struggles you face, consider Ben Horowitz:

“’Life is struggle.’

I believe that within that quote lies the most important lesson in entrepreneurship:

~ Embrace the struggle.” 

Solid counsel from a man who knows. Embrace the struggle.

Make Better.

  Hard, Lean and Gritty Startup entrepreneurs face countless challenges. They have to thread the needle between competing demands. Success runs hard, lean and gritty.

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Formulate Change: A+V+B+P

Formulate Change. Apply this simple formula to compel your people to adopt innovation and champion change.

Few people fight for change. You can win the fight.

Change threatens. Expect your people to fight against change; even the most sensible and seemingly obvious changes.

Change Threatens

We all recoil against change. It represents an unanticipated risk. Only a fool, or those who recognize they have no better choice, plunge ahead into the unknown. Expect a fight. The bigger the change – unfamiliar,…

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The Value of Design

The Value of Design: Boost your Return on Innovation

What is Design?

Businesses and organizations adopt the methods of design—sometimes in the simplified form of “design thinking“—to make better: better products, better experiences, better enterprise.

This short video defines design as a method to craft greater value, and shows how you can calculate and prove your Return on Design.

https://videopress.com/embed/drnk6tqg?hd=0&autoPlay=0&permalink=0&l…

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After You

I’d like to sell you on an idea. I’d like you to consider just shutting up. Really. Just hear me out for a second.

Can’t Help It. We’re Always Selling

Like it or not, we really are always selling.

I don’t mean to. You don’t mean to. We just can’t help it. Five hundred generations of civilization have honed us down to a perfectly self-interested pack animal, surviving by making the case for our…

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Threading the Needle

Startup entrepreneurs face countless challenges. They hope to bring the right product to the right market at the right time. You have to fly through that narrow and fleeting intersection, which is mostly invisible, while racing against competitors, the clock and dwindling cashflow.

VISION

STEER

ACCELERATE

Ben Horowitz, born in England, raised in Berkeley, educated in computer science at Columbia…

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The Sixth Wave

In recent weeks we reviewed the Five historic waves of human innovation, culminating in the transformative effect of free markets. How do we prepare for the sixth wave?

The Future is Already Here

You may not notice it yet, but the sixth wave is already underway. We’ve been swimming in it our whole lives. If you’re one of the fortunate lottery winners of circumstance, you’ve been born into a free…