Dawna MacLean is a customer experience and business strategy thought leader, She is also a breath of fresh air and a source of original and innovative thinking. One of her latest posts on benefiting from radical change has deep insights and practical benefits for business leaders and I’d encourage you to read it or even better enjoy her presentation on the topic on the very brilliant Prezzi
On the thought of radical change, I’d like to share with you an excellent study done by IBM called Capitalising on Complexity – the crux of the report is that managing change is no longer the key challenge for business but complexity is. After a decade of dramatic change, executives now face incredible complexity across all aspects of the value chain and very few believe their organisations have the competencies to deal with this complexity. There are so many huge questions to answer, many business functions will need to be reinvented but the opportunities are massive. Equally there will be many casualties amongst those who do not build capabilities into their business to deal with complexity. I’m doing a lot of research on swarm intelligence as a way of dealing with business complexity and I’m very excited about the lessons we can learn from nature. More on this to come soon.
and you can also read a recent blog I wrote on this report:
Dawna, thanks for the stimulation discussions
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Thanks Dean! The IBM report is simply brilliant! I have only had a light read and I am drooling to spend more time with it. I love “defy complexity with creativity” and that creativity, integrity and global thinking top the leadership qualities CEOs see as most important over the next 5 years. I also loved that the top focus areas for CEOs in the next 5 years are getting closer to the customer, people skills, and insight and intelligence. Most compelling, and you pointed out, “a surprising 79% of CEOs feel ill-equipped to deal with the raising complexity and succeed in this drastically different world”. This report digs into how to embody creative leadership, build operating dexterity and reinvent customer relationships, all with a very refreshing perspective and your blog eloquently highlights the key take-aways.