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Product line extensions, geographical
expansion and new technologies and
adjacencies aren't enough.
Performance shortfalls create a "results
gap." But limitations of growth are caused
by organizational and process gaps.
Building the team and its methods.
The characteristics and processes of an
"Entrepreneur in Residence."
Going beyond the creative into a
practical and executable model for
sustained growth.
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Oyster-centric definitions of terms used
on this site.
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Adaptive challenges are the hurdles that new environments pose, where changing business environments provide opportunities that don't yield to existing technologies. 
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Leadership
Work has changed. The regulatory, technical and business environments have been permanently altered by global competition. The pace is faster. Capital is everywhere and margins are steadily pressured. To flourish under these circumstances, leaders must guide their organizations in very demanding ways.
Traditionally, CEOs have filled the role of "presiding authority" figures. Their intelligence, training and experience has brought them to a position where they manage the organization beneath them through authority and fiat. They combine hierarchal organizations populated with able managers, current business systems, established markets and proven intellectual property to exploit opportunities. This approach produces growth that is adjacent to current success and which is, largely, a re-iteration of past accomplishments.
The exploratory model of new business creation as it is applied to leadership.
Engaged CEOs, on the other hand, are deeply involved in their organizations, communicating many layers deep into them. They observe widely and operate as mentors, advisors and enablers. They see their roles as aggregating insight, redistributing it and mobilizing the resources necessary to exploit that insight. Often, these leaders feel a deep social responsibility toward their companies, feeling compelled to leave them better than when found. Their primary motivation is to make the company something more than it is, not simply a larger version of its current condition.
Leadership
To accomplish this end, effective leaders play an active role in new platform growth. They provide the operational principles that shape the development of platforms, defining business aspirations at the highest levels and describing overarching methods. The leader frames the challenge and is committed to business innovation. He determines what it takes to succeed and establishes the pre-conditions for success.
Adaptive Challenges
Perhaps the most critical and empowering role of the leader in the process of developing growth factories is to move the new organization's focus from comfortable problem-solving to truly adaptive challenges. These are the hurdles that new environments pose, where changing business environments provide opportunities that don't yield to existing technologies. Framing the circumstances and providing guidance in exploiting them, in spite of unfamiliar terrain and undiscovered solutions, is the broadest task leaders must face.
The process for doing so can be outlined as follows:
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Define Growth Gap: Enterprise goals must be set and the reasonably achievable contributions of core business activities (asset productivity, cost control/margin improvements and iterative growth) estimated and executed. In addition, geographical expansion, product line extensions and adjacencies can add new value. All derive from existing business unit activity. Inevitably, there is a gap between the desired level of corporate growth and the sum of the business unit growth forecasts. The difference between these combined growth contributions and the overall growth goals of the organization is the critical growth shortfall that must be addressed.
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Allocate Time: Leaders have to devote a significant portion of their time and energy to focus on the new organization and process necessary to promote new growth platforms. This is new and difficult work and requires a deep involvement with resisting elements and unsolved problems. In most instances, this will require a shift in time from addressing operating issues to providing strategic insights into the challenges of domain and platform selection, business model innovation and investment choices. It is an embedded and deeply personal effort.
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Develop Context - Frame Challenges: The context of potential new platforms lies in the broadest scope of "where we can make a difference." That is, new domains lie beyond existing product and service environments, but not (usually) completely divorced from them. They are in areas where organizational familiarity exists (with technology or customers or distribution), but not expertise. They leverage existing capabilities but don't rely solely on them. Developing proper context means conveying the concept that our reach, not our grasp, is to be extended.
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Build Commitment: Many substantial organizations have organizational silos, turf wars and competing agendas that resist consensus and change. Isolated business unit executives can undermine rather than accelerate achievement of any growth initiative that requires cooperation. So, existing business unit managers must endorse the process of new platform development and buy into its pursuit. Better yet, the CEO should instill a shared purpose and commitment among executives. They must understand that the vitality and future of the business depends on work outside their purview and that they have a personal, vested interest in the new platforms this process will create. This is not a volunteer effort, it is a requirement established by leadership.
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Shape the Organization: The New Growth Platforms organization will need to be independent and interdependent. It will need to be guided by and free from the existing business systems logic. The unit must have a collective curiosity and resources to explore enabling trends and unmet or latent customer needs. It will need to identify and use capabilities imbedded in core businesses: the knowledge, IP, processes and assets that can be leveraged in the creation of New Growth Platforms. The principles, "rules of engagement" and "way of working" between the newly-established New Growth Platforms organization and the core businesses must be shaped by top management.
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Establish Oversight: The work of the new organization must be measured and mapped against disciplined processes and controls. Its activities and goals must be monitored to ensure the investment value of the work.
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Communicate to the Organization and Key Constituents: Ongoing communications regarding the new organization's work must be communicated to those who have committed to support it and those who will be called upon to contribute to its success. Key constituents ranging from the Board of Directors, shareholders, suppliers and others will need to understand the strategy and goals as it relates to their roles. The story and the logic must be consistent.
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Assess Funding Needs: The New Growth Platforms organization will need a financial commitment for a minimum of three years or experienced managers and employees will not take it seriously. If this is not clear and forthcoming, they will say, "this is another innovation experiment, a new 'flavor-of-the-month' activity." Institutionalizing growth will require a budget that will attract serious, purposeful managers that are convinced that resources to do the job right will be available. They will assess top management's commitment less by "what they say" and more by "what they do."
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Educate Financial Markets: Leaders must demonstrate to financial markets have the value of the new work, the vitality it displays and the upside growth it promises. Valuations based on growth scenarios are a significant part of the new value created by the new organization and its platforms.
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Effective Leaders
Effective leaders play an active role in new platform growth. They provide the operational principles that shape the development of platforms, defining business aspirations at the highest levels and describing overarching methods. The leader frames the challenge and is committed to business innovation. He determines what it takes to succeed and establishes the pre-conditions for success.
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