Hey, happy Monday,
Last Friday saw the conclusion of another exciting edition of the Strategic Acceleration Program here at STRTGY, the sixth to be exact.
Starting today, new professionals will join the STRTGY Alumni Network. The group of professionals throughout Italy who attended the Program and decided to manage innovation in a radically different way, implementing OKRs, JTBD, Design Thinking, Pre and Prototyping in their business…
Each at their own level, adapting these techniques to their own operational capabilities, business models, and clients, because there is no one-size-fits-all recipe for creating the future but there are tools for anticipating it.
You can already submit your Application for Admission to the seventh edition.
Get ready for an experience of full body contact with innovation techniques that seem possible only in Silicon Valley, with giant teams and massive amounts of capital, and to shatter your beliefs to understand that this may be the least expensive and least risky option for staying relevant in the marketplace.
This you are reading is not a sales letter. It is a personal invitation to challenge the status quo. You are not obligated by anyone to continue except by your ambitions.
The educational offerings today are incredibly broad. The very talented Federico Sbandi has drawn its anatomy in this article and what struck me the most was this sentence:
“Eight years ago, 7 of the 10 schools listed did not exist.”
-Federico Sbandi
You can’t compete with the Internet. The information is already out there, and there will always be a cheaper way to learn that tool, to install that pixel, to develop that application without knowing a single line of code… but information alone is not enough.
STRTGY Is not information business.
STRTGY is Transformation Business.
And those who pass through here realize that the one thing the world’s most innovative companies have in common is one thing: Business as usual is over!
3 innovation patterns
Time recently published the list of the 100 most influential companies asking a simple question: which companies are shaping the future?
The evaluation parameters are key factors such as relevance, impact, innovation, leadership, ambition and success.
The long list has been divided into sections such as PIONEERS, LEADERS, INNOVATORS, TITANS, DISRUPTORS.
Even among the pioneers, names emerge that we know very well…I have scrolled through it entirely several times to try to identify a common pattern to these extraordinary achievements. Here are the top 3.
Rethinking its impact for a new world
No company has done anything new; reading the stories, what they have done seems like a natural evolution of what made them famous.
But none did it the way we expected them to. No business as usual.
What has changed. The incredible ability to stay focused on the version of the world they want to create and to anticipate changing market behavior. By the time we read this list, the work is done, but innovation is a slow-cooking dish–change did not happen overnight.
What can we learn: double down on what we are capable of doing, cut through the noise, and begin as of today to work on the next version of ourselves?
Design is everything, but only if it changes people’s behavior
All the companies mentioned have a very high execution capability. From an aesthetic point of view, the level of their products is very high. We could say, “Sticazzi.
But it is not a question of aesthetics. Future Designers design habits.
Do you want an example?
Oatly, a Swedish oat milk company, makes oat milk no better than other similar products…. Oatly redefines the category and changes the way people consume coffee.
Bumble, the dating app is like Tinder, it does exactly the same thing, but it does it with a focus on security.
Strava, the app for tracking one’s workouts, could stop at having a good GPS and a nice interface with lots of little numbers and graphs… Strava, on the other hand, processes the data and makes it available for designing safer athlete spaces and transportation. The route of the bike path in Portland was designed by mapping the routes most frequently used by cyclists. Strava creates better cities for tomorrow’s athletes.
Paypal, Stripe, Mastercard, are not only leaders in digital payments, but make it possible enable cashless and contactless world. Less is more…
What we can learn: Design is not aesthetics but Behavioral Science.
Purpose and Profit can coexist
None of these companies do it for charity. But these companies use their products to improve people’s lives.
Beyond Meat reduces intensive livestock farming and the harm it causes.
Headspace promotes mindfulness and less stress.
Nintendo creates communities.
Adidas reduces waste.
Walmart helps Americans get vaccinated.
Tesla Toward an oil-free world.
What can we learn: how can we make the world a better place and be rewarded for the value we create?
3 questions before you leave us
- What projects lead you to work outside your business at usual?
- They are adequately supported in terms of resources (skills, budget, time)
- How do you measure the impact?
You have everything.
Good work!
Make yourself heard.
👋 Anthony
Today’s inspiration ↓
The title of today’s Note was inspired by the response of Marco, an Executive of a major strategy consulting firm with more than 100 people on his team, to the question:
“Within your organization or team, when working on innovative projects from which you expect to make a big impact, what is the biggest problem that, if solved, would make you work 10 times better?”
“The organization of time: innovation vs. BAU (Business As Usual) is always a balance based on non-rational dynamics.”
👉 Add your perspective by answering the 10× Survey
