This time ist over. We live in a world of nearly ubiquitous and free money. Capital and production efficiency is not the prime differentiating factor anymore. The most successful organisations of our time excel in adaptation, innovation, and organisational and personal learning and growth. Therefore John Hagel proclaimed the paradigm shift from "scalable for efficiency" to "scalable for learning" organisations. This shift is also a shift from capital resources defining organisational strategies to human resources defining the success of the organisational strategies.
The strategies of “scalable for efficiency” and “scalable for learning” are exclusive and cannot be pursued simultaneously. Scalable for efficiency is counter-innovative and favors the “predictable” and “secure” status quo over “uncertain” and “agile” innovation and change.
Kodak is the prime example of the old culture winning over the new culture and, by that achieving precisely the opposite. The loss of market share, size, and future. This root cause is called the “innovator’s dilemma” and was first described by Clayton Christensen. It has rarely been overcome so far and is the main reason why the lifespan of companies has dramatically decreased over the last two decades.
One solution approach to overcoming the innovator’s dilemma is the “innovate from the edge” strategy of John Hagel. Another approach is the infiltration of the hierarchies by networks of innovation. Overall the required organisational growth is not only about re-skilling, education, and learning experiences; it is also about mindset, culture, and new ways of organising work inside and outside of organisational boundaries.
Successful organisations of our time have to be Open Organisations. Openness in this context means openness to all stakeholders, especially the stakeholders that create the most significant value regarding the organisational purpose. The organisation has to create engagement, identification, and alignment with these stakeholders. Employees or Members and Users or Customers of the organisation, in most cases, are the key stakeholders. But openness also means openness to the future and innovations supporting the organisational purpose. And lastly, purpose and culture are the most important ingredients to attract and retain the right people. If there is a vital talent attraction, talent can be empowered and freed. The last Open Organisational trait.
In conclusion, the successful Open Organisation of our time has to be more like a network with permeable boundaries orchestrating multiple communities of stakeholders. Decentralized Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) showcase an entirely new approach to coordination and the organisation of work, and other resources. That also includes a new open mindset and interwovenness of DAOs for better cross-organisational collaboration - social composability.
One of my long-term career focuses is to innovate on organisational design and social technologies with innovative and large-scale global HR and people organisations of all industries. Most people don’t know that all businesses will become platforms, and the capability to create, shape, and bootstrap them, as well as ultimately drive adoption of them, will be the critical capability to the success of any organisation.
And the pragmatic methodologies and frameworks to shape platforms to become an ecosystem's transaction engine and learning engine are readily available.
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