Unlocking Business Potential: Top 5 Takeaways from a Conversation Between Kevin Lawrence & Salim Ismail

Recent­ly, Kevin Lawrence got togeth­er with long-time col­lab­o­ra­tor Sal­im Ismail to cel­e­brate his new book Expo­nen­tial Orga­ni­za­tions 2.0. In the inter­view, Kevin men­tions that he had a lot of suc­cess apply­ing the prin­ci­ples of the first book to his clients. 2.0 is 90% new mate­r­i­al backed by 10 years of data and anec­dotes to val­i­date the game chang­ing hypoth­e­sis of the orig­i­nal book. If you’re dri­ven to achieve growth, but you’re not sure where to start, fol­low along as Kevin unpacks the five cen­tral themes of 2.0.

1. Under­stand­ing Expo­nen­tial Thinking:

To watch clip 1:56 of the inter­view, click here.

Whether you’re new to expo­nen­tial think­ing, or an old hand, the premise is relat­able — every orga­ni­za­tion has an immune sys­tem. And the study of the immune sys­tem is the exact dilem­ma that has occu­pied Sal­im for the last decade. The immune sys­tem is the imme­di­ate bar­ri­er of defense against change. So, if you try to dis­rupt a com­pa­ny, the immune sys­tem goes on attack. This is espe­cial­ly true because human beings and orga­ni­za­tions alike are built to resist change and with­stand risk. But piv­ot­ing can be crit­i­cal to the growth of an orga­ni­za­tion, whether it’s adopt­ing new tech­nol­o­gy, chang­ing up the key seats, or adopt­ing a dif­fer­ent finan­cial strat­e­gy. Bridg­ing this gap is the work of expo­nen­tial thinking.

2. A Frame­work for Transformation:

To watch clip 4:42 of the inter­view, click here.

It all starts with ExO. This frame­work is the blue­print for orga­ni­za­tions to become more agile, inno­v­a­tive, and scal­able. And at the base of it is your MTP or Mas­sive Trans­for­ma­tive Pur­pose. This is where you’ll want to start, if you want to dri­ve trans­for­ma­tive change. The MTP is derived from the BHAG prin­ci­ples of Jim Collins, com­bined with a pur­pose. So, let’s dig into it.

3. More about the MTP

To watch clip 3:05 of the inter­view, click here.

An MTP is a tagline that states the fun­da­men­tal prob­lem that you’re try­ing to solve like — TED (ideas worth spread­ing), Google (orga­niz­ing the world’s infor­ma­tion), and Uber (every­body needs a pri­vate dri­ver). There are five exter­nal­i­ties that play into your MTP:

1. Staff on demand
2. Com­mu­ni­ty and crowd
3. Algo­rithms
4. Lever­aged assets
5. Engage­ment

Com­bined, these exter­nal­i­ties facil­i­tate your MTP and allow you to scale very quick­ly. Let’s put these cat­e­gories to work:

1. Uber doesn’t hire its own staff
2. TED uses community
3. Google is now using AI and algorithms
4. AirBnB doesn’t own its own rooms
5. Xiao­mi is build­ing prod­uct through com­mu­ni­ty engagement

Lean­ing into a pil­lar of the exter­nal­i­ties can help you real­ize your MTP.

4. Case Stud­ies and Real-World Examples:

To watch clip 10:21 of the inter­view, click here.

Sal­im has plen­ty of com­pelling sto­ries about orga­ni­za­tions and lead­ers up his sleeve but there are two that stood out. 

The first is the sto­ry of a guy named Robert Gold­berg and after hear­ing his sto­ry, Kevin quick­ly coined him the guy who can turn the sun on and off on com­mand. He has been apply­ing expo­nen­tial think­ing to mid-mar­ket indus­tri­al firms in the U.S and get­ting ven­ture style returns — we’re talk­ing 10 – 30X. The key? He de-risks inno­va­tion. It enables him to unlock a mas­sive amount of latent inno­va­tion and then the com­pa­ny soars. Fit­ting­ly, his moniker or MTP is to rein­vent Amer­i­can exceptionalism. 

Next up is the sto­ry of a phone com­pa­ny in Chi­na called Xiao­mi, the sec­ond biggest one, in fact. The core of the Xiao­mi sto­ry is how a com­mu­ni­ty can be put to work in an orga­ni­za­tion. Accord­ing to Sal­im, this is one of the most under­uti­lized tools in medi­um to large size orga­ni­za­tions. Xiao­mi cre­at­ed a com­mu­ni­ty of 1,000 super-users. These folks vote on the fea­tures that go into the next phone. They get the phone three months in advance and then they can boast to their friends about the fea­tures they weighed in on. This endorse­ment alone means that Xiao­mi is launch­ing phones sole­ly off the force of com­mu­ni­ty — no PR, no prod­uct devel­op­ment, no mar­ket­ing, which means they can keep costs low.

5. Prac­ti­cal Imple­men­ta­tion Guidance:

To watch clip 11:32 of the inter­view, click here.

Salim’s book is dif­fer­ent because he departs from the the­o­ret­i­cal to offer prac­ti­cal advice about how to put these ideas to work in an orga­ni­za­tion. Maybe you’re look­ing for a roadmap, a way to assess where you’re at, and then to cre­ate a trans­for­ma­tion. If that’s the case, this book is your tool. For the whole inter­view watch below or click here. 

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6-lTBYx3Vs&width=840&height=473&centervid=1&rel=-1[/embedyt]