Your Company DNA: Honoring the Past and Embracing the Future

Her­cules is a DJ, by Emre Yusu­fi, in the DIFC Sculp­ture Gar­den, rep­re­sents the idea that even a leg­endary hero like Her­cules can adapt and evolve with the times.

In March, I was in Dubai, which is very near and dear to my heart because I’ve spent so much time there, over the years. While at the Dubai Inter­na­tion­al Finan­cial Cen­tre (DIFC) – lead­ing finan­cial hub for the Mid­dle East, Africa and South Asia – I was struck by this sculp­ture which, to me, sym­bol­izes a place that tries very hard to hon­or the tra­di­tions of its cul­ture while mov­ing ahead into a bold new future.

And when com­pa­nies aspire to do the same, they are often challenged.

How do you hon­or the his­to­ry of your DNA and keep it rel­e­vant and modern?

This came up in a con­ver­sa­tion with a CEO, recent­ly, as his team was real­ly excit­ed about expand­ing into new offer­ings and geographies.

Ask the right questions

It comes down to this: all great, endur­ing com­pa­nies oper­ate on a set of prin­ci­ples, like a pur­pose or core val­ues or strate­gic prin­ci­ples, a Fly­wheel or a Hedge­hog, what they might stand for­ward to their com­mu­ni­ty part­ners, or their val­ue propo­si­tion for their employees.

These prin­ci­ples that help com­pa­nies to endure and stay on the right track are crit­i­cal to suc­cess. But you don’t want to let them con­strict the abil­i­ty to inno­vate and stay relevant.

If you are going to go against or rec­om­mend a change to one of those prin­ci­ples, you need to treat it with incred­i­ble respect. In some ways, it’s no dif­fer­ent to the con­sid­er­a­tion you’d give to ren­o­vat­ing your great grandmother’s her­itage home.

Here are three sim­ple ques­tions to ask:

• Have we proven that we can be suc­cess­ful and have we earned the right to go in a dif­fer­ent direc­tion from this principle?
• Do we have to? Is it actu­al­ly required?
• What is the cost of doing so and what do we have to give up or trade, in order to try this change?

This ties back into two Jim Collins’ principles:

1. Pre­serve the core and stim­u­late progress
2. Bul­lets ver­sus cannonballs.

Bul­lets before cannonballs

If, after real­iz­ing you are going against a core prin­ci­ple and believ­ing you must do it – and after answer­ing the three ques­tions – you still want to pro­ceed, the key is to do sim­ple, low-risk tests. You don’t want to ​“bet the farm” on what you believe to be a bril­liant idea or amaz­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty. Like all bul­lets, make them low-cap­i­tal and low-dis­trac­tion risks that don’t take a lot of ener­gy from the core busi­ness until you know that you’ve got a winner.

Inno­va­tion can con­tin­ue to make a com­pa­ny rel­e­vant you have to pro­ceed with incred­i­ble respect and attention.

The Chal­lenge

• Are you respect­ing your his­to­ry and DNA enough?
• Are you con­tin­u­ing to inno­vate enough or too much?
• Where are you fir­ing can­non­balls when you should be fir­ing bullets?

If you haven’t yet, there’s still time to reg­is­ter for our first-time, full-day Jim Collins’ Good to Great Team Work­shop, Octo­ber 17, 2023, in Chica­go. This is a great oppor­tu­ni­ty for high­ly moti­vat­ed CEOs and their teams to under­stand and imple­ment Good to Great con­cepts, and Jim’s full body of work on what makes great com­pa­nies tick – and to net­work and meet like-mind­ed CEOs and professionals.

Addi­tion­al Growth Whis­per­ers podcasts

• Fire Bul­lets Before Cannonballs
• Is Your Cor­po­rate Cul­ture Real­ly Aligned with Your Core Values?
• Inte­grat­ing Cul­tures When Com­pa­nies Merge

Addi­tion­al Lawrence & Co blogs

• Orga­ni­za­tion­al Cul­ture: The Ulti­mate X Factor
• Add a Sixth Rock: Com­pa­ny Culture
• Is Your Com­pa­ny Pur­pose Tru­ly Part of Your Cul­ture or Just Marketing?

Lawrence & Co’s work focus­es on sus­tain­able and enhanced growth for you and your busi­ness. Our diverse and expe­ri­enced group of advi­sors can help your lead­ers and exec­u­tive teams stay com­pet­i­tive through the use of var­i­ous learn­ing tools includ­ing work­shops, webi­na­rs, exec­u­tive retreats, or one-to-one coaching.

We help high-achiev­ing lead­ers to have it all – a great busi­ness and a reward­ing life. Con­tact us for sim­ple and impact­ful advice. No BS. No fluff.