Here are my highlights from the intro of Re-organise for Resilience, the latest book on my reading list.
“The second group [of companies who made it through recession]… came out of adverse markets not only mere survivors, but actually having leveraged adverse markets to catapult themselves far ahead of their competitors. These firms find ways to embrace downturns that turn adversity into opportunity: they survive and thrive at the same time.
… I found that those companies built around an inside-out mind-set – those pushing out products and services to the marketplace based on a narrow viewpoint of their customers that looks at them only through the narrow lens of their products – are less resilient in turbulent times than those organized around an outside-in mind-set that starts with the marketplace, then looks to deliver creatively on market opportunities. Outside-in orientation maximises customer value – and produces more supple organizations.”
“Level 3 firms… They focus first on the problems their customers are trying to solve, and only then turn to their products, configuring their offerings to address those problems. Further, they conserve resources by allocating them only those tasks that will help customers most…
The most resilient companies – level 4 firms – go well beyond their competitors their competitors… A level 4 firm is more attached to producing solutions to those problems than it is to the products and services it offers. This intellectual, structural and emotional transition means that it is no longer concerned whether the inputs it uses to solve customers’ problems are its own or assembled through a network of partners.”