Building Better Futures

1. BUILDING
BETTER
FUTURES
Howard Tiersky
CEO
Achieving a
Transformation
Vision

2. A major challenge
that most large
enterprises face
is the lack of a
true
transformation
vision.

3. Most companies have
a growth vision or goal:
to serve the maximum
number of people, to
sell the maximum
amount of product, to
grow different
segments, or to
expand in new areas.

4. The goal gets cascaded down to
different areas to figure out how they
can individually drive growth.

5. But that goal is
predicated on
optimizing the
products and
experience that
they currently
provide.

6. For most organizations to be
successful in the digital age, they need
to change and adapt more profoundly.

7. Leaders of large
enterprises tell
product groups to
make new
products, channel
groups to find
new channels,
and sales group
to sell more stuff.

8. If you multiply the effects of these different
areas of growth, you get something that
looks like overall organizational growth.

9. But there’s a problem
with this method.

10. Subtitle
Imagine a caterpillar trying to figure out
how become a butterfly, and having
every part of its body create its own
strategies and methods to contribute.

11. Subtitle
A segmented approach can work when you're
just trying to multiply the scale of what you’re
already achieving, with little to no optimization in
the different areas, but it doesn't work when
you're trying to transform an entire organization.

12. And entire transformation is what we need
to do to keep up with the quickly changing
digital world. A vision for the whole
transformation is what’s going to truly
coordinate your entire organization.

13. This is Lana Turner,
famous movie star
from the '40s. The
story of her
discovery as a
Hollywood starlet is,
I think, one of the
most poisonous in
our cultural
consciousness
today.

14. The story goes like this: Around 1934, Lana
Turner (who was originally known as Judy
Turner) is 16 years old, skipping school, and
having a Coke at the counter at Schwab's
Pharmacy in Hollywood.

15. She's spotted by
a famous movie
director who says,
"You're beautiful
and have a
wholesome look.
You'd be great in
a movie. I'm going
to take you in for
a screen test."

16. He brings her to
the back lot, does
the screen test,
and it’s fantastic.
He puts her in a
movie, and she
becomes one of
the top stars in
Hollywood. The
rest is history!

17. There are two problems with this story.
First, it's actually not true. The whole story is
fiction. But even if it were true, that’s not how
transformation happens, and it’s certainly not
how a 16-year-old kid becomes a movie star.

18. The other day, I was
listening to Howard
Stern talking to
Jennifer Hudson
about her success.
He asked her if,
when she was a
child and sang in
church, everyone
knew that she was
going to be a star.

19. She said, "No,
because there
were a lot of kids
in my church
who could sing
like that, and
there were a lot
of people in my
family who could
sing like that."

20. The difference was that, besides the talent, she
also had the drive, determination, and the vision to
succeed.

21. This idea of needing vision to succeed isn’t new.

22. – Carl Sandburg
“Nothing
happens
unless first,
a dream.”

23. – George
Washington Carver
“Where there is
no vision, there
is no hope.”

24. – Helen Keller
“The only thing
worse than
being blind is
having sight but
no vision!”

25. What is this transformation vision that you
need to create? What are its components?

26. There are two parts to a transformation vision.
The first is a vision of how the world is changing.

27. How are your customers going to be
changing over the next few years??

28. How is technology going to change,
and what do you think your
competitors, old or new, might do with
the changing landscape?

29. The second component is to ask ourselves:
what new products and services can we bring
to market to take advantage of these changes
in environment and our customers, that will
compete with what our competitors are doing?

30. How does our
business model need
to change, based on
new technology
capabilities, or new
customer behaviors?

31. How will our operations, cost structure, and ultimately,
our interaction with our customers change? Will we be
delivering on different channels, serving and
supporting them in different ways, or will we, in fact,
be dealing with an entirely new set of customers?

32. It might seem like
you need to be
able to foretell the
future to answer
these questions,
and I think that’s a
major reason why
many enterprises
don’t have a true
transformational
vision.

33. They have a five-year plan, but it isn’t
really a vision for transformation, because
they believe they can't see that far into
the future so it's not practical to have.

34. But here’s the thing:
to anticipate the
future, you don’t need
to actually be able to
see into the future. I’ll
foretell the future
right now.

35. Let’s say it’s about 4:30.
I think that in the next
couple hours, many
people in my geographic
area will be having dinner.
I'm heading to the airport
shortly, for a flight to
London, and I predict that
there will be lines at the
TSA checkpoints that I'll
have to take into account
to get on my flight on time.

36. The truth is we can foretell the future to some
degree, based on previous experience. We might
not always be right, but there's a lot of information
we can use to get a reasonable hypothesis of what
the future is going to look like.

37. Was the iPhone that
much of a shock, after
the Blackberry Treo
and other smartphones
that came before?

38. Yes, the iPhone had aspects that we might not have
anticipated, but its existence on the market was relatively
predictable. The precise timing might not have been
predictable by someone who wasn't in on Apple's plans,
but fact that is came to market was a little predictable.

39. To get into the
business of
predicting the
future, we have to
get over the fear
of being wrong.

40. “The cost of
being wrong is
less than the cost
of doing nothing.”
– Seth Godin

41. Here’s one last thought about creating
transformation visions: It’s important to be
able to think in terms of transformation time.

42. Sometimes our focus is so much on the next
quarter or the things that we have to get
done right now. And that is the reality of the
world of the large enterprise, especially if it’s
a public company.

43. But in order to be
successful long
term, you have to be
able to think in terms
of transformation
time. You have to
think a few years
ahead, because the
transformations you
need are often going
to take a few years.

44. Products and solutions
that burst onto the
market, like the iPhone,
are developed for years
before ever seeing the
light of day. Many of the
things that we see as
overnight successes are
really the result of long-
term visioning, planning,
R&D efforts and product
development.

45. Those that are successful
will be those that define
the future of our company.

46. To recap, here are a few quick tips:

47. First, starting
planning before
you know what's
going to happen.

48. Second, define the
fundamental value
proposition your
company brings to
your customers,
and decide how that
value proposition be
best delivered in the
future.

49. You can use that exercise to define
what your transformation vision should
potentially be.

50. Track the changes in the world, and engage
yourself in ongoing research, both to initially
develop your long-term transformation vision and
then to continue to see whether your predictions
appear to be coming true (or are way off course.)

51. If the timeframe you
initially anticipated
changes, adjust
your transformation
vision to align with
what’s actually
happening.

52. Most importantly,
be willing to get it
wrong.

53. If you’re prepared
for all the
possibilities, you’ll
be ready for the
actual future
when it arrives.

54. FROM helps clients win the digital customer by developing
and optimizing properties, creating new digital products
and transforming teams, unifying the digital experience
online, in stores and everywhere you need to touch the
next generation of digital consumers.
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