In any business, performance is key. In performance, organization is key to growth. In the past five years, the business world has seen the birth of the Exponential Organization (ExO). An ExO is able to eliminate the incremental, linear way traditional companies get bigger. It leverages assets like community, big data, algorithms, and new technology into achieving performance benchmarks ten times better than its peers. This new breed of company has revolutionised how an organisation can accelerate its growth by using technology. After researching this phenomenon and the future of organisations, the authors documented ten characteristics of ExOs. In their book, Exponential Organizations, they offer guidance to startups and multinationals alike on how any company can streamline its performance and grow to the next level. This pivotal work was chosen by Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, to be one of Bloomberg’s Best Books of 2015. It was also selected as Frost & Sullivan͛s 2014 Growth, Innovation, and Leadership Book of the Year. According to Ray Kurzwell, Director of Engineering at Google, the book is required reading for anyone interested in ways exponential technologies are reinventing best practice in business.

1. Exponential
Organizations
By Salim Ismail with Micheal S. Malone and Yuri
van Geest
#WRFY
Presented by Dr Morne Mostert
morne@ifr.sun.ac.za
8 April 2016: Cape Town
15 April 2016: Johannesburg

5. Singularity University

6. Combatting the organisational immune system

7. Definition

10. Peter H. Diamandis is a Greek-American
engineer, physician, and entrepreneur best
known for being the founder and chairman of
the X Prize Foundation, the co-founder and
executive chairman of Singularity

11. Here today, …
“in the next 10 years, 40% of the
S&P 500 companies will be gone.”
“20 years ago it took 20 years to
become a $bn company; now it is
less than 9 months”

12. “the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years”
Gordon E. Moore, co-founder of Intel and Fairchild Semiconductor, 1965

13. ExO growth

16. The internet has dropped the cost of demand
ExO’s use technology to reduce
the cost of supply (approaching 0)

18. The ExO formula
ExO
=
MTP + SCALE + IDEAS

20. 4/10 ain’t bad
Stabilising forces Forces of growth

22. The shift
From
Securing assets, create boundaries, sell access
to scarcity
To
Tap into external abundance
using technology

23. Shift in problem space
• Ownership works for scarcity – Linear, cost driven
• Openness, access & sharing work for abundance
– exponential as domains explode
We have scaled technology - Now let’s scale the
whole organisation
• Open Access vs Control
• Rent vs Own
• Share vs protect
• Including the customer’s assets

24. Characteristics: Staff on demand

25. Example

26. Congratulations!
You have failed!
Heroic failure award
Dare to try award

27. New strategy

28. Use the crowd for scale

29. Reduce information latency
through collaborative tools
Example

30. Look outside

31. Engagement –
network effects &
positive feedback loops
Digital reputation
systems
Gamification
Incentive prizes

32. Example - gamification

33. Case studies: Black Ops
(GE)

34. Functionality : Price ratio
How to get rich
in the past
ExO
Functionality
Price

36. Aha! Waste is opportunity?
Time of usage
Time of ownership

37. The evolution
1. Digitise
2. Disrupt
3. Demonetize
4. Democratise

38. The difference…

39. Threats & opportunities are external

40. redefining the bottom line to
account for true long–term
costs throughout supply
chains

41. • Lean value & growth metrics, incl. Lean start-
up methodology
• Experiment, risk, fail
• Learning metrics – fast feedback loops
• Self-organising
• Multidisciplinary
• Decentralised
• Holacracy (Brian Robertson)
• OKR

42. Sociocracy is a system of governance using consent
decision making and an organizational structure
based on cybernetic principles (a closed loop system
with a feedback mechanism).1981
standard definition of consensus used since the 1960s and 1970s, and probably before. It
was published in 1981 in United Judgement: The Handbook of Consensus Decision Making by
the Center for Conflict Resolution.
The goal of consensus is a decision that is consented to by all members.

44. Inherent contradiction
20th century business was an
externalisation machine
Vs
Externalise risk of ownership to customers?

45. Inherent contradiction
“The future is not
what it used to be”
Vs
“At this same rate…”

46. Inherent contradiction
“We are not ready”
Vs
“We are already doing it.”

47. Inherent contradiction
“We are in trouble”
Vs
“We are solving problems
more easily now”

48. Potential lingering questions
Are we becoming algorithms?
Will Big Brother grow bigger?

49. http://www.exponentialorgs.com/page/survey

50. If it is free…
Perhaps YOU
Are the
ProductTelevision delivers people, 1973

51. Better decisions
To secure
Your African Future
Join the
Institute for
Futures Research
morne@ifr.sun.ac.za