Asking the Right Questions Can
Frame a Successful Transformation
Recently, I had a call with a company's
entire executive team. When they told me they wanted to deploy technology
across all aspects of their business, I asked one seemingly simple
question: Why? I had to repeat it as they struggled to give a
clear and compelling answer, and it was clear that despite the lip service they
paid, the team didn’t really believe in the potentially transformative
investment the company was planning to make.
When
done right, business transformations can solve major problems, the kind that
often force you to take a make-or-break leap into the future. When such
transformations go wrong, even after months of careful planning and
implementation, the results are dispiriting. And so the prospect of a
transformation is understandably daunting. That’s why when company leaders ask
me where they should start, I tell them to start asking questions.
Albert
Einstein once reportedly said, “If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life
depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the
proper question to ask, for once I knew the proper question, I could solve the
problem in less than five minutes.” Einstein knew he had to understand an issue
deeply before addressing it in order for his solution to have the most
meaningful impact. You need to overcome the core, often hidden problem in your
work — not just the visible stumbling block.
Let’s say you're a retail executive and
your company is losing market share. You urgently need to solve that problem.
But the question to ask isn’t: Why is our major competitor picking up
100 basis points of market share? Rather, you have to delve
deeper. Why might customers expect in-store services unrelated to what
they're buying? Why will some competitors adjust prices in real time? Why might
trade regulations compel us to change our product mix? Why will Internet
shoppers want alternatives to home delivery? Why will technology turn shopping
aisles into showrooms? The answer to each of these questions will
likely offer useful guidance on how to boost market share.
When formulating questions, it’s
important not to view your conundrum from a single angle. Fundamental questions
should be asked, and answered, by a diverse set of people who together can
reach deeper insights. This power of perspective is one of the core principles
underpinning our BXT method to
transformation. (BXT stands for business, experience — for both customers and
employees — and technology.)
You
can’t predict the future, but you can think it through by isolating it.
Consider an auto industry CEO
and her immediate problem of how to sell more cars. Talking to the marketing
and sales teams would likely lead to suggestions about bumping up incentives or
increasing advertising. But if she were to gather connected thinkers steeped in
user experience, emerging technology, demographics, and other areas throughout
the business and ask them to pose forward-looking questions, they would likely
come to understand the true nature of their problem. The competitive approach
isn’t a set of tactics that will enable the company to sell more cars next
month but rather a set of strategies around how to use technology to give
customers the mobility they want over the next decade.
Frames
Matter
Posing
questions thoughtfully is a useful way to frame the problem before solving it.
Think about what a frame does for a picture: It focuses attention to produce
the greatest impact. You probably know where you have a concern. But brainstorming
the right framing questions can lead organizations to focus resources and
attention on devising the most powerful solutions. As you assemble a diverse
team, don’t worry about questions that surface that seem off-topic. By asking
four kinds of questions, you and your colleagues can think all ideas through
methodically and develop a future point of view.
What are the big trends that will
reshape the business environment?
First, establish a starting point for
your future point of view. What are the powerful forces sweeping across the
business world that will have the greatest impact on how your industry evolves?
Will economic power shifting from west to east make today’s leading business
models obsolete? Will customers flocking to cities overturn winning ways to
play? Is technology at a tipping point, on the verge of turning the industry
into an unrecognizable version of itself? What happens when these trends
collide?
How will these trends disrupt my
industry and business?
A company can’t control flows of
trade, investment, or people. But it can control its reaction to — and
anticipation of — the trends informed by these movements. So the next step is
to bring the big trends down to the level on which you can act. Ask how can
these trends drive disruption via changes in customer behavior and
competition (market environment), regulations (nonmarket environment), and
distribution and technology of production (operations).
What are the highest-impact, most
uncertain issues these disruptions bring — and what possible future
scenarios do they suggest?
You can’t predict the future, but you
can think it through by isolating it. What are some key uncertainties that
drive a set of plausible scenarios that could unfold in the next, say, five to
10 years? What do they tell you about who will be the winners in the actual
future that will be positioned somewhere within these visions?
What are these scenarios’ implications
for transforming?
Finally, given your forward-looking
point of view, ask what actions are required today so that your organization
can strategize and enact the transformation that will empower your future.
Stepping into Tomorrow
We’ve
found that executives get energized by the insight sharing and debate that
takes them through the first three questions. But the payoff comes in pushing
through the fourth. Get specific about implications. Take action. Transform.
Do you want to get started on your
transformed future? You can take the first step in the next five minutes by
using PwC’s Disruption Profiler to uncover
insights you likely don’t even know you have about disruption in your industry.
Let this start the questions that develop the future-aware knowledge that can
take you to a new kind of transformative experience.
Tom Puthiyamadam
https://www.strategy-business.com/blog/Asking-the-Right-Questions-Can-Frame-a-Successful-Transformation?gko=3fc6d&utm_source=itw&utm_medium=20170504&utm_campaign=resp
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