12 November 2016

Exponential Innovation: Systems Risk with Beneficiaries...

When you have the opportunity to watch or attend TED, how does it make you feel?  Do you get the sense that the person behind the story, the idea, the innovation, is more genuine and sincere?

What about those advocating for "Exponential" change?  Individuals and organizations that have made the leap beyond incremental change and invention and are on to the concept of "Exponential Innovation".  The xPrize Foundation is a perfect example.

How can big ideas, bold inventions and people with exponential thinking accelerate their cause, advocate their blueprint or design a creative new alternative?  They need a system.  A model and community platform for ingesting ideas, testing prototypes, adapting designs and fostering continuous experimentation.

Why do you need a new system in your organization?  Let us start with some simple mathematics.  Multiply the number of people in your organization x 2.  Now think about the number of products, initiatives or major changes that you successfully implemented over the course of the last 12 months.  How many?

It is a safe estimate that each of your employees has at least two new ideas or bold ways to improve or change a product or process in your organization each working day.  500 employees x 250 working days = 250,000 potential ideas, changes or exponential innovations.  How did you capture these and utilize a system to capitalize on them, for your organization and those you serve?

What does this new innovation system have to do with Operational Risk Management (ORM)?

The Operational Risks associated with an organizational system for capturing, nurturing and producing new found Intellectual Capital are vast.  The goal however is to simultaneously accelerate, share and produce a collective thought leadership within the greater public-private community.  This in itself creates new challenges, in order to minimize the potential for significant losses and external risk events.

Across all the domains for "Exponential Innovation" from Healthcare, Space Travel, Artificial Intelligence and Ocean studies to name a few, lies one of the greatest barriers to our ultimate progress.  Adapting to the ecosystem of people utilizing the product or service.

Total immersion in the marketplace or with the customer, the beneficiary of the new product, service or invention, is a significant factor for future success.  The single factor of time, being embedded with the actual end user, recipient or beneficiaries of the new found innovation, is directly proportional to the Operational Risk exposures.

Think about it.  When was the last time your CEO or chosen leader was embedded with the customer for more than a few hours or a day?  How often is the scientist, designer or engineer using the product or system side-by-side the beneficiary?  Not often enough or long enough.

Sure we have all heard the mantra about "Managing by Walking Around" for decades, yet why do we continue to see the outcomes of this failure at well managed companies such as Wells Fargo and Samsung.  Operational Risk Management (ORM) shall be a component of any major initiative and a necessary competency in any dangerous or high risk environments.

From the decks of aircraft carriers to the trading on Wall Street and within the test trials of new pharmaceuticals, to the Yottabytes of data across the Internet, Operational Risk Management (ORM) is more relevant than ever on an exponential scale.  Just ask Elon Musk, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates or Ash Carter what they think...

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