The Ambidextrous Company
Charles Leadbeater

Globalisation
Continued rapid growth especially in Asia
China = the world’s factory
Silicon Valley = the software centre
Bangalore = commodity services
Korea: wages 50% of UK, but same % of graduates in population
Malaysia: graduate financial analyst costs $16k, in US $120k
Bangladesh: even poor countries climbing value added ladder

Globalisation
Competition driving efficiency
Rewards to scale
High quality, low price, high productivity
Uncertainty and pressure but big opportunities

Innovation

Innovation
Education
Science
Communications
Consumer innovators
From closed to open models
Research labs to networks

Innovation
In a single day in 2002 there was as much:
world trade as in the whole of 1949
scientific research as in 1960
telephone traffic as 1983
emails traffic as 1990
mobile phone text messages as 1996.

Caught in the middle?
Efficiency and entrepreneurship
Exploit and explore
Driven by performance but also thinking laterally and ahead
High quality = low variance, high standards
Innovation = diversity, experimentation

Recipes and Cakes
Cake makers = find one best way to bake your cake: optimisation
Recipe maker = create new ways to blend ingredients: adaptation
Can you do both? One feeding the other?

Ambidextrous Organisations
US Army
From lessons learned & knowledge management to simple rules
Nokia
Culture and values as gear box of a multi speed organisation

Ambidextrous Organisations
Communities of innovation
Open, modular systems
Central design rules and decentralised innovation
From the System 360 to Linux
Good companies engage with multiple communities

Ambidextrous Organisations
Disk Drives
Why do good companies become bad?
Answer: they carry on trying to be good at what made them good
US Semi conductors
The reinvention of failed incumbents

Ambidextrous Companies
Distinctive, evolving knowledge
Historic base, can’t be invented overnight or copied easily
Unlearning as well as learning
Avid borrowers
Look sideways
Creative dissonance

Ambidextrous Companies
Sensing opportunity
Search, scan, sense
Pro-Am customers, consumer innovators
Embryonic markets to mainstream
Having a point of view
Who invented the Osbournes?

Ambidextrous Companies
Innovating business models
Combining knowledge, people and assets around opportunity
Lateral thinking in business
If its popular doesn’t mean people will pay

Ambidextrous IT
Doing basics efficiently allows more time for innovation
Self regulation, performance management, speed of response
Thinking intelligently, swiftly about customers
Promoting self service, allowing customers to write new scripts
Collaboration within and between companies

Ambidextrous Leadership
Keep it simple: three to five rules of thumb
How would you run a children’s party?
Is your organisation a rock or a flock?

Thank You