Latest / The Action Catalyst / Update: Winners and Losers in the Hyper-Digital Era, with John Rossman (Business, Data, Leadership, Future)

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Update: Winners and Losers in the Hyper-Digital Era, with John Rossman (Business, Data, Leadership, Future) · The Action Catalyst

0:00
Host: We are pleased to welcome back to the program John
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Rossman, an author, executive advisor and keynote speaker on
0:10
digital transformation, leadership and business
0:18
reinvention. He was an early executive at Amazon and now
0:53
serves as the managing partner and founder of Rossman Partners,
0:57
and he was previously our guest on episode 433, of the Action
1:01
Catalyst. John, welcome back.
1:03
John Rossman: Great to be back.
1:05
Host: A lot of your public work in the past has touched on your
1:07
time at Amazon; The Amazon Way, Think Like Amazon, that was sort
1:11
of the focus the last time we caught up. You've got a few new
1:14
works out now. But I want to start with the Rossman Business
1:17
Manifesto: The Pig, The Lipstick, and The Playbook of
1:20
Champions, This really sounds like you're taking the more
1:23
holistic ownership of all of your experience, bringing it
1:26
together. Who's the target audience for this manifesto, and
1:30
what's the specific problem it's addressing, and how did you come
1:33
to identify that problem?
1:35
John Rossman: So I get to do a lot of keynote speaking, and I
1:38
have some clients, and one of the interesting things I've seen
1:41
over the past year is most of my work has been about kind of
1:45
major transformation, innovation, but I've had a half
1:49
dozen keynotes where it's like, no, no, no, no, no. We want to
1:52
focus on our culture and execution and kind of like some
1:57
of the basics. And so that was like one clear signal, and the
2:02
other signal is last year we saw a number of just gold standard
2:08
brands. Ironically, a lot of them out of the Pacific
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Northwest. Here, a number of gold standard brands who went
2:15
from being lauded in the pinnacle within their category
2:20
to like a substantial business challenge that they have, right?
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So the brands I'm thinking about, think about this set of
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gold standard brands, Starbucks, Boeing, Nike and Intel, right?
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Very different sectors. All of them a different sort of
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situation, but they clearly have suffered from a combination of
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what I think are kind of two factors. One is they get kind of
2:46
trapped within their own business model, and they're just
2:50
incrementalizing themselves to the next thing. So that's kind
2:54
of the innovators dilemma. And the other is a cultural thing,
2:58
of like, what their expectations are in the business between
3:03
themselves, and that's kind of a culture of mediocrity that
3:07
hasn't become just accepted. It's actually become the
3:10
standard within a number of kind of healthy companies. And I
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think that that combination is really the challenge that I
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address in the pig, the lipstick in the playbook of champions, of
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being both trapped from our own success and not seeking high
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performance, both for our business and for the way that we
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work. And so that's the specific problem. But I wanted to get it
3:38
out. It's a free resource ebook. It is a playbook. We outline
3:43
specific things to do that I think are both practical, but
3:48
they're underplayed. They're understated within most
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organizations, but a couple that I think are super powerful and
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simple. So there's three sections of the book, building
3:59
the foundation, chasing perfection, taking big bets
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under building the foundation, one of the key plays is about
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people, and I think everybody starts with the wrong place when
4:10
they think about getting the right people in the
4:13
organization, helping them be successful. Because everybody
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thinks it's about like the person, and I disagree. I think
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it's about a thoughtful design of the organization and what the
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job is that needs to be needed. And so many companies haven't
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really thought through, you know, for this role, for this
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team, for this core capability, or a company, what's the job
4:39
that's needed now and going forward. How would we define it?
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What do we think kind of the consistent goals are going to
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be? What's the decision making criteria and scope of this? What
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are the key metrics that we imagine this role having? And
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what do we think the the non obvious skills and background
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and actions? Attributes that would help somebody be
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successful, even if you have somebody in the role today and
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you want to help take their performance from good to world
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class, rethinking what the job is, is a super powerful way to
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help that person achieve those goals. But it goes so
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underplayed in companies, and this is not a big exercise to
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do, you know, and everything, but companies don't do it. So
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that's an example. Here's another one, and it's kind of
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from the chasing perfection section of the book, which is
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all about, like, how do we run a great business today, and how
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companies design and use metrics to actually get the signal of
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where aren't we good enough from a customer experience or from an
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operational standpoint. Today, I was a partner at Arthur
5:56
Andersen. I was a green belt. I'm an industrial engineer by
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education. I thought I knew how to use metrics for impact, and I
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learned a whole graduate level course at Amazon, and it's been
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kind of one of the consistent things I work with clients in my
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keynotes on since then, is like metrics and how we use them. And
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there's two parts that I'll talk about here today. One is like,
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just how you design metrics, and it always has to be a balanced
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scorecard of metrics, right? You can't have just like one metric.
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You need efficiency, you need quality, you need cost metrics,
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right? And it's the design relative to those. But then the
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second part is like, what do you do with those metrics, right?
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And so I always talk about, make metrics a verb, right? They're
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not a thing, they're not static, they're a verb. And the and the
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action that we take is, how do we discover the signal, not to
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pat ourselves on the back, but to see where there's opportunity
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to chase perfection? And that was, I think, the design of kind
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of the metrics meetings, and the tone and the tempo and the
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purpose of those meetings is an absolute game changer for teams
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and companies that can turn metrics into the fuel that a
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improve the business for today, but it also it's like going to
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the gym. If you do this all the time, you're going to get the
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idea that fuels the next section of the playbook, which is big
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bets, like, how do you actually innovate and transform?
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Host: You've mentioned part three as big bets, and you've
7:30
already alluded to your other work, which is Big Bet
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Leadership, Your Transformation Playbook for Winning in the
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Hyper Digital Era. But we've all heard about the digital era.
7:40
We've been in it for a while now, but before we dive deeper,
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just give us the definition of what the hyper digital era is.
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Exactly what's that distinction?
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John Rossman: We know we're not good at making change happen,
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right? Like, if you look at the history of time, like the
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competitive advantage and life of companies tends to be pretty
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short. And if you think the past 2530 years of digital
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transformation and digital disruption has been something,
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the next 25 is going to make that pale in comparison, right?
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Like we are heading to an era, and it's not just because of
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technology. I outlined kind of three mega forces with kind of a
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fuse tying them together. And the three mega forces are a
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disruptive technology, which is, by itself, a highly disruptive
8:30
factor. But the second one is just as disruptive, which is the
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aging of our population, the ability to attract, retain and
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get better leverage out of out of our skills and out of our
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people, is going to be a core competitive advantage. Because
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if you are just going to try to, like, continually hire and
8:51
compete, you're going to be at a competitive disadvantage. So
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that's the second major, major force. Mega trend is, you know,
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the aging of a population and how scarce skilled talents can
9:02
be. And the third is the overall indebtedness of our country to
9:08
entitlement programs and to surfacing our debt, and that's
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going to create downward pressure for capital, so you're
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going to have to be both efficient for your capital, but
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it's also a calling, which is for our country to win, we have
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to innovate, and that innovation comes from all of our companies.
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It doesn't come from somebody else's place. It comes from our
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place. And so those three mega forces together are going to
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create a vortex that creates both an opportunity and a
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challenge, and there's going to be a bunch of new winners.
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There's going to be a bunch of new losers in what I call the
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hyper digital era. And we you can't wait until you go, Oh, now
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I get it. Now I really need to change. You need back to kind of
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the athletic metaphor, like you need to get good at how you go.
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About innovating and transforming. It is an
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organizational capability. And so the best attribute you can
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always have is some patience right time to do these things.
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And so if you wait until you see the signals of kind of slowing
10:17
growth, customers who don't love us, competition, that's that's
10:21
kicking us in the rear. Now you're under pressure. Do it
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from a position of strength and growth. That's the time to build
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the capability of like, building the next businesses, innovating
10:33
better, delighting customers better. That's the championship
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way.
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Host: To point number three about debts and entitlements.
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We're now at the beginning of a new government administration
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looking to make a lot of changes to business and regulations and
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other things. Do you see a big impact there?
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John Rossman: Yeah, well, a couple of things. I think that
10:51
these changes were going to take place regardless of
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administrations. And I would say I'm hopeful and supportive of
10:58
any administration that would seek to both serve our citizens
11:02
better and do it more effectively. And I think that
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that is what every company needs to do, and all of our federal,
11:09
state local government should serve you. Do it better, do it
11:13
more efficiently. The government is here for the people, not the
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other way around. It's We the People, right? We the People
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grant the government these powers. It's not the other way
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around, right? That's why it's an important call to action to
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me, if our plan is to wait for the government to address and
11:32
fix the situation, I'm not optimistic about that. That's
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why I think, especially small, mid sized, large companies, they
11:40
need to see it as part of the mission of like, our company
11:44
needs to play a role in how America is more competitive and
11:48
more innovative, because that's how we keep our great democracy
11:52
going. And so don't wait for the government to fix it. That's
11:55
never a great idea. I think that, you know, I'm optimistic
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that they're going to start tackling some of this. But
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that's not the whole playbook. The playbook is our businesses
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need to play a role in this. One of the phrases I'm fond of is
12:11
that complaining is not a strategy, right? And so what do
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we do with these observations today, in our business, in our
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team, in my life, that's what I'm always interested in, is action.
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Host: Well, that's perfect for our podcast, right?
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John Rossman: Exactly, The Action Catalyst!
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Host: You make a pretty bold claim. You say that there are
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countless books making the case for digital transformation,
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innovation and reinvention, but they're not sufficient. But what
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are they lacking that Big Bet brings to the table?
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John Rossman: Wow. You really did read it. I love it. I love
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it. So here's what's insufficient. What's easy to do
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is to talk to senior leaders, and it's like, Oh, I know I need
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to transform. I know I need to innovate. I know I need to
12:55
leverage technology. I know I need to delight my customers
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better. I know I need to evolve my my operating model. I know I
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need to understand kind of this, this trial and error,
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experimentation mindset, but there's very little that
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actually for senior leadership and the teams that serve senior
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leaders. There's very little that actually says here's things
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that you the senior leadership team need to do different and
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the team that's driving this transformation. And so there's a
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lot written for kind of the individual contributor and the
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team leader around agile methodologies experimentation,
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but we couldn't find anything Kevin McCaffrey, I'm referring
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to and myself. We couldn't find anything that's like, here's
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what senior leaders need to do. Kevin ran new business
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incubation for T Mobile. I got to be the senior innovation
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advisor, working with them for three years. This is what we had
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to do AT T Mobile. Was our challenge. Wasn't like this
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tactical process of like, how do we explore, you know, new
14:00
business models for T Mobile. It was helping the senior
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leadership understand how they needed to adjust or recalibrate,
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how they make decisions, how they allocate resources, how
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they spend time on these businesses and opportunities of
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the future versus their operating expertise in running
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today's business. And the biggest mistake that senior
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leaders make is they think that because they're really good
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operators and they understand, they've heard these concepts of
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innovation and experimentation, and so like, okay, I can do
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that. It starts from a belief system and an understanding
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fundamentally of what that is about and how to go about it,
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and if you apply the same tactics, the same belief
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systems, the same things that made you a great operator into
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this playbook of experimentation and major transformation, you
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will fail at it. And that's why we wrote the book. Big bet
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leadership is to for senior leaders and the teams. Serve
15:00
senior leaders to really point out to them, these are things
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that you need to do different. Again, it's a very action
15:07
oriented book, not theoretical. And that's what is missing in
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most books about innovation and transformation, is it's like,
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yeah, no duh, I need to change and I need to be competitive,
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but tell me what I need to do differently today as a senior
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leader to help make that happen. That's what we tried to answer
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in this book.
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Host: But as a companion to that book, you've got a lot of tools
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available on your website for taking this big bet theme
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further, but one of the most intriguing to us was Big Bet
15:39
GPT. Can you explain what that is?
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John Rossman: Yeah, so, you know, we kept the book very
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readable, right? It's, it's 45,000 words. It's a great
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narrative. It's a great audio book. And so we offloaded from a
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lot of the templates and tools and, you know, checklists and
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things to do. And so one of the things we did with, with all of
16:00
that, was we created a purpose built GPT, and we have a prompt
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sheet that goes with it that can help you do these exercises of
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kind of developing the what sucks, memo of really thinking
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through your three futures. Exercise of putting these
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practices into place, it won't think for you. It won't do the
16:21
work for you, but it is an incredible companion to help you
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see different framing, different phrasing, different options that
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you have out there. And so it really is a kind of a turbo
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button to help you speed your way through thinking this
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playbook through for yourself. I think there's more for us to do
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there too.
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Host: Well. I'm glad you said that. So what's next, and where
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can people find you?
16:46
John Rossman: Yeah, so people can find me on LinkedIn. John
16:49
Rossman, that's really simple, or bigbetleadership.com is where
16:54
all the resources and everything is, and that's also at
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rossmanpartners.com. What's next? Like, that's what I'm
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thinking about right now, and I think it's something that is a
17:05
combination of for senior leaders and team leaders. How do
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I actually address these two core challenges that we identify
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in this business manifesto, which is a kind of being trapped
17:18
by our success, that's the innovator's dilemma, and B, kind
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of suffering from accepting mediocrity, but leveraging AI to
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help you do that better. And how do I incorporate AI into
17:30
everything that I do within an organization? That's what being
17:34
an AI first company is about, and I think it's both kind of
17:38
small tactics that you take, but it's also about re envisioning
17:42
and leveraging AI. And so I think it's a combination of kind
17:46
of business strategy leadership, but leveraging these very real
17:50
and dynamic, fast changing capabilities that generative AI
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and other technologies bring to us. Because it's like a new
17:58
internet. It's like, oh, now we have electricity. Like, it truly
18:03
is a fundamental capability shift and again. Like, don't
18:07
wait until it's too late. You gotta get comfortable, both
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individually and as a company, in how you leverage these things
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to make change happen.
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Host: John, thanks for being here once more.
18:20
John Rossman: I love it. Thanks for having me.