A quick shoutout today for a brilliantly turned couple of paragraphs to illustrate a new framework for explaining what many intuitively understand. From The Responsiveness Scorecard - Umair Haque - HarvardBusiness.org:
The real problem isn't stimulus, it's responsiveness. We're trapped in a zombieconomy: one full of brain-dead organizations who are about as intelligently responsive as Homer Simpson.
Want better clothes? Don't ask the Gap. Want better software? Don't ask Microsoft. Want better cars? Don't ask Detroit. Want better music? Don't ask record labels. Want better healthcare? Don't ask big pharma. Want to hold on to your money? Don't ask a banker. Welcome to economic Bizarro World.
The economy has gone catatonic. Unresponsive corporations are just the tip of the iceberg. Markets can't allocate. Investors won't invest. Banks can't value, or hold onto anything of value. People don't trust, much less consume. What's going on? The real problem isn't how or what we stimulate - but that almost none of our organizations could respond in the first place.
He goes along to illustrate four different ways to break through these problems. I'd like to add my drum: in order to be responsive, we have to know what's going on, and that requires two things: (1) measurement in line with our values, and (2) a new type of leader who instinctively, unrelentingly creates and upholds an healthy cultural environment even in the midst of a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world.
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