This is the fifth of a 5 part series on renewing business models. Now, you have the toolkit to take action. We help businesses create value, and communities amplify initiatives and mindsets. There’s never been a better time to step back and shift.

At the Scale Institute, we've spent years developing action-orientated programs to help businesses solve this kind of challenge. Our aim is to help businesses develop capability to think differently and act entrepreneurially.

With my colleague Dr Tim Rayner, who’s an entrepreneurial educator at UTS – we’ve created a startup approach for existing businesses to adopt. The ideology incorporates eight key levers, providing a framework to create business value by renewing your business model.

Here’s an overview of two final critical levers.

HOW DO YOU REWARD PEOPLE TO START?

You need to find ways of rewarding people on a moral and emotional level for asking questions, devising experiments to learn new things, and doing all the hard stuff that's involved in hacking solutions.

As leaders, we need to provide the freedom to question assumptions, experiment to learn, and even throw themselves into the jaws of failure.

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Carrots and sticks are fine for motivating people to do simple work. Numerous studies have shown that money is an inadequate motivator for these kinds of complex cognitive tasks. If you want to motivate people, you need to speak to their intrinsic desires for things like autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

OPEN INFORMATION = OPEN INNOVATION

Agility requires an open flow of information. Often, I see a waste of resources due to the mutually exclusive projects not sharing plans, objectives and learnings. How are they supposed to know that they are not doubling up on work?

There is no easy answer here. The Bottom line is, if you want agility, you need openness, and openness requires trust. Trusting people always involves an element of risk. The question for leaders is, how much risk are they prepared to sustain for the sake of agility?

My optimistic view is, if you create an environment that sparks curiosity, and engage people who want to work in that environment, they will love you for it. This leadership style provides employees a respect to act responsibly with the data you share. Until they don’t. There’s always a risk.

Our model has been tested and refined with companies such as Stockland, News Limited, Hilltops Council, The Executive Connection and Westpac.

Every Thursday, whilst my family and I are self-isolating, I’m offering free 30-min consultations for people ready to act. Let’s connect for advice about how your business, institution or community can renew its business model.

I'll do my best to help you or connect you to people that can. You can book time with me using Calendly.

Thanks for reading. Take care in this unstable period and do what you can to just start!

START TAKING ACTION

Business Model Innovation