6. Chart #1 MASSIVE TRANSFORMATIVE
PURPOSE (MTP)
DOES YOUR COMPANY HAVE A MTP ?
The Massive Transformative Purpose (MTP) marks the “why” behind
the organization. The MTP goes beyond a mission statement
because it is on far larger and more aspirational scale, which can
revolutionize industry and society.
A MTP should move a team’s focus from internal affairs to positive
external impacts and provide a rallying cry that draws people in
while filtering out the uninterested. The ideal MTP should be so
sweeping, aspirational, and definitive that competitors cannot craft
a MTP capable of surpassing it.
Examples
Google’s MTP: “Organizing all of the world’s information”. Tesla:
“Accelerate the transition to sustainable transportation.” SpaceX:
“Humans must become a multi-planetary species”
7. Chart #2 INTERNAL ATTRIBUTES (SCALE)
WHAT ARE THE INTERNAL ATTRIBUTES THAT
CHARACTERIZE THE PARADIGMATIC EXO ?
Staff on Demand (SoD): To act quickly and flexibly in a fast-changing world, ExOs
leverage external contractors. Outsourcing as many tasks as possible rather than
maintaining a sizeable full-time workforce allows companies to fill expertise gaps and
ensure a constant flow of fresh ideas.
Community & crowd: ExOs build and join communities by crowdsourcing or
crowdfunding ideas to achieve rapid growth.
Algorithms: Google, Airbnb and DHL base their companies on algorithms, which
allow for dynamic pricing, credit card fraud detection, and traffic optimization. ExOs
use machine- learning technologies to refine these algorithms.
Leveraged Assets: Renting, sharing and leveraging assets such as office facilities,
machinery, copiers and even office plants has long been standard. Now, companies
are increasingly outsourcing mission-critical assets. Apple, for example, uses the
factories of its manufacturing partner, Foxconn, for key product lines. Not owning
assets increases agility and allows quick scaling.
Engagement: User engagement techniques such as gamification and incentive prizes
help ExOs to engage markets quickly.
8. Chart #3 EXTERNAL ATTRIBUTES (IDEAS)
WHAT ARE THE EXTERNAL ATTRIBUTES THAT
CHARACTERIZE THE PARADIGMATIC EXO ?
Interfaces: To track and monitor performance, all organization members can access
real-time metrics via a dashboard.
Dashboards: To track and monitor performance, all members of an organization can
access real-time metrics via a dashboard.
Experimentation: ExOs use methods facilitating rapid experimentation and process
improvement through fast feedback loops.
Autonomy: ExOs have flat hierarchies to promote agility and accelerate learning and
reaction times.
Social Technologies: Social technologies drive real-time, zero-latency conversations
across the organization.
9. Chart #4 BUSINESS MODEL
HOW GOOD IS YOUR COMPANY’S BUSINESS
MODEL ?
Innovators and entrepreneurs love brainstorming and coming up
with cool new ideas, many of which deliver true value to people and
the world. However, it is often challenging to turn these great ideas
into profit and real cash and not just expectations.
Business models provide a way for organizations to create, deliver
and capture value. It provides a great value proposition for users,
monetizing that value and making a profit.
10. Chart #5 EXQ SCORE
DO YOU HAVE AN EXPONENTIAL COMPANY ?
The ExOs scale is at a minimum 10x better than their peers in the
same space. For example, a typical CPG (Consumer Packaged
Goods) company like Johnson & Johnson or Proctor & Gamble takes
about 300 days to go from a new idea to a product on a Walmart
shelf. Quirky, a leading ExO, does that same process— a new idea to
product on a Walmart shelf — in 29 days. Moreover, that is in a
traditional industry, not some newfangled internet- software-
freemium-social-gaming play.
11. Chart #6 4 OUT OF 10 = CUT-OFF
Attributes Score Max ExQ strength
MTP MTP 0.50 3 No
Internal Attributes
(SCALE)
Staff on demand 0.50 3 No
Community & Crowd 0.50 3 No
Algorithms 0.50 3 No
Leveraged assets 0.50 3 No
Engagement 0.50 3 No
External Attributes
(IDEAS)
Interfaces 0.50 3 No
Dashboards 0.50 3 No
Experimentation 0.50 3 No
Autonomy 0.50 3 No
Social Technologies 0.50 3 No
Business Model Business model 0.50 3 No
Your ExQ total percentile is: 7.10
HOW MANY EXO ATTRIBUTES DO YOUR COMPANY
HAVE ?
Not all ExOs have the ten attributes; however, the requirement is a
minimum of four attributes + MTP and a good business model to be
considered an ExO, and the more attributes, the more expandable
they tend to be.
12. Chart #7 ATTITUDE, LEADERSHIP &
CULTURE
DOES YOUR COMPANY REALLY WANT TO
INNOVATE ?
Innovation can (rarely) happen by accident, but it usually does not. It
can be a one-time event or a systemic process.
Companies that invest in creating Innovation systems are usually
driven by a hunger to do things better and differently. Their leaders
are generally intellectually curious and have a desire to change the
world. Innovation can also be in a company's soul.
A low score here is a warning sign. Possible solutions are to visualize
the benefits of Innovation and look for quick wins to build
confidence that your company can be innovative and diversify the
workforce in terms of skills and experience.
13. Chart #8 ENTREPRENEURIAL ORIENTATION
IS YOUR COMPANY BEING DRIVEN BY AN
ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSET ?
Entrepreneurial Orientation represents the processes, practices, and decision-
making embodied in the entrepreneurial process, closely linked at the level of an
innovative business setup. We call it “Inno-Preneurship.”.
A high measure of Entrepreneurial Orientation reflects the ability of a company to
quickly and effectively identify opportunities to build its business innovatively and
take advantage of these business opportunities. It is an essential complement to the
Innovation Readiness because it is not sufficient to be good at innovating - a company
needs to be run in an entrepreneurial way to identify the business opportunities that
are the triggers for innovation, and in particular for developing concretely, on an
SMTM (Show Me The Money) way, new areas of business.
This chart shows how your company compares with all companies with a similar
profile regarding Entrepreneurial Orientation.
14. Chart #9 STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT
IS YOUR COMPANY ALIGNED FOR SUCCESS ?
Innovation activities need to fit in the context of the longer-term
direction of your company.
A high score on this factor indicates that your company has an
obvious vision of the business's future and is continually planning to
develop the business. Your company is continuously looking for
ways to balance activities across the different areas of the company,
and, lastly, concretely handling innovation on the field as a long-
term strategic initiative. Board and C-Level executives should be
involved herewith.
15. Chart #10 OPERATING PROCEDURES
JUST TALKING ABOUT INNOVATION IS NOT
ENOUGH...
YOUR COMPANY NEEDS TO DEVELOP THE HABITS
OF INNOVATION SUCCESS
The habits OF INNOVATION SUCCESS are anchored in the DNA of a
company. Successful innovators almost always have the right
systems and processes in place to make innovation happen.
The most important habits are:
Organizational Design
People Processes
Systems to select ideas
Customer Focus
Co-Creation
Eco-system management
Speed/results focus
16. Chart #11 LEARNING ORIENTATION
IS YOUR COMPANY GETTING SMARTER ?
Learning orientation refers to the organization-wide activity of
creating and using knowledge to enhance competitive advantage. It
includes obtaining and sharing information about customer needs,
market changes, competitor actions, and the development of new
technologies to create new highly competitive products that are, by
essence, superior to those of competitors.
Your company’s learning orientation influences what information is
gathered and how it is interpreted, evaluated, and shared. The three
key components of learning orientation are commitment to
learning, open-mindedness, and intra-organizational knowledge
sharing.
17. Chart #12 IR SCORE
DO YOU HAVE AN INNOVATIVE COMPANY ?
Innovation is something meaningfully unique when customers
notice the difference and are willing to pay more and when the
ability to capture this value is created.
Successful innovation comes not from focusing on creativity or big
ideas but by making a system – a process – from innovation. The
birth of good ideas is not random.
A systemic approach has been proven to reduce risks and increase
the speed of innovation. When your company put their faith in
systems, they will find ways to build ideas over time. The biggest
and perhaps most crucial reality is that successful, one-off big ideas
are rare. The most reliable way to generate successful innovation is
to take small ideas and grow them over time.