The Heart of Transformation summary

Knowledge plays an important role in any organization. But, Leckie argues, learning is even more important – especially in today’s digital world. 

This shift from knowing to learning is a relatively new phenomenon. For previous generations, a worker’s knowledge is what created value for a business. These “knowledge workers” – such as lawyers, doctors, and engineers – came to dominate the economy. First, they acquired specialized knowledge. Then, they got a job and put that knowledge to use.

It’s perfectly natural to protect the things we care about. But if done improperly in an organization, protection can become a liability. In order to grow, adapt, and improve any business, leaders and managers must be willing to embrace change.

Organizational change happens little by little – and person by person. This kind of change is hard, and it requires us to accept the discomfort that comes along with it. But Leckie has laid out another series of questions to help facilitate the process.

Next, we’ll examine the virtue of pathfinding before path-following. Pathfinding is about establishing a set of values and granting others the freedom to forge their own path forward.

To illustrate what this looks like in practice, let’s consider the Canadian paper manufacturer Abitibi. Leckie was working at the company in the 1990s, when it suddenly fell into financial hardship. It needed to cut costs by 10 percent – fast. The company’s first impulse was to evaluate spending across every team, and to institute a budget that detailed how money should be spent down to the dollar.

Every business seems to want to be a leader in innovation. But the truth is, most companies don’t innovate at all – or even try to. They mostly focus on replicating and scaling what works.

This obsession with replicating and scaling is a double-edged sword. It usually works – for a while. But then it doesn’t, and businesses get stuck replicating a business plan that’s no longer useful.

The final capability we’ll examine is humanizing before organizing. This approach is all about the way you treat people in an organization. Specifically, it’s about treating your colleagues as full people, and not simply as the positions they occupy.

Every organization has defined roles – from entry-level worker to CEO – that come with a set of specific expectations and responsibilities. The trouble is, people often outgrow their role and become capable of offering a lot more. But because doing so might violate their role’s specifications, they usually just put their head down. This is a huge missed opportunity to get the best out of your team.

In this Blink you’ve learned the six capabilities that can help transform an organization. Let me repeat them for you: exploring before executing, learning before knowing, changing before protecting, pathfinding before path-following, innovating before replicating, and humanizing before organizing.