Survival vs. Innovation: How the Fearless Thrive
Vice President at Enstoa
Enstoa is working with a $25B independent natural resources exploration and production company that is transforming its entire business. They’re embracing this effort despite the pain of the current economic environment. “We’re committed to modernizing our company, even with oil prices as low as they are,” noted the CFO at the project kickoff.
We know their goal is meaningful transformation not just because the CFO said it was so and not just because this effort involves critical functions including capital projects, human resources, supply chain, finance, asset management, HSE, and IT. The meaningful transformation is evident in their commitment to re-examining and innovating all of their existing business practices. No stone (or calcified process) will go unturned.
What makes this effort remarkable is that it’s driven by a healthy balance of two things:
- Survival – This is all about stability. It’s codifying business practices and ensuring they’re repeatable using technology and software.
- Innovation – This is all about value creation. It enables the organization and its teams to be significantly more efficient and produce more.
Too much emphasis on survival prevents an organization from rigorously evaluating its processes. It often leads to simply codifying the broken, inefficient processes currently in use. It’s generally driven by the misguided notion that technology will fix problems, or that there are no significant problems. Bad processes delivered through new, sophisticated applications are still bad processes. And they don’t create significant value for the business.
We often see organizations with a hyper focus on survival-based efforts. “This is the way we’ve always done things. We just need software to support it,” is a common refrain.
Focusing on value creation pushes the limits of innovation. It allows you to get more product or better product out the door. But don’t forget to reinforce the door. Innovation needs a stable business infrastructure to support operations.
Failure from an overemphasis on innovation is more common among tech startups. What we have observed among organizations with large capital construction programs, however, is that innovation is often avoided altogether (sometimes from hubris) or confused–or even misrepresented–as the act of layering technology over inherently bad processes.
What would cause people to avoid such innovation? Let’s take a step back. Why do we avoid anything?
It’s fear:
- Fear of losing control over the systems and processes you’re in charge of
- Fear from losing your sense of place and purpose (or even your job) in the face of change
- Fear from failing and not pleasing your boss
Addressing those fears is a far more challenging endeavor. But a required one.
Steven Mattson Hayhurst serves as a Vice President at Enstoa, a technology consulting firm helping organizations with large capital programs leverage technology, data, and processes to improve project planning and delivery.
View Steven’s activity on Twitter at https://twitter.com/mattsonhayhurst.
Enstoa is working with a $25B independent natural resources exploration and production company that is transforming its entire business. They’re embracing this effort despite the pain of the current economic environment. “We’re committed to modernizing our company, even with oil prices as low as they are,” noted the CFO at the project kickoff.
We know their goal is meaningful transformation not just because the CFO said it was so and not just because this effort involves critical functions including capital projects, human resources, supply chain, finance, asset management, HSE, and IT. The meaningful transformation is evident in their commitment to re-examining and innovating all of their existing business practices. No stone (or calcified process) will go unturned.
What makes this effort remarkable is that it’s driven by a healthy balance of two things:
- Survival – This is all about stability. It’s codifying business practices and ensuring they’re repeatable using technology and software.
- Innovation – This is all about value creation. It enables the organization and its teams to be significantly more efficient and produce more.
Too much emphasis on survival prevents an organization from rigorously evaluating its processes. It often leads to simply codifying the broken, inefficient processes currently in use. It’s generally driven by the misguided notion that technology will fix problems, or that there are no significant problems. Bad processes delivered through new, sophisticated applications are still bad processes. And they don’t create significant value for the business.
We often see organizations with a hyper focus on survival-based efforts. “This is the way we’ve always done things. We just need software to support it,” is a common refrain.
Focusing on value creation pushes the limits of innovation. It allows you to get more product or better product out the door. But don’t forget to reinforce the door. Innovation needs a stable business infrastructure to support operations.
Failure from an overemphasis on innovation is more common among tech startups. What we have observed among organizations with large capital construction programs, however, is that innovation is often avoided altogether (sometimes from hubris) or confused–or even misrepresented–as the act of layering technology over inherently bad processes.
What would cause people to avoid such innovation? Let’s take a step back. Why do we avoid anything?
It’s fear:
- Fear of losing control over the systems and processes you’re in charge of
- Fear from losing your sense of place and purpose (or even your job) in the face of change
- Fear from failing and not pleasing your boss
Addressing those fears is a far more challenging endeavor. But a required one.
Steven Mattson Hayhurst serves as a Vice President at Enstoa, a technology consulting firm helping organizations with large capital programs leverage technology, data, and processes to improve project planning and delivery.
View Steven’s activity on Twitter at https://twitter.com/mattsonhayhurst.
