Celebrating a big milestone

Hello,

This month, I marked a big milestone — 10 years in my second career as an advisor, board member, and speaker, working with founders and corporate executives, like you, to pursue ambitious innovation and transformation agendas.

Since pivoting from a career as a Fortune 500 marketing, digital, and innovation executive, here’s how I spend my days: improving clients’ business development effectiveness in close partnership with sales and marketing leaders, collaborating with cross-functional teams on customer experience re-design, supporting high-growth startups in their efforts to scale, sharing my actionable expertise as a lecturer and media commentator, and more.

Not only do I counsel change makers every day, but I also practice what I preach, continuously innovating in my career and in my approach.

Please read on for innovation how-tos, a peek into my newest in-demand workshop, and more.

4 Must-Haves To Effectively Execute Change

You cannot execute change if you are not a strategic advocate for the change you want to achieve. Here’s what this takes:

1. A clear vision of the future you want to create
2. An understanding of your stakeholders and influencers, both inside and outside the organization, and empathy for their perspectives
3. An ability to define the values your stakeholders and you share as a starting point to build a common cause and mobilize the supporters among them
4. Discipline, planning, and agility

If you’re trying to execute change without these prerequisites, hit pause and do this foundational work first.

Empower Transformation With Unexpected Strategies

Digital transformation is high on the priority list for leading companies. My recommendation: look outside your sector for fresh perspectives on undertaking massive transformation. 

Earlier this month, I unveiled a new workshop that explored this topic at a Mastercard Digital Safari session for a group of CEOs from European banks. By incorporating lessons from social and political movements, the workshop helps organizations align stakeholders to a vision and mobilize them to deliver major transformation. The session was very productive. 

If you are interested in gaining access to actionable workshops like this one, please reply to this email. 

In a world where we are facing disruption, unpredictability, and ambiguity every single day, the old methods don’t work. We must change the way we change. 

This entails rapid adaptation and iteration, cross-organizational engagement, a culture of innovation and empowerment, the prioritization of customer needs and behaviors, and ongoing experimentation and learning.

Where are you in your digital transformation efforts? What are your wins and where are you getting stuck? I’d love to hear about them and see how I can help. 

Warm regards,