Core Values, Innovation and An Effect of Outsourcing
by
Charlie Bess
Over the weekend I had a chance to review a piece in CIO Insight magazine about Geoffrey Moore's view on innovation and corporations. The article summarizes some of the concepts from his book: Dealing with Darwin: How Great Companies Innovate at Every Phase of Their Evolution.
The article states that there are three types of managers:
- inventors
- deployers
- optimizers
All companies need the diversity of all three types to remain viable, but based on the technology adoption profile of the company, the roles and the mix could be quite different in my opinion.
I'm sure in his many books, Moore has covered this topic. It seems to me that the deployers within the early adapter companies would be viewed as inventors by the laggard companies.
This kind of differentiation would effect individual departments within an entity. For instance a chief technologist for a company may be focused on invention within the company’s core area and yet lag behind the market in IT or some other area.
I wonder how many organizations actively decide their areas of focus and how many passively let it fall out of day-to-day activities or even have it gyrate around based on the people who are filling in the various roles.
Companies that perform outsourcing (or even companies that purchase outsourcing) need to be very aware of one area: When an individual joins a new organization the changes in his role needs to be actively addressed. He’s probably like most people, and until told otherwise, he will try to be successful in his previous role, based on the values of his previous employer. His role as innovator, deployer or optimizer will change based on the outsourced functions, possibly without him realizing it.
For the individual who remained with the company undergoing outsourcing, it's likely his role has shifted significantly as well. The reason outsourcing took place is that functions were not "core" or the needed resources were unavailable. So some of the functions he valued (but the corporation viewed as a sideline) may be gone or now be his prime responsibility.
