GREEDY FOR NEW THINGS

Ikea is no longer just a furniture company, according to fastcodesign.com. The company is partnering with Adidas, Lego, and Sonos to sell you everything.

Well, the latter point may be overstated, it did trigger a thought or two about SURVIVAL: RENEWAL is the key. Our human bodies survive through cell renewal. We as professionals survive by learning new skills, dropping the old. Companies survive, stay relevant by constantly renewing themselves, as Management guru Peter Drucker advocated, becoming "Greedy for new things", which includes a policy of systemic abandonment (which by the way, speaks for the much feared ZBB cost management, another topic).

A few weeks back at Transformamus, the Business Transformation conference in Zurich, Philipp Welte, Vorstand Hubert Burda Media, a successfully transforming print-to-digital media company, mentioned a seemingly arbitrary yet fundamental change in his working style. He adopted the standing table, to which he shared a quote not to forget:

“When man sitzt bleibt man stehen” (when you sit you stand still).

This reminded me of encountering Anders Dahlvig, former CEO of IKEA in his “office” in 2008 – at a standing table in the middle of the open office space. This company truly is different and DESIGNED TO SURVIVE

1. Purpose-led: "To create a better everyday life for the many people"

2. Consumer jobs to be done focused: The products above for example are meant “to make it even easier to throw an impromptu party.”

3. Confident and driven to timely experiment to remain vital and relevant.

There is an increasing awareness of the code for being "designed to survive", well laid-out by Peter Drucker and later Clayton Christensen in their respective work. A number of founders create DNA similar to IKEA for when it will be no longer founder-led, and CEOs are increasingly readying their company for innovation at scale. Good times ahead!