The Light and Fast Organisation

CHAPTER 10 Three insights

We are on to the second element of the Alpine Style Model, examining the three insights we need to have, through:

• an examination of the strengths-based approach
• the importance of consciously designed teams
• appreciative inquiry as a tool for building on strengths
• understanding our weaknesses
• an awareness of our attitude towards risk.

As we previously identified, in order to bridge the gap and transition yourself, your team and your organisation to an alpine-style approach, in addition to the three skills (discussed in chapter 9), and the three character traits we must possess (that's chapter 11), there are three insights that we need to have about ourselves to help us on the path towards independence and interdependence and creating an alpine-style organisation.

Knowing your strengths

In the last chapter, we heard about Peter Thiel's thoughts on working with people you like. And in the new VUCA world, it quite literally pays to listen to a group of people with a track record which speaks for itself: the seven founders of PayPal. Sometimes referred to as the PayPal mafia, they went on to collaborate on other successful tech start-ups, including Tesla Motors, Space X, LinkedIn, YouTube, Yelp, Yammer and Palantir: each of these ‘unicorns' are now valued at more than $1 billion. (Tech start-ups with valuations in excess of $1 billion are known colloquially in Silicon Valley as ‘unicorns'.)

Thiel describes his hiring policy at PayPal as follows: ...