Thoughtfully Ruthless

Chapter 9Creating a Leapfrog Organization

Rapid growth is no longer the exception. With crowd-funding allowing for new and unexpected competition in unexpected places, explosive growth is just to be expected. Companies such Uber have helped to reinvent how we travel, and Airbnb is transforming the hospitality industry. New industries appear overnight, and “the-Uber-of…” is the latest common description in many start-up pitches to investors. Amazon is now using its customers to deliver packages and has launched Amazon-Now, a service that guarantees customers' orders within an hour by tapping into its 244 million customers to deliver packages. While lawmakers play catch-up to update ancient laws to reflect the flexible reality of the new sharing economy, Amazon customers will get to benefit from faster delivery times and Amazon's growth will continue at warp speed.

Amazon is proving that big companies can out-share the start-ups in the sharing economy, disrupting their current business models and building on the strengths they already have. But product innovation isn't enough; a ruthless approach to your resources is needed, in a thoughtful way.

Your Five-Year Leap

Given this rapid growth, too many leaders hire for their current company rather than for the size and scale it will be in five years' time. By assessing the capability and capacity of your organization against your future business, you begin to understand the gap you need to close to create your leapfrog organization ...