Ep. 07 Bill Fischer - Leadership as Architecting: Transforming Organisations into Thriving Ecosystems

Boundaryless Conversations Podcast

In this Boundaryless Conversation, we talk with Bill Fischer, Professor of Innovation Management at IMD Business School in Lausanne. Bill co-founded and co-directs the IMD program on Driving Strategic Innovation, in cooperation with the Sloan School of Management at MIT and also authors a regular column for Forbes.com entitled “The Ideas Business”.

Together with Bill, we’re exploring how incumbent organizations are likely to respond to pressures like plummeting transaction costs and the need to extend their organizational models across boundaries, digging into the cultural, organizational and leadership resistance that this transformation may encounter.

We talk quite a lot about Haier Group, a world-leading pioneer embracing a culture of entrepreneurship and ecosystem enablement. If you’re interested in learning more about this case, here are two opportunities for you:

> A Webinar on the Haier Story hosted on 29th of April, offering an introductory discussion on Haier's Group’s organizational approach Rendanheyi. Sign up here or follow the live streaming on the Boundaryless YouTube channel.

> An upcoming Haier Certified 3 Half Day online course that Bill Fischer and Simone Cicero will facilitate online on June 16-17-18

Here are some important links from the conversation:

More about the Haier model:

> William A. Fischer, Umberto Lago and Fang Liu: Reinventing Giants: https://www.imd.org/research-knowledge/books/reinventing-giants/

> William A. Fische: How Haier gives insights into China’s radical transformation - From autarky to everywhere, https://www.imd.org/research-knowledge/articles/how-haier-gives-insights-into-chinas-radical-transformation/

> Simone’s take on the PDT blog: “An Entrepreneurial, Ecosystem Enabling Organization - What’s emerging from understanding Haier Group”, https://stories.platformdesigntoolkit.com/an-entrepreneurial-ecosystem-enabling-organization-c35eaf5acd9c

> Corporate Rebels: “RenDanHeYi: The Organizational Model Defining The Future Of Work?” https://corporate-rebels.com/rendanheyi-forum/

Stuff mentioned in the conversation:

> Charlie Fine, “Nail it, Scale it, Sail it”, https://www.jungle-mountain-ocean.com/about

> Oticon hearing aid company in Denmark, https://www.oticon.com/

> Jos de Blok, founder of the nurse-led organisation Buurztorg: https://www.buurtzorg.com/about-us/history/

> Stora Enso, the Finish company with roots in the 14th century: https://www.storaenso.com/

> ABB, https://new.abb.com/

> John Hagel’s writings on Edge Perspectives, on ideas of scalable learning and the difference between the scalable economy of scalable efficiency, https://edgeperspectives.typepad.com/edge_perspectives/

> Andy Boynton, Bill Fischer, William Bole, The Idea Hunter: How to Find the Best Ideas and Make them Happen, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10553258-the-idea-hunter

Music by liosound. Recorded on March 30th 2020