They also trained print reporters in TV and Web broadcasting, outfitting them with cameras so they could file stories simultaneously in different media. The three business heads met daily to review stories and share ideas. But Curley insisted that all three enterprises be integrated at the top. Units were physically separate, and their staffing models, cultures, and processes were distinct. President Tom Curley adopted a “network strategy”-combining online, television, and newspaper organizations to promote cross-media content sharing. But isolated from the print operation, was starved of cash, generated meager results, and began losing talented staff. Initially it created a skunk works operation to launch online news service. When news consumers began turning to television and the Internet in the 1990s, USA Today-the United States’ most widely read daily newspaper-knew it had to go beyond its traditional print business to survive. Top-level integration ensures that fledgling units have access to established resources-cash, talent, customers-and simultaneously shields them from the innovation-chilling effects of “business as usual.” Meanwhile, existing units-freed from the distractions of a start-up-can maintain their focus on refining operations, improving products, and serving customers.Ĭompanies that use ambidextrous structures are nine times more likely to create breakthrough products and processes than those using other organizational structures-while sustaining or even improving their existing businesses.Ĭonsider these examples of ambidextrous organizations that have successfully pioneered radical innovations while pursuing incremental gains to their established businesses. But they also tightly coordinate these new units with existing organizations at the senior management level. What’s the secret to developing the breakthrough innovations you need to stay competitive-while also protecting your traditional businesses? Create organizationally distinct units-but tightly integrate them at the senior executive level.Īmbidextrous organizations segregate exploratory units from their traditional units, encouraging them to develop their own unique processes, structures, and cultures. Given the executive will to make it happen, any company can become ambidextrous. Building an ambidextrous organization is by no means easy, but the structure itself, combining organizational separation with senior team integration, is not difficult to understand. They possess the attributes of rigorous cost cutters and free-thinking entrepreneurs while also maintaining the objectivity required to make difficult trade-offs.Īlmost every company needs to renew itself through the creation of breakthrough products and processes, but it shouldn’t do so at the expense of its traditional business. Of utmost importance to the ambidextrous organization are ambidextrous managers-executives who have the ability to understand and be sensitive to the needs of very different kinds of businesses. Such “ambidextrous organizations,” as the authors call them, allow executives to pioneer radical or disruptive innovations while also pursuing incremental gains. These organizations separate their new, exploratory units from their traditional, exploitative ones, allowing them to have different processes, structures, and cultures at the same time, they maintain tight links across units at the senior executive level. But as every businessperson knows, there are companies that do. This mental balancing act is one of the toughest of all managerial challenges-it requires executives to explore new opportunities even as they work diligently to exploit existing capabilities-and it’s no surprise that few companies do it well. Corporate executives must constantly look backward, attending to the products and processes of the past, while also gazing forward, preparing for the innovations that will define the future.
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