A Tale of Two Hope Machines, 9.3.5.B

Got edges?

Conventional wisdom says an ailing organization should aggressively cut costs and /or develop new products and services to raise revenues. UCP's done both of these in recent years. To minimize operating costs, the former UPC of Central OH merged with another nonprofit (that also serves people with disabilities). On the revenue side, the national office has introduced at least three significant new service offerings...

Assuming for a minute it's done all the COST CUTTING it can do -- organizationwide, affiliate network included -- I want to focus this post on the GROWTH side of the UCP equation. 

"When organizations speak of pursuing growth, most are speaking of product- or service-level innovations produced in the core of their organization." 

The word "core" is key here. The authors of The Power of Pull contend that innovations derived from core operations are offering diminishing returns these days. Marginally improved, marginally differentiated products and services aren't moving the dial. As it relates to UCP, their concern would be that improvements of that ilk would likely not generate enough dough to make up for any losses the organization is experiencing due to reduced government support and /or increased competition.

(Do LIFE LABS, Mission Driven Consulting, and The World CP Challenge represent just marginally improved or differentiated services? If so, are they destined to provide  mediocre-at-best returns? If not, are there additional things UCP could do to ensure their sustained effectiveness? I hope to make those sorts of questions the subject matter of the next post.)

JSB et al. would counsel against pursuing marginal returns. It's not sensible, they write, "to keep pushing harder and harder on existing resources with minimal gains." 

If this is the organization's m.o., it should consider looking to the edge and learning to innovate at a more fundamental, institutional level -- for at least three reasons: (1) there's a good chance market opportunities are being missed (2) pursuing edge opportunities can be relatively less costly [because you're leveraging external resources] and (3) significantly, UCP would develop new institutional capabilities in the process.

If things are "difficult" for UCP, that's a sign that more changing and adapting need to be done. Changes in management mindsets are likely in order.* What the authors offer is a pragmatic pathway to making said changes and to improving, specifically, UCP's ability to learn.

In the next post I'll try to characterize and categorize some of UCP-National's innovations. Then, after that, I'll go into how UCP could inch itself closer to the edge.

*Question for UCP top managers to ponder: Do you consider it your purpose to be an orchestrator for your people to connect and learn from others, i.e., to improve their performance?