Here are two reasons companies fail: they only do more of the same, or they only do what's new.
Dva su razloga zbog kojih tvrtke propadaju: ili neprestano rade jedno te isto, ili rade uvijek i iznova nešto novo.
To me the real, real solution to quality growth is figuring out the balance between two activities: exploration and exploitation. Both are necessary, but it can be too much of a good thing.
Smatram da je jedino pravo rješenje pitanja rasta kvalitete naći pravu mjeru između dviju aktivnosti: Istraživanja i iskorištavanja. Obje su nužne, ali je s objema moguće i pretjerati.
Consider Facit. I'm actually old enough to remember them. Facit was a fantastic company. They were born deep in the Swedish forest, and they made the best mechanical calculators in the world. Everybody used them. And what did Facit do when the electronic calculator came along? They continued doing exactly the same. In six months, they went from maximum revenue ... and they were gone. Gone.
Razmotrimo Facit. Ja sam dovoljno star da ga se i sjećam. Facit je bila izvanredna tvrtka. Osnovana je duboko u švedskim šumama, i izrađivala je najbolje mehaničke digitrone na svijetu. Svi su ih upotrebljavali. A što je Facit učinio pošto su se pojavili elektronski digitroni? Nastavili su činiti isto što i dotad. U šest mjeseci, prešli su put od maksimalnih prihoda... ... do propasti. Propali su.
To me, the irony about the Facit story is hearing about the Facit engineers, who had bought cheap, small electronic calculators in Japan that they used to double-check their calculators.
Priča o Facitu ironična je zato što su Facitovi inženjeri kupovali jeftine, male elektronske digitrone u Japanu, kojima su provjeravali učinkovitost svojih digitrona.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
Facit did too much exploitation. But exploration can go wild, too.
Facit je pretjerao s iskorištavanjem. Ali, pretjerati se može i s istraživanjem.
A few years back, I worked closely alongside a European biotech company. Let's call them OncoSearch. The company was brilliant. They had applications that promised to diagnose, even cure, certain forms of blood cancer. Every day was about creating something new. They were extremely innovative, and the mantra was, "When we only get it right," or even, "We want it perfect." The sad thing is, before they became perfect -- even good enough -- they became obsolete. OncoSearch did too much exploration.
Prije nekoliko godina blisko sam surađivao s jednom europskom biotehnološkom tvrtkom. Nazovimo je OncoSearch. Bila je to izvrsna tvrtka. Svojim su aplikacijama obećavali dijagnosticirati, čak i liječiti, izvjesne oblike leukemije. Svakog su dana stvarali nešto novo. Bili su krajnje inovativni, a mantra im je bila: "Kad napravimo to kako treba...", ili čak: "Težimo savršenstvu." Nažalost, prije no što su postali savršeni, čak i dovoljno dobri -- pregazilo ih je vrijeme. OncoSearch je pretjerao s istraživanjem.
I first heard about exploration and exploitation about 15 years ago, when I worked as a visiting scholar at Stanford University. The founder of the idea is Jim March. And to me the power of the idea is its practicality.
Prvi sam put o istraživanju i o iskorištavanju čuo prije 15-ak godina, kad sam bio gostujući predavač na Stanfordskom Sveučilištu. Začetnik ideje je Jim March. Snaga te ideje je u njenoj praktičnosti.
Exploration. Exploration is about coming up with what's new. It's about search, it's about discovery, it's about new products, it's about new innovations. It's about changing our frontiers. Our heroes are people who have done exploration: Madame Curie, Picasso, Neil Armstrong, Sir Edmund Hillary, etc. I come from Norway; all our heroes are explorers, and they deserve to be. We all know that exploration is risky. We don't know the answers, we don't know if we're going to find them, and we know that the risks are high.
Istraživanje. Istražuje se da bi se došlo do nečega novog. Suština je u traganju, u otkrivanju, u novim proizvodima, u inovacijama. U pomicanju naših granica. Naši su heroji ljudi koji su se bavili istraživanjem: Madame Curie, Picasso, Neil Armstrong, Sir Edmund Hillary, i drugi. Ja dolazim iz Norveške: svi su naši heroji istraživači; i zaslužuju biti herojima. Svi znamo da je rizično istraživati. Ne znamo odgovore; ne znamo niti hoćemo li ih naći; ali znamo da su rizici veliki.
Exploitation is the opposite. Exploitation is taking the knowledge we have and making good, better. Exploitation is about making our trains run on time. It's about making good products faster and cheaper. Exploitation is not risky -- in the short term. But if we only exploit, it's very risky in the long term. And I think we all have memories of the famous pop groups who keep singing the same songs again and again, until they become obsolete or even pathetic. That's the risk of exploitation.
Iskorištavanje je upravo oprečno. Iskorištavati znači koristiti se znanjima kojima raspolažemo i činiti dobro boljim. Iskorištavamo kad postižemo da nam vlakovi stižu na vrijeme; kad dobre proizvode činimo bržima i jeftinijima. Iskorištavanje nije rizično -- gledamo li kratkoročno. Međutim, ako samo iskorištavamo, to je dugoročno vrlo rizično. Vjerujem da se svi sjećamo poznatih pop-grupa koje neprestano izvode jedne te iste pjesme, sve dok ne postanu staromodne ili patetične. U tome je rizik iskorištavanja.
So if we take a long-term perspective, we explore. If we take a short-term perspective, we exploit. Small children, they explore all day. All day it's about exploration. As we grow older, we explore less because we have more knowledge to exploit on. The same goes for companies. Companies become, by nature, less innovative as they become more competent.
Dakle, gledamo li dugoročno, istraživat ćemo. Gledamo li kratkoročno, iskorištavat ćemo. Mala djeca, ona svakoga dana istražuju. Po čitave dane. Kako odrastamo, istražujemo manje jer sve više znanja možemo iskorištavati. Isto vrijedi i za tvrtke. Po svojoj prirodi, tvrtke postaju sve manje inovativne kako postaju kompetentnije.
And this is, of course, a big worry to CEOs. And I hear very often questions phrased in different ways. For example, "How can I both effectively run and reinvent my company?" Or, "How can I make sure that our company changes before we become obsolete or are hit by a crisis?" So, doing one well is difficult. Doing both well as the same time is art -- pushing both exploration and exploitation.
To je vrlo zabrinjavajuće za njihove vodeće direktore. Vrlo često čujem pitanja poput, primjerice: "Kako da istodobno i vodim i transformiram svoju tvrtku?" Ili: "Kako da osiguram da se naša tvrtka promijeni prije no što nas vrijeme pregazi ili nas pogodi kriza?" Dakle, činiti dobro jedno od ovoga, teško je. Činiti oboje dobro, istodobno umjetnost je. I istraživati i iskorištavati.
So one thing we've found is only about two percent of companies are able to effectively explore and exploit at the same time, in parallel. But when they do, the payoffs are huge. So we have lots of great examples. We have Nestlé creating Nespresso, we have Lego going into animated films, Toyota creating the hybrids, Unilever pushing into sustainability -- there are lots of examples, and the benefits are huge.
Otkrili smo da je svega oko 2% tvrtki kadro učinkovito istraživati i iskorištavati, istodobno. Onima koji uspijevaju to se silno isplati. Pregršt je sjajnih primjera: Nestle koji je stvorio Nespresso; Lego koji se upustio u animirane filmove; Toyota i njihovi hibridni automobili; Unilever i održivost -- mnoštvo je primjera i koristi su velike.
Why is balancing so difficult? I think it's difficult because there are so many traps that keep us where we are. So I'll talk about two, but there are many.
Zašto je ravnoteža toliko zahtjevna? Mislim da je zahtjevna zbog brojnih zamki koje nas koče. Iako ih je mnogo, govorit ću o dvjema.
So let's talk about the perpetual search trap. We discover something, but we don't have the patience or the persistence to get at it and make it work. So instead of staying with it, we create something new. But the same goes for that, then we're in the vicious circle of actually coming up with ideas but being frustrated. OncoSearch was a good example. A famous example is, of course, Xerox. But we don't only see this in companies. We see this in the public sector as well. We all know that any kind of effective reform of education, research, health care, even defense, takes 10, 15, maybe 20 years to work. But still, we change much more often. We really don't give them the chance.
"Zamka vječitog traganja", primjerice. Otkrijemo nešto, ali onda nismo strpljivi niti ustrajni da se tome posvetimo i to razradimo. Dakle, umjesto da stanemo, mi idemo dalje i stvaramo novo. Isto činimo i s tim novim, i to je začaran krug stalne proizvodnje ideja, ali istodobno i frustracija. OncoSearch je bio dobar primjer. Čuven primjer je, naravno, Xerox. Ali ne susrećemo to samo u tvrtkama. Vidljivo je to i u javnom sektoru. Znamo da bilo kakva učinkovita reforma obrazovanja, znanosti, zdravstva, čak i obrane, iziskuje 10, 15, pa možda i 20 godina rada. Svejedno, puno češće provodimo razne reforme. Zapravo, ne dajemo im nikakve šanse.
Another trap is the success trap. Facit fell into the success trap. They literally held the future in their hands, but they couldn't see it. They were simply so good at making what they loved doing, that they wouldn't change. We are like that, too. When we know something well, it's difficult to change. Bill Gates has said: "Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces us into thinking we cannot fail." That's the challenge with success.
Druga zamka je "zamka uspjeha". Facit je upao u nju. Oni su, doslovno, držali budućnost u svojim rukama, ali nisu toga bili svjesni. Bili su toliko dobri u onome što su voljeli raditi da se nisu željeli mijenjati. I mi smo takvi. Kad smo u nečemu dobri, teško nam se mijenjati. Bill Gates je rekao: "Uspjeh je loš učitelj. Zavodi nas da pomišljamo kako ne možemo pogriješiti." U tome je izazovnost uspjeha.
So I think there are some lessons, and I think they apply to us. And they apply to our companies. The first lesson is: get ahead of the crisis. And any company that's able to innovate is actually able to also buy an insurance in the future. Netflix -- they could so easily have been content with earlier generations of distribution, but they always -- and I think they will always -- keep pushing for the next battle. I see other companies that say, "I'll win the next innovation cycle, whatever it takes."
Mislim da imamo iz čega učiti. Kao i tvrtke. Prva je pouka: preduhitrite krizu. Svaka tvrtka koja je u stanju inovirati sposobna je osigurati vlastitu budućnost. Netflix -- lako su se mogli zadovoljiti svojim dotadašnjim pristupima distribuciji, ali su se uvijek, i mislim da uvijek i hoće, pripremali za sljedeću bitku. Druge tvrtke govore: "U sljedećem inovacijskom ciklusu pobijedit ćemo, pošto-poto."
Second one: think in multiple time scales. I'll share a chart with you, and I think it's a wonderful one. Any company we look at, taking a one-year perspective and looking at the valuation of the company, innovation typically accounts for only about 30 percent. So when we think one year, innovation isn't really that important. Move ahead, take a 10-year perspective on the same company -- suddenly, innovation and ability to renew account for 70 percent. But companies can't choose. They need to fund the journey and lead the long term.
Druga pouka: Mislite dugoročnije. Prikazat ću vam jedan grafikon, jedan čudesan grafikon. Pogledamo li bilo koju tvrtku u jednogodišnjoj perspektivi i njihovu tržišnu vrijednost, vidjet ćemo da inovacije obično čine oko 30% vrijednosti. Razmišljamo li godinu dana unaprijed, inovacije nisu toliko važne. Korak dalje, sagledamo li istu tvrtku u 10-godišnjem razdoblju, iznenada, inovacije i sposobnost obnavljanja čine 70% vrijednosti. Tvrtke, međutim, ne mogu birati. Treba im novac za ulaganja i za dugoročno upravljanje.
Third: invite talent. I don't think it's possible for any of us to be able to balance exploration and exploitation by ourselves. I think it's a team sport. I think we need to allow challenging. I think the mark of a great company is being open to be challenged, and the mark of a good corporate board is to constructively challenge. I think that's also what good parenting is about.
Treća pouka: Prihvatite izazov. Vjerujem da nitko od nas ne može sam istodobno i istraživati i iskorištavati. Vjerujem da je to timski sport. Vjerujem da se moramo međusobno izazivati. Vjerujem da je otvorenost izazovima obilježje sjajne tvrtke, a konstruktivno izazivanje značajka dobrog korporativnog odbora. Vjerujem da je u tome bit i dobrog roditeljstva.
Last one: be skeptical of success. Maybe it's useful to think back at the old triumph marches in Rome, when the generals, after a big victory, were given their celebration. Riding into Rome on the carriage, they always had a companion whispering in their ear, "Remember, you're only human."
Posljednja pouka: Budite sumnjičavi prema uspjehu. Možda se vrijedi prisjetiti starih trijumfalnih marševa u Rimu, kad su generali, nakon velikih pobjeda, bivali slavljeni i veličani. Dok su zapregom ulazili u Rim, generali su uza sebe uvijek imali pratitelja koji bi im šaptao: "Upamti, ti si samo čovjek."
So I hope I made the point: balancing exploration and exploitation has a huge payoff. But it's difficult, and we need to be conscious.
Nadam se da sam bio jasan: kombiniranje istraživanja i iskorištavanja jako se isplati. Ali, teško je i moramo biti pažljivi.
I want to just point out two questions that I think are useful. First question is, looking at your own company: In which areas do you see that the company is at the risk of falling into success traps, of just going on autopilot? And what can you do to challenge?
Želio bih istaknuti još dva, mislim, korisna pitanja. Gledate li svoju tvrtku, prvo je pitanje: U kojim područjima vidite rizik da bi tvrtka mogla upasti u zamku uspjeha, ili funkcionirati "na autopilotu"? I što možete učiniti da biste izazvali reakciju?
Second question is: When did I explore something new last, and what kind of effect did it have on me? Is that something I should do more of? In my case, yes.
Drugo pitanje je: Kad sam posljednji put nešto istraživao i kako je to na mene utjecalo? Je li to nešto što bih češće trebao činiti? U mome slučaju, jest.
So let me leave you with this. Whether you're an explorer by nature or whether you tend to exploit what you already know, don't forget: the beauty is in the balance.
Na kraju, reći ću vam sljedeće: Ako ste po prirodi istraživač, ili ste skloni iskorištavati ono što već znate, nemojte zaboraviti da je ljepota u ravnoteži.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)