Charles Koch from Koch Industries (http://www.kochind.com) shared so much wisdom on the latest Entreleadership podcast, and among them was the vision level thinking that a focus on capability rather than industry is the key to growth - when you connect yourself with a specific industry, you can (sometimes) be limiting your upside potential.
Capabilities of your leadership, team, and methods can often be applied to solve multiple problems across industries. Don’t discount the value of this bigger picture, strategic level thinking.
Here’s how to implement this type of thinking:
1. List out the key capabilities of your company by category.
(people, culture, platforms, systems, processes)
If you have a hard time identifying these capabilities - start a plan to cultivate capability. Do you hire people that are lifelong learners and innovative thinkers at all levels? Are you carving out “white space” time monthly or quarterly to evaluate how you’re doing in these areas and defining which capabilities could be shared or applied to other industries?
2. How do your key capabilities listed translate to value across industries?
Don’t put limits on how these core components can be identified or shared, seek outside counsel to brainstorm through what this could look like. Do you have an internal core principle or process that is unique to your company that can serve other industries well if shared?
3. Map out all possible avenues to share your capabilities.
How can you start to share what makes you/your company unique? What are you most passionate about sharing? What are all of the possible avenues in which you can share this with others? What industries would this benefit the most? Can you license this capability? List out the benefits of sharing this and possible avenues to revenue growth through this strategy.