Catalyze June 22

BUZZWORDS FOR
MAKING YOUR
BUSINESS
SUSTAINABLE
CONTINUED...
The first one is that you have to have an environment that allows for innovation. I'm
talking about the ability to collaborate, but you gotta invest in some tools, some
technology that people can apply, but just buying a little bit of software is not gonna
solve the problem. The next two pieces you have to have are creativity and curiosity.
What do these new technologies do? I'm going to invest some of my own time to learn
about these different digital things, so then I can use my creativity to understand that
if I understand the tools, I understand my problem space. I'm gonna come up with
some creative ways to apply that. But even that's not enough because this is not a task
to try to set up a big play playground, where everybody can play with the tools. There
has to be a critical challenge that we're trying to fix. Now, this could be a problem to
solve, or it could be an opportunity to realize, but it has to be something specific. And
you have to focus on the results.
Innovation is not taking months and months and months to play around with
something. No, let's set some time boxes. Maybe it's 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, but it's
something where you take a step back and say, look, great idea, great try. It's not
working. Maybe this is something we should either stop or double down on. But if we
put that kind of structure and put those kinds of cultural changes inside of an
organization, then any company can be innovative.
Sustainability seems to be the next thing that everybody wants to talk about. But
again, just like with digital transformation and digital business, people were having a
very tough time understanding what sustainability meant and how to apply it to their
business. And so I decided to take that five-step framework and expand it a little bit.
The five-component framework for a digital business allows me to take ideas and
apply them and figure out how they make sense inside of my organization.
CATALYZE MAGAZINE | 14