Paradigm Shift 1 to Consider for Digital Transformation: Acceleration of the Shift from Core to Crowd.

January 31, 2023

Many employees were forced to work from home during the pandemic and connect via collaboration platforms. These collaborative platforms greatly facilitated participation, flattened hierarchies, and democratized ideas. It made it possible for individuals worldwide to contribute to discussions, participate in design thinking sessions and engage in projects, regardless of location. It helped bring people together across cultural, economic, and geographic boundaries. The participant's location or the size of the room was no longer a constraint to engaging people.

We have realized that the new way of engaging a large and diverse group (Crowd) can be more effective than the traditional way of getting a (Core) team of few leaders or subject matter experts to discuss opportunities or solve a problem. Moreover, communication with the Crowd can happen using many platforms, such as face-to-face, video conference, telephone, groupware, e-mail, etc.

If you select the right Crowd of participants, get them excited about the opportunity, and avoid group thinking, you can tap into the Crowd's energy, power, and wisdom. In most cases, you will get a better problem statement and solutions from the "Crowd" than the "Core." In addition, the Crowd can be much faster, more reliable, and less subject to political forces than experts or expert committee deliberations. This approach will enable better diversity, equity, inclusion, and stakeholder buy-in.

As companies work to develop new strategies or create new products and services, they typically bring a core team of experts and second guess the desired end-user experience or their needs. The better, faster, cheaper, and more effective way would be to break big opportunities or problems into sizable chunks in ways that the Crowd can understand the problem or opportunity and share their perspectives.

Companies should use this experimental approach to collect data and develop data-driven solutions rather than depending on the opinions of a few leaders.

Because in the absence of data, the belief of the leader prevails. I see that with startups and scaleups, this data-driven approach works very well to convince investors and boards rather than basing the pitch entirely on the founder's conviction.

The "Build, and they will come" approach never worked in the past and will not work in the future. As the world gets more complex and the pace of change accelerates, the solutions are not known or predictable, not linear, multidimensional, and dynamic. A single person or small leadership group, on their own, cannot identify the problems and develop good enough solutions. The problems are not solvable through technical

prowess alone. So, it is essential to bring a variety of people who match the variety of perplexing challenges and seemingly unattainable opportunities. Engaging the Crowd requires companies to take a 'Listen, Learn, & Adapt" approach and co-create solutions working within an ecosystem of customers and partners.

However, it requires humility on the part of the leadership and their core teams to accept that other people outside the "Core" could better define the problem and develop solutions. There may also be a certain level of insecurity about their perceived expertise in going to the Crowd.

Try this approach next time you build a strategy, develop a problem statement, or design solutions. Where you get the breakthrough ideas or innovations from will surprise you.

From your experience, what are the enablers and deterrents for companies to shift from Core to Crowd?