{"id":42851,"date":"2023-10-20T15:24:15","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/incentivise-learning-or-get-swept-away-says-neos-david-bland-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:24:15","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:24:15","slug":"incentivise-learning-or-get-swept-away-says-neos-david-bland-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/incentivise-learning-or-get-swept-away-says-neos-david-bland-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Incentivise learning or get swept away, says Neo\u2019s David Bland – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n

Companies need to incentivise learning in all aspects of operation to avoid meeting the same fate as the likes of Blockbuster and Blackberry, principal adviser at Neo David Bland says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Speaking at the Lean15 conference in Wellington, New Zealand, the Silicon Valley-based management consultant says businesses, from large corporations to startups, that aren\u2019t continually placing an emphasis on learning will be swept away by the next batch of disruptive companies.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not incentivised for learning. We incentivise people for completing tasks and hitting deadlines,\u201d Bland says. \u201cWe can\u2019t keep working this way.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIncentivising learning means you\u2019re no longer riding the wave of mediocrity.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIf not you have this sense of security and that gets stripped away from you.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cTo change your ways, start with learning. When you start with learning, something really magical happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He cites Blockbuster and Blackberry as examples of companies who didn\u2019t try to learn about the new trends or how the market was interacting with their products, and as a consequence were eventually overtaken by startups that were trying new things, like Uber or Apple.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cBlockbuster at the beginning was actually a pretty decent experience,\u201d Bland says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cBut the revenues fell off in the space of two years. This is what corporations look like when they don\u2019t see disruption coming. They had something that worked, they had a monopoly, then they were crushed.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

These traditional companies boasted high retention of customers because there was no competition, but a low level of customer satisfaction, meaning they were ripe for disruption.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Learning needs to be incorporated and emphasised at every stage of a company\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThe core of the lean startup method is that learning comes first,\u201d Bland says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been misinterpreted that we start with build. We start with learning.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A learning MVP<\/b><\/h2>\n

<\/b><\/p>\n

A primary aspect of this is making a minimum viable product that allows you to gain information and feedback from the market, Bland says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cStart with learning, don\u2019t start with build,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cEverything in corporations starts with build. If you\u2019re really going to change how you work, start with learning.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It\u2019s important that the MVPs are launched in the market quickly, before it\u2019s perfect, something that many older companies don\u2019t do, Bland says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Startups that go through this process quicker than the pack will come out in front, Bland says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you can get through that loop faster than the competition then you are no longer reactive to them, they become reactive to you,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The MVP should instead be about learning not scaling, Bland says, especially in terms of how the customers interact with the product.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cDisruptive innovation always looks like a toy,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cYou decide what\u2019s the minimum, and the market decides what\u2019s viable.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you can\u2019t understand why your customers are passionate, you\u2019re done.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Internal learning<\/b><\/h2>\n

There\u2019s no point placing a focus on learning from customers unless the startup is incentivising learning within the whole team as well, Bland says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to incentivise workers to collaborate and learn,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThe design of the organisation is the challenge. If you can\u2019t incentivise to learn and help people collaborate there\u2019s no way this will work.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/b><\/p>\n

Bland says success comes down to whether the leadership team embraces change as well.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He points to a Peter Drucker quote: \u201cthe bottleneck is always at the top of a bottle\u201d.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt starts with the leaders, and that\u2019s the biggest challenge,\u201d Bland says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt starts with you. None of this will stick unless you can truly empower your team.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

StartupSmart attended Lean15 as a guest of Positively Wellington Tourism.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Companies need to incentivise learning in all aspects of operation to avoid meeting the same fate as the likes of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60102,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42851"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}