COMPETITION FORCES BLACKBERRY LEADERSHIP TO REINVENT THE CORPORATION
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Blindsided by the North American success of Apple’s I-phone and Google’s android operating system, RIM (Research in Motion) the creators of Blackberry, are rebooting. Investors have lost faith in the company that a just a few years ago, invented the smart phone market. To survive and prosper, in spite of fierce shift-age competition, there is much executives and employees can learn from RIM’s experience.
Eventual death is the destiny all living things. Prolonged existence depends on letting go in order to grow. A sage colleague once said “you’re either green and growing or ripe and rotting”. Death is nature’s way of replacing worn out parts—making way for the next generation and an opportunity to shed unproductive baggage. Standing on the shoulders of those gone before, new blood operates from a clean slate—with the capacity to discard what no longer works and to add ideas more suited to current realities. The cycle of human institutions resembles organic life—with one major difference. Organizations have the option to reinvent themselves.
The cycle of organization and industry growth is: Embryonic, Growth, Mature, and Decline. RIM was so busy harvesting mature profits, they failed to recognize that innovating competitors had forced them into decline.
Blackberry sales are still growing in foreign markets, RIM has access to significant cash reserves, they hold little debt, have fired several key executives, and have executed the largest workforce culling in the company’s history. From a financial perspective, they have a solid foundation upon which to rebuild. The big question is, are innovative genes still alive and well in their corporate DNA? Has your organization created a culture capable of operating profitably, while at the same time, staying ahead of the innovation curve? In the shift-age resting on laurels is the kiss of death . Thye following outlines a “survival conditionin” strategy.
Exorcize industrial-age thinking
10 Steps keeping ahead of the innovation curve: 
1. Transform long range planning by visioning alternate scenarios.(consider the BLUE OCEAN process)
2. Conduct cultural-values clarification workshops—remembering to include innovation.
3. Consider cultural-values to be the past tense of the organization’s vision (values in the future tense).
4. Create a statement of purpose and use it as the “corporate north star”
5. Practice delivering a personal “purpose” message (timeless expressions of the corporations brand)
6. Develop an ethics platform that establishes behavioral boundaries. (correct non compliant behavior)
7. Collect 25% of revenue from new products or markets
8. Encourage the participation of employees in continuous improvement and innovation
9. Maintain an idea’s catalogue
10. Protect creative people (considered loose cannons by industrial-age thinkers)