Risk & Business Magazine Cooke Insurance Group Spring 2016 | Page 19

If a company is able to implement 4 out of the 10 topics
in S.C.A.L.E. and I.D.E.A.S. then they will see their 10x
improvement and will cross into exponential growth territory.
An example of this would be the way Valve, a popular software
company, operates. They have a very small footprint and tap
into abundance through the use of technology. There is no
middle management, no dedicated teams. People work on
what they wish to work on and, should a problem arise, anyone
who wishes to can fix it. This has resulted in a massive profit
for the company over the last decade. Per worker, they have
one of the highest profit margins in the world.

How Organizations Can Become Exponential

did it by having a dedicated team working on their own to see
what they would be able to put together for the long run.
Your business is, of course, your business. With that being
said, there are always ways to improve. Reaching a state of
exponential growth and creating abundance in your industry
is just as far away as your imagination will allow you to go.
All you need to do is have a vision of what is possible and be
willing to do what it takes to get there. Just keep in mind that
companies which have already stood the test of time are also
the companies which will ultimately be the most resistant to
change. Overcoming that resistance through inspirational
leadership and vision is the key to becoming an ExO.

The fundamental change in an ExO model is the
democratization of the business process. So how can a large
existing company take advantage of this and begin to change?
A few things will lead down the path to the right direction.
One is to update the leadership. It is essential that the change
starts at the top and works its way down. If people are not on
board, they will have to be replaced.
Inspiring ExO changes at the very edges of the company is
another key aspect. Partnering or investing with already
existing ExO’s can be a good way to do this. By changing some
of your processes to better leverage or expose data lines, you
can put yourself in a position to change the rest of them in that
direction as well.
Salim suggests, also, hiring a “black ops” team, which stays
both stealthy, and at the edges of the company which can then
find ways to attack other industries. Apple has made good
use of this. Though they were a computer company, they
have snuck their way into mobile phones, tablets, and the
music industry. They did not do this by accident, they

Salim Ismail is the
best-selling author
of Exponential
Organizations and the
Founding Executive
Director of Singularity
University. He is
also the former Vice
President and Head of
Innovation at Yahoo!,
where he built and ran
the company’s internal incubator,
and he sold his last company to Google
in 2010. Salim consults with governments
and the world’s top fortune 500 companies
on innovation and growth, and his work has
been featured in premier media outlets like the
New York Times, Bloomberg, BusinessWeek,
Fortune, Forbes, Wired, Vogue, and BBC.

SPRING 2016

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