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distinctive capabilities . Look for examples where you have excelled as a company , achieving greatly desired outcomes without heroic efforts . Articulate all the different things that had to happen to make these capabilities work , and figure out what it will take to build on your strengths , so that you can succeed the same way more consistently in the future .
Sometimes a particular episode will bring to light new ways of building on your strengths . That ’ s what happened at Bombardier Transportation , a division of a Canadian firm and one of the world ’ s largest manufacturers of railroad equipment . To win a highly competitive bid for supplying 66 passenger train cars to a British rail operator , Bombardier shifted its manufacturing and commercial models to a platformbased approach , which allowed it to use and reuse the same designs for several different types of railway cars . “ Platforming ,” which was a new operational strategy for the industry , required adjustments to Bombardier ’ s supplier relationships and product engineering practices . But the benefits were immediate : lower costs , less technology risk , faster time-to-market , and better reliability .
Bombardier won the bid — and , more importantly , learned from the experience , making the episode a model for other bids and contracts . When some Bombardier engineers complained about the platform approach on the grounds that it curtailed their creativity , the leadership had an immediate answer : The platform demonstrated capabilities that competitors couldn ’ t match and the company ’ s creativity could be focused on innovation . Additional contracts soon followed .
The more knowledge you have about your own capabilities , the more opportunities you ’ ll have to build on your strengths . So you should always be analyzing what you do best , gathering data about your practices , and conducting postmortems . In every case , there is something to learn — about your operations , and also about the choices you make and the value you ’ re able to deliver .
3 . Be Ambidextrous
In the physical world , ambidexterity is the ability to use both hands with equal skill and versatility . In business , it ’ s the ability to manage strategy and execution with equal competence . In some companies , this is known as being “ bilingual ”: able to speak the language of the boardroom and the shop floor or software center with equal facility . Ambidextrous managers can think about the technical and operational details of a project in depth and then , without missing a beat , can consider its broader ramifications for the industry . If strategy through execution is to become a reality , people across the enterprise need to master ambidexterity .
Lack of ambidexterity can be a key factor in chronic problems . For instance , if IT professionals focus only on execution when they manage ERP upgrades or the adoption of new applications , they may be drawn to vendors for their low rates or expertise on specific platforms instead of their ability to design solutions that support the company ’ s business strategy . When the installation fails to deliver the capabilities that the company needs , there will be an unplanned revision ; the costs will balloon accordingly , and the purchase won ’ t fulfill its promise . We recognize , of course , that not everyone needs to be equally conversant in the company ’ s strategy . A typical paper goods manufacturer , for example , employs chemists who research hydrogen bonds to discover ways to make paper towels more absorbent . They may not need to spend much time debating strategy in the abstract , but they do need to be aware of how their role fits in . Like the apocryphal bricklayer who sees himself as building a cathedral , the highly skilled technologists on your team must recognize that they are not merely fulfilling a spec but rather developing a technology unlike anyone else ’ s , for the sake of building highly distinctive capabilities . They might even help figure out what those capabilities should be .
Similarly , your top leaders don ’ t have to be experts on hydrogen bonds or cloud-based SQL server hosting , but they do have to be conversant enough with technological and operational details to make the right high-level decisions . No longer can a senior executive credibly say , “ I don ’ t use computers . My staff is my computer .” If your leaders aren ’ t ambidextrous , they risk being eclipsed or outperformed by someone who is . In The Self-Made Billionaire Effect : How Extreme Producers Create Massive Value ( Portfolio , 2014 ), John Sviokla and Mitch Cohen suggest using the word producers to describe ambidextrous individuals . Self-made billionaires , such as Spanx founder Sara Blakely , POM Wonderful cofounder Lynda Resnick , Uniqlo founder Tadashi Yanai , and Morningstar founder Joe Manseuto have this quality . They can both envision a blockbuster strategy and figure out in detail how to develop and sell it to customers . There are similarly ambidextrous people in every company ,
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