How to Make Your High Tech Firm Smart in 2 Steps

I wrote recently that high-tech world is a VUCA world. To survive and succeed out there, your high tech firm has to be smart. 

According to synonym.com the adjective smart has seven senses:

 - showing mental alertness and calculation and resourcefulness;

- elegant and stylish;

- characterized by quickness and ease in learning;

- improperly forward or bold;

- painfully severe;

- quick and brisk;

- capable of independent and apparently intelligent action.

Well, I guess that you would like your firm to be smart in all those senses. It must be intelligent, capable and mature. Here's the oversimplified algorithm in making smart your high-tech firm in 2 steps.

1 Diagnose

First step is to diagnose maturity and capabilities of your firm. Even if you are at the initial stage of establishing your enterprise or startup, you can and should assess this.

Maybe you can compare your firm against your best competitors. Or make the scenario analysis for VUCA situations that might expect your firm in the future. Determine critical capabilities for future success  that you lack. Check how mature are management practices of your team. Identify areas that need your primary attention.

2 Fix

This is the implementation step. Start it by sharing insights into market and technology intelligence with your team.  Convey your passion for capabilities improvement. Involve people into the process. Learn to learn. Measure performance. Proceed to step one.