The edge is becoming the core...

The edge is becoming the core...

Brian Anderson is the principal founder of BA Search Group.

What do I mean by this? The edge is where the action is - in terms of growth, innovation and value creation. Companies, workgroups and individuals that master the edge will build a more sustainable core. While our primary focus will be on business activity, our perspectives will also be relevant to leaders of other kinds of institutions as well - educational, governmental and social.

The edge is giving rise to a new common sense model. We all perceive and act based on "common sense" assumptions about the world around us and the requirements to achieve our goals. Every major technology shift has produced a fundamentally new common sense model. Our goal is to understand and describe key elements of the new common sense model emerging from technology innovations - especially the invention of the microprocessor and the introduction of packet-switched networks - that were introduced in the early to mid-1970s.

Four Domains of Human ActionWhat do I mean by edge?
We will be focusing on the edges of four different domains of human action - social, enterprise, market and learning.
The social domain involves the complex relationships between how we define our individual identities and the forms of social participation that we pursue to shape these identities.
The enterprise domain looks at how we organize to create economic value and how we define the boundaries of these economic entities.
The market domain explores how we compete and collaborate on a global scale to create, deliver and capture economic value.
The learning domain seeks to describe how we learn, with particular emphasis on the interaction between individual learning and group learning.

Complex dynamic loops shape the evolution of each domain and the interdependencies across domains. Many analysts have described elements of each of these domains, but no one has sought to explore systematically how these domains interact with each other. I believe that the biggest opportunities will arise where the edges of these four domains interact and generate tensions that need to be resolved. It is this intersection that defines the first dimension of our research agenda.

To effectively pursue this research agenda, we will need to incorporate two other dimensions of investigation as well. Four Global ForcesOn the second dimension we need to better understand four long-term global forces and how they interact with the four domains described earlier:· Public policy - especially the broad movement to remove barriers to entry and barriers to competition· Technological innovation at three levels:- the continuing improvement in price/performance in digital hardware building blocks and new techniques for designing, building and delivering software- the changing architectures for organizing these hardware and software building blocks- the movement into new arenas of these components and architectures (e.g., the mobile Internet, smart objects, bioinformatics and telematics)· Demographic - especially the changing age demographics around the globe· Cultural - especially the emergence of global youth cultures, the growth of the creative class and the growing importance of religion in cultures around the world.

Effective Strategies for Creating ValueAs uncertainty increases and the pace of change accelerates, managers will need to develop new approaches and tools to make sense of the evolving environment and to make progress in terms of creating value. This constitutes the third dimension of the research agenda - helping managers to define and execute strategies for successfully navigating across this new landscape.

For this purpose, I will focus in particular on the role of FAST strategies as a foundation for shaping opportunities to create significant value.
FAST strategies bring together four management imperatives - Focus, Accelerate, Strengthen and Tie together.

Brian Anderson is the principal founder of BA Search Group an Executive search, coaching and consulting practice in the Naperville, Aurora, IL market. http://www.basearchgroup.com/