The Align Technology chief executive is well aware of the dangers of complacency. Joseph M Hogan joined Align in 2015. He formerly held chief executive roles at ABB and GE Healthcare: companies where continuous development is integral to business success. Hogan and his management team are thoughtful about the opportunities and challenges that Align is likely to face.
Like many companies in this digitizing, interconnected world, they can see opportunities for collaboration and challenges of disintermediation. More than any specific challenge, however, is the generic danger of being so busy running and growing the business that they spend insufficient time thinking creatively about alternative futures. Not on Joe Hogan's watch.
The executive team took a progressive approach. They decided to harness the brain power of their top talent. Ten senior leaders from around the world (about 20% of the total at this level) were taken out of the business for eight weeks to work on a strategic challenge facing the company.
Not a day or a week here and there, but eight complete weeks as a team dedicated to understanding the challenge, analysing it, gathering data in the field, being educated in key helpful topics – such as scenario scoping and ethnographic research – and then presenting options for solutions to the executive team. The chosen ten needed to be good leaders. Their task was to reflect and think strategically. And their teams had to pick up the reins while they were out. The initiative was called, appropriately, Catalyst.
Raphael S Pascaud, chief marketing officer, and Simon Beard, senior vice-president (VP) & managing director EMEA, sponsored the initiative. Sponsorship meant being present or available, guiding the process and reassuring the participants, who were a long way from their homes, their jobs and their comfort zones.
Many organizations need better collaboration, and Align is no exception. The sponsors were pleased to watch as the participants learned to listen to each other better, to understand more about the whole business (not just their domain), and to develop a growing desire to think and lead more strategically. The Catalyst legacy is a tight network of colleagues who naturally reach out to each other across the business for ideas and inspiration.
One of the biggest learnings from the programme was improved customer insight through ethnographic research. This meant spending time with customers in a wide variety of contexts, just looking at how the Align products are used in practice, seeing and learning up close what works and what frustrates.
There is huge gratitude for the executive team and the risk they took. "We need to recognize our leaders for having the courage to take us out of the business – it felt like a luxury, but now I think I'm walking a different leadership journey," says Chu.
"I have experienced the power of giving ten talented people the time and resources to really answer a difficult challenge and to create an opportunity out of it," says Beard.