Lily 's Key Ideas from Connecting the Dots
by John Chambers

Balance excelling at executing on current business models and incremental innovations for today's environment with carving out mindshare, resources and teams to invest in exploring transformative trends and opportunities for the future.

Optimize today's operations for efficiency while also incubating nascent ideas that may become tomorrow's breakthrough products. Dual optimize both horizons.

• Proactively break down rigid silos, excessive bureaucracy and unnecessary layers that slow companies down.
• Govern through principle-based culture and accountability for outcomes rather than top-down rule-based micromanagement.
• Enable quick resource allocation and responsive decentralized decision-making to increase organizational agility.
• Remove structural obstacles to being nimble.

Make aggressively upskilling your workforce on critical digital competencies like data analytics, artificial intelligence, software development, user experience design, and security integration a top priority.

Digital transformation requires company-wide digital literacy. Give people access to internal and external learning opportunities and incentivize mastery of high-demand skills.

• Proactively build partnerships, make strategic acquisitions, leverage external advisors, and participate in industry networks in order to rapidly absorb new capabilities and scale innovations.
• Do not rely solely on internal skills to handle everything.
• External connections provide exposure to fresh ideas and complement in-house teams.
• Tap into the larger ecosystem.

• Communicate openly, honestly and frequently with employees and customers.
• Transparency internally and externally builds trust in leadership, brand credibility and shared understanding required for rapid adaptation.
• Authenticity requires self-awareness, humility and courage to admit mistakes.
• Collect unfiltered feedback at all levels.

• Lead with humble confidence, avoid arrogance. Actively create an inclusive environment that leverages diverse perspectives.
• Seek input and collaboration from people across levels of the organization.
• Diversity and cross-functional collaboration enable gathering richer insights and making well-rounded decisions.