I have been investing a growing amount of time in building my understanding of Business Ecosystems and from one of my AI chats I really do get some wonderful “nuggets” of thinking.
It does continue to amaze me within a stream of exchanges or prompts how you are sparked into another strand of thinking that continues to build your understanding or simplify a part that can be complicated to explain.
One of these “popped up” while I was trying to relate Natural Ecosystems with Business Ecosystems and I asked a follow on a prompt around mind shifts “What are the principles of the mind shift to bring structure to recognizing different changes in thinking from existing business thinking to make the bridge into fresh thinking needed for Business Ecosystem thinking.”
I simply loved this reply as so clear and defined for changing thinking.
Eight principles for bridging traditional thinking into Ecosystem thinking
1. From Linear Value Chains to Dynamic Value Networks
Traditional Thinking: Business value flows linearly from suppliers through the organization to customers.
Ecosystem Thinking: Value is created through complex, multi-directional exchanges among diverse participants.
Bridging Principle: Value Orchestration – Organizations serve as orchestrators of value exchange rather than controllers of linear processes. This builds on existing supply chain management concepts but expands the perspective to include how value circulates throughout the entire ecosystem rather than just moving forward.
2. From Competitive Advantage to Ecosystem Advantage
Traditional Thinking: Success comes from building moats and competitive advantages against rivals.
Ecosystem Thinking: Success comes from strengthening the health and resilience of the entire ecosystem.
Bridging Principle: Collaborative Differentiation – Competitive strength emerges from unique contributions to ecosystem health. This connects to existing concepts of core competencies but reorients them toward how they strengthen the overall system rather than just the individual firm.
3. From Efficiency to Adaptability
Traditional Thinking: Optimize processes for maximum efficiency and standardization.
Ecosystem Thinking: Optimize systems for maximum adaptability and responsiveness to change.
Bridging Principle: Adaptive Efficiency – Balance optimization with maintaining spare capacity and diversity. This bridges lean principles with innovation requirements by acknowledging that some “inefficiency” is necessary for adaptation and resilience.
4. From Risk Mitigation to Resilience Building
Traditional Thinking: Identify and eliminate risks through control mechanisms.
Ecosystem Thinking: Accept uncertainty and build capacity to adapt to unpredictable changes.
Bridging Principle: Distributed Resilience – Spread risk across the ecosystem rather than trying to eliminate it. This connects risk management practices with biological principles of redundancy and diversity.
5. From Stakeholder Management to Ecosystem Stewardship
Traditional Thinking: Manage stakeholder relationships to mitigate threats and secure resources.
Ecosystem Thinking: Serve as stewards ensuring the health and sustainability of the entire system.
Bridging Principle: Symbiotic Governance – Develop governance structures that align individual interests with system health. This expands stakeholder theory to include indirect relationships and future participants.
6. From Growth Metrics to Regenerative Success Measures
Traditional Thinking: Success measured by growth in revenue, market share, and profit.
Ecosystem Thinking: Success measured by capacity for renewal, regeneration, and long-term viability.
Bridging Principle: Regenerative Value Creation – Measure success by how activities contribute to system renewal and longevity. This connects financial metrics with sustainability measures to create integrated assessment frameworks.
7. From Resource Consumption to Circularity
Traditional Thinking: Acquire and consume resources to produce offerings.
Ecosystem Thinking: Create closed-loop systems where outputs become inputs for other processes.
Bridging Principle: Waste-to-Value Transformation – Systematically identify ways to convert waste streams into value streams. This bridges efficiency initiatives with circular economy concepts.
8. From Fixed Strategic Planning to Evolutionary Steering
Traditional Thinking: Develop detailed strategic plans with fixed time frames and deliverables.
Ecosystem Thinking: Establish direction through continuous sensing, learning, and adapting.
Bridging Principle: Emergent Strategy Navigation – Use strategic intent as a compass while allowing specific paths to emerge through experimentation. This connects traditional planning approaches with more adaptive, emergent strategy concepts.
These eight principles lead me on to “Why Organizations Would Adopt Evolutionary Ecosystem Thinking” but that becomes another days story.
Just “roll” with this lovely set of nuggets. I can’t claim this as my thinking but I feel “wear a (good) prompt” with pride and acknowledgment