How to deliver value for the business you serve in SLO Motion — so they can deliver additional value to their customers and shareholders

Value and focus.

This is the business of Research.

Delivering this is the Research team of the future — the Strategic Learning Organization (SLO).

A SLO Defined:

A Strategic Learning Organization (SLO) continuously adapts and evolves by acquiring, processing, and applying new knowledge. SLOs prioritize innovation, improvement, and growth by fostering a culture of learning and embracing change. By developing an agile mindset and employing effective decision-making processes, strategic learning organizations stay ahead of their competition while delivering exceptional value to their customers and stakeholders.

SLOs will enable researchers to act as consultants that help define, build, and deliver value to customers that delivers value to the business.

Researchers become Value Detectives.

Strategic Learning Organizations are in the business of value.

For a business to be wildly successful, a business must create superior value for customers without breaking the bank for the business.

You can’t spend $1M to create value that a customer would only pay $1 for.

To create value, a business must understand the consumer value equation, i.e., what things a customer values most and at what magnitude.

• What will a customer pay for a specific product or service?

A SLO Researcher helps uncover this by asking two strategic questions:

• What unique benefits will we offer our customers that will compel them to choose us over all other options (including nothing)?
• How will we translate this exceptional customer value into a solution that offers superior financial returns for our enterprise?

These two questions force you to define how to capture both superior customer value and superior economic value and how to convert one into the other.

A competitive advantage comes from providing greater value than your competitors for your chosen customers in the most profitable way.

If you want a place to start strategic research, begin with the consumer value equation.

Strategic Learning Organizations are in the business of strategy.

Strategy is about creating clarity of focus.

Clarity of focus on the market a business will compete in, how it will create superior value for its customers, and how it will generate superior returns for its investors.

• If you’re focusing on the wrong things, then by definition, you’re not focusing on the right things.

The decisions a business makes determine its likely success.

• The best decision is the right one. The second best decision is the wrong one. And the worst decision is no decision.

Just like customers value something, businesses also value things.

They value:

• 🚀 Experiencing predictable growth
• 💰 Increasing value for the business
• 🔮 Adapting to unpredictable change
• ⚠️ Mitigating risk to minimize losses
• ⏱ Moving faster than the competition

Businesses that develop and execute a strategy focused on what they value will come out ahead.

• The smartest choices, well executed, will win the game.

When the final story gets told, it will boil down to which company had the sharpest insights into its customers’ needs and the key industry trends. Full stop.

SLO Research creates better decisions — and better outcomes.

In the world of business, there are never any guarantees.

Success often hinges on a delicate balance of calculated risks and strategic decision-making.

As businesses make moves and counter-moves, they must constantly re-evaluate their position and adjust their strategies to stay ahead of the competition and seize new opportunities.

They must adapt to change.

• It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. — Charles Darwin

In the world of organizations, effective learning is at the heart of successful adaptation.

Trying to predict the future using data from the past is a fool’s errand, i.e., the problem of induction (Hume).

“Do not look where you fell, but where you slipped.” — African Proverb

SLOs help companies adapt by acknowledging what is known (or believed) and continuously updating that body of knowledge.

To sustain life, organizations need a deliberate process to challenge their assumptions

An organization’s ability to learn faster than its competitors — and respond intelligently to what they are learning — is the sustainable competitive advantage they crave.

When other research teams zig, SLOs should zag

If researchers and research teams want to be strategic partners, they need to act the part.

Picking up the obvious signals to everyone else provides no additional value and offers the business no advantage.

• Focusing on data collection and delivery isn’t the way.
• Focusing on new tools and methods isn’t the way.
• Focusing on tactics isn’t the way.

That dog just won’t hunt.

A SLO must deliver value to the businesses they serve — or face extinction.

Delivering value is defining, building, and delivering value to customers in a manner that delivers value to the business.

Instead of focusing on collection, they must focus on activation. They must analyze and synthesize insights that enable the business to make better decisions — faster.

The word “analysis” comes from the Greek analyein, meaning to unravel.

Synthesis, conversely, means connecting things — and finding meaning in the relationship between things.

The reality is sometimes you’re going to be wrong.

The goal is to be less wrong. Or said differently, be right more often.

There is no such thing as a guarantee or certainty in business or life; you’re backing probabilities. In making strategic choices, the right bet is not on eliminating mistakes but on maximizing your focus.

This is why generating superior insights is a killer competency.

And the competency of the research team of the future — The SLO.