One of the most powerful illustrations of corporate adaptability is for a company to disrupt its own business model or core offering. This is done in order to stay relevant in the face of changing lifestyles, technologies, and market conditions, requiring extreme strategic flexibility. A case in point was Apple’s move to kill the iPod in 2007, just seven years after its launch, by introducing the iPhone. And Ikea, the Swedish furniture giant, has given us another great example.

Vodafone Shared Services Europe, based in Budapest, has one of the largest marketing agencies in all of Hungary, having started with a mere 13 people in 2014, and now reaching over 100 employees as of April 2018.  How does such a rapidly growing, internal, B2B marketing agency of one of the largest telecommunications companies in Europe keep employees engaged and encourage innovation? It takes them on a two-day, offsite event designed to put their creative thinking to the test, and lets them design their own future at work.

On April 9-11, over 50 government leaders from 9 countries gathered in Singapore for a conference on digital transformation in the public sector organized by OpenGov and VMware.

At the start of this month was arguably the most important date of the annual corporate calendar. It was none other than April 1st, aka April Fools Day. Humor is one of the most universal manifestations of creativity, which is the central fuel for future-shaping companies. Not surprisingly, more and more organizations worldwide are embracing humor as a core cultural dimension, and we see an exponential, global proliferation from year to year of companies commemorating April Fools’ Day, the annual celebration of laughter and childlike fun. These organizations conceive of and bring to life farcical campaigns on April 1st, signaling to all internal and external constituents that they, as an organization, have a sense of humor and appreciate levity.

In early April, I was in Singapore to keynote the Government Leadership Forum. My talk focused on how to use digital transformation to drive emotional transformation, enhancing the overall contentment and lifestyle enrichment of societies.