ExO Voices

Thank you for your patience and your maieutic capability to let us express skills and attitudes that we did not know: I’ve learned more in the last 10 weeks than in the past 5 years.

After some time at the end of the program, perhaps the greatest innovation discovery is the importance of product testing and the company's involvement in its development.

I want to comment on the true value that I’m already seeing with this project. It is vastly different from our day to day; it makes you really want to find out what’s happening in the world rather than just your company and industry. It is exploration of industries that i wouldn’t have otherwise, and figuring out how I can work them into the business.

Since the Sprint, we not only motivated other members in LATAM, but we also helped create over 15 additional projects that are active in the region right now in different functions related to the company.

I loved the transparent, open and safe working environment that enabled us to be our true selves. The sprint stripped us off position levels, seniority, extreme formalities, giving us nothing but an extreme passion to focus on what mattered: understanding our customers’ problems and building up a potential solution in a collaborative and accretive approach.

I'm feeling proud to have successfully completed the ExO Sprint with this incredible team under the guidance of ExO Works. We developed 2 disruptive business ideas over 10 weeks, using exponential and disruptive technology and business models. Which on Friday last week was approved by Vodacom Exco for seed Funding. A crazy hectic intense 10 weeks which produced incredible results.

At the beginning, I didn’t know what to expect. I never thought it would change my career path in this way. Even if I was not chosen to lead a funded initiative, it has changed the way I work.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who made it possible for me to join such a fabulous, informative, innovative, transformative, crazy and fun journey. It has hands down been the best form of learning I have ever been a part of and I hope I get an opportunity to do more of things like this in the future.

Thanks millions of times for the opportunity to step-out of our comfort zone and reconnect our life mission, vision and passion with our work's business sense, while providing the tools to catapult the corporation keeping it relevant in the future.

You’re changing regular corporations into power innovators.

I think ExO is wonderful, having been through this process with so many other programs and consultants, it’s taken months for me to accomplish what I have been able to do through ExO works in days. There is a genuine interest from the ExO Community to help out by bringing together the best people, and making them available to us. There is a caring attitude from ExO at the highest level that is not found anywhere else - it’s a unique value to us as innovators. I’m truly happy with the work you are doing.

Truly amazing to see how our management is committing to the ideas with the ExO Sprint program. The program also gave valuable information on everything that our company can actually do. I’m much more positive about the future of the company now.

This brought the most value to me personally and to the organization, ExO provided all these different resources and technology experts to help us out, help us understand the different technologies and not make the same mistakes that have been done in the past. It was just remarkable.

We need these kind of projects to impact the bottom-line of our business.

The true gift of the EXO Sprint is the paradigm shift within a core group of individuals that are empowered to shift the future of a corporate giant. At Vodacom, we have been empowered to accelerate our business from a Telco to a TECHCo.

We won’t find anybody more inspirational to motivate us.

Being stretched out of my comfort zone is an understatement. Going through the sprint taught me that I am able to be to efficient and produce work of great quality under immense pressure, despite my fears and doubts. What a rewarding experience!

Absolutely transformational!

Amazing energy! At the end of the Sprint I was sad because I had to part with such a wonderful groupp of people. Best luck!

There is no single pathway to your ultimate goal. Find what you can answer/achieve now, validate, experiment, learn and redirect your pathway if necessary. We have amazing people in our company, we need to leverage our existing assets (our people) for more value add programs like this!

The sprint changes the way you think and open your eyes to new strategies and business opportunities

I have always admired and been awed by people who have floated successful businesses and are well known for creativity and innovation. I thought that it was a gift or special talent–more so, a talent that I lacked. My experience with the ExO Sprint has taught me that innovation is not just about having great ideas but also knowing how to convert those ideas into viable, impactful business opportunities. It has made me aware of the unlimited intellectual resources available in the world that we can tap into to solve almost any problem.

The EXO sprint that I participated in led me to have an invaluable mindset shift. It helped me push the boundaries in my ideation, to lean into divergent thinking. It also showed me how quickly incredible work can be accomplished when you have a focused team dedicated to making purposeful change. I've taken these aspect and more with me to not only my professional career, but also to my personal life.

It was a wild and intense experience, but it really fundamentally changed the way that I think about business development, product development, and digital expansion strategy. I've really been able to apply it to a lot of different situations. It's allowed us to be a lot more agile and scale in both of the roles that I currently fill, so overall I really liked it and going through that experience was so valuable to me and to my career. I mean, I literally use the stuff you guys taught us every day, every day.

The sprint change my mind completely, I’m ready to foster technology.

We're not just here just for the fun or for the ideas, we're here to change the company.

It's changing how we think and how we look at innovation. And what I see here is really different from all the innovation that we did up until now, and we did a lot. It will definitely bring and yield some new opportunities.

We have been able to internalize all of the ExO attributes and the agility of the ExO methodology and we can apply it here.

The ExO Works process was different and challenged me in a new ways than any other program. I feel a renewed sense of purpose, self worth and value. I'll bring this with me throughout any career.

The personal discovery about myself and people I work with was a huge takeaway, I've grown a lot in the past 10 weeks.

The most changing 10 weeks of my life. I can't wake up and think the same as I used to before. I learned to let go of regret, I learned to cut an idea and let it go

This is totally transformative. Like drinking from the firehose. I got to meet people across the depth of the culture, this was outstanding

I thought of this as a mini-MBA. I have my MBA which cost a lot more money and time and this was a LOT more useful.

I increased my own metabolism during this 10 weeks. I was able to intake more information/data than I thought was possible

One of the biggest learnings for me was when you read ExO it's scary to see how other companies are disrupting you realize how much you have to keep up

As a young professional this has been incredible for me. I learned to be comfortable with being uncomfortable, it was like jumping from a cliff

Going through the Sprint has made me a better manager and better at my job. I learned to step back from the shiny object syndrome and to focus more on team dynamics and to let the teams make their own decisions

It's the willingness to outwork and outlearn everyone.

Have to live the experience! learn different tools and learn to think out of the box. Be agent of change

Thanks to ExO Works, I've built an internal and external network of like-minded thinkers, innovators and experts.

Our coach exceeded our expectations. He is a creative fountain, mind blowing.