The ExO Sprint is a repeatable innovation process to help large organizations move the needle on big-picture results such as share price, profitability, customer satisfaction, and employee engagement.
Engage and empower your future leaders to boost morale and drive successful innovation across your organization.
Use our proven methodology to help your organization adopt the exponential attributes that are shared by the world's fastest-growing companies.
“It’s been a fabulous journey, not just in terms of coming up with new ideas, but infecting the broader organization so that you can actually run your operations differently. When you’re a large enterprise, success isn’t all about what a small group of people is doing in isolation; success is about the transformation you bring back into the core.”
Procter & Gamble has used the ExO Sprint process to launch over 25 initiatives, 8 of which are on track to deliver either $50+ million in revenue or a 10x lift in customer satisfaction.
Visa Brazil used the ExO Sprint to reprogram their corporate culture and narrow 135 suggested ideas down to 4 that they've launched successfully.
TD Ameritrade has run two ExO Sprints with us and created a new Startup Studio to incubate selected initiatives.
“We were in the perfect place to be disrupted but didn’t know where to begin. The Sprint was the answer. It was our best investment for moving forward...in the first six months [after finishing] we had record sales. It shook the organization and completely transformed our culture, breaking down boundaries and opening a whole new world of innovation. Our entire mindset has shifted. It prompted us to make the best of ourselves. All our competitors are wondering what happened.”
The book "Exponential Organizations: New Organizations Are Ten Times Better, Faster, and Cheaper Than Yours (and What to Do About It)" was published in 2014. It correctly identified that emerging technologies are creating abundance, explained how smart companies are using this to expand their global reach at lower cost, and introduced the ten attributes that exponential organization (ExOs) are using to leverage and manage this new abundance.
Since then we've worked with Salim Ismail to develop the ExO Sprint methodology. Along the way we've helped clients like P&G, HP, Visa, Rassini, and Sareb to both become more exponential and to launch disruptive initiatives.
Established companies are great at optimizing their core business, but usually not as great at unlocking and disrupting adjacent markets. For Amazon, core initiatives are Prime Membership and Prime Day, which drive more eCommerce transactions. An edge initiative is Amazon Web Services, which now delivers more than half the profits to the parent company.
But the corporate immune system kicks in and kills edge initiatives before they have a chance to succeed. This makes it hard for large companies to truly innovate, and leaves them ripe for disruption. It didn't matter how good Kodak got at manufacturing and processing film if they didn't ever make the jump to digital photography.
Our clients run ExO Sprints in order to reprogram the corporate immune system to support—rather than kill—these ambitious innovation projects.
We help you construct four teams of your most innovative managers. Then we engage them in a 10-week immersive process where they're coached by our global network of thought leaders in exponential technologies. We see the best results when your people bring the industry and company expertise—while we expand their minds and train them on our process.
Much of the ExO Sprint is run virtually, and we ask your C-level executives to be involved in three in-person sessions: week 1, week 5, and week 10. We've found this high-level buy-in to be very effective in reprogramming the corporate immune system.
In just 10 weeks, the ExO Sprint massively accelerates your organization's ability to evaluate and respond to hidden disruptive risks and opportunities—driven by emerging technologies and fast-changing customer needs. We create four teams of your managers and coach them to master new skills for exponential success and the ability to implement proven innovation processes within your business.
Click through to explore each stage of the journey.
We spend 30 days before the Sprint making sure you'll have the most productive results. We'll help you construct diverse and effective Sprint teams, walk you through our timeline and what to expect, schedule the in-person sessions, interview a representative cross-section of your executives and employees, and provide you with a customized road map of where to play and how to win at exponential transformation.
Your organization is ready to hit the ground running when the ExO Sprint starts. You also have timeline and a plan for optimizing your execution process before the end of the ExO Sprint.
A half-day in-person session for an extended audience (C-suite, management, and other employees) to learn about opportunities from exponential technologies, linear versus exponential thinking, and disruption risk. We explain the strategies powering the world’s fastest growing companies—the ExO Attributes—and how they can be profitably implemented into your business. We provide access to a roster of world-class speakers, including Salim.
We use "shock and awe" to shake up any complacency in those who think that simply getting better at the status quo work can help you compete with outsiders who are using new technologies and business models to work 10x faster, cheaper and better. We inspire your people to leverage ExO techniques to profoundly improve your existing business—and build exponentially profitable new business lines.
An interactive two-day in-person session where your Sprint teams work with their ExO Coaches to first evaluate your company’s status quo, and then start using the ExO methodology to brainstorm and validate new business ideas. Equality within the teams allows members to unshackle their creativity, and exercise skills they usually suppress in their jobs.
Sprint teams start to see how swiftly they can accomplish research, idea generation, and market testing using the ExO methodology. They move beyond incremental mindsets to thinking big about profitably changing the world for the better, leveraging the unfair advantages of the parent company. They also release themselves from the anti-failure mindset that stifles productive brainstorming and product releases.
Teams connect virtually during the first five weeks to research emerging technologies, new business models, and potentially disruptive startups. They refine their understanding of your business’ risks and opportunities. Each team develops 10 initial ExO-potential ideas, then uses customer validation and competition analysis to whittle those down to the best 4 initiatives. Teams start to access members of the ExO Ecosystem for specialized advice, while learning how to access advice from other companies and experts. Each team presents their progress regularly to both the ExO Coaches and client representatives to ensure that they are on track.
Participants typically report that they work faster and more productively than at any other time in their lives. They become comfortable with failing fast and well, then using those learnings to pivot to ideas with higher potential. They define the existential risks to your organization and open their minds to hidden opportunities for both protecting against disruption—and expanding your profit opportunities.
An intensive one-day in-person session where teams pitch their initiatives to a panel of their own senior executives, along with ExO Ecosystem members who have extensive start up experience. It's like a full day of Shark Tank to help your teams strengthen and rework their "half-baked" ideas.
Teams get to road test their ideas halfway through the ExO Sprint, while there are still five weeks left to adjust. They receive feedback on which initiatives are the most compelling to management—and therefore would be likely to get traction if pitching to investors—before they get too attached. They receive specific suggestions on how their ideas can be improved or pivoted, plus strategic introductions.
Teams connect virtually during the second five weeks, and each choose their two highest-potential initiatives to pursue. They create minimum viable products or wireframes of how their product or service would actually operate, in order to learn from potential customers. They evaluate the financial potential, initial funding requirements, rollout process, and potential initial partners, suppliers, and customers. During this time, the teams continue to present their progress regularly to both the ExO Coaches and client representatives to ensure that they are on track. Teams also continue to access the ExO Ecosystem of advisors to learn more about specific technologies and new business models.
Teams learn how to validate their ideas in more detail, identify their own biases, and assess risks. Their sense of achievement from learning so much so fast inspires them that they can, in fact, profitably change the world for the better. The final product is an impressive final pitch for each initiative.
Each team presents their final initiatives during an intensive one-day in-person session to their C-suite and other executives. After this session, we often recommend that company leadership indicate which initiatives will move forward for further incubation.
Teams experience the high-pressure environment of pitching to their senior leaders and thinking on their feet to answer probing questions about the initiatives. Most participants report being awe-struck by how much they achieved. Many commit to continuing that degree of productivity post-Sprint, whether back in their usual roles, implementing the chosen initiatives, or coaching future Sprint teams.
The biggest difference we see in our clients is how prepared they are to execute the innovation initiatives that come out of the ExO Sprint. We can make introductions to trusted partners to help build new companies. For clients who want to develop and strengthen internal capabilities we offer ongoing support to guarantee the launch of initiatives by creating and filtering a promising portfolio, guidance in launching successful pilots, and scaling to achieve significant business value wherever possible.
Your organization successfully launches multiple initiatives that move the needle on big-picture metrics like share price, revenue, or customer satisfaction.
We coach your people—instead of consulting—because you know your business best. By internalizing the winning methods that allow for continuous adaptation, you can help your organization be fully-invested in the implementation and growth of the initiatives that result from your Sprint.
Some of our recent clients:
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“87% of employees worldwide are not engaged at work. Companies with highly-engaged workforces outperform their peers by 147% in earnings per share.”
The ExO Sprint helps you identify and support future leaders—arguably your most valuable employees—by giving them new skills and the ability to contribute to your company's innovation initiatives. The process boosts diversity and inclusion, and one of our ExO Head Coaches notes that "While running the second Sprint for a major US-based financial services organization, I noticed something quite exciting. While I had been impressed by every participant in both Sprints, the absolute standouts were predominantly women."
Here are individual outcomes of the ExO Sprint for your participants:
ExO Works has a proven ability to help large corporations reprogram the immune system that stifles innovation. We take a top-down approach that fosters mindset shift across the organization with proven results.
Read more about the corporate immune system and strategies for reprogramming
“Companies may promote the idea of new business creation, [but] in the end they are all in the business of reducing risk and building to scale—which is, of course, the antithesis of entrepreneurship and new ventures.”
Many ExO Sprint participants choose to run their Sprint when business is at its best precisely because it provides the ideal environment for shifting focus and energy on becoming better. When an organization isn’t contending with critical issues, negative influences, or outside pressure, it becomes possible to allocate time and assets towards alignment, growth, and the development of internal skill sets and resources.
Even for companies that are performing well and achieving goals, participating in an ExO Sprint fosters the flexibility, adaptability, and innovation needed to stay ahead of competitors.
ExO Works created the Exponential Quotient (ExQ) in partnership with Hult International Business School and showed a 3x outperformance in share price for the high-ExQ members of the Fortune 100 vs. the S&P index over two years (2015 and 2016)—and vastly outperformed their low-ExQ peers. Read about how ExO Works and Hult also measured the FTSE 100's ExQ in 2017.
Yes. In today’s world of advancing technologies, information sharing, innovation, expanding reach, and falling costs—every industry is at risk of disruption. There are no exceptions. Disruption often comes from unexpected people and places outside your industry—the school teacher or college dropout whose startup has harnessed the Exponential Organizations attributes to scale incredibly fast with minimal marginal cost.
ExO Sprints aren’t intended to overwhelm an organization with new ideas and initiatives. Instead, the Sprints have been designed to help organizations evaluate and prioritize existing and pending initiatives while also providing them with the means to develop new internal skill sets, transform organizational mindsets, and unlock opportunities that were previously unobtainable.
Cultural and societal norms have dictated the “best” pathways to organizational success—while also defining “organizational success”—for decades. Typically, the “best” options are those that maximize efficiency via controlled, incremental changes that are often recognized as the “safe bets.”
This kind of traditional, linear thinking—which is typically driven by the desire to satiate organizational immunity and please well-establish bureaucratic hierarchies— is most often responsible for the systematic suppression of the “crazy” (i.e. truly disruptive, innovative, or revolutionary) ideas that make real change and growth possible.
In many cases, the older or better established an organization is—the more likely it is to be bound and limited by these “safe” conventions.
An ExO Sprint condenses three years of learning into a streamlined, hyper-focused approach capable of being delivered over the course of a few weeks, and providing a clear path for organizations to think, act, innovate, and disrupt with the agility and drive of the world's fastest-growing companies.
The ExO Sprint includes elements of lean, agile, and design thinking methodologies. By providing a framework and the content to support it, the ExO Sprint empowers an organization with the perspective and processes needed to achieve meaningful outcomes.
Our main differentiators are:
The ExO Sprint is designed to deliver the following outcomes:
Among past Sprint participants, organizational goals that were set—and ultimately achieved—included:
Past ExO Sprint participants include Procter & Gamble, Coteminas, Sareb, Visa, Rassini, INTERprotección, Iké Asistencia, Widen, Hewlett-Packard, Stanley Black & Decker, TD Ameritrade, and Dubai Electricity and Water Authority—spanning industries including financial services, consulting, manufacturing, insurance, consumer electronics, consumer packaged goods, textiles, automotive, energy, public utilities.
Yes. We’re happy to connect you with the CEOs and other executives we’ve worked with in order to share references and best practices.
Since our founding, Salim Ismail has played an integral role in helping the ExO Works team conceptualize and develop the ExO Sprint process. Currently, Salim is participating in Sprints as an ExO Speaker, specifically during the Awake Session of the Sprint. As with all ExO Speaker roles, Salim’s involvement is contingent on availability and involves an additional fee that is set by the Speaker’s representation. As an alternative to in-person engagements, Salim increasingly presents live via a virtual platform. Each ExO Sprint also includes presentations, workshops, and coaching from the world's foremost thought leaders in exponential organizations.
ExO Sprints are typically run over ten weeks, with a 30-day setup period beforehand.
We help you construct four teams of between 4 to 6 people each (16 to 24 team members total from your organization). These are usually your managers, directors, and most innovative employees—valuable team members you want to engage and retain. Your team members should expect to spend 30% to 50% of their time on the ExO Sprint for the duration of the program. While there may be certain challenges related to accommodating a large time commitment from such a significant population, we’ve found that the organizations that succeed in making these accommodations maximize the effectiveness of the ExO Sprint and achieve the best possible results.
We also ask that your C-suite and executive leadership be involved in three in-person sessions during the ExO Sprint: week 1, week 5, and week 10. This combined bottom-up and top-down participation is what drives alignment across your organization and helps reprogram the corporate immune system.
We also required that each organization designates a project “champion” who will be responsible for coordinating the effort and driving alignment internally.
The time commitment is our biggest ask, but it's also what's required in order to drive behavior change, build skill sets, and develop a portfolio of early-stage Core and Edge initiatives that can actually move the needle at a large organization.
A Core initiative improves an organization’s primary business model, and most companies are focused on this type of innovation. Examples of Core initiatives for Amazon.com would be the Prime Membership and Prime Day. We include Core initiatives in our ExO Sprints because they are quicker to implement, and therefore buy time for the longer commitment required for Edge initiatives.
An Edge initiative unlocks a new business model by leveraging at least one unfair advantage provided by the parent company. Amazon Web Services is a great example, which turned an internal initiative into the source of the majority of the profit for the parent company. It’s these Edge initiatives that have the potential to drive massive results, but they’re also the hardest for successful organizations to implement because of the “corporate immune system."
A typical ExO Sprint will involve between 15 and 50 members of the ExO Ecosystem:
The ExO Sprint provides a repeatable process to drive digital transformation, organizational change, and successful long-term innovation.
Some of the outcomes are immediate, including skill set development and mindset shift for the participants, alignment across the organization (executives, management, and "feet on the street"), and a portfolio of validated Core and Edge initiatives ready for further development.
Core initiatives usually have a shorter time-frame and provide quicker wins on metrics the parent organization cares about like share price, revenue growth, and customer satisfaction.
This intentionally buys time for the Edge initiatives, which often require longer time frames and may initially use separate metrics around growth and engagement. The promise of the Edge initiatives is that they can eventually drive massive new growth (think of Waymo, Google's self-driving car division, being valued at over $150 billion) and turn the parent company into the disrupter—instead of the disrupted. Most successful companies find it hard to innovate at the Edge, but the ones who fail at this are typically the ones who disappear. We intentionally designed the ExO Sprint process to solve this problem.
We spend 30 days before the Sprint making sure you'll have the most productive results. We'll help you set goals, construct diverse and effective Sprint teams, walk you through our timeline and what to expect, schedule the in-person sessions, interview a representative cross-section of your executives and employees, and provide you with a customized road map of where to play and how to win at exponential transformation.
Your organization is ready to hit the ground running when the ExO Sprint starts. You also have timeline and a plan for optimizing your execution process in preparation for the end of the ExO Sprint.
The biggest difference we see in our clients is how prepared they are to execute the innovation initiatives that come out of the ExO Sprint. We can make introductions to trusted partners to help build new companies. For clients who want to develop and strengthen internal capabilities we offer ongoing support to guarantee the launch of initiatives by creating and filtering a promising portfolio, guidance in launching successful pilots, and scaling to achieve significant business value wherever possible.
The ExO Ecosystem is a growing coalition of the world’s foremost innovators, disruptors, entrepreneurs, specialists, and thought-leaders. From tech gurus to convention-challenging founders, specialists from across industries and the globe partner with ExO Works and other ExO entities to address—and find solutions for—questions and challenges capable of changing the world as we know it.
We run all of ExO Sprints on our ExO Lever platform, which includes assignments, instructional materials, and collaborative forums for the teams. Lever is also the gateway to our global ecosystem of thought leaders in emerging technologies.
In addition, participants are free to use your company's choice of video conferencing, chat, and document management tools. We've successfully used the following tools in previous ExO Sprints: Google Drive for document collaboration & storage, Slack for messaging, and Zoom for meeting and conferencing.
“The ExO Sprint turned our white attack blood cells into red life blood cells.”
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