The Ambidextrous Organization

How can businesses balance the demands of both exploiting and exploring? Companies and their leaders have to use both hands: on the one hand making next quarter's targets through existing business, whilst simultaneously exploring new opportunities. This is the first book to explain how to use this approach to encourage innovation.

“'Jens does a masterful job of defining the 'ambidextrous organization' that can manage the paradoxes of individual competencies and organization capabilities, managing culture as a shared mind-set and personal behavior, and leadership as personal abilities and organization capabilities. This book offers ideas with impact and can be useful in defining organizations as bundles of capabilities more than structure.' -Dave Ulrich, Rensis Likert Professor of Business, University of Michigan; Partner, The RBL Group "Many company leaders want innovation and profitable growth without changing the way they've operated for years. Other leaders want to rapidly explore new business opportunities without nurturing established practices that ensure financial and operating stability. Jens Maier helps us see--in this insightful and accessible book--how to do both in order to lead effectively." -Jeff Semenchuk, Chief Innovation Officer, Hyatt Hotels Corporation 'Jens Maier's erudite and entertaining book explains how companies - and individuals - can use 'both hands' to exploit existing competitive advantages and explore new ones. It is a commendable blueprint for tomorrow's corporate world.' -Prof. Eric Cornuel, Director General and CEO, EFMD 'Executives around the world and across industries are challenged to make innovation decisions in an environment often characterized as 'digitization'. This book offers practical insights for executives on how to frame the challenges and to develop solutions for both their organizations and their own leadership careers.' -Zeger Degraeve, Dean, Melbourne Business School”

'Jens does a masterful job of defining the 'ambidextrous organization' that can manage the paradoxes of individual competencies and organization capabilities, managing culture as a shared mind-set and personal behavior, and leadership as personal abilities and organization capabilities. This book offers ideas with impact and can be useful in defining organizations as bundles of capabilities more than structure.'

-Dave Ulrich, Rensis Likert Professor of Business, University of Michigan; Partner, The RBL Group

"Many company leaders want innovation and profitable growth without changing the way they've operated for years. Other leaders want to rapidly explore new business opportunities without nurturing established practices that ensure financial and operating stability. Jens Maier helps us see in this insightful and accessible book how to do both in order to lead effectively."

-Jeff Semenchuk, Chief Innovation Officer, Hyatt Hotels Corporation

'Jens Maier's erudite and entertaining book explains how companies and individuals can use 'both hands' to exploit existing competitive advantages and explore new ones. It is a commendable blueprint for tomorrow's corporate world.'

-Prof. Eric Cornuel, Director General and CEO, EFMD

'Executives around the world and across industries are challenged to make innovation decisions in an environment often characterized as 'digitization'. This book offers practical insights for executiveson how to frame the challenges and to develop solutions for both their organizations and their own leadership careers.'

-Zeger Degraeve, Dean, Melbourne Business School

Jens Maier is a teacher, consultant and entrepreneur. As a consultant he advises companies on setting up corporate universities and designing programmes to align leadership development with corporate development. As an entrepreneur he founded Convergence Engineers as a focal point for exploring new opportunities in the area of 'healthy ageing' for companies from pharmaceuticals, IT, food, fitness, beauty and financial services, geographically linking Europe, US and Asia. As a Lecturer at the University of St. Gallen and as Fellow at London Business Schools Centre for Management Development he teaches leadership, innovation and corporate development where he works primarily with corporate clients. His previous corporate appointments include: Daimler Benz Aerospace: Head of Management Development and Vice President Governmental Affairs Zurich Financial Services: Head of Capability Development. He has also worked as Lecturer in Marketing & Strategic Management, Warwick Business School, Visiting Scholar, University of Southern California and Assistant Professor of Marketing, London Business School, London. Jens received his doctorate from the University of Warwick and Master Degrees in Business Administration from the University of Bradford and in Industrial Engineering from Hamburg University.

How can businesses balance the different demands of both exploiting and exploring? Organizations and their leaders have to use both hands: on the one hand making next quarter's targets through existing business, whilst simultaneously exploring new opportunities. Mega-trends such as ageing populations, mobile technology and renewable energy are creating new opportunities for innovation that require links and convergences between industries, and leaders have to face the challenge of steering their organizations through this unchartered territory. Traditional management approaches will not work: both leaders and their organizations have to be geared towards ambidexterity. This is the first book to truly explain how to harness the power of this approach to encourage innovation. With examples from Nespresso, Daimler Benz, Zurich Financial, Intel, and industries such as packaging, pharmaceuticals, telecoms, this book identifies key challenges around: organizational perspectives; individual leaders; internal processes and culture at both the organizational and individual level. The second part provides solutions, including linking corporate and individual development; external scouting; purposeful convergence engineering; creating appropriate partnerships and approaches to managing risk.

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