Going on Offense: A Leader’s Playbook for Perpetual Innovation 
Behnam Tabrizi
Ideapress Publishing (August 2023)

How to establish a workplace culture within which perpetual innovation is most likely to thrive

In Rapid Transformation (2007), Behnam Tabrizi offers “a blueprint to boost an organization’s agility and innovation,” and then in The Inside-Out Effect (2013),  he “improves upon its predecessor by laying out the means for imbuing change to culture by personally transforming its people. And it focuses on the leaders and employees.”

What we have in Going on Offense is “the third leg of the stool.” That is, it completes Tabrizi’s efforts to provide “practical, actionable advice on how an organization can attain and [begin italics] sustain [end italics] what was once known as the Silicon Valley mindset, and thus lock in perpetual agility and innovation. With this book, a company will be able to go on offense, continually adapting to new environments and expanding into new territories — and perhaps minimizing the need for another radical transformation.”

I agree with Tabrizi: “Existential visions must be big: Their scope must match the level of motivation they inspire. Tesla, Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple all seek to redefine how we go about our lives. Existential goals, and even existential visions, might require reinvention overtime. Haier’s example demonstrates how organizations need to adapt to shifting circumstances. Finally, people in the organization must align their own existential commitments to their organization’s. That’s how they’ll feel a stake in the transformation process.”

I also agree with Thomas Edison: “Vision without execution is hallucination”

These are among the dozens of other passages that are of greatest interest and value to me. also listed to suggest the scope of Tabrizi’s coverage:

o What Perpetual Innovation Really Takes, and, Coming Up with Key Elements (Pages 3-4 and 7-9)
o Six Other Characteristics for Perpetual Innovation (10-13)
o Making Purpose Existential, and, How Existential Purpose Motivates Organizations (23-25 and 26-27)
o Setting the Existential Vision: What a Problem Does the World Need to Solve? (31-34)
o Aligning the Organizational Vision With Individual North Stars (34-38)

o [Micro-Case Study] Facebook: When Organizations Veer from Their Existential Vision (39-40)
o The Ever-Present External Tug (45-46 and 47-48)
o Amazon’s Blend of In-House Innovation with Cocreation, and, Silent Customer Service(51-55 and 56-58)
o Tying “Fit” to a Distinct Company Culture (65-67)
o Crafting a Sense of Belonging, and, Earning Your PLace  (69-71 and 71-72)

o Trusting Your Employees, and, Performance Reviews (73-74 and 76-79)
o The Problem of Day 2 (86-89)
o Decentralized Decisions, and, Spreading the Mentality to All Employees (95-97 and 98-100)
o Consciously Choosing Sprints, and, Temp Is More than Speed (107-108 and 108-111)
o Organizational Structure and Processes (116-119)

o Experiential Development (134-139)
o The Strategic Benefits of Boldness, and, Creating a Bold Organization (149-150 and 150-151)
o Operational Boldness (151-155)
o Boldly Pulling Back (157-161)
o Collaborative Leaders, and, The Limits of Radical Collaboration (180-182 and 182-183)

Readers will be especially grateful that, in the final chapter “Putting It All Together,” Tabrizi provides an exceptionally valuable review of the material that is essential to establishing and then strengthening a workplace culture within which perpetual innovation is most likely to thrive. What works? What doesn’t? WHY?

With all due respect to the importance of having a compelling vision when planning and implementing organizational transformation, change agents would be well-advised to keep this advice from Thomas Edison in mind: “Vision without execution is hallucination.”

Also Tabrizi’s concluding comments: “Fundamental to perpetual innovation is the underlying emotional commitment to something bigger than profits or revenues. Once you get people to embrace a clear purpose and strategy, and apply the principles of this book, they’ll break out of the conventional corporate bureaucratic mindset and become perpetual innovators. Best wishes on your transformational journey.”

In Leading Change, James O’Toole suggests that the greatest resistance to change initiatives tends to be cultural nature, the result of what he so aptly characterizes as “the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom.” I commend Behnam Tabrizi for providing the information, insights, and counsel that his readers need to avoid or overcome that resistance.

Here are my two concluding suggestions: Highlight key passages, and, keep a lined notebook near at hand while reading Going on Offense in which you record your comments, questions, action steps (preferably with deadlines), page references as well as your responses to the questions posed and to lessons you have learned. (Pay close attention to Tabrizi’s suggestions in Chapter 10 with regard to action steps to take and issues to consider. ) These two simple tactics will facilitate, indeed expedite frequent reviews of key material later.