#76 - Is your Organisation ambidextrous?
27 Aug 25
Most organisations are great at one thing: either executing flawlessly on what they already know, or constantly innovating to find what’s next. The challenge is that long-term success requires both.
An ambidextrous organisation is one that can simultaneously exploit its current strengths whilst exploring future opportunities. This balance is rare but when achieved, it creates resilience, adaptability and sustainable performance.
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#76 - Is your Organisation ambidextrous?
What?
What is an ambidextrous organisation?
The term comes from the idea of being 'two-handed.' Just as a truly ambidextrous person can use both hands with equal skill, an ambidextrous organisation can manage two seemingly contradictory demands:
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Exploitation – Driving efficiency, optimisation and excellence in the current business.
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Exploration – Experimenting, innovating, and creating new products, services or models for the future.
It’s not about choosing between stability and innovation; it’s about mastering both.
Why?
Why does ambidexterity matter?
The world changes faster than ever. Market shifts, disruptive technologies, and evolving customer expectations mean organisations that only focus on today risk becoming irrelevant tomorrow. Equally, those that only chase new ideas without stabilising the core may collapse from lack of reliability and revenue.
Being ambidextrous ensures:
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Resilience – Current operations fund future experiments.
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Competitiveness – Innovation protects against disruption.
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Sustainability – Balance prevents over-investment in either 'safe' or 'risky' strategies.
How?
How can leaders build one?
Creating an ambidextrous organisation requires deliberate design and leadership. Some practical steps which could be taken would be:
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Separate but connected structures
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Maintain dedicated teams for core operations and for innovation.
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Allow each to operate under different rules (efficiency vs experimentation).
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Leadership support
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Senior leaders must champion both streams, protecting innovation from short-term cost pressures while maintaining discipline in execution.
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Shared vision and culture
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Anchor both sides in a unifying purpose. The 'why' holds the organisation together, even when the 'how' looks very different.
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Resource balance
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Invest in innovation without starving the core.
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Set clear metrics for each stream; efficiency for exploitation, learning and adaptability for exploration.
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In Summary
An ambidextrous organisation doesn’t choose between efficiency and innovation - it cultivates both. The organisations that thrive in the coming decades will be those that can excel in the present while relentlessly building the future.
Leaders who embrace ambidexterity create not just profitable companies, but enduring ones.
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