Page 163 - HBR Leader's Handbook: Make an Impact, Inspire Your Organization, and Get to the Next Level

152 HBR Leader’s Handbook

capabilities across customer segments and diverted resources away from
developing the technology and products of the future.
To address these issues, Smith set out to create an integrated,
customer-focused enterprise that could take advantage of its scale and fuel
its growth more through organic innovation than acquisitions—a trans-
formation that would take a number of years.
During 2012, he began laying the groundwork for this transformation.
He engineered the sale of a health-care business and some smaller busi-
nesses because they would not be key contributors to future growth. At the
same time, he and his team approved and completed a number of small
technology acquisitions to complement their existing digital platforms,
such as an online brand protection company and a provider of electronic
foreign exchange trading solutions.
While these steps helped sharpen the company’s focus on its core busi-
nesses, they didn’t directly move Thomson Reuters toward greater inte-
gration or organic growth. To do that, Smith concluded, he first needed
managers to start tackling the organization’s complexity.
During 2012, Smith’s chief financial officer had found forty-two differ-
ent billing systems that he consolidated into one. Aiming to replicate this
effort, Smith made simplification and standardization a major priority for
the company beginning in 2013. He added the newly created position of
Chief Transformation Officer to his executive committee, a function that
would eventually oversee nearly a third of the company’s spend and head
count, and publicly committed to investors that the company would reduce
complexity-related expenses by $400 million by the end of 2017.
As the Financial & Risk division stabilized, Smith turned more of his
attention toward the longer-term transformation of the company. As part
of this shift, he worked with his staff to streamline the corporate operating
rhythm to reduce redundant meetings, rationalize his personal calendar,
and make way for even more time with customers.
To kick-start organic growth, Smith launched a number of innovation
initiatives, coordinated by a central innovation team, to build a more flex-
ible, dynamic, and forward-thinking culture inside the firm. A small but
early and important success story came in the form of the Catalyst Fund.