The problem with visionaries is that their vision is not quantifiable. Conversely, key decision makers substitute quantifiable data for their lack of vision. So we’re immediately at an impasse. As a result, when our visionary foresees the need for, let’s say, a product to service a market that does not yet exist, the pursestring-guarding decision makers say precisely what they’ve been trained to say, “Build me a business case.”
The obvious problem here is, as Clayton M. Christensen explains in “The Innovator’s Dilemma,” markets that do not exist cannot be analyzed. The visionary’s idea stagnates, while the market emerges and your smaller start-up competitors are seizing your market share.
Worse still, this paralyzing reliance upon business cases and ROI forecasts stifles the creative spirit where it’s needed most: at the visionary level. rest assured that your visionary’s next idea won’t find it’s way to R&D because either a) he won’t share it, or b) your visionary now works for your competitor.
Worse than that? The company is now missing out on an emerging market, forcing it to enter the market later (if ever) as a follower rather than a leader thus accurately labeling your company as a late blooming follower lacking in vision.
And while that characterization may be harsh, it’s not necessarily inaccurate. In the short term, to the customer and industry media, perception is reality. In the long term all that will matter to the customer and the media is a) who makes it cheapest, and b) who makes it best.
So what began as Vision vs. Bureaucracy is now a company forced to make either a) price point, or b) quality their position. Neither is a winning nor a sustainable advantage.
There is a time and place for being methodical. Case in point, a few years back I was working as the Strategic Projects Manager for a medium-sized industrial manufacturer that wanted to branch out from solely b2b into b2c. It also wanted to transform its image from an industrial manufacturer to a “design & engineering” firm.
These are both audacious moves, and ones which require sound market research & analysis, thorough strategic planning, and sound step-by-step tactical implementation. So when the President asked me to draft a marketing plan to cover the next few years, I asked for typical input data: the Company’s business plan and Q&A time with he and the Director of Sales & Marketing.
“No can do,” he told me. “The plan doesn’t exist, and we don’t have time to chat. Just write the plan,” he said.
What. The. Fuck.
Listen, when an industry and its respective markets exist, the data to draft a thorough strategy exists. And when you want to make an audacious leap in markets and image, you make expert use of that data. To not have and use that data means no one bothered to investigate the answer to the most obvious question: How do we successfully get from here to there?
Businesses are run by PEOPLE. Businesses don’t make bad decisions, PEOPLE do. The most base human elements, such as pride and greed, are often what ruins a company.
Case in point: Rising gas prices, Increased global competition, and the Housing market collapse: These things didn’t ruin The Big Three, incompetence did. The Big Three had everything the required to succeed: An existing market. Example technology. Market research. What’s worse was, these critical inputs were handed to them for free. All they had to do was 1) pay attention, 2) act on it.
The Airlines? They aren’t failing for a lack of money, it’s due to –wait for it– that’s right, incompetence. Like The Big Three, they have [your] money, an existing market, example technology, and market research. And, yet again, it’s all free. What did they do with it? That’s right, they ignored it. Know what’s killing the airlines; that’s right, incompetence.
Banks. Newspapers. Manufacturers. Non-profits. Universities. TV Networks. And on, and on, and on.
What is killing American business is the American businessman.
Thing is, the cure is right there in front of them. Question is, will they swallow that pill?
