Читать книгу Provoke - Geoff Tuff - Страница 12

Sadly, in the rare cases where we do see executives take action – after an unduly long period of study – it's often too little, too late. Just think about the efforts of brick-and-mortar department stores to respond to the long curve of the online shopping trend. Instead of making deliberate choices to make what we call “minimally viable moves” in the face of early signals, they instead waited for evidence of the trend to hit them in the face and then had market forces dictate their path forward. There's often a theoretical debate in boardrooms about whether to pursue a “first mover” or “fast follower” strategy. Unfortunately, the fast follower position is almost always framed as “wait for someone to be successful in the marketplace to get started.” This is a choice that is increasingly doomed to failure given the degree to which markets are becoming more “winner take all.” And, let's face it, most “fast followers” are really dawdlers.³

This pattern of behavior, which we've seen over and over again, prompted us to write Provoke. There are many trends we see in our line of work as strategists and consultants that are labeled as “uncertain.” A chasm separates if something will happen (what we think of as true uncertainty) from the uncertainty of when something will happen. This difference matters immensely. It dictates how you act in the face of the trend, and the failure to recognize this nuance in meaning is what leads most leaders to miss, deny, analyze, and respond meekly, following the pattern of our hand-in-his-waistband executive.