Seizing Opportunity in an Uncertain World
0061771155
Donald Sull
Notes
Framing change in negative terms gives rise to a response known as “threat rigidity,” that entails a contraction of authority, reduced experimentation, and focus on existing resources.
Turbulence produces not only risks but also opportunities, and fixating on threats obscures the upside of turbulence.
Turbulent markets create opportunities in three distinct ways:
- introduces new resources into the economy
- enables innovative combinations of existing resources
- stimulates novel consumer demand
Some mental maps are explicit, others largely implicit, but all perform three specific functions:
- they emphasize important categories
- clarify relationships among variables
- suggest appropriate action
Mental maps attract the funds, effort, and attention required to explore the map…Frames focus attention within a narrow segment of a mental map…In a turbulent world, it is better to assume the map is wrong.
A systematic study of three hundred start-ups found that persisting with the initial business plan was the best single predictor of failure one year after founding—nine of ten entrepreneurs who stuck to their initial business plan without revision failed.
When stale commitments meet turbulent markets, the result is often active inertia…active inertia, the tendency of established organizations to respond to changes by accelerating activities that succeeded in the past…Shifts in the market can devalue once valuable resources and leave them hanging like millstones around a firm’s neck.
Increasing the diversity of members enhances the number of perspectives without increasing the size…Zara teams typically include one or two product designers, a marketing manager, and often a production specialist, who oversees material purchasing and logistics. The diverse team members see the situation through their own distinctive lenses—artistic, marketing, and production.
Standardized processes facilitate high-volume routine activities, but they straitjacket emergent work…(emergent work is rare and valuable. Systems are quaint but for work that matters one must find their own way.)
Companies can enhance their absorption by locking up resources that are valuable, rare, and difficult to imitate.