Lucius,
You raise a point that absolutely fascinates me. Thank you!
Speaking of disruptive technologies, the record of established companies being able to move effectively into the new technology is poor. However, unlike 20 years ago, we now have giants like CSCO that at their heart are dedicated to the ideas of change. Will they do better than their predecessors?
In Tornado, Moore graphically depicts the growth from the bowling alley through the tornado and to the beginning of Main Street as a steep S-curve. The so-called stairway to heaven is built when a company moves from the top of one S-curve to the bottom of second one, through that S-curve and onto another and another and another.
Seems like a great business plan for a company, right?
WRONG!
On page 106 Moore explains why, using italicized words for emphasis: "Some might call this building a staircase out of seahorses. I would call it scheduling tornadoes. It is not only presumptuous -- it just doesn't work. Or rather, it works for the high-tech sector as a whole, and even for a few highly blessed companies at its core, but is inoperable as a company-specific strategy for any but these chosen few."
And on the following page: "When a game generates so few real winners and so many potential losers, and when the losers are of such a high caliber, it simply means it's a bad game to play. No one company, I would argue, can expect to get all these transitions lined up to its advantage. It would be like building a business plan based on getting funding from lottery jackpot winnings--repeatedly! Sooner or later we will get left out in the lurch, get out of phase with the shift, and be tossed aside. There simply has to be a more secure underpinning to our businesses."
He then goes on to explain exploitation of Main Street opportunities as a far better alternative.
If I understand the stuff here in the folder that's been written by Christiansen and when I see what Moore has written, I think the two authors are arriving at the same conclusion for two profoundly different and probably accurate reasons. For me, that adds up to one heck of a lot of credibility to the conclusion they draw.
The next time I see one of my companies trying to execute this sort of business plan I will sell my stock. Otherwise, it's not much different from playing the lottery.
--Mike Buckley |
