Only the Paranoid Survive_ How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company
Recent modifications of competitive theory call attention to a sixth force: the force of complementors. Complementors are other businesses from whom customers buy complementary products. Each company’s product works better or sometimes only works with the other company’s product. Cars need gasoline; gasoline needs cars. Computers need software; software needs computers
What such a transition does to a business is profound, and how the business manages this transition determines its future. I like to describe this phenomenon as an inflection point
don’t differentiate without a difference
Don’t introduce improvements whose only purpose is to give you an advantage over your
Don’t introduce improvements whose only purpose is to give you an advantage over your
Don’t introduce improvements whose only purpose is to give you an advantage over your
Don’t introduce improvements whose only purpose is to give you an advantage over your
Don’t introduce improvements whose only purpose is to give you an advantage over your
competitor without giving your customer a substantial advantage
competitor without giving your customer a substantial advantage
Richard Tedlow came to the conclusion that businesses fail either because they leave their customers, i.e., they arbitrarily change a strategy that worked for them in the past (the obvious change), or because their customers leave them (the subtle one)
Then we were hit by the quality issue. Managers from Hewlett-Packard reported that quality levels of Japanese memories were consistently and substantially better than those produced by the American companies. In fact, the quality levels attributed to Japanese memories were beyond what we thought were possible. Our first reaction was denial. This had to be wrong
More often than not, these CEOs are replaced by someone from the outside. I suspect that the people coming in are probably no better managers or leaders than the people they are replacing. They have only one advantage, but it may be crucial: unlike the person who has devoted his entire life to the company and therefore has a history of deep involvement in the sequence of events that led to the present mess, the new managers come unencumbered by such emotional involvement and therefore are capable of applying an impersonal logic to the situation. They can see things much more objectively than their predecessors did
Often in the course of traversing a strategic inflection point your people lose confidence in you and in each other, and what’s worse, you lose confidence in yourself. Members of management are likely to blame one another for the tough times the company is experiencing. Infighting ensues, arguments as to what direction to take bubble up and proliferate. Then
Often in the course of traversing a strategic inflection point your people lose confidence in you and in each other, and what’s worse, you lose confidence in yourself. Members of management are likely to blame one another for the tough times the company is experiencing. Infighting ensues, arguments as to what direction to take bubble up and proliferate
When a company is meandering, its management staff is demoralized. When the management staff is demoralized, nothing works: Every employee feels paralyzed
Going through a career inflection point is not an easy process. It is not without many dangers. It calls upon all your best resources. It calls upon your understanding of the new world that you wish to become part of, your determination to take control of your career, your ability to adapt your skills to that new world and your resolve as you deal with the fear and anxiety of change