Lead

3

STRATEGY

“YOU only find oil if you drill wells. You may think you're finding it when you're drawing maps and studying logs, but you have to drill.”

JOHN MASTERS, The Hunters

THE THIRD ABSOLUTE FOR LEADERS:

Kodak Film, the iconic American company today mired in bankruptcy, is popularly believed to have been completely broadsided by digital technology—but that's not exactly accurate. In fact, they invented the world's first digital camera in the effectively prehistoric era of 1978. The trouble was, because they considered themselves a film company, they threw it (and their lead in the digital space) in a broom closet. In the years that followed, Kodak focused on its purpose—to help customers capture and share their most treasured memories. But, they stuck with a strategy that hadn't failed them yet—film.

And so it is that technology didn't kill Kodak; lack of strategy did. No company, including yours, is immune, and to do it right in this era requires a dramatically more fluid approach than it did in the past.

Strategy was never truly linear, but you used to be able to get away with treating it that way. Today's strategic thinking must be dynamic and perpetual. With purpose as your constant guide, a strategic planner always needs to have not just his ear, but many ears, to the ...