The Spider’s Strategy: Creating Networks to Avert Crisis, Create Change and Really Get Ahead

Chapter 9. Introduce Change Holographically

For several years, I wrestled with the following question: Is adaptiveness a state or the journey? I have characterized Nokia and Toyota as adaptive companies and have left no doubt that EuroCo and the American auto companies are not. This dichotomous classification implicitly makes the case that adaptiveness is a state: either a business is adaptive, or it is not. But what of the sprawling empire that is HP, where some parts are clearly, well, and truly adaptive, and other parts—as quotes from HP executives indicate—are not there yet? What about Wal-Mart, which clearly does not have a win-win bone in its (metaphorical) body, but which, equally clearly, has used technologies to sense, respond, and learn ...