To grow a business, you have to destroy it
Last year, I attended a stunning production of Bizet’s Carmen at Washington’s Kennedy Center. In the opera’s final scene, Carmen concedes her own destruction at the hands of her ex-lover, José — she would rather die than give up her freedom. For days after the opera, Carmen’s acceptance of her destruction stayed with me. It got me thinking about purposeful destruction as a theme that pervades our arts and culture: Obi-Wan Kenobi allows Darth Vader to kill him, so that he can help Luke Skywalker from a more powerful position within the Force. A phoenix explodes into flames so it can be born again from its own ashes.
I also realized the theme of purposeful destruction applies very well to the business world.
Specifically, guiding a growing business often requires destroying the status quo in order to grow and adapt to changing market landscapes. An organization must successfully tear down its own foundation to rebuild and cultivate the momentum and focus for reinvention.
However, most organizations are afraid to do so. High costs, shifting responsibilities, and cultural barriers often combine to slow or halt change. Many times, organizations are simply too entrenched in their ways to embrace future trends.
Focus, experimentation, and openness are needed to acknowledge when a process must be destroyed and reimagined to make way for one better suited to a business’s changing needs. As your team or business goes through its own growth and transformation, here are some things to keep in mind:
Stay true to your business’s DNA. As a business goes through a period of transformation, it will need to retain certain strategies while replacing others. Leadership must understand which strategies and products are core to the business’s value proposition and audience needs, and which ones will potentially hold the company back.
Uber, for example, recently embraced the idea of conversational commerce with its Facebook Messenger integration, which allows people to order its car service through a natural chat interface. Embracing this technology implies Uber is willing to consider a future in which its flagship app is no longer the primary way people interact with its brand.
At the same time, Uber’s new products such as UberEATS and Uber for Business are all connected by Uber’s commitment to revolutionizing transportation. This idea is core to Uber’s DNA, and must be guarded carefully. In sum, Uber is ready to adapt to its environment and embrace change, but it does so with an understanding of the value it has in the market, and a careful understanding of its purpose.
Create a culture that champions experimentation. A staff of creative self-starters will support invention and jump at opportunities to bring meaningful and positive change to the business. But to set this wheel in motion, employees first need to feel that their voices are valued, and understand that they have a mandate to suggest change (even if their idea or experiment fails). “Remember that you can always test a new idea at a small scale. You can refine it or abandon it as you learn what works and what doesn’t. You don’t have to fix everything all at once, but you have to try something to move forward,” says Jean Ellen Cowgill, President of Atlantic Media Strategies.
Slate’s Andy Bowers spent nearly a decade making podcasts and gaining expertise in audio production and storytelling. Through a series of small podcast experiments, Slate was ultimately able to position itself as “one of the world’s first podcast networks and still one of the most popular.” By getting into podcasts early, Slate was prepared to launch its podcasting network, Panoply, in 2015 at the height of the industry’s Serial moment. Slate’s willingness to experiment beyond its core offering set it up to be a major player in the podcast market.
Cultivate a shared sense of purpose. Each person in the organization needs to understand where the business is headed, and the part they play in getting there. Without building a shared sense of ownership across each employee, leaders are more likely to hit internal resistance from those who aren’t on board with a new approach, don’t understand it, or are afraid of it.
You may recall when the The New York Times’ Innovation Report was leaked in 2014. The organization acknowledged that the media landscape had changed, and laid out clear opportunities and recommendations for the Times to move towards a more modern, sustainable content and business model.
In 2016, the Times continues to embrace a spirit of transparent self-examination. Executive editor Dean Baquet wrote a memo earlier this year saying, “It is time to catch our breath and come up with a shared vision for what our report, and ultimately the New York Times newsroom, should look like.” This collaborative and transparent approach may smooth the road ahead for the Times as the organization carves out its future.
Strategic planning is one of the many things we think about for clients at Atlantic Media Strategies every day. Sign up for our weekly newsletter, the Digital Trends Index, and get in touch on Twitter.
