Avoid your Napoleanic Invasion of Russia
Use the concept of a culminating point to guide your growth.
Though [Admiral Raymond A. Spruance] achieved solid results in the battles of Midway and the Philippine Sea, he declined to pursue the retreating Japanese forces on both occasions. Initially criticized for these decisions, he knew that pursuit under the circumstances would have passed the tactical level culminating points, incurring casualties and damage incommensurate with any possible tactical gains, and would have weakened the US ability to prevail at the operational level. Admiral William F. Halsey Jr., in contrast to Spruance, relished a good fight at almost any cost. The results were that he often failed; that during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, he left a major amphibious operation unprotected (and as a consequence almost destroyed); and that his fleets twice suffered unnecessary damage from violent storms. He narrowly escaped being court martialed or at least relieved of command on two occasions.
“Culminating Points” in Military Review (July 1989) — Colonel George M. Hall, US Army Reserve, Retired
The Culminating Point
Though we require offense to achieve growth, an offense cannot be sustained forever due to two factors:
- The Law of Diminishing Returns — the offense becomes less effective as it continues. Think of a company’s go-to-market (GTM) strategies. The cheap and effective GTM tactics employed early-on by a company generally yield less value over time. Either competitors have identified the channel you were exploiting and then driven up the price, or you have already acquired customers most ready to adopt your solution.
- Resource resupply — While “offense wins” help to resupply a team from an energy and emotional perspective, they cannot resupply the resources spent in support of the offense. Start-ups encounter this problem frequently. They must raise equity capital in order to remain a going concern as they are burning cash (expending resources) to support their offense.
Therefore, the Culminating Point is the time when the company runs out of the ability to effectively conduct offense. When there, the company must transition to defense and consolidate its gains. The transition is important as it is near, and past, the culminating point when the company is most vulnerable to a counterattack.
When properly executed, the company will reach it’s objectives before the culminating point, consolidate, and then resume the offense.
An example of a company successfully not extending themselves past their culminating point is Ubisoft with their game ‘The Division.’ The developers intended to release the game’s second expansion alongside a large patch focused on known issues within the core game. Instead, the company postponed the content-focused expansion and, with the update, changed to be focused “entirely on bug fixing, game balancing, and other improvements.” The shift in focus allowed the company to secure the foundation of the core game (consolidating), before resuming the offensive with a new product expansion.
On the other hand, Operation Market Garden during World War II saw the allies extend past their culminating point to disastrous results. The objective was to create a 64-mile Allied invasion route into Germany’s industrial northern region. The plan called for airborne forces to seize nine sequential bridges along the path, terminating with a final bridge over the River Rhine. At the same time, ground forces were to attack overland, relieving each of the airborne forces in turn, and securing the invasion route. While the airborne forces did seize the bridges, the ground forces encountered numerous delays and German resistance. Ultimately, the final bridge, across the River Rhine, was past the Allied ground force’s culminating point. The airborne troops were not relieved in time by the ground forces, resulting in substantial losses and the Allies’ inability to secure the invasion route into Northern Germany.
Examples from the business world of extending past a company’s culminating point include:
- Too rapid geographic expansion, especially if that expansion is into foreign markets. The poorly planned expansion could lead to cultural mistakes or dilution of brand equity due to poor experience.
- Sales booked beyond the level in which the company has deployment resources. Customers may then encounter prolonged, or haphazard, onboarding processes.
- An expansion which requires the need for new internal hires, beyond the level which the firm can adequately assimilate into its culture and values
Tactical Takeaways
- Understand the culminating in relationship to your objectives. If you have achieved your goals before reaching the culminating point, shift to defense to consolidate before assuming the offense again.
- When defending, identify when the opposition has passed the culminating point and is overextended. Use their mistake to launch your counterattack.
