Margaret Mead’s Never Been So Right

by John Gerzema on May 27, 2009

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead’s famous phrase has become a standard bearer for well meaning citizens bent on creating solutions to the problems of the world. However, in the Industrial Age these agents of change were constrained in their ability to gain rapid distribution of their solutions, so real change took years or even generations.

It is that time frame which informs a belief, as described in this NY Times article, that government and institution led macro innovation is the key to overcoming the myriad challenges our world faces. Industrial logic would suggest that trillion dollar problems, must have trillion dollar solutions and trillion dollar solutions come from big investments in big ideas. The first issue with this industrial logic is that we have no idea what the big idea is, only what the big problem is. The second issue is that big problem’s are agglomerations of little problems, however institutions can only focus their marketing and strategy on the BIG problem. That focus undermines the problem solving.

Which leads me to Chris Anderson’s piece on the era of the conglomerate passing and in its wake thousands of small, entrepreneurial companies innovating to solve problems that the large companies cannot. Chris’ insight is that large companies are struggling to understand how a former competitive advantage, economy of scale, had been turned on its head to become a disadvantage. Where scale was once a strength, now it is a shackle linked by quarterly earnings, risk aversion and zero sum management that prevents organizations from solving the small problems, that reveal big solutions.  While there is no doubt that big business is facing challenging conditions to execute their plans, it is by no means impossible to execute successfully within this new paradigm, just look at Google, Apple, Amazon or even P&G, who are executing successfully in the networked economy by transitioning their operating, forecasting and communications units to allow for micro-innovation within their organizations.

Using network logic we understand that a big problem is simply an interconnected series of small problems, with solutions that interconnect to reveal solutions to large problems. The big leap organizations must make is to stop talking and start doing. This transition in thinking from leverage to community is a function of the Great Unwinding of our economy. The Great Unwinding is our economy peeling back the layers of excess and facade, to reveal the foundational truths of our businesses and ourselves. The outcome of this financial and psychic deleveraging is a profitable and fulfilling business and consumer renaissance. This renaissance is driven by a network economy that encourages experimentation, accepts failure and connects the solutions that allow us to think small, to solve big.

Nat Torkington writes that “Scaling is not innovating”, innovation happens on the edge where scale doesn’t matter and uses the multiplier effect of networked innovation to scale at the appropriate time. It’s time for us as executives, marketers and customers to acknowledge this dawning reality and to harness our entrepreneurial spirit to solve problems as a community.

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Viewing 5 Comments

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    I like your comment "The big leap organizations must make is to stop talking and start doing." and my observations in the Pharma Marketing world is that this is very hard indeed for them to do.
    Richard Heale at Thinking Pharma blog says "The Taxonomy of Pharma World appears to be making it very difficult for the Industry to become Explorers in the New World of Social Media. Is this not something of a paradox, given the outstanding explorations achieved by Pharma’s Research and Development divisions?"
    And I have to agree with him - legislation has tied these strong brands into ways of working that are hard to untie.
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    You'd like "The Innovator's Dilemma" by Clayton Christensen, a professor at HBS. It basically tries to explain why large companies fail even though they theoretically do everything right. The basic thesis is that large companies try to satisfy existing customers while small nimble companies create new markets that eventually supplant the current market.

    He distinguishes between "sustaining technologies" and "disruptive technologies." Sustaining technologies are ones that improve product performance and what big companies are the most familiar with. Big corporations largely rely on sustaining technologies because they have a significant customer base that demands improvements on the familiar, which produces a substantial block against radical innovation.

    Disruptive technologies are less frequent and result in worse product performance in the near term. However, they're generally cheaper, simpler, and smaller. Large companies don't invest in them because it represents a degradation in performance and profit margins so they are primarily in the domain of smaller companies. Initially, the disruptive technology largely serves the bottom end of the market since it's lower quality, but as the technology becomes refined, it gradually moves into the domain of higher end markets, eventually crowding out the products of the existing corporations.

    He cites the example of the computer hard disk industry which has seen waves of corporate failure since the 1960's. Existing companies were always trying to improve existing products by driving down cost per megabyte and increasing storage capacity. Smaller companies were generally creating smaller drives that initially had lower profit margins and lower storage capacities, but as the technologies was refined and performance went up, the smaller companies gradually dominated the market. There's been several cycles of this. It could be said to be happening today as small laptop hard drives, which are slower and hold less, are gradually overtaking sales of desktop hard drives.

    Of course, there's a lot more nuance to the arguments. I think you'd enjoy it as it complements the Brand Bubble very well. I thought it was like the Brand Bubble applied more generally to business and industry. In any case, I liked your post.
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    Hi John

    I agree with you about the challenges that large organizations face. The loss of nimbleness and agility, slower thinking, longer deliberation time and hence speed of response/reflex are all universal characteristics, by which I mean, any large body in the universe is slower and less agile than a smaller one. And as I look around, I notice that it is impossible to operate out of bounds of universal truths/laws.

    Hence the idea of smaller entities, that are more nimble and are able to innovate is something that resonates with me. In fact history is also indicative of the fact that there is a "Critical Mass/Size" beyond which organisms (and organizations including countries) tend to fail/die/become extinct.

    This is true in corporate history as well.

    Awesome,how many thoughts your note has triggered!

    Would invite you to read my note on slightly similar lines at http://joyandlife.wordpress.com/
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    Gurprriet I love your idea of a Lego company. The skill sets I agree will have to change. I've been thinking we'll need to be more general in our approach, perhaps having specific skills plus a much greater degree of empathy and understanding of other skills and specialties in order to manage the flow as you put it. Thanks for your comments, John
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    I agree! Along with functional skills, there will be a need to demonstrate a higher degree of collaboration, partnering and project management skills. Empathy will play a key role in enabling the former.

    I also think, appropriate tenancy will be a term we will have to become comfortable with and understand what the appropriate tenancy behaviours are.

    Would have loved to hear you speak at SOL!
 

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