Thinka Linka Do
“Divide et impera”, or in English, Divide and Conquer is a phrase that we’ve all heard, many have experienced, and the clever have overcome. Forms of it have been attributed to Philip of Macedon and Julius Caesar and some incorrectly to Machiavelli, who in fact was denouncing it. It speaks to the power of effecting fragmentation, disintegration and dissolution of unity as a means to overcome adversaries or as a means to break down tough problems. Many problem solvers apply the technique, sometimes inappropriately to systems issues.
As a business practice, divide and conquer has been the effective stick that clever folks have applied to groups of competitors. The tool has been effective across almost any competitive environment, be it military, political, intellectual, athletic… endless arenas. It has been very effective when leveraging the shortcomings of traditional communications and transparency to events. But in the world of business, not so anymore. In fact, the world today may often give the advantage to the apparently fragmented, but virtually networked. Yes, the strength can be invisible and the responsiveness astounding. I would pose that a new adage might follow Sun Tzu’s logic and proclaim “Appear Divided, then Conquer.”
Here’s why … the big are always fighting entropy, the tendency towards disorder (it’s a rule of the universe). To those not anally retentive, entropy can be cool, it can be a tool. But to the big, entropy creates variability and variability looks bad. To the big, fighting entropy requires policies, controls, standards, inspections, oversight, hierarchies of non value adding resources, in other words, stuff that adds costs, time, and conservatism. Lots of that is necessary for many processes, but it is never free and mostly builds rigidity. Change comes hard and slow. The rigid can find that they are dead before they learn that they are sick.
When the fragmented could not connect, they became easy pickings. Not a hard one to figure out. In the business world firms typically have what the Japanese call an either “product out” or “customer in” philosophy and practice. Simply, it means that a business has a bias for promoting and selling who and what they have by persuading a customer that it is the best solution, or the business can configure and fit a solution specifically to the customers’ needs and circumstances. A big factor in this game has been bandwidth or resources, capabilities and talent. So there are factors of strategy, solutions and resources at play. Hard to make all the calls right, but historically the bigger had the larger catalog to show. The show of force and one stop shop can be a powerful tool to instill an image of reliability and capacity to a prospective client. But the bandwidth, capacity, catalog and resources have a cost. It’s a trade-off and balance issue. Balance is the operating word. We think of balance on a scale of weights, a static view. Today’s challenges call for dynamic balance, the kind you might see in an agile athlete or a top gun in a fighter jet.
Now … this is not about big is bad or sinister, and little is good. Good and bad have little to do with size, but rather principles and values. This is about agile is good and rigid is bad. Big or small, rigid is bad for the business and the customer. Here is how the game can change!
Never before has the capability to build and operate as a virtual enterprise been greater. The advent of technology is a tsunami of possibilities. The calamities of the recent economic failures have precipitated the freeing up (some call it unemployment) of armies of talent. Those that connect that talent virtually and create networked configuration of solutions can win the game with superior customer in.
Think then link, then think linked!
Lots to think about on this one …. Because agility is within reach to the big or the small. It’s less about size and more about paradigms and practices.
What do you think? How are you linked?
