Most organizations see their plans and preferred ways of
operating as unchangeable best ways to do something. This
attitude is like having a windmill that is fixed to face in
only one direction. When the wind blows in just that
direction, the windmill generates lots of energy. When the
wind blows in any other direction, the windmill is idle.
The person who figured out how to make a windmill that
turned on its axis so it would always be facing the wind
came up with a breakthrough solution for harnessing wasted
power. Such a windmill generates maximum energy over all
360 degrees of the compass, rather than only over a range
of 15 degrees or so. As a result, with a wind blowing
randomly from all directions, it creates 20 times more
power than a fixed windmill. The beauty of such a solution
is that it makes a virtue of uncertainty rather than taking
the risk of a narrow view of where the wind will come from
in the future.
A breakthrough solution for making use of external
influences can be a way to do something that provides 20
times or more benefit from the same or similar level of
resources (such as a pivoting windmill) than when applying
the usual or 100 percent solution (a fixed-facing windmill).
It can also be a way to do something 20 times faster to get
the same benefit from the same or similar level of
resources. A pivoting windmill also exemplifies this
feature because it will generate the same amount of power
as the fixed-facing windmill in less than 5 percent of the
time in locations where the wind blows randomly from all
directions.
In some situations you can have breakthrough solutions that
provide improved methods and increased speed simultaneously
for a combined 40,000 percent benefits (2,000 percent times
2,000 percent equals 40,000 percent). This circumstance is
most likely to occur when having the benefits sooner is
worth vastly more than having the same benefits stretched
out over time. It occurs routinely when the benefits of
one breakthrough solution produce skill, time, and
resources to add other 2,000 percent solutions in other
areas of practice. This transferred advantage means that
time and resources are constantly being used more
efficiently across the whole organization.
When irresistible forces are in play, the benefits are
likely to boom way beyond the 2,000 percent level for
breakthrough solutions because those forces create enormous
momentum for the first organization that responds
appropriately, leaving other organizations in the dust.
Consider Amazon.com and its pioneering entry into selling
books and music on the Internet. Shortly after going public
inception and within months of being started, the company
had achieved a market capitalization for its stock that was
far larger than that of all its conventional competitors
combined.
As a result, the company was able to pay for even faster
development of its position on the Internet, which made its
future growth and profit potential expand much sooner as
well. While it was still losing money on each book sold,
Amazon.com stock sold for a multiple of more than 20 times
the total price of each book the company sold.
This high stock price was used indirectly to allow the
company access to vast resources for the book business and
to enter other electronic commerce markets. Now that's
stallbusting your way to a breakthrough solution involving
irresistible forces!
Copyright 2007 Donald W. Mitchell, All Rights Reserved
----------------------------------------------------
Donald Mitchell is chairman of Mitchell and Company, a
strategy and financial consulting firm in Weston, MA. He is
coauthor of seven books including Adventures of an
Optimist, The Irresistible Growth Enterprise, and The
Ultimate Competitive Advantage. You can find free tips for
accomplishing 20 times more by registering at:
====> http://www.2000percentsolution.com .
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