The Handbook For The Prince / The Art of War!
I was thinking what would Machiavelli tell disrupted industries?
"The Princes of his day did not lose their power through misfortune; the prices of his day lost their power through indecisiveness and in-action." Niccolo Machiavelli, circa 1513
A business leader has only one choice under the pressures of disruption or annihilation caused by innovation. The same choice as the Prince under threat of their castle or their power being seized.
Leaders must quickly position themselves to defend themselves against innovative threats. Their defense must be based on understanding the looming innovation's strengths and weaknesses.
However, leaders often waste time looking to reinvent a process to save the current circumstances of the past. Think about the Prince faced with the threat of an innovative weapon capable of penetrating the castle walls with incredible quickness.
If the Prince focuses on strengthening the walls, he is gambling on the new innovative weapon's strength in penetrating walls.
However, because the Prince focused on understanding the threats and weaknesses of the innovative weapon, the Prince learned the weapon had a limitation in the distance to the wall. So, the Priced order the mote to be tripled in size.
The Prince also realized the defense of the new mote would only be a temporary solution to the reality that all castles would soon face significant threats from innovation.
Today in business or the regime of a past Prince in the 1500s, the greatest threat is an innovation that invokes an annihilation of the business's core deliverable or the kingdom's existence within the walls of a castle.
If the Prince were threatened by an innovative weapon that would simultaneously destroy the castle walls and contents within the castle, imagine the innovation was a bomb dropped from a flying machine. His efforts would not have been to order the construction of a larger mote.
Those leaders going through business disruptions capable of annihilating the business's core deliverable must not waste time building motes to protect the status quo the innovation is positioned to destroy.
A caution: When a Prince or a business is threatened with annihilation, the battle plans coming from within the castle walls might be distorted as the fear of what's outside the walls can distract the good intentions of the strategist within the walls.
In Closing my favorite Machiavelli Quote.
"There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator as for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new." Niccolo Machiavelli 1513
Status quo is the killer of all that will be invented.
Ray Stasieczko – Host, The End Of The Day With Ray!
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