VISION - IN A LAND OF POSSIBILITY

When the bountiful rewards of a peak are mixed with the kindling of a powerful new vision, it ignites the great dilemma that is facing many successful companies today. Surrounded by increasing returns for decreasing expenditure (the ideal commercial condition), which can be found at the summit of a peak, we are seldom motivated to seek new peaks by exploring possibility. Our human (and corporate) tendency is to exploit the peak that we have already captured. What is ironic is the fact that from atop our peak we have a better view of the landscape of possibility than others. We are able to see more clearly which peaks are actually higher than ours, and over a period of time, we are able to observe in what ways the whole landscape is fluctuating.

Keep in mind that our perspective is strongly influenced by the mere fact of knowing that to move away from our peak (the prerequisite of exploring new territory), we reduce our return on investment -- the higher the peak the greater the sacrifice. Also inherent in explorations beyond our own peak is the need to be less efficient at what we are currently doing.

Alas! We are faced with the inevitable dilemma -- better view yet more attachment to our current position. And striding right along side are two other situations which are equally conflicting -- more resources to finance exploration yet, greater relative cost for each step in our exploration. The potential for resolution of these conflicting constraints lies in our understanding of the nature of landscapes of possibility, and being able to make intelligent decisions about exploration strategies. All exploration strategies are not equally effective.

If you don't search a significant amount of the landscape, and are therefore unable to assess which peaks are optimal, what impact does that have on your strategy? One option available to us is to develop search strategies based on our understanding of landscapes. Another is to continually redefine the business so that, depending on the definition, local peaks are reduced to valleys which allows for exploration of other peaks. A third potential strategy is to organise as an explorer, rather than a single peak climber or defender of one's current position.

In the 60's, forming conglomerates was the rage. The idea was that good managers could manage anything. Good systems and large accumulations of capital could handle any problem. In some areas of the landscape, this was true for a time. Those areas were mainly established with little variation in the landscape. It turned out that the management capabilities of those pursuing conglomerates were generally not as great as hoped. Those few who succeed at this strategy to the present day actually do know something about management that the rest don't.

It may be that a time of successful conglomerates is returning. This time, it will not be focused so much on capital accumulation. Management will play a significant role but it will be based on new, biological models and not on the centralised models of earlier times. The key to success, however, will be on seeing the possibilities of complexity. That is, it will depend on seeing the potential for increasing effectiveness in exploring more landscape of possibility and for creating peaks where they didn't previously exist through new combinations of existing peaks.

The moment we begin the journey of a new strategy, we are faced with the question of how to skillfully balance the amount of resources to be designated to the exploration of new peaks, and what amount will be employed to improvement on the peak we are already climbing. Obviously there is no single answer. How we distribute is contingent, in part, on our assessment of our location in relationship to the top of the current peak being climbed. Another determining factor is the amount of risk that a corporation wants to take. Percentages of distribution of resources will also depend on the level of development of our rivals or the industry as a whole, and how rapidly the landscape is changing. Each corporation will choose a different balance and that choice will become one of the elements of its competitive strategy

Out of our strategies emerge actions, and constant feedback will be received not only indicating the effectiveness of our actions but also, the current lay of the landscape and our corporation's position on it. The feedback from our searches will reveal such information as how much has already been achieved by others, the value of particular steps, and the distance of potentially higher peaks. Our searches will also reveal information about where the landscape is changing -- which peaks are becoming valleys and which are becoming more optimal. This would have been a valuable way of looking at your industry if you were in the recording business for the last couple of decades. The local peak for records plummeted and became a valley from which you either started climbing a new peak or died. Today the local peak for tapes is tumbling and the peak for CD's is rising rapidly. And there is more than one CD peak being formed.

Unilever is an example of how many of today's corporate giants have evolved in rugged landscapes. An earlier success in the formulation, manufacturing and marketing of soap can not explain the size of the company today. By using the resources generated from a single peak (soap) to explore other areas which would create a "mountain range" with many peaks, Unilever created a world wide giant which covers many ranges of products. Its current success is not so much its domination of any single peak but its ability to be high on a number of peaks. Unilever is able to generate profits from each of these positions and use those to explore other peaks and other ranges. For companies like this, peaks can be sought in product lines, in science, in management, in marketing - in any number of areas. It may be that the future success of Unilever and companies like it will be in their ability to discover or create and then to climb peaks in areas such as communication, information technology and organization.

A well-designed strategy will combine searching close to home in order to influence the direction of the current peak with, searching a sufficient distance in order to locate other peaks. This type of strategy will produce the information needed for immediately improving ones current environment as well as information for searching out new environments that are suitable for the corporation in its present state. Both types of searches prove beneficial for companies that are relatively high on a given peak. Searching one's immediate area results in actions that produce the sustenance (profit) needed to finance expeditions. Searching out new environments initiates the climbing of other peaks and thus begins the process of generating a future beyond the life of a single peak. As these two searches co-evolve, issues of identity and survival move to the forefront.