In order to be great, to be truly great, I believe that you need to be the best at adapting. Many companies have grown and dominated based upon being great at one thing but then eventually die. Why do they die…I believe they failed to adapt.
There is example after example of companies including the likes of Sears, Kodak, and Blockbuster to name a few that were once the dominant player in their respective industry only to fall from grace in dramatic fashion. The one commonality between these failures is adaptation. For Sears it was keeping a stale brand and not looking at changes it old way of retailing. Kodak had created a digital camera only to shelve it to focus on its foothold on film. And Blockbuster had its lunch handed to it in the form of Netflix disrupting the movie rental business by delivering dvd’s to the home and then eventually adapting itself again as a streaming company.
All of these companies had more resources than their competitors at the ti me and failed to adapt and change. Why? I have no idea but I can tell you this…if you don’t look at your own business and continue to test, research, develop, and innovate, strategically investing in the things that are working (and yes, you should test more than just one thing!) then you too will eventually go the way of these aforementioned business.
Adapt, pivot, disrupt, and dominate.