The Road to Reinvention

If You Wait, It’ll Be Too Late

Don’t wait: Change now and change often. When you sense the smallest reason to reinvent, listen to your instincts and start the process. Reinvent even when you’ve just achieved your greatest success – indeed, especially when you reach the top. If you wait, it’ll be too late.

Lee Kun-Hee, head of Samsung, disrupted his company, top to bottom – changing everything, despite its unprecedented growth and its best-ever financials. Lee knew that despite its success, Samsung would decline and fail if it didn’t undertake a thorough overhaul, and quickly. His mantra to the company’s top executives was “change everything but your wife and children.” Lee’s leadership probably saved the organization from a painful demise, like the deaths of Circuit City or Blockbuster, whose reliance on their core businesses swept them aside.

Don’t confuse “reinvention” with a “turnaround.” Turnarounds occur when organizations face the final stages of a death spiral; they usually fail. By always changing and never resting, you avoid the desperation of a turnaround. Look for, embrace and celebrate ideas that eat into and even destroy your core business. If you...