#87 - You can't do both

In my management and strategy classes I ask students this question. To maximize individual or company success, should you:

1. Fix weaknesses
2. Build on strengths
3. Do both (fix weaknesses and build strengths)

Which do you think is the most popular answer?

It is #3, doing both. Most people want to be well-rounded and flexible. They want to keep their options open. They want to be balanced and not too extreme. Unfortunately, this doesn't work.

A recent flurry of blog posts reinforce the problems with trying to "do both" and support the wisdom of building on strengths.

John Leary at Tom Peters' blog wonders whether Apple should pursue the corporate market for its computers, even if it requires significant changes to their products and support. Apple already does a great job of pleasing their existing customers. Should they "do both" and try to please businesses as well or should they continue to focus on what they are already doing well?

I think Apple has had success because they are the anti-establishment brand. I think it would be a bad idea to jeopardize that in pursuit of corporate sales.

You might be wondering why they can't do both. I'll let Seth Godin answer that.

Seth started a great discussion a couple days ago about whether companies should pursue customers that are passionate/educated about a particular product (Apple) or a more popular market (Dell). He uses the passion/pop curve (left) to explain his idea. He doesn't recommend a particular market but he ends the post with this quote. "The best choice is to choose."

In a follow-up post he addresses some comments that he got from readers who are "going for both." Their strategy is to pursue both markets. Godin responds that "going for both is rarely the right strategy."

Today, in a post about the New York Times, Godin concludes by saying "if you obsess about doing the thing you are great at and let the mediocre stuff go, you'll do far better. What are you great at? What if you did it exclusively?"

We dilute our efforts and minimize our success when we try to do both. We all have limited time, energy and resources. We need to discover what we do best and focus our attention on that, to the exclusion of other seemingly valuable opportunities. One of my favorite quotes reminds us of this truth.

"When you choose anything, you reject everything else . . . So,  when you take one course of action, you give up all the other courses." - G. K. Chesterton

I think we are uncomfortable with choosing because we are concerned about "rejecting everything else" and "giving up all the other courses." However, in seeking to do both and have it all, we often end up with nothing.

Comments

[Ryan]

I think the underlying advice to specialize and capitalize on strengths makes intuitive sense, but I'm not sure the post or Seth's graph do much to substantiate the idea.

Is the point of his graph that the two groups do not have an overlap...so it rationally improssible for one product/person/organization to please both groups?

It seems to me that you could argue that the graph argues for division within the organization and product diversification. Apples "strengths" seem to me to be their reliable operating system running on hardware produced within the same organization (among other technical benefits of their product). The fact that trendy people like the brand has to do with market and company culture.

Could another division within Apple not develop specialized products for the business sector that leverage the strengths on the technology but speak to how those strengths benefit the corporate consumer?

[Doreen]

That's an interesting point. Comes back to specializing instead of trying to be alittle bit of everthing.

I have a problem with picking just one business to be in. I have many interests. I am finding I need to focus.