I recently read a Stanford Business School article by Mark Leslie about growing a business through ‘strategic transformation’. Leslie outlines a business’ typical life cycle and illustrates the optimal spring point at which one should consider transforming in order to sustain growth and longevity. As you can see in the graph, his recommendation is to transform prior to hitting ‘peak business’.
While Clayton Christensen’s “The Innovators Dilemma” offered a case study of this principle years ago, Leslie’s article is less about comparing entrenched firms with disruptors and focuses more on tech-oriented companies in general. He offers Oracle as a canonical example of its growth through such transformation, driven by “opportunity-driven” leader Larry Ellison. In contrast, Leslie discusses Nokia, and its recent trajectory being driven by “operationally-driven” decision making.
Bear with me for a minute, and let’s take a couple of leaps of faith. First,…