Episode 20. To Reap Order, You Must Sow Chaos

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You can apos t build without destroyingHis name was Lou He was born in Mineola New York in 1942 At 51 he took charge of a big famous company with a market capitalization of 29 billion What he did as a CEO may seem like a massive destruction But nine years later when he retired the company apos s market cap reached 168 billion You can apos t build without destroying What we destroy determines what we gain Disruption requires destructionI haven t heard of a retail chain that didn t oversleep the e-commerce revolution In the early 2010s I attended a major retail conference in Europe CEOs of large DIY chains were proclaiming their plans to launch internet trade It would sound like a bold plan if we forgot for a second that Amazon had been founded 17 years earlier These retailers knew e-commerce was inevitable Yet they were afraid of undermining their existing business models However business is an obstacle race with collision courses It s both creation and destruction On the one hand it is about efficiency well-established processes automation and SOPs On the other hand it is about reinvention innovation and ingenuity You can t launch new products without killing some old ones You can t build a new corporate culture without destroying the old one You can t change org structure without taking away somebody s privileges or status Creation is a progressive development Disruption requires destruction Most strategies fall short of their goals because executives fail at mastering one or the other Good CEOs play better Great CEOs create the game But even great CEOs need both creation and destruction which is harder than it seems