Greg Satell

It used to be said that what was good for General Motors was good for the country. The thinking was that by supporting the engines of prosperity, we’re all going to be better off. Yet it would also seem that, in many cases at least, what makes industry successful can also improve the public sector.

In an age of disruption the only viable strategy is to adapt. Today things move too quickly to stick with old paradigms once their time has passed. Once outdated platforms fail to solve new problems, they will be overtaken with blazing speed and we must either make a shift or get left behind.

What do the Hydrogen bomb, the Minuteman missile and precision guided weapons all have in common? They all provided crucial financing for technology that we now carry around in our pockets. It is a curious fact of modern society that civilian life, in large part, is powered by the technology of war.

Charles Erwin Wilson, Eisenhower’s Secretary of Defense is credited with the quote, “What’s good for General Motors is good for the country.” In fact, what he said was actually the inverse (that what was good for the country was good for GM), but no matter, both statements had an element of truth.

Marketing used to be pretty simple. You developed a compelling message, used mass media to broadcast that message to large audiences and grew market share. Mostly, you aimed for the meaty part of the curve, where the law of averages conspired in your favour.

In 1892, George Eastman formed the Eastman Kodak Company to “make the camera as convenient as a pencil.” The idea took off and by the early 20th century, Kodak had become one of America’s largest companies and Eastman one of its most successful entrepreneurs.

Mark Zuckerberg’s first selection for his book club, Moises Naím’s The End of Power was an apt one. The book, as the Facebook CEO put it, “explores how the world is shifting to give individual people more power that was traditionally only held by large governments, militaries and other organizations.”

Everyone wants to innovate these days, but it wasn’t always that way. Google’s Ngram shows that, although the term was commonly used in the 19th century, it didn’t become popular in the 20th century until the early 1970’s. Before that, managers valued tradition over novelty.

Do you enjoy picking groceries up in your electric car? When you get to the store, do you prefer to pay with bitcoins? Do you have solar panels on your house? If the answer is “yes” to any of these questions, you’re in the distinct minority. So much so, that a lot of people probably think you’re weird.

Peter Thiel loves secrets. In his book, Zero to One, he makes a fervent case that unless you firmly believe that there are still things to discover, you will never achieve much. The most you will be able to accomplish is a small tweak on conventional wisdom and that’s no way to create value.