Experimentar, testar, aprender e evoluir.

O trecho que ontem recortei do livro "Competing for the Future" ficou a ressoar na minha mente com uma preocupação... concentração não significa saber tudo à partida, não quer dizer que se tem tudo estabelecido desde o início.

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Então, no capítulo seguinte encontro algo que ajuda a esclarecer, que ajuda a evitar a mensagem que não queria que fosse apreendida:

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"being first carries a risk of failure disproportionate to the rewards of leadership only when the pioneering firm permits its financial commitment to race ahead of its understanding of the precise nature of the emerging opportunity. The objective is to learn as quickly and as inexpensively as possible about the precise nature of customer demand, the suitability of the new product or service concept, and the need for adjustments in market strategy."

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Boyd ensinou-me os fundamentos da blitzkrieg... schwerpunkt:

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"Schwerpunkt represents a unifying concept that provides a way to rapidly shape focus and direction of effort as well as harmonize support activities with combat operations, thereby permit a true decentralization of tactical command within centralized strategic guidance—without losing cohesion of overall effort.

or put another way

Schwerpunkt represents a unifying medium that provides a directed way to tie initiative of many subordinate actions with superior intent as a basis to diminish friction and compress time in order to generate a favorable mismatch in time/ability to shape and adapt to unfolding circumstances."

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Entretanto, a minha leitura do número especial da revista Long Range Planning dedicado aos modelos de negócio levou-me a um artigo de Rita McGrath, "Business Models: A Discovery Driven Approach":

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"The concept of ‘the business model’ is appealing because it suggests a change to the way that strategies are conceived, created and executed against. In highly uncertain, complex and fast-moving environments, strategies are as much about insight, rapid experimentation and evolutionary learning as they are about the traditional skills of planning and rock-ribbed execution. Modeling, therefore, is a useful approach to figuring out a strategy, as it suggests experimentation, prototyping and a job that is never quite finished.
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business models often cannot be fully anticipated in advance. Rather, they must be learned over time, which emphasizes the centrality of experimentation in the discovery and development of new business models
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Conventionally, the Holy Grail in strategy has been the creation of a ‘sustainable’ competitive advantage. In more and more categories, however, we see firms competing to achieve what we might think of as a ‘temporary’ advantage, which they exploit until competition has caught up or markets have changed, at which point, the hunt is on for a new advantage. The business model construct encourages conversations which might help us discern possible early warnings of model weakness and prompt the search for new ones
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Finally, as business models themselves evolve and mature, adopting the notion suggests a developing understanding that strategy itself is quite frequently discovery driven rather than planning oriented.
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When an existing business model has been copied, made irrelevant by environmental events or is otherwise no longer germane to customers, new business models have the opportunity to flourish. It is difficult, however, to plan analytically for which new models will supplant old ones, since so many of the variables relevant to their success are unknown at the outset. This brings us to the next issue - the centrality of experimentation in discovering new models.
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Most business models are conceived within the boundaries of a particular set of constraints. As new technologies and other shifts relax constraints or impose different ones, the opportunities for new models (and the threats to existing ones) increase. Typically, new models emerge when a constraint is lifted, and old ones often come under pressure when one emerges."

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Este último sublinhado faz-me recordar aquela citação, a vida na Natureza não pensa, tem tem vontade teleológica, a vida na Natureza evolui fugindo, ou contornando as restrições.

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Nós, humanos, pensamos, temos vontade teleológica... mas temos ferramentas incompletas e imperfeitas para perceber o mundo na sua totalidade. Nós estamos no mundo mas não vemos o mundo, vemos a nossa interpretação, o nosso modelo do mundo.