Chapter 5: Using Momentum and Timing

The Art of ‘Ware [version 2.0] by Bruce F. Webster

[Copyright (c) 1995, 2008 by Bruce F. Webster. All rights reserved. Last updated: 04/30/08]

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Something about the technology industries brings out superlative efforts, exemplified by the legendary T-shirts of the original Apple Macintosh development team back in the early 1980s: “Working 90 hours a week and lovin’ it!” I’ve been there myself: on two different development projects, a decade apart, I had weeks where I put in over 100 hours, sometimes working 40 hours at a stretch.

But the effort this chapter focuses on is a broader, more profound type: that which makes a company push through all obstacles, bringing success after success. Circumstances align, things fall into place, and everyone is suddenly talking about — and better yet — buying your product.

In his fifth chapter, Sun Tzu uses various metaphors to represent the energy of troops in combat: a rushing torrent, a crossbow at the moment of release, a larger boulder dropping down a mountain. Those same images apply today.

There should be few differences between running a small company and running a large one; it’s a matter of organizing into divisions and of establishing proper communications and procedures.

We often excuse certain behaviors and practiced because of the company size. In a small company, we are tempted to be less than rigorous with finances and professional standards. In a large company, we often substitute policy manuals for leadership and politics for good management, and thus let communication gaps widen. The goal is to merge the professionalism of a large company with the innovation and flexibility of a small one. It’s not easy.

To hold off competitors without losing market share requires use of both regular and unorthodox techniques.

Regular techniques are the solid principles of running a business. These include proper accounting practices and controls; adherence to local, state, and federal tax and labor laws; codified hiring, promotion, and dismissal guidelines; a company policy manual; standard management techniques, including engineering and project management; classic marketing approaches; and so on.

Unorthodox techniques are the innovative efforts that give you an edge. These can include: company organization; work environment; compensation incentives; creative market strategy; product architecture; development techniques and tools; and so on.

Regular techniques will help prevent failure, but unorthodox techniques are needed to achieve success.

Many start-ups fail, or at least stumble, because they don’t play attention to regular techniques. This happens for any number of reasons: lack of experience or understanding, the casual nature of a small company, time pressures to raise money and/or complete development, or just a feeling that “we don’t need all that stuff.” But a failure to attend to these issues can cause serious financial, legal, and organizational problems down the road. Companies of all sizes can have problems with the regular techniques of engineering and project management, marketing, and other product-related issues; this is where many larger companies fail, even when they’re handling the other details correctly.

In a similar fashion, it’s the small companies, especially start-ups, which are most likely to adopt unorthodox techniques. This is because of the lack of bureaucracy and politics; there is lower risk and higher potential rewards for doing things differently. In larger companies, management tends to resist or squash unorthodox techniques out of fear of losing control if things do work, or of looking bad if they don’t. There’s also the management mindset that says, “If I let this group do this, then soon other groups will want to do things other ways, and everything will be chaotic.” That is precisely why innovation has a hard time thriving in large organizations.

Of course, most (though certainly not all) companies beyond a certain size handle the regular techniques well, so it’s precisely the unorthodox techniques that become the differentiation, the edge your company has over your rivals.

If you’re able to encourage and exploit unorthodox techniques, you’ll find you have a constant source of ideas, tactics, and products.

Regular techniques strengthen the company’s infrastructure, but they also make you more predictable and tend to discourage creativity. It is the unorthodox techniques that break up old ways of thinking and that stimulate new thoughts and new efforts, giving you new insights into what customers might buy and offering an edge on the competition.

In competition, there are only the regular techniques and the unorthodox techniques; still, there are many, many different ways of applying them.

The regular techniques are well known and have largely withstood the test of time. The unorthodox techniques come and go and are often heralded as the Next Great Idea, getting on the cover of Forbes, Business 2.0, or even Wired. Past examples have included concepts such as just-in-time manufacturing, total quality management, object-oriented development, virtual corporations, horizontal corporations, disintermediation, and so on. Those concepts that prove successful slowly become regular techniques; the others are left behind.

When it comes right down to it, though, there are only so many approaches to running a business, developing a product, and marketing it to customers. What varies is the combination of factors, and what is rare is the ability to select the right approach for a given situation.

When rushing water is able to tumble boulders, it is because of momentum. When a diving hawk kills its prey with one blow, it is because of precise timing.

Momentum and timing are tremendous assets that exist independently of one another (though they enhance one another).

Momentum refers to the resources, weight, power, and influence and so on that a given company can bring to bear. Large companies naturally have those resources in abundance, though they often have a hard time building momentum, and they can dissipate it with a single misstep. IBM lost the home market forever when it came out with the infamous IBM PCjr back in the mid-80s; Microsoft appears to be threatening to do the same thing with Windows Vista.

Smaller companies can bring a lot of momentum to a given market by focusing and coordinating what resources they do have, and they’re often more nimble at it. But they can usually only do so when the field is clear. Note that small companies and start-ups have been the leaders in the Internet/Web market, and the large technology companies have largely been caught flat-footed.

Timing means just that: coming out with the right product for the right price at the right time. Many of the major product success stories were founded on excellent — if sometimes inadvertent or just plain lucky — timing.

You need to build momentum in the company and its product, and then release it with precision. Building the momentum is like cranking up a crossbow; releasing it is like pulling the trigger.

It is tremendous challenge to get all the divisions of a company to work in synchronization; all too often, they work at cross-purposes. This is particularly true with large companies, but even small ones can be riven with conflicts, strong egos, politics, and turf protection. The CEO’s job is to eliminate friction, promote coordination, build enthusiasm, and release the right product at the right moment aimed in the right direction.

The release may appear to be chaotic, but it is actually well planned; the company may appear to be lurching about, but its product doesn’t fail.

Of course, there’s a big difference between a release that appears to be chaotic and one that actually is.

Organization permits the company to feign confusion; pent-up momentum permits to feign uncertainty; careful market positioning permits it to feign weakness.

Again, the idea is to confuse the competition and make them underestimate you. Only by having excellent control over these factors can you successfully appear weak long enough to fool the competition and beat them in the marketplace.

The challenge, or course, is to do this without leaving the same impression on your customers, your partners, your re-sellers, and the industry in general.

To manipulate competitors, set up a situation into which the competitor is drawn, bait the trap with apparent gains, wait to apply pent-up momentum with precision.

Since success is usually achieved by lack of direct competition, the highest for of manipulation is to keep your competitors out of your intended market.

The next highest form is to lure them into a particular product position, then counter with a different position against which they cannot successfully compete. This is a bit like tennis: keep drawing your opponent to one side of the court, and the moment he or she over-commits, smash the ball to the far side.

Set up the conditions of success for the company, rather than expecting the employees to do it on their own. Use the employees according to their individual talents and skills.

Contrary to expectations, you don’t achieve success by bringing a lot of good people together, giving them a good idea, then standing back. It takes tremendous skill on the part of the CEO to create and maintain the conditions that lead to success. There are various forces that will seek to block that success; your job is to identify them and use the regular and unorthodox techniques to overcome them.

Using your employees is like rolling rocks down a slope. If the rocks are square or if the ground is level, then the rocks stay still. If the rocks are round, and the ground is steep and high, then the rocks move with tremendous force. This is momentum.

The slope of the ground represents the momentum created in the company by the CEO. The smoothness of the stones represents the skills of the managers and employees, as well as the lack of friction between them. To build momentum, you must have both factors: slope and smoothness.

Combining regular techniques with unorthodox ones, coordinating momentum with timing, appearing disorganized while following a detailed plan — these require leadership, intelligence, and effort at every level, but most critically at the top. For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?
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[Copyright (c) 1995, 2008 by Bruce F. Webster. All rights reserved.]