I often hear people complaining that America’s manufacturing base, which has been the bedrock of our nation’s prosperity, is dying and permanently putting an end to millions of jobs. Factories are shutting down, and jobs are being outsourced, never to return. Many are depressed about that. But I see it another way. The notion of lost opportunity could mean a lack of imagination. A lack of business innovation.
Opportunity isn’t the domain of one industry or another. It’s about recognizing a need. I believe that if we can catch every opportunity, identify every need in this country, and figure out solutions to those needs, we could probably create 20,000 new companies a year. In other words, if we think of ourselves as problem solvers and business innovators, we will succeed.
A Business Innovation Lesson from IBM
Looking around, we see that some old corporations saved themselves by reinvention. In his book, Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance? Leading a Great Enterprise through Dramatic Change, Lou Gerstner writes about turning around IBM. In the early 1990s, IBM was a lumbering giant that wasn’t keeping pace with the new, more nimble technology companies. So it dared to completely change its model. As Gerstner put it, “Who says elephants can’t dance?” IBM showed that even the largest companies can change. But the best new companies and individuals who lead them are those that incorporate change into their fundamental model. Apple is probably the best example of that. It started out building desktop computers, but its business model is to keep recognizing new needs and meeting them. No one thinks of Apple as just a computer company anymore.
Some of America’s most iconic companies are struggling for survival, and the key will be their ability to recognize and grab new opportunities—because if they don’t, others will. These include some of the biggest and brightest, such as McDonald’s and Ford Motor Company. A few years back, everyone thought America’s auto industry was dead. But then Ford brought in Alan Mulally—not a “car guy” but an airline industry executive—and he turned the company around. He could shake things up because he wasn’t stuck in conventional thinking.
