Look at the cars, not at the streetlight
“Hell, there are no rules here—we’re trying to accomplish something.” - Thomas A. Edison
I often jaywalk when I’m in a hurry because eliminating the wait gets me where I’m going faster. The key to not getting run over, of course, is understanding the rules of streetlights—why they exist, what they’re meant to accomplish, and how exactly they accomplish it. Once I know that, I can decide intelligently when the rules can be broken to my benefit and with minimal risk.
When I do follow the rules and cross on green, I look around for cars as if there were no streetlights. After all, others might break the rules even while I follow them. By identifying rule breakers early and assessing the threat they pose, I can make an intelligent decision about my own actions.
In business, breaking rules can enable a company to leap ahead of rivals. Companies that can trade in the industry standard for a completely new approach can achieve wildly better results than competitors. To do so, you must first understand the rules or the current best practices and industry standards—when they’re useful, what they enable companies to accomplish, and when they needn’t apply.
In Blue Ocean Strategy, W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne present a compelling case and some great frameworks for rule breaking. They teach companies to examine industry assumptions and create completely new models for delivering value, thus, ignoring and disrupting the industry’s status quo.1 The rules in this book have been proven effective by leading companies, but represent practices that have yet to be adopted by the vast majority of B2B vendors. They represent a break in the rules followed by most companies selling enterprise technology.
There are two ways to use these rules—put them into practice or find ways to break them. Either way, focus on the desired outcomes for your company and your customers rather than on incremental improvement to well-established practices. Remember, whether your trip is down a city street or through a complex business plan, look at the cars, not at the streetlight. A streetlight has yet to run over anyone.