In the poem “O Me! O Life!” Walt Whitman, the American poet and essayist, reflects on the trials and tribulations that define the human experience. “What good amid these, O me! O life?” he asks. His answer—that all of us, individually and collectively, may contribute a verse to the powerful play that is life—has never left us.
Life has its challenges and tribulations, no doubt. But it is not beyond our ability to shape. By our very existence, we all are able to contribute a verse and, in doing so, influence life’s course, and maybe even its beauty, if only by an inch.
What will your verse be? What will ours? We have never stopped asking ourselves this question. What do we want to stand for? What narrative arc do we want to focus our efforts on in the hopes of adding a small verse to the powerful play that is life that can help our world to advance?
For us, as business scholars, the world we aspired to help advance wasn’t one defined by competing and dividing up markets or the globe, where one’s gain comes at the expense of others. Competition exists, and win-lose scenarios abound, but they weren’t what captured our imaginations, nor what we believed our world needed more of. What we admired, what inspired us, were the organizations and individuals that went beyond competing to create new frontiers of opportunity, growth, and jobs, where success was not about dividing up an existing, often shrinking pie, but about creating a larger economic pie for all—what we refer to as blue oceans. Blue oceans are less about disruption and more about nondisruptive creation, where one’s gain doesn’t have to come at the expense of others.
But how do you translate aspiration into action, intention into reality?
We need a road map that can shift our perspective and free our imaginations, allowing us to suspend belief in the limits of today so we can see and create the possibilities of tomorrow. And for that we need to inspire confidence in ourselves and in our people because, although we all are replete with creative energy and resilience, at our core, most of us are also incredibly tender and vulnerable. Without the confidence to act, few will venture down a new path, no matter how clear the road map. We aspire to make a difference, yet at the same time fear we cannot. Confidence is that magical quality that allows us to transcend the quiet self-doubts that tug at us. It shows us the emotional way forward by allowing us to believe in ourselves and trust the process.
The book you are holding in your hands is our answer to this challenge. It is based on our nearly 30-year research journey to the blue ocean in which we studied organizations large and small, for-profit, nonprofit, and governments that moved beyond competing in existing crowded markets—what we think of as red oceans—to new heights of confidence, market creation, and growth. What we learned in studying those who succeeded in making this shift as well as those who failed is that for any process to work, it must acknowledge our doubts and build our confidence as much as unlock people’s requisite creativity with proven steps.
In Blue Ocean Shift, people and our human spirit are put on an equal plane with a tested process and market-creating tools to move you, your team, and your organization from red to blue oceans in a way that people own and drive the process to succeed. It provides a step-by-step guide anyone can follow with battle-tested lessons learned from the field on what works, what doesn’t, and how to avoid potential pitfalls along the way.
We made our choice of what verse we want to bring to the world. We firmly believe that we all are capable of creating new frontiers and verses of our own. As Nelson Mandela once noted, “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” We hope that this book can help you make yours.