Be Authentic

Business history is littered with a lot of remains of companies who failed to see that being complacent with their advantage can potentially spell downfall for them. Some may have even become arrogant about their strength and have caused them to be blindsided by the agility of a competitor who eventually disrupted them.

One of the five principles of the Davidic Growth Paradigm is Be Authentic. Authenticity here refers to that quality of being cognizant of one's strengths and weaknesses. Not just recognizing them but taking steps to capitalize on them to their advantage. This also means not being too complacent about one's advantages or strengths. This may often lead to becoming arrogant about them and eventually lead to one's downfall just like Goliath in the story of David and Goliath, which inspired the Davidic Growth Paradigm.?

This is the mindset around which the whole Davidic Growth Paradigm revolves. It is a mindset of preempting advantages from becoming liabilities and reframing disadvantages to become opportunities. Part of that mindset building is being authentic.

In my article The Davidic Growth Mindset, I talked about how Blockbuster suffered the consequences of not seeing the writing on the wall. When Netflix was having trouble and approached Blockbuster asking to buy them out, they were met with incredulity and maybe even bordering on disdain. Here's an interesting take on the meeting that happened between Blockbuster and Netflix from Netflix's co-founder and first CEO himself, Marc Randolph:

Blockbuster dismissed the threat of competition from Netflix because they felt invincible with their comparative business size. But as we all know by now, Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy in 2010 while Netflix grew to become the multi-billion dollar business that it is now.?

When one looks at the articles written about why mobile phone giant Nokia faltered and lost its market leadership, one of the reasons cited is that they overestimated their strength. They became too confident about their brand equity that they slid into a state of dangerous complacency. There were some glaring lapses in the quality of their subsequent products vis-à-vis the developments that were happening in the market. Nokia thought that their brand value and their customers' perception of their brand can overcome their mistakes.

Kodak is another classic example altogether. Their analog camera empire was shattered and shuttered by the advent and eventual dominance of digital photography. What is ironic is that the digital camera was invented in 1975 by Kodak's own engineer, Steven Sasson. According to stories that relate the tale of Kodak's demise, Kodak did not believe that the digital camera would overtake their supremacy in analog photography. At the time the digital camera was invented, Sasson's invention had a resolution of only 100x100 pixels. Kodak's management thought that with their high resolution film technology, it would take a long time for digital cameras to catch up. But this is where they overestimated their advantage and became complacent about their strength. They were thinking of digital photography's growth in linear terms. Even in later times when their own researchers were showing the exponential potential of digital technology, they failed to pivot, perhaps largely because they were already heavily invested in their own development of film technology.

If you want to know more about Kodak's eventual bankruptcy, Forbes has an expansive article on How Kodak Failed.

The integration of the digital camera into the smartphone was the final nail in Kodak's coffin. It placed high resolution photography in the hands of just about anybody without the accompanying costs and the hassle of the old film-based cameras. And if you're one who has the means to go for the expensive digital cameras, you can have one that captures images in a 400Megapixel resolution using a multi-shot capability. That's 400 million pixels!

As the Davidic Growth Paradigm advocates, businesses should always be on their toes in their quest to be authentic in their appreciation of their strengths and weaknesses. They should consistently strive to have a Davidic Growth mindset of preempting advantages from becoming liabilities and reframing disadvantages to become opportunities. With this, they will be well on their way to become adroit, agile, and adaptable, the three hallmarks of businesses that will dominate the digital economy.

*Cover image by 0fjd125gk87 from Pixabay.

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