???????? The "low hanging fruits" or the dangerous strategic vacuity

Who's not been in a seminar, an executive committee or a consultant's presentation where one of the main recommendations was to go after "low-hanging fruits" ?

A true buzzword since the mid-2000's, the "low-hanging fruits" have become a staple of large and mid-size corporations' action plans.

With its equivalent, the "quick-wins", it has become one of the most appalling symptoms of the vacuity of strategic thinking in businesses.

The concept is indeed all but revolutionary : start by picking the fruits that are on the lower branches of the tree and therefore easy to reach. "How could I not have figured that out earlier", says the lobotomized team leader when reading slide number 189 of the "Win 2025" seminar.

A 4-year old, even facing difficulties with the immensely challenging kindergarten curriculum, has generally already mastered the competency of catching first what's under his nose.

No need to be an agronomist either to know that the best fruits - bigger, more juicy, riper - and the most numerous are to be found on top of the tree, where they are exposed to the sun.

So how could such a trivial idea become a pillar of the so-called "strategies" of many firms ?

Precisely because it is not a strategy.

The quest for "low-hanging fruits" is to strategic thinking what the White House tweets are to intelligence : an insult.

Yet in a world dominated by the pursuit of quick profit, the least effort and immediate gratification, the "low-hanging fruit" is the classic weapon of mass imposture.

By using it, as a manager :

1/ I reaffirm my primacy and my domination over you, insignificant beings in the lower levels of the hierarchy, by shoving your nose in what you ought to have seen before (the sagging fruits there, right in front of you, stupid);

2/ I scrupulously avoid making any choice and taking any potentially unpopular decision with uncertain results. Nothing is more consensual than an injunction to take the easiest and quickest path;

3/ I am buying myself some peace by guaranteeing my superiors (and/or shareholders and/or bankers) immediate and visible results.

Thanks to the growing difficulty for managers to assert their authority and make complex decisions, the "low-hanging fruit" has acquired a top position in the panoply of fake strategic choices.

Indeed, what better way is there to avoid the true issues that matter in a firm than to concentrate all efforts on easy wins ?

Often, alas, the "low-hanging fruits" are only the visible symptom of the managers' "low-hanging balls"...

In theory the higher levels of management (Executive Committees and other assemblies of wise folks) should be the guardians of a true strategy geared precisely towards harvesting the best and most numerous fruits through long term investment and efforts, allowing a structural improvement of the organization and its capabilities.

But in the real world most business leaders are only here for a brief period of time, which is often incompatible with the deployment of large efforts that will only yield results in the long run.

Let's take the example of a distribution network. There are generally many opportunities to obtain quick gains by sacrificing the mid and long term : closing non immediately profitable stores, reducing inventory levels, focusing on core activities that are contributing the most, cutting through or mutualizing support services, etc...

If the CEO or Network Director has a 3-4 year horizon in his job, it will almost certainly be the winning tactic to get him his bonus and boost his career (within the same group or elsewhere). Will the distribution network be in a better position to face the future ? Absolutely not. Worse, it will have weakened it capacity to grow and put it in danger through a fixation on short-term results vs true strategic choices and investments for tomorrow.

In face of this obvious deviance, one would think that the countless consulting firms that revolve around groups would safeguard the intrinsic interest of the company and counterbalance the opportunism of ephemeral managers.

It would unfortunately only be a mark of naivety as we all know that consultants are hired precisely by those same mercenary managers !

Which consultant - in particular those employed by the largest consulting firms - would dare point his finger at the saddening stratagem used by their client to conceal their strategic inanity ?

Barring a few exceptions, the role of consulting firms is not to find solutions. They are merely hired to justify towards organizations the decisions already taken by those who pay them (the organizations and the consultants).

So how can we resist this insidious drift and give a chance to our companies to make the right - and difficult - calls for the future, instead of endlessly repeating the same soft and consensual non-choices ?

I will propose three avenues, which naturally are far from being the only solutions, but which I hope will allow to open the debate :

1/ Foster family-owned business, or at least "multi-individual" ownership. A company owned by a limited number of clearly identified individuals with a long investment horizon is by nature a lot less likely to fall in the trap of short-termism and strategic nonsense;

2/ Hire top managers whose primary driver is not financial gain or career progression, but rather taking part in a human adventure and in the building of a company in which they will leave their own personal print.

This has become so rare that I realize when writing these lines that it must appear naive, almost wishful thinking. But I can testify to the fact that these atypical profiles do exist. There are even tools to identify them (more on this in a future article -- "stay tuned" !);

3/ Use independent consultants whose business model does not rely on recurring and cash-heavy deals with large established corporations.

Only a consultant who is fully independent, unbiased, even irreverent, will be in a position to prevent the manager to founder - often in spite of and unbeknownst to himself - into easiness, and to stay focused on the long term interests of his company.

Of course these three avenues (that can naturally work in conjunction with one another) aren't a guarantee of success. It doesn't mean either that it is not desirable from time to time to resort to the tactic of delivering quick returns by picking the "low-hanging fruits". It may be necessary sometimes in order to reassure investors or motivate teams.

But it is vital to clearly distinguish tactics from strategies and to not let oneself be distracted or fooled by the perspective of easy gains.

Jean-Luc Ayme has 25 years of experience as a top manager and CEO in large and medium size companies. He recently changed life in order to find new meaning and happily plays the role of irreverent sparring-partner for business professionals.

Contact: [email protected]