To Pivot or Press On, part one -- Where's Your Fixed Point?

Welcome to March Madness! No; not the DTs we're experiencing this primary season. (Whether that's a good thing, you decide.) I'm talking about the NCAA tournaments. In both contexts, we hear about pivoting. Pivoting from stirring up powerful responses in one's base to crafting a message that will win the general election. Receiving the ball in the low post, turning, faking, and then going up strong to the rim. With one foot planted (physically, politically, strategically), we move with skill and confidence to gain an advantage.

The Lean Startup Method advocates lots of experimentation with real customers in order to test strategic assumptions, verify value proposition and service/market fit, and establish engines for growth. Build, Measure, Learn, PIVOT or Press On ... Repeat. That’s the drill. (See Ries, "The Lean Startup" and Gelobter, "Lean Startups for Social Change".)

Ted Ladd, in his recent HBR article, “The Limits of the Lean Startup Method,” singles out strategy as the critical component that keeps us from getting trapped in never-ending piloting and so never getting to success: "While the lean approach can be effective, having a strong strategy is more important than conducting a tremendous number of market tests.”

Ladd makes a great point. Fruitful methodologies have fatal weaknesses when pressed too far. There should be a limit to pivoting if we want to avoid a paralyzing lack of bold confidence in our strategic core. In b-ball, if you're closely guarded and all you do is pivot, after five seconds the ref will call a jump ball. If you move your pivot foot, it's traveling. For the candidate, if you pivot too much, you may lose the loyalists AND be called "flip-flopper."

I want to push back on Ladd a bit. We need to adjust strategy as we go, often significantly. So where do we plant our pivot foot? I suggest it's not strategy alone. Most important is staying true to your organization's Great Purpose: your "Why? So What?"

Pivoting to Part 2...