You will fade if you fail to change fast enough.

The single biggest differentiator for sustained performance and success is not the ability to master a great product or service now, it is to consider how Salesforce and Adobe have navigated the transition from past to future by demonstrating focus and tenacity in getting it done. As the Financial Times points out this morning, this is what happens when you "fail to change fast enough."

Salesforce famously has famously acquired over 50 companies in recent years in a quest to dominate the cloud CRM space. And clearly they are THE dominant player in CRM. In his wide-ranging conversation at Goldman Sachs (watch it here) Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff talked about how the culture of the target company is now a major point in concluding a deal. "...I didn't look at culture, I didn't look at Glassdoor ratings ... when you're going to buy a company you're not just buying the technology and the customers, you're buying the customers.  

"CEOs need to wake up" - Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff

The fact is that technology and cool innovative products are fine - but only up to a point. Technology doesn't make strategic decisions (yet.) Technology alone doesn't make your employees feel good (it can make them feel better though.) Technology isn't entirely the last point of escalation for customer feedback (just think of those companies where it is - and how people detest not reaching a real person.)

The key to changing fast enough is the right blend of technology and strategy and a very keen focus on the people dimension. CTOs and their teams often command vast physical and digital landscapes that command huge investment resources. Strategy sounds sexy and cool and similarly is afforded investment budgets for deals and ventures and more that are (sometimes) the right execution decision. But HOW this all gets pulled together is through that dimension that we cannot code and predict with certainty. It is the people dimension.

Focus more on people and you're likely not going to get sucked into a bureaucratic morass that cannot pivot, isn't able to change, and finds itself fading. Granted SAP and Oracle won't be going away soon, but it has to be just a bit distressing for the leadership to realize that they are leading a company that cannot get out of their own way. And seeing the ticker symbols for Adobe and Salesforce outpacing them on the race to win.

My conclusion is that culture is the key. It cannot be copied (technology can be - it can even be stolen.) Try stealing a culture. Or trying to get the blueprint of a winning company's culture and "rolling it out." Patty McCord and her team at Netflix famously put the Netflix Culture Deck out for the world to see in 2009 - and despite having a blueprint for a winning culture we still had Uber. And WeWork. And Away. Great products. Great resources. Clearly sub-par cultures.

If you want to win, focus on #CULTURE.

I'm curious to hear about your experience - please get in touch and let's start a conversation.

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I work with teams to make better decisions in their desire to perform differently with speed and scale. Reach me at [email protected]