A few years ago whilst traveling through Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris I saw a billboard ad for BNP Paribas bank that really struck me.
It was one sentence in a giant white font on a green background (as you can see, it made quite an impression on me!).
It simply said …
“By the time you master the game the rules have changed.”
I stood for a moment looking at the poster. And then spent most of my flight reflecting on that short sentence.
I thought about how many CEOs are simply playing along with their competitors as if they are all referring to some kind of unwritten rule book.
Until one day, as is inevitably the case, the market eventually gets disrupted by some social or economic change and then the rule book gets torn up and there is a scramble to innovate.
There have been many examples of that recently because of the pandemic.
In fact, whole industries have changed their business models, distribution processes and working practices.
However, in many instances, these changes have simply been an acceleration of an evolution that was taking place anyway.
But I wonder, how many of these innovations could have been made anyway, without being catalyzed by the pandemic.
Any business that had done that would have gained a huge competitive head start and effectively been writing the rulebook that everyone else would have had to play by.
So, what could you be doing to write your industry’s book?