We’ve looked at making it easier for people to give us money, and we’ve also explored starting a fast follower business and seeking success in owning a particular application. Another option is to simply rejig your business model in a way that makes it easier for people to give you money. That sounds very tempting, but it will require some work. It will, however, be much easier than completely changing your business and less risky than betting everything on a single application or path to market.

The 3D printed Beluga sailing at Monte Argentario, Italy, this summer. Image courtesy of Caracol.

When I say rejigging your business model I mean to “change and improve the arrangement of something.” To rejig is to take what you have, redefine it, and rearrange it in such a way as to build a more competitive business. Now, you may be forgiven for thinking that companies do this all the time, and some do. Good businesses — those that are versatile, competitive, and hungry — do this a lot. But, staid, established ones do not. Those led by a personality, rather than a team, generally do not either.

There are a lot of mini-Steve Jobses out there who are essentially running businesses on instinct, the latest management fads, or as a grudge match against the world, no logic allowed. If you think you’re a super genius who needs no help, it’s not a question of if you’ll fail.

There are a lot of businesses sleepwalking from kickoff to kickoff, stuck in a cycle of mediocrity. There are many others that are scarcely allowed to breathe while waves of reorganization sweep over them. Emphatically, rejigging is not about reorganization, firing people, the mythical beast known as synergy, or cutting costs willy-nilly. Many companies are a combination of mediocrity cycles and sharp turns toward the latest CEO initiative, lurching in every which way, interspersed with moments of calm. Others resemble medieval fiefdoms, and Game of Thrones by PowerPoint, expending more energy competing within than outside. What there aren’t many of are businesses that get better at being businesses.

Being a Better Business

Yes, you have training, and yes, you’re all working hard. You’re motivated, maybe, and you have plans and initiatives. But, you’re probably a business with lots of initiatives but no initiative. Innovations managers, but no innovation. And you have meetings where people have ideas, and others where people come up with ways to improve. But, let’s be honest here, nearly no businesses are actually coherently working at being better at business or becoming better at the art and skill of being a business. The problem is partly because a lot of the news and business press is spending time on super personalities and their genius while lauding businesses that are “blowing up,” only to later deflate like party balloons at a third-grade birthday party no one from the class attended. We’re essentially focusing all of our time lauding people who have benefited from survivorship bias, and we’re learning the wrong lessons from their ascent. By discounting luck and right time and place timings, we’re copying behavior from some that we’re successful before, without that behavior having contributed meaningfully to their success.

It’s a bit like kids and smoking. They’re copying adult behavior because it is something forbidden to them at a time when they are struggling to define themselves both against and within the world. One clear thing adults do and children don’t is smoke. So they smoke, inspiring their peers to do the same. With each breath, they expect wisdom, adoration, and respect to descend on them like snowfall. A lot of companies are spending an awful lot of money and time smoking. On top of that, many think that they have a strategy when, in truth, they don’t; they have an idea or, at best, a plan.

So what is rejigging your business and why should you do it?

Rejigging

In my mind, the art and craft of rejigging comes around through a playful reimagination of the world as it could be. Through having an honest look at what you are good at, what you can do, what you can do better, and what you actually have, we can gain a better understanding of our circumstances. If we’re brutally honest, we can perhaps not find aspirational goals divorced from reality, but rather achievable ones that we work towards. We’re not focused on getting rid of these players and bringing in new ones like a Premier League coach. Rather, we’re focused on understanding the players we have, their capabilities, and capacities. We’re focused on trying to gauge how far they could go given the right support. And in that light, we can differentiate between those that must go to grow and those that we need to help us grow. We’re not going to get rid of 8% of headcount because it is a trend. We’re going to find out who makes sense, who can grow to meet new challenges, and who is impeding progress. And if we look at our team, how can we concretely increase their capabilities?

The 3D printed Beluga sailing at Monte Argentario, Italy, this summer. Image courtesy of Caracol.

Given our resources, IP, and capabilities, we’re also concretely able to do this right now. But assuming the course of the market and the deterioration and growth of our things, ideas, and people, we can still meet the future at a certain point. Don’t bother too much about macroeconomics or the state of the world. Ask instead: what is the best we can achieve given our capabilities?

Hermès may occasionally get its demand and supply signals wrong. It may produce the wrong products or open too many or too few stores. But as long as it keeps being Hermès, it will continue to thrive. It should clearly never outsource manufacturing, never compromise on quality, and never deliver subpar experiences or designs. Understand what you are and what you deliver.

Boeing is a prime example. It’s a complex, huge business, but it lost sight of the core quality it needed: to keep planes from falling from the sky through its own fault. Something so basic and obvious was lost amidst management reshuffles and quarterly focus. The everyday can make you lose your soul. Rejigging is not about compromising on core values or changing the actual things you deliver as a business — safe journeys in Boeing’s case — for some fad or short-term financial benefit.

Instead, it’s about carefully examining the business model, like a watchmaker. It’s about honestly assessing failures and capabilities. It’s about spotting ways to improve collectively. It’s about ways of collectively improving and realizing that those things are very different. It’s about going further with what you have. And it’s about seeing how you can turn a cruise ship into parts that behave more like a surfboard. It’s about seeing holistically what you can make better and which key tip-of-the-spear parts desperately need sharpening. But it’s not about general desperation or panic moves for the whole organization. Don’t toss the golf bag or throw away random clubs if the weight becomes unbearable. Instead, look at the clubs you have and look at where you have to improve your swing and your game.