Do you remember the story of David and Goliath? The little kid David is given little or no chance to defeat the monster, Goliath. And, armed with nothing but a sling, David expertly lands a rock right between the eyes of Goliath and wins the day.
It’s a story that has been repeated many times throughout history – Google displacing Yahoo, Walmart obliterating Sears and K-Mart, and Tesla / Elon Musk taking on the global auto industry. All were upstarts that took on much bigger rivals and won.
The same scenario is playing out right now, live on TV between Ukraine’s scrappy leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and the smug, conniving leader of Russia, Vladimir Putin.
Russia went into the conflict with more munitions, more men, and more… well… everything. Russia was expected to roll over all of Ukraine in 48 hours.
Yet here we are, just over a month into the conflict and Russia bogged down, being pushed back, suffering horrendous losses, and generally speaking – looking like a disorganized group of rank amateurs.
By comparison, Ukraine's forces are working smart, using guerrilla tactics to stall Russia’s advance, forcing them to take big losses for every inch of Ukrainian soil.
In short – David is punishing Goliath.
The question for you should be – am I running my business like Volodymyr Zelenskyy? Or am I running it like Vladimir Putin?
If you’re being lean and mean, capitalizing on every opportunity, making something out of nothing, and extolling your staff to perform “miracle after miracle”, you’re a Zelenskyy.
But…
If your company is large and fat, sends a bunch of flowery reports and over-optimistic assessments to management, continually misses targets and objectives, and generally speaking embarrasses itself at every opportunity… Well, I hate to say it but you’re a Putin.
I’m guessing that the reality is that you’re somewhere in the middle. Like Germany. Just outside the actual battle for business. Things are good. With nothing to worry about until…
There’s something to worry about.
And this is actually the most dangerous place to be – as Germany is finding out.
When you’re firmly in the middle, you don’t have the advantage of being the biggest bully on the block. When you’re Goliath (Putin), you can probably use your size to get pretty much anything you want and there’s not going to be much anyone can do about it unless…
They can transition to become a scrappy, agile David (Zelenskyy).
The key is to make the decision about which way you see your business in the future because although the middle might be comfortable, you need to pick a direction, then work diligently towards achieving it.
We would love to be your partner in strategically choosing your direction. Let's have a chat.
