History is littered with examples that convincingly make the case that a battle on two fronts can never be won.
Our business literature is similarly littered with examples of business failure brought on by the competing demands of too many markets calling on a common set of resources. The metaphor of war is routinely used in business literature, I have used it myself many times. Phrases like ‘the high ground’, ‘resource mobilisation and concentration’, ‘overwhelming force” and so on.
How odd then to find myself saying that success absolutely relies on being effective on two fronts at the same time.
Those fronts are not different enemies, or geographic locations, distribution channels, customer groups, or any of the other regularly used differentiators, but they can be all of them.
The two fronts are ‘attack’ and ‘defence’.
The disciplines used to assemble and deploy scarce resources to take advantage of opportunities, look for new products, and outflank the opposition whilst defending your home ground are common to all situations.
Resources are limited, opportunities to use them are not.
How many successful football teams have you seen that cannot both attack and defend? The really good ones swing from one to the other, and back again seamlessly, without a loss of position or momentum. Each player knowing their role in any given situation, understanding how that role contributes to the overall outcome of the play in progress, and ultimately to the score at the end of the game.
The best I have seen at this in recent times is the Melbourne Storm rugby league team. Irrespective of personnel on the field, every player knows his role in both attack and defence, and swings seamlessly between them in concert with every other player on the field.
It is the same in commercial life.
The imperative to grow also means that the home base, the source of the cash today, is effectively defended even as it evolves to deliver cash tomorrow.
I am constantly reminded of Charles Darwin’s observation that ‘it is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, it is the one most adaptable to change’
How good is your organisation in this tug of war operating on two fronts?
