Legacy companies fail because they compete only against familiar rivals and react to technology instead of leading it. Leaders must treat strategy as provisional and rediscover their founding purpose, defining themselves by the problem they solve rather than their current product category.
Chapters
So the struggle with legacy organizations is 2 things, 2 big things. One is they view their competition only as the companies they're familiar with, the people who do what they do, right? So they don't look anywhere else. And same with technology. They're usually reactive to technology, right? Mm-hmm. And the second thing is the people who lead legacy organizations, not always, But they came up when the business worked one way, and now the business is going to work a different way. The problem is, is what got them here won't get them there. And so very often they double down on old business models, not because they're right, it's because they're familiar. Right. And so leaders of legacy organizations who are most capable of leading older organizations into the future Are comfortable with discomfort, are comfortable with risk and experimentation, that everything is written in pencil, and comfortable with putting more— not necessarily younger, but sometimes, not necessarily younger— but people who may have a vision to do it differently, even if it's unfamiliar to me. Right. But the other question is, is how else can you bring your vision to life? So if you define yourself as a media company, then you can only do media, right? But why were you founded? What was the vision when— if you go back to your roots? Because a why, a purpose, a cause, is fundamentally an origin story. What was so important? What was the opportunity that was so lacking? What was the problem that people were facing that 100 years ago your founders said, we're going to risk the chance of overwhelming failure to do this, that it was so important? And when you're at your natural best, what is the vision that you're pursuing that has nothing to do with your product? What kind of world are you trying to build? What are you trying to give to people? Don't tell me entertainment. Don't tell me media. That's every entertainment company. That's every media company. That's the commodity.
Mm-hmm.
But what is something that you believe in? What is the bigger reason, other than your product, that you're in business, and what are new ways Mm-hmm. What are the innovative ways that you can bring that to life? That's where the opportunities lie. And that's much harder for your legacy and your new competitors to play in that playing field because it's your vision.
