CHAPTER 1
IT’S A GROUND WAR, NOT JUST J UST AN AIR WAR WAR Going Slower Slower to Scale Faster (and ( and Better) Bett er) Later
Listen. Tis is the most important thing that we learned, the one to keep in mind every day i you are bent on spreading excellence to more people people and places: those who master what venture capitalc apitalist Ben Horowitz calls “the black art o scaling a human organization” act as i they are fighting a ground war, not just an air war. In the air wars o World War II, commanders typically ordered pilots to drop bombs or strae some general area in hopes o damaging the enemy. Unortunately, such attacks were woeully inaccurate. Political scientist Robert Pape estimated that, during World War II, “only about 18 percent o U.S. bombs ell within 1,000 eet o their targets, and only 20 percent o British bombs dropped dropped at night ell within with in 5 miles. mi les.”” Even when air strikes stri kes were more accurate, Allied leaders learned that without ground operations—where operations— where soldiers were close to targets, gaining or losing territory a ew yards at a time— victory time— victory was impossible. Even today, when guidance systems ensure that 70 percent o bombs
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all within thirty eet o targets, an air war alone is rarely enough to deeat an enemy. Afer reviewing NAO’s seventy-eightseventy- eight-day day air war in Serbia that was meant to orce Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milošević to ban ethnic cleansing, retired U.S. Air Force General Merrill McPeak concluded, “In a major blunder, the use o ground troops was ruled out rom the beginning.” Similarly, savvy leaders know that just bombarding employees with a quick PowerPoint presentation, a ew days o training, or an inspirational speech won’t cut it i they want to spread some goodness rom the ew to the many. Certainly, there are junctures in every scaling effort when it is wise to choose the easier path or secure a quick qu ick victory. Yet Yet as we dug into case afer a fer case, and a nd study afer study, we saw that every allegedly easy and speedy scaling success turned out to be one we just hadn’t understood very well. Scaling requires grinding it out, and pressing each person, team, group, division, or organization to make one small change afer another in what they believe, eel, or do. Tat is what Claudia Kotchka learned during her seven-year seven- year effort to spread innovation practices at Procter & Gamble. As vice president o design innovation and strategy, Kotchka started with a tiny team and one project and ended with over three hundred innovation experts embedded in dozens o businesses. We asked her the most important lesson that she had gleaned about scaling. Kotchka responded that she was naturally impatient, someone who wanted things done “right now” and as quickly and easily as possible. Tis action orientation served her team well, driving them to make progress each day, day, find savvy savv y shortcuts, and achieve quick wins. But Kotchka explained that her team would have ailed to scale sc ale i this t his penchant or action hadn’t hadn’t been blended with patience and persistence. “My CEO, A. G. Lafley, reminded me how important it was again and again.” Kotchka’s advice is reminiscent o something a McKinsey consultant—a consultant— a veteran o the scaling wars—told wars—told us: When big organizations scale well, they o-
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cus on “moving “moving a thousand t housand people people orward a oot at a time, ti me, rather than tha n moving one person orward orward by a thousand t housand eet.” eet.” Tis kind k ind o discipline is equally important in small and a nd young young organizations. It has been a way o lie or Shannon May and her team since they launched Bridge International Academies, the chain o low-cost low- cost and standardized elementary schools that we described in the Preace. Consider the grueling gauntlet that Bridge created or screening and training new teachers. In early 2012, they hired eight hundred teachers or fify-one fify- one new schools and eighty-three eighty-three existing schools. Tese are tough jobs: students attend school rom 7:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. each weekday and or hal a day on Saturday, and teachers are required to maximize the time that students spend “on task and actively engaged.” A thirtyperson team rom Bridge interviewed ten thousand candidates and gave each a battery o tests: reading, writing, writi ng, and math exams. Te team also had candidates give short speeches and hold oneon-one onone conversations with them to assess their ability to deliver material and interact with wit h students. Tey invited 1,400 1,400 finalist fi nalistss (in (in two batches o 700) to a five-week five-week training camp, where all were paid to learn Bridge’s mindset, skills, and procedures. Te team then selected the t he best 800 80 0 to teach Bridge’s Bridge’s students. Te Bridge team doesn’t just view scaling as the Problem o More. As they expand, their goal isn’t just to maintain the status quo. Te team works day afer day to make their system better. Tey never leave well enough alone. For example, they keep improving the technol tech nologies ogies and content delivered delivered via v ia the phones and “hacked” Nook tablets used to collect money rom parents, pay staff, deliver teaching materials, and monitor student and teacher perormance. May also described a new effort to deliver questions and assignments to teachers that are customized or students in the same class at different ability levels. Tis kind o determination and discipline also defines people who spread excellence rom the bottom or middle o organi organizations. zations.
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In 1991, 1991, Andy Papa graduated rom Stanord, where he had played as a deensive deensive lineman on the ootball ootbal l team or our years. Trough luck and persistence, Papa landed a job on a NASCAR racing raci ng team based in North Carolina, Ca rolina, which included being on the pit pit crew that changed tires, poured in uel, made adjustments, and did quick repairs during races. Papa asked when the crew practiced pit stops. Te answer was they didn’t practice; most worked as mechanics during the week and didn’t have time. A lightbulb went off in Papa’s head: by transerring “the athletic mindset” he had learned in ootball to pit stops, they could get aster and more consistent—a consistent— a big advantage, as the gap between winners and losers is so small in NASCAR races, with less than one second ofen separating the first- and second-place second-place cars. Papa talked his crew into practicing a couple times a week or just twenty or thirty minutes, he started analyzing analy zing film fil m o pit stops, stops, and he tested different techniques (such (such as coiling the air hose in a figure-eight figure- eight shape instead o a circle to reduce tangles). Te crew’s average time dropped rom about twenty-two twentytwo to twenty seconds and, more important, importa nt, the requency o awul pit stops plummeted. Papa eventually took this zeal or the “athletic mindset” to Hendrick Motorsports. He spent years as their “athletic director,” overseeing the pit crews that serve elite drivers including Mark Martin, Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Members o each crew are selected, trained, and coached by Papa and his colleagues, who enorce an exacting regimen o physical training, practice, and learning aimed at making stops aster (about ourteen seconds is the current goal) and more consistent during the thirty-six thirty-six grueling gr ueling races they compete in per year (each (each with six to twelve pit stops). Tis discipline has helped Hendrick win more championships than any NASCAR ownership group in history—including history—including an unprecedented run o five Sprint Cup championshipss by Jimmie championship Jimm ie Johnson between 2006 20 06 and a nd 2010. 2010. Claudia Kotchka, Shannon May, and Andy Papa have traveled
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different paths. But they all have something somethi ng in common, an essential quality or grinding out the ground war and overcoming the inevitable setbacks and nasty surprises. Tese scaling stars have grit. Researcher Angela Duckworth and her colleagues ound that grit “entails working strenuously toward challenges, maintaining effort and interest despite ailure, adversity, and plateaus in progress. Te gritty gritt y individual approaches achievement achievement as a marathon, marat hon, his or her advantage is stamina.” Grit drives people to succeed, especially when they ace daunting and prolonged challenges—a challenges— a hallmark hallma rk o every every scaling scali ng effort. effort.
Scaling Mantras Tis book zeros in on how and where to ocus such perseverance as your organization struggles and strives to scale up excellence. We’ve identified reliable signs that scaling is going well or badly, and we’ve we’ve distilled disti lled these signals signa ls into seven mantras. I you are embarking on a scaling effort, memorize them, teach them to others, and invent ways to keep them firmly in ocus—especially ocus— especially when the going gets rough. 1. Spread Spre ad a Mindset, Not Just a Footprint Footp rint
Tere is a big difference between distributing your banner, logo, or motto as ar and wide as possible versus having a deep and enduring influence in fluence on on how employees employees and customers think, thin k, act, eel, and filter inormation. Scaling unolds with less riction and more consistency when the people propelling it agree on what is right and wrong—and wrong—and on what to pay attention to and what to ignore. Effective scaling sca ling depends on on believing and living a shared mindset throughout your group, division, or organization. Scaling is analogous to a ground war rather than an air war because developing,
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SCALING MANTRAS
1. Spread a mindset, not just a footprint. Running up the t he numbers and putting your logo on as many people and places as possible isn’t enough.
2. Engage all the t he senses. Bolster the mindset you want to spread with supportive sights, sounds, smells, and other subtle cues that people may barely notice, i at all.
3. Link short-term short-term realities rea lities to long-term long-term dreams. Hound yoursel and others with questions about what it it takes to link the never-ending never-ending now to the sweet dreams you hope to realize later.
4. Accelerate accountability. accou ntability. Build in the t he eeling that “I own the t he place and the place owns me.”
5. Fear the clusterfug. Te terrible trio o illusion, impatience, and impatience, and incompetence incompetence are are ever-presen everpresentt risks. Healthy doses o worry and selsel-doubt doubt are antidotes antidot es to these three hallmarks hall marks o scaling clusterugs.
6. Scaling requires both addition and subtraction. Te problem o more is also a problem o less.
7. Slow down to scale faster—and faster— and better—down better—down the road. Lear n when and how to shif gears rom automatic, Learn automatic, mindless, and ast modes o think th inking ing (“System 1”) 1”) to slow, slow, taxing, tax ing, logical, deliberative, and conscious modes (“System 2”); sometimes the best advice is, “Don’t just do something, stand there.”
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spreading, and updating a mindset requires relentless vigilance. It requires stating the t he belies and living the t he behavior, behavior, and then doing so again and again. Tese shared convictions reduce conusion, disagreements, and unnecessary dead ends—and ends— and diminish the chances that excellence will ade as your ootprint expands. Facebook demonstrates what it takes to instill and sustain a mindset even when an organization’s ootprint is spreading like wildfire. Te company’s crazy climb began that legendary night in February 2004 when nineteen-year-old nineteen- year-old Harvard undergraduate Mark Zuckerberg pounded down beers and programmed the crude but captivating first iteration o the site. Facebook amassed over a million users by the end o 2004 and a billion by the end o 2012. Facebook’s uture is impossible to know. Despite stumbles including a botched public offering, some pundits predict it will become more dominant than Apple and Google; others predict that it will wil l flail and a nd ade ade away away like America Online. Whatever Facebook’s ate, the twists and turns o how the company grew that colossal ootprint in the eight short years beore its 2012 public offering are instructive. By slowing down and shunning shortcuts when it came to developing the people who powered their expansion, leaders inused the company with the will, skill, and resilience to move quickly when and where it mattered. We’ve witnessed their ability to sustain this ocus no matter how wild and out o control control the ride became beca me since 2006, when our conversations, interviews, and projects with people at Facebook began. Tey’ve done so despite brutal time pressures and distractions: adding as many as 3 million users per week and enduring intense media scrutiny (most start-ups start-ups aren’t besieged with questions about toppling the Egyptian and Libyan governments), a Hollywood blockbuster that portrayed Zuckerberg in an unflattering light, nasty lawsuits, and withering user revolts—750,000 revolts— 750,000 users objected to the News Feed eature eature in 2006 200 6 and millions mil lions complained about “imeline” in 2012.
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Tis devotion to growing and grooming Facebook’s people happened inormally at first. In the early years, Zuckerberg was jammed together wit with h his emplo employees yees in cramped offices. offices. He He ta talked lked constantly consta ntly about his convictions and why they powered Facebook Facebook’’s strategy—and strategy— and employees watched and worked with him as he lived those belies. Once the company got too big or Zuckerberg to personally influence every employee, it took to more systematic methods, notably “Bootcamp.” Facebook engineers and other product developers are hired afer rounds o grueling interviews to assess their technical skills and cultural fit. But they are not placed in a specific job until six weeks afer coming aboard. Management has a hunch about which wh ich role each new hire hi re will wi ll play. play. Yet Yet the final decision is not made until the end o “Bootcamp,” which is designed and led almost entirely by engineers—not engineers— not the HR staff. During Duri ng Bootcamp, every new hire does small smal l chores or or a dozen or so diverse groups. Chris Cox, Facebook’s thirty-onethirty- one-yearyear-old old vice president o product, emphasizes that Bootca Bootcamp mp isn’t isn’t just or figuring out which role is best or each newcomer. A more crucial aim is to inect each with the Facebook mindset. Bootcamp requires recruits to live Facebook’s most sacred belie: “Move ast and break things.” As Cox puts it, it is one thing to tell new engineers that they can change the code on the Facebook site. It is another thing or them to actually “touch the metal.” He added, “Wee tell them, put your hand on it. Grab it. Now bend it.” “W it.” Cox told us about the t he newcomer whose dad called ca lled to say s ay,, “Tere’s “Tere’s a problem with this drop-down drop-down menu.” He called back the next day: “I fixed it, Dad. Did you see that?” Tat is the Facebook mindset—i mindset— i you want people to move ast and fix things, they’d better eel sae to break some stuff along the way. When it comes to developing the site, going slow and trying to do things perectly is taboo at Facebook. As engineer Sanjeev Singh explained, expla ined, i you keep waiting or people to tell you what to do, don’t don’t ask or help when you get stuck,
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and won’t show others your work until it is perect, “you won’t last long at Facebook.” Bootcamp instills other belies about what is sacred and taboo at Facebook. Engineers are expected to understand the code base, not just the part they tend to each day. Working on many different parts helps newcomers newcomers grasp the t he big picture. picture. Rotating Rotati ng through many groups also sets the expectation that any role they play at Facebook won’t last long. Chris Cox worked as a programmer, a product produ ct designer designer,, a pro project ject manager ma nager,, the t he head o human resources, and the vice president o product during his first six years at the company.. Afer Bootcamp, these belies continue to be reinorced. company Engineer Jason Sobel explained ex plained that t hat Facebook doesn’t doesn’t just tell new engineers that they likely won’t be in any job or long; they live this philosophy via a “nearly mandatory” program called “hacka-month” amonth” where—each where—each year—they year—they are “loaned” to another group or a month. Each newcomer is assigned assig ned a mentor—usual mentor—usually ly an engineer who who isn’t a manager—to manager—to help him or her navigate through Bootcamp. A new “class” o twenty to thirty hires was started roughly every two weeks in 2011—which 2011—which meant that seventy or eighty engineers at a time were pulled away rom their jobs to be mentors. Tis sometimes slowed crucial projects. Facebook’s leaders, including Chris Cox and Chie echnology Officer Mike Schroeper, are convinced that it is worth the cost—that cost— that their enduring success hinges on filling the company with people who live and breathe the right rig ht belies. Bootcamp also helps Facebook scale up talent because it enables mentors to “stick a toe in the management water.” It helps engineers discover i they enjoy mentoring and leading others. And Facebook executives get useul hints about whether employees empl oyees are managemen managementt material. materia l. No single mindset is right or every organization—or organization—or even different parts o the same organization. What is sacred in one
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organization can (and should) be taboo elsewhere. An executive rom sofware firm VMware laughed when Sutton asked i they used the “Move ast and break things” approach. He said it was better or them to embrace the opposite belie, especially in their business unit that develops sofware or nuclear submarines! Or consider secrecy. At Apple, secrecy is revered. When Steve Jobs returned to run the company in 1997, several employees leaked an e-mail e-mail he wrote to the press. He fired them immediately and told everyone why he had done so. Fortune Fortune writer writer Adam Lashinsky reports report s that t hat the one lesson “no Apple Apple employee employee orgets” orgets” during duri ng employee orientation is “Scared Silent.” Newcomers are told that i they reveal revea l Apple secrets—intentionally secrets—intentionally or not—swif not—swif termination will ollow. In contrast, at Mozilla secrecy is largely shunned. Tis open-source opensource sofware firm is best known or its Fireox browser, which is used by over 300 million people and is translated into more than sixty-five sixty-five languages. We ollowed Mozilla as it grew rom twelve employees to more than five hundred. We were oten taken ta ken aback by how open senior executives were about design flaws, competitive threats, mistakes, and internal disagreements. Former CEO John Lilly once told our Stanord class that he was going to abolish perormance evaluations at Mozilla even though his human resources chie disagreed! Tere is another sense in which one size does not fit all. Te best mindsets provide useul guidance, g uidance, but applying applying them t hem to every every case is a recipe or trouble. trouble. Sometimes it is wise to ignore or reverse reverse even your most sacred belies. Secrecy at Mozilla is a good example. John Lilly told us that during “the first ten years o Mozilla’s history all projects, no matter what stage, were essentially open to everyone at the moment o creation. But we learned (the hard way, ofen), that when ideas are nascent, they’re ragile flowers—there flowers—there are many ma ny,, many, many reasons why they’re t hey’re crazy, they won’t work, work, they’re dumb to try.” o protect these ragile ideas rom getting killed off too early by the thousands o active helpers (and crit-
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ics) embedded in Mozilla’s open-source open-source community, management started Mozilla Labs, “which had the explicit direction that they didn’t have to open things up right away. Tis helped a lot, because it meant projects could get a little more definition, a little more momentum, and crazy ideas made it through a little more ofen, which was what we needed.” Finally Final ly,, sustaining sustai ning and a nd constantly improving an organization’ organi zation’ss mindset is like li ke being in a high-maintenance high-maintenance personal relationship. relationship. Constant vigilance is required. Even i you’ve got the best intentions, it is easy to ruin rui n everything. every thing. When W hen people people get smug, smug, operate on autopilot, take shortcuts, and choose the path o least resistance too ofen, they lose sight o the essence o their excellence. In their lust to run up the numbers and plaster their logo on as many people, places, and things as possible, the temptation to accept mediocrity—or mediocrity—or worse—ofen worse—ofen proves irresistible. Starbucks provides a cautionary cautionar y tale. ta le. In 2007 20 07,, Sutton saw firsthand how mediocrity had beset Starbucks during a three-day three- day management seminar that he taught with ellow Stanord aculty Michael Dearing and Perry Klebahn to fify executives in Abu Dhabi. Te seminar was catered by a pair o Starbucks employees, who sat in the back o the room. Te coffee was weak, cold, and tasteless. Te juice smelled oul and tasted rotten. Te sweet rolls were rock hard. And the two t wo employ employees ees spent hal their time ti me slumped over, sound asleep. Starbucks has a huge ootprint. But their once renowned devotion to hiring excellent people and providing first-class first-class products had evaporated as they expanded too ar and too ast. Tis isn’t just our opinion. CEO Howard Schultz lamented Starbucks’ drif toward mediocrity in an internal memo circulated in February 2007—which 2007— which he admitted was genuine afer it was leaked lea ked to the press. Schultz pointed to a string stri ng o decisions that had led to “the watering down o the Starbucks experience” as the company grew rom one thousand to thirteen thousand stores. In his 2011 2011 book, Onward, Schultz digs into how
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the “commoditization “commoditization o the Starbucks experience” led them to lose that “warm neighborhood eeling,” why such “dilution” happened, and what the t he company is doing to “get “get their groove back.” Te key lesson? An organization rarely loses a healthy hea lthy mindset and the resulting excellence all at once. It usually happens via a series o small and seemingly innocent moves that chip away at sacred convictions, eventually transorming t ransorming those t hose belies into holhollow and hypocr hypocritical itical words. 2. Engage All the Senses
Howard Schultz’s memo added that, because Starbucks no longer grinds coffee in stores, they “no longer have the soul o the past” that was once evoked by the sounds o grinders gri nders and smells o reshly ground coffee. So he reintroduced it. Tis lament dovetails with our second mantra. Mindsets are spread and sustained by subtle cues that activate all the senses. Many studies show how stimuli that people don’ don’tt notice, barely notice, or strike them t hem as trivial triv ial can ca n nonetheless have potent effects on how they think and act. Our belies and behaviors are bolstered—and bolstered—and undermined—by undermined—by the colors and kinds o images we see, the sounds we hear, the smells we encounter, the things we taste, and the objects we touch. We are also influenced by the voice tone and acial expressions that accompany accomp any the words people say, say, whether they t hey look us in the eye, their posture, and many more seemingly inconsequential and irrelevant cues in the t he world world around us. Consider what happened when researchers examined the impact o playing French versus German music on wine purchases in a British supermarket. When French accordion music played, customers bought five times more French than German wine. When German oompah music played, customers bought two times more German wine. Customers were affected by the music, even though they didn’t realize it. Smells have similar impacts. Dutch psycholo-
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gists conducted a weird experiment in which, during duri ng eighteen twohour train trips, they inused passenger cars with a citrus-scented citrus- scented cleaning product. Tey gathered and weighed weighed the trash t rash lef by passengers in the scented cars and compared it to the amount o trash in those t hose same cars during duri ng weeks that the cars weren’t weren’t scented. scented. Passengers lef about three times more trash in unscented cars than in scented cars, perhaps because o “the non-conscio non- conscious us priming primi ng o cleaning-related cleaning-r elated motives motives and behaviors. behaviors.”” Tese findings fi ndings are similar si milar to another study where people who smelled a “citrus cleaning clean ing product” tended to list “more cleaning-related cleaning-related activities in their plans or the day and to spill ewer crumbs when munching on a cookie.” Te objects around us also pack a wallop. Psychologist Kathleen Vohs and her colleagues used various “primes” to turn attention to money money— —placing piles o ake money in ront o people and showing them pictures o money. Te researchers then presented people with challenges such as whether they asked or help while struggling to solve unsolvable puzzles or gave help to an (apparently) blind person who accidently dropped a bunch o pencils. Te results are kind o scary. Te money “primes” caused people to be less likely to ask or help, less likely to give others help, more likely to work and play alone, and more likely to put physical distance between themselves and new acquaintances. In the study with the “blind” person, subjects played Monopoly or seven minutes. Regardless o how the game had gone, they were lef with a pile o $4,000 in Monopoly money, $200, or no money at all. Ten an (apparently) blind person walked in and “accidentally” spilled some pencils. Subjects with big piles o money picked up ar ewer pencils off the ground than those t hose with a small smal l pile or no pile. Te money, noticed but not consciously registered, triggered associations about business, wealth, and capitalism, provoking people to become less helpul, more sel-absorbed, sel- absorbed, and more sel-sufficient. sel-sufficient. emperature and touch also influence our belies and actions. For example, a bit o barely noticed warmth or cold can have
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striking effects. Psychologist Lawrence Williams described his sneaky study where participants were randomly chosen to hold cups o hot versus iced coffee: We had a conederate meet participants on the first floor o the psychology building, build ing, and a nd on their way up to the lab, she was holdholding some textbooks and a clipboard, and also a coffee cup that was either hot or iced. And, she just sort o incidentally briefly innocuously asked participants i they wouldn’t mind holding her coffee cup as she jotted down some inormation—the inormation—the time, their participation, their name—and name—and then took the coffee cup back while they were on the elevator and then brought them into the lab. So, participants had no idea that holding that cup was the critical aspect o the t he experiment.
Participants who held the hot coffee rated the person who handed them the t he cup as warm, war m, sociable, and generous. Tose who got iced coffee rated that t hat same person as a s colder, colder, less generous, and more antisocia antiso cial.l. Tose who held hot coffee were more prone prone to buy a gif or a riend than or themselves; those who were handed the cold cup preerred preerred to buy a gif or themselves! Te upshot is that you can bolster a mindset by weaving together subtle, even nearly invisible, cues that engage multiple senses. ake a page rom the designers o Disney theme parks. Karin Kricorian, who leads Disney’s efforts to study guest experiences, told us about dozens o small cues that Disney uses to spread happiness: smells, colors, uniorms, language, and simple guidelines that employees (called “cast members”) apply when they aren a ren’t ’t quite sure what to do. For example, exa mple, when cast members talk to a child, they are taught to kneel down to get closer and come across as less threatening. Kricorian emphasized that, when it comes to small cues, it is especially crucial to spot and remove “dissonant details” that clash with the desired mindset. At Dis-
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neyland, or example, guests should never witness Mickey Mouse talking on a cell phone or Snow White chewing gum. Kricorian’s advice reminded Sutton o a big energy comp company any that he had studs tudied in the 1990s. Senior managers repeatedly expressed rustration ru stration about how difficult it was to get their people to cooperate, share inormation, and take a long-term long-term perspective (rather than ocus on short-term short-term profits). Every executive who registered this complaint had the same desktop screen saver: the company’s current stock price. Tis “dissonant “di ssonant detail” detail ” clashed with the mindset those executives claimed they wanted to spread. 3. Link Short-Term Short-Term Realities to Long-Term Long-Term Dreams
A couple years back, we went to a talk by Bill Campbell at the Stanord Directors’ College, a program or guiding people who serve on the boards o publicly traded firms. Campbell is the most revered director and mentor in Silicon Valley. He serves on the Apple and Intuit boards and is renowned or his role in developing dozens o influential executives, including leaders at Google, Apple, Appl e, and a nd witter. witter. Everyone Everyone calls ca lls Campbell C ampbell “the Coach” C oach” because bec ause he was head coach o the Columbia University ootball team until he was thirty-nine— thirty-nine—beore beore he lef New York to work in Silicon Valley. During the final decade o Steve Jobs’s lie, Campbell and the legendary Apple CEO took a walk—and walk— and had a talk—together talk—together almost every Sunday. When someone at the Directors’ College asked Campbell about the most crucial skill or a senior executive, he said it was the rare ability (which Jobs had in spades) to make sure su re that the short-term short-term stuff gets done and done well, while simultaneously never losing sight o the big picture. Tis is a tricky balance or us human beings. Research by New York University’s Yaacov rope and his colleagues shows that thinking about distant events is good because we ocus on longterm goals—and goals—and it is bad because we manuacture unrealistic
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antasies. We don’t think enough about the steps required to achieve those ends, and a nd when we do we underestimate underestimate how much time and effort they will take. But thinking only about looming deadlines and short-term short-term goals is a mixed bag as well. We ocus on what is easible, on the steps to take right now, but we orget or downplay long-term long-term goals. So we direct our efforts toward achievable milestones even when they undermine our ability to reach our ultimate destination. Scaling requires the wherewithal to hound yoursel and others with questions quest ions about about what it takes to link li nk the t he nevernever-ending ending now— the perpetual present tense that every person is trapped in—to in— to the sweet dreams you hope to realize later. When we interviewed Shannon May, the coounder o Bridge International Academies, she emphasized that they started “building or scaling” in their very first school in i n Nairobi. Nai robi. Although Alt hough her ounding team tea m was wa s on site and could easily communicate ace to ace with staff, st aff, students, and parents, they insisted on doing so mostly via cell phones because, as Shannon put it, “with everything we did, we asked ourselves i it would work with wit h one hundred schools.” schools.” Google took a similar simi lar approach. Shona Shona Brown served as executive vice president o operations there rom 2003 to 2011. She was the ourth-highest ranking executive in the firm, afer ounders Sergey Brin and Larry Lar ry Page and CEO Eric Schmidt. Brown played played a central role in scaling Google rom one thousand employees in Mountain View, Caliornia, to thirty thousand employees across dozens o locations around the globe. Brown told us that, in i n every decision they made, Google’s leaders tried to resist doing what was easiest ea siest now. now. Tey asked, “How will wil l this th is work when we are ten times or a hundred times bigger?” Tey thought, “Let’ “Let ’s not decide based on what is best now, let’s decide based on what will be best in two or three years.” Brown said that this mindset created challenges in hiring. Tere was always a temptation to “bring aboard some warm body
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that could do the job right now.” Tey usually orced themselves to resist because Google Goog le needed not only people who could do the current job. Tey waited to find people who were broad enough and curious enough to grow into new roles and take on more responsibility—and responsibility— and who would live and transmit the company’s “lieblood” to others, its culture o innovation. Google has always been notoriously slow to hire, involving large numbers o Google managers, executives, engineers, and other employees in inter viewing view ing and selecti selecting ng every emplo employee. yee. Every new hire is stil stilll approved prov ed at the t he organization organizat ion’’s highest levels. Brown emphasized that t hat at times this picky process slowed growt growth, h, stalled stal led product product releases, and created heavier workloads or Googlers Goog lers who needed help right now. But Brown believes this disciplined hiring process is a key now. reason that the company she lef in 2012 2012 had a culture so similar simi lar to the company she had joined in 2003. It It is still stil l a decentralized decentral ized place filled with smart people who don’t need much hand-holding hand- holding to generate new insights, make ma ke good decisions, and a nd implement implement ideas. Tis ocus on short-term short-term actions that make scaling scal ing easier down down the road doesn’t apply apply just to growing growi ng an organization. organi zation. It can help people and teams spread better practices across a mature organization. When we talked to Claudia Kotchka about spreading innovation practices at Procter & Gamble, she emphasized that her team needed some early wins. Yet, much like a game o chess, they needed the kinds o early wins that set the stage or uture victories rather than deeats. Te best quick wins help people people star startt and persist on the scaling journey. Tese victories uel optimism and excitement, make memorable stories, and convey that you are scaling something easible. Tey also instill confidence and pro vide a protective coating o legitimacy legiti macy to help your team weather uture storms. With these goals goa ls in mind, Kotchka’s Kotchka’s team began by working with w ith P&G’s P&G’s most troubled brands, where quick successes seemed possible and executives were hungry hungr y or solutions. Teir early successes with Mr. Clean, a stalled and stale brand,
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were crucial. Kotchka’s team tapped into customer rustrations with annoying a nnoying cleaning cleani ng chores, chores, along with eelings eeli ngs and memories memories associated with the Mr. Clean brand. Tese lessons led to the launch o Mr. Clean Magic Reach in 2005, which made it easier to scrub bathrooms. Magic Reach wasn’t a blockbuster, but it sold well. Te work with Mr. Clean enticed other P&G businesses to test the new innovation practices, and the shot o confidence helped sustain Kotchka’s team during the journey ahead. Tat early win also set the stage or a big payoff. It taught Mr. Clean’s leaders to think about their brand differently, which “led them to try new ideas beyond liquids, including the mega-hit mega- hit Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.” 4. Accelerate Accountability
Tis mantra ma ntra pops up under numerous numerous guises in i n the coming chapters, especially especial ly when we discuss the t he most crucial talen ta lents ts or propelpropelling scaling. Accountability means that an organization is packed with people who embody and protect excellence (even when they are tired, overburdened, and distracted), who work vigorously to spread it to others, and who spot, help, critique, and (when necessary) push aside colleagues who ail to live and spread it. Te trick—and trick— and it is a difficult trick—is trick— is to design a system where this tug o responsibility is constant, strong, and embraced by everyone, and where slackers, energy suckers, and selfish soloists have no place to hide. Tere are many ways to create this brand o urgent, all-handsall- handson-deck ondeck accountability, but the goal is always the same—to same— to bakein that constant pressure to do the right thing. t hing. Michael Bloomberg strove to create such accountability accountability during dur ing his long reign reign as mayor o New York York City by jamming jammi ng himsel and his fifyfi fy-one one most crucial staff members into a “bullpen” that was the center o his administration—aa small and ofen noisy room where the mayor sat ministration—
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in the center. Each resident sat in a small cubicle with a low partition. Everyone could see, and ofen hear, what everyone else was doing, and the burden to do the right thing—especially thing—especially to suppo support rt the sacred tenet o open communication—weighed communication—weighed heavily upon everyone in the room. A ormer bullpen resident told New York magazine: “As a work space, it is something that you do not think that you can ever get used to. . . . But when you you see the mayor hosthosting high-level high-level meetings in clear sight o everyone else, you start to understand that this open-communication open-communication model is not bullshit. And that t hat it works.” Jamming people close together is just one way to build an organization filled with people who can’t escape relentless pressures to do the right thing, to live a mindset and hold others to it as well. Bloomberg’s Bloomberg’s method can’t c an’t be used when people are dispersed across different cities or countries. But there are ways to design such organizations so that members eel that constant tug o accountability. Stanord aculty Chuck Eesley and Amin Saberi organized and taught a ree Stanord entrepreneurship class called “echnology Entrepreneurship” that attracted thirty-seven thirty-seven thousand students rom more than seventy-five seventy- five countries—one countries—one o the first big “MOOCs” (massively open online courses) at Stanord. For decades, versions o this course had been taught to classes o fify to sixty six ty tuition-paying tuition-paying Stanord students at a time, who gathered in a traditional classroom twice a week. Te key to scaling the t he class to a wider audience was the technology platorm called Venture Lab that Eesley, Saberi, and doctoral student Farnaz Ronaghi developed. Te platorm was used u sed to deliver proven content content to the thirty-seven thirtyseven thousand students who signed up or the class. Te course included lectures on marketing, technology, and finance; interviews with interesting guests, including one with Stanord president and Google board member John Hennessy; and readings and tips or starting a company. Te teaching team used the platorm to scale up a temporar temporaryy organization organiz ation during those twelve t welve
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weeks. It wasn’t just a website that blasted out content; the team built in numerous clever and easy-toeasy- to-use use social eatures to create a peer-powered peer-powered network that would link, organize, evaluate, and mentorr students. mento Teir technology allowed or an initial “dry run” to establish students’ willingness to work hard and collaboratively. Students were initially assigned to groups on the basis o geography—those geography— those rom the same cities and countries were grouped together. Ten students with varied skills, technical backgrounds, and industry experience were mixed together. Each newly ormed team was asked to come up with their five best and five worst start- up ideas and to submit a video within a week. Tis simple task quickly separated the doers rom the slackers. Students in each group were asked to evaluate their peers, and these ratings were displayed to everyone in the class. Afer that, classmates were ree to orm new groups, leave or other groups, or recruit new members—armed members— armed with data about ree riders and hard workers. Te platorm also enabled peer-reviewed peer- reviewed homework: rather than placing the burden o grading thirty-seven thirty- seven thousand students on the teaching team, students (afer completing an online tutorial) graded each other. o their delight, Eesley and Saberi discovered that this system resulted in tougher grading standards. Te teaching team graded assignments or a random subset o students to develop guidelines and veriy the quality o peer re views: peers graded each other ar more harshly than tha n the Stanord aculty. Te aculty and student teams also recruited approximately two hundred veteran entrepreneurs to serve as mentors, who used the platorm to find teams that matched their skills and interests. We visited the site on July 23, 2012, at 10:00 a.m. It showed that 563 class members had been active that day and that one or more interactions had occurred on 190 teams. Naveen Bagrecha,
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an undergraduate in civil engineering rom India, had submitted an assignment that day—a day—a video he made or pitching a start-up. start- up. One team was working on their final presentation entitled “Core Complexity Reduction,” an idea or a company that developed tools or “more efficient structuring o organizations based on the analysis o interactions o its members.” Tis nine-person nine- person team was ormed by Roger Sen, a computer engineer rom Spain. Te remaining members were our students rom Germany and one each rom France, Italy, the United United States, and South Arica. A rica. Teir mentor was Benson Yeung, a ounder and senior partner at riware Networld Systems, based in the San Francisco area. Social pressure and monitoring helped to ensure accountability in this online class. Each o the initial thirty-seven thirty- seven thousand students could see how all the others perormed—i perormed—i they handed in their homework, how they were graded, how their contributions were rated by teammates, when they had last logged on, and how many contributions they made to the discussion orum. Tese pressures to do the work and to be an active class member drovee down the class size rom thirtydrov thir ty-seven seven thousand at the start to ten thousand at the end. Tis attrition among ree riders and weak perormers was accelerated in week 6 o the class, when the aculty urged teams to communicate with and conront members who weren’t pulling their weight. Tis message convinced some two thousand students to drop the class beore the deadline and led teams to expel another two hundred or so deadbeats. Many o these students would never meet their teammates ace to ace, but the teaching team used their powerul platorm, extreme transparency, social pressures, and tough policies to scale up a sizable teaching organization that was thick with accountability. By all o 2013, at least fify-five courses at Stanord and other universities were using the platorm, and, with Saberi as CEO, a company called NovoEd was ormed to develop, sell, and spread it.
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5. Fear the Clusterfug
In 2011, 2011, we had a roll rollicking icking dinner d inner with w ith Marc Hershon. Te alleged purpose was to discuss the title o this book, and, more broadly, the best words and phrases or describing scaling. Hershon is supremely prem ely well suited or or this challenge, cha llenge, as he makes a living naming nami ng things—including things— including Dasani water, the Swiffer, and most amously, the BlackBerry. Hershon is an all-around all- around “creative,” “creative,” writing writi ng jokes or comedians such as Jay Carney and Jay Leno, numerous V scripts, and a couple o books. He is also a syndicated cartoonist and teaches impr i mprovisation ovisation and standsta nd-up up comedy. comedy. Afer A fer batting batti ng around book titles, we turned to a related question: What word best captures horrible scaling, the opposite o spreading excellence? Someone Someone soon suggested clusterfug. clusterfug. W Wee laughed and a nd agreed it was among the most colorul and compelling words in the English gli sh language langu age but decided that “No More More Clusterugs” would be a misleading and a nd overly overly shocking shocki ng title. (As you’v you’vee probably guessed, we actually used a slightly different word during that conversation. We We are censoring censori ng ourselves here—borrowing here—borrowing Norman Mail fug rom er’ss euphemism er’ euphemi sm fug rom Te Naked and the Dead —because some readers ound that proanity offensive.) We never orgot that dinner din ner.. As our research unolded, u nolded, we realized that the definitions o that cussword in the Urban Dictionary captured many elements elements o the most mangled and misguided mi sguided scalsca ling efforts. Te origin orig in appears to be a “military “milita ry term or a situation caused by too many inept officers, cluster reerring reerring to the insignia worn by majors and Lt. Colonels, oak lea clusters.” Definitions like this one came even closer: “the state o affairs resulting rom too many staffers and not enough trained staffers on a project.” As we read such definitions, and studied cases where scaling had turned ugly, u gly, three elements kept popping popping up:
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Illusion: Decision makers believe that what they are scaling up is ar better and easier to spread than the acts warrant. Impatience: Decision makers believe that what what they are scaling scal ing is so good and easy to spread that they t hey rush to roll rol l it out beore it is ready, ready, they t hey are ready ready,, and the organization organ ization is i s ready. ready. Incompetence: Decision makers lack the requisite knowledge and skill about what they are spreading and how to spread it, which in turn transorms otherwise competent people into incompeten i ncompetentt ones.
When these three elements collide, you’ve got a classic clusterug. Tis triecta causes scaling efforts to ail big and late rather than tha n early and cheaply. cheaply. A related hallmark hall mark is that decision makers don’t recognize when they are on the verge o subjecting victims (and themselves) to overwhelming mental load, distress, and turmoil. So, at least at first, they don’t hold themselves accountable when things turn ugly and can’t resist heaping excessive blame on the casualties o their incompetence. Stanord University’s effort to upgrade its I systems in 2003 illustrates this terrible trio all too well. A team o internal I people and outside consultants decided to abandon the homegrown legacy system that t hat supported accounts payable, procurement, procurement, and a nd HR and to replace it with something called Oracle Financials. Decision makers were antsy because their original plan to roll out the system in phases during 2002 had slipped a year. Even though the new system was unfinished and unproven, they somehow deluded themselves into deciding that a “big bang” implementation was the way to go. Tey pulled the plug on the legacy system and orced over our thousand inadequately trained and poorly supported users to start using the new system on September 1, 2003. Just beore the big bang, leaders began admitting to Stanord staffers that hiccups were on the horizon: data might be missing, transactions tra nsactions might be delayed, and the system had a steep steep learning learni ng
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cur ve. Tey even curve. even gave users a little litt le punching bag to pummel when they couldn’t contain their rustration. Te leaders were trying to make light l ight o the t he situation, but staff members weren weren’t ’t amused. Instead they (accurately, as it turned out) viewed the gif as another omen that their superiors were starting them on a orced march that would soon degenerate into a colossal clusterug. Sutton first spotted one o those punching bags in the office o an unusually loyal and hardworking Stanord staffer. She was on the verge o tears, worried that she would never master the system. From what she could tell, no one at Stanord was really accountable or helping her navigate the tough months ahead. University leaders were somewhat aware that they were about to unleash conusion and chaos on our thousand people, but they did not ear the clusterug sufficiently. Tey were plagued by colillusions about lective illusions about when the system would be completed, how ar it was rom being ready or the big bang, how easy it would be to teach and learn, and how quickly they could fix snags and snaus. Despite their knowledge o major risks and problems (in concert with their ignorance and denial o many others), they were so impatient that that they elected to impose the t he system on our our thousand thousa nd unprepared victims victi ms anyway anyw ay.. Te punching bag reebies implied an attitude o “Alt “Although hough we are a re not ready, ready, you are a re not ready, ready, and a nd this th is willl make your lie wil li e miserable— miserable—we we are doing it anyway. Suck it up incompetence— and deal with it.” Te decision makers’ incompetence —including their inability to oresee the hell that the big bang would inflict on their own lives—had lives—had the ripple effect o turning our thousand otherwise competent people into incompetent ones, rendering these employees anxious and embarrassed because they were no longer able to do their work. Te first year o the Oracle Financials rollout was a nightmare. By December o 2003, there were over five hundred unresolved requests rom staff members or help rom I. Te I team was overwhelmed as they struggled to assist hundreds o upset and
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ofen inadequately trained staffers, while simultaneously trying to repair bugs and flaws that made the system difficult or impossible to use or even the most skilled staff. During public orums, both Stanord’s I team and staff members portrayed themselves as “in “i n crisis.” Chie Inormation Inormation Officer Chris Handley was hauled in ront o the Stanord aculty senate in February o 2004, six months into the botched implementation. He admitted that most administrative processes still took two or three times longer than under the old system. Missing and flawed data made managing money mon ey “difficu “ difficult, lt, i not impossible, impossible, right rig ht now.” now.” Handley conessed urther, “Morale is low. . . . Te toll on individual administrators in schools and departments is very high right now. Tese are all people who pride themselves on doing their work, people who pride themselves on having the inormation or you. And at the moment, they eel completely disarmed, embarrassed, and ashamed because they can’t actually get the inormation or you.” Handley met with the aculty senate or the last time in October o 2004, reporting persistent “slow progress in smoothing out the many problems.” He resigned a couple weeks later, citing a need to “ocus on his amily am ily..” 6. Scaling Requires Both Addition and Subtraction
As we say in the Preace, scaling is the Problem o More. So it is no surprise that the language o More pervades talk on this topic. Ask any group o executives or nonprofit leaders about scaling; search the Internet or the keywords scaling or or scaling up; read up; read articles, cases, and academic research on the subject. You will find that the dominant words and phrases are all about addition and multiplication: grow multiplication: grow,, expand, propagate, replicate, amplify, amplify, amass, amass , clone, copy, enlarge, magnify, incubate, accelerate, multiply, roll it out to the masses, and masses, and so on. Ben Horowitz echoes this spirit by kicking off a 2010 blog post on scaling with lyrics rom rap singer
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Dorrough’s song “Get Big,” in which the words “Get Big” are repeated over and over. We use the t he language lang uage o More throughout this book as well. Yet the addition and multiplication that define successul scaling depend on equally relen relentless tless subtraction subtrac tion (and (and division div ision too, as chapter 4 shows). As organizations grow larger and older, as the ootprint o a program expands, and as the consequences o past actions accumulate, once useul but now unnecessary roles, rules, rituals, red tape, products, and services build up like barnacles on a ship; to make way or excellence to to spread, these sources o unnecessary unnecessar y riction must be removed. In particular, part icular, a hallmark o successul scaling scal ing is that leaders reremain mai n vigila vig ilant nt about what “got “got us here but won’ won’tt get us there, t here,”” as author Marshall Goldsmith would put put it. Tese are a re belies, behaviors, behaviors, and rituals that once bolstered excellence but now undermine it. All-hands Allhands meetings in growing organizations are a prime pri me example. When an organization is small smal l enough that each member can have a personal relationship with every other, or at least recognize all their aces and names, gathering everyone or regular meetings makes sense. But there comes a point when the place gets so big that having an intimate gathering with, say, five hundred o your best riends isn’t easible. Sutton saw this happen at the renowned innovation innovatio n firm fir m IDEO. In the 1990s, when IDEO had sixty sixt y or seventy people working at their Palo Alto headquarters, ounder and then CEO David Kelley did a masterul job o orchestrating the all-hands allhands meeting every Mon Monday day morning. Kelley is such a skilled skil led acilitator that nearly every person in the room added at least one comment or joke during each o these hourlong gatherings. Once the company grew to hundreds o Palo Alto employees, however, even Kelley couldn’t sustain the intimacy. So, the Monday allhands meeting became a vestige o the past and was replaced with smaller gatherings organized around studios and design practices.
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All-hands meetings in Palo Alto were dialed back to once a month All-hands and then, as IDEO continued to expand, to a ew times a year. Strategic subtraction subtrac tion clears the t he way or people people to ocus on doing the right things. As you will see, chapter 4 shows how important it is to keep whittling away at the cognitive and emotional burdens generated by by scaling. sca ling. And A nd chapter 7 shows shows how crucial it is to clear out bad behaviors and belies to make way or good things to spread. Veteran retailer Barry Feld used such a strategy when he took charge o the struggling retail chain Cost Plus World Market in 2005. Cost Plus has over two hundred stores in the western and midwestern United States that sell specialty oods and home urnishings. In 2005, the company was on the verge o bankruptcy. Te stock was teetering teeteri ng at under $1, $1, sales had plummeted, and a nd the brand reputation was in tatters—ew tatters— ew consumers had even heard o Cost Plus, and most who did recognize it had negative perceptions o the brand. Stores were messy and disorganized, skilled managers were quitting in droves, and employees were dispirited. Feld visited almost every store to provide coaching and encouragement, determine what needed to be changed, and help decide which stores to shutter. We invited the charming and down-todown- to-earth earth Mr. Feld to speak to our scaling scali ng class. When we asked him which wh ich employee employee behaviors behaviors were most destructive, Feld responded that bad things th ings happen when employees treat customers as i they are invisible. When he noticed that employees employees ailed ai led to greet customers, he pressed them (and their managers) to develop a ritual o stopping or a moment when stocking shelves, serving other customers, or chatting with coworkers to look customers in the eye and say “Hello” or “Let me know i I can help.” Tese small acts are crucial, according to Feld, because when employees offer greetings, customers are less likely to steal and more likely to buy something. Tis T is was only one o the hundreds o changes that Feld’s team made to turn around the troubled chain.
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Sales, profits, and the stock price kept climbing until the chain was sold or a healthy $22 per share to Bed Bath & Beyond in 2012. Te upshot is that scaling isn’t just a problem o more. more. Scaling Scaling is a problem o less less too, too, and subtraction is ofen an essential tool or doing it better bet ter.. 7. Slow Down to Scale Faster—and Faster— and Better— Better—Down Down the Road
Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman demonstrates that human beings are blessed and cursed with the ease and speed with which we can make judgments and take instant and largely mindless actions—“the actions— “the automatic System 1” as he calls it. Human organizations, with their ingrained histories, rules, practices, standard operating procedures, and, o course, mindsets, are similar. simi lar. When people who work work together share the right skills ski lls and a nd the right moti vation, coordinated coordinated (and (and ofen compl complex) ex) action can unold rapidly rapidly and with wit h ew errors. When it comes comes to scaling, scal ing, this t his happens when an organization is packed with people who embrace and act on a shared mindset. But there is danger in relying on ingrained behaviors too early and too ofen, even though people and organizations are prone to do so. A study by Clifford Holderness and Jeffrey Pontiff examined the ate o 122,765 American prisoners o war captured during World War II—93,666 II—93,666 by Germany and 29,099 by Japan. Tey examined whether the senior officers among the POWs replicated the military’s rigid hierarchy or moved to a flatter and more flexible organizational structure in the camps. Te results were striking: prisoners in the most hierarchical camps suffered a death rate about 20 percent higher than their counterparts in the least hierarchical camps. raditional hierarchies are effective given the need or quick and coordinated action on the battlefield. But they are too rigid given the flexibility and individual indiv idual judgment required in prison pri son camps. Captured senior sen ior officers who automatiautomati-
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cal ly replicated cally replicated and clung clung to the traditio t raditional nal military mil itary mindset m indset created inerior organizational structures compared to those officers who realized that a different model was required (and then acted on such belies). Te broader lesson is that mastering “the black art o scaling a human organization” requires learning when and how to shif gears rom ast to slow ways o thinking. As Kahneman suggests, slowing down and thinking about what you are doing and why— shifing to that laborious, reasoned, deliberative, and conscious “System 2” thinking, as Kahneman calls it—is it— is the best deense when “you are in a cognitive minefield”—when minefield”— when you don’t know enough, risks are high, or you are stuck. Shifing to “System 2” ofen requires orcing yoursel to pause rather than plow ahead. Tis shif is demonstrated by some advice that Jerome Groopman got when, as a young doctor, he was unsure o a patient’s diagnosis. “Master crafswoman” Dr. Linda Lewis instructed Groopman: “Don’t just do something, stand there.” When it comes to scaling, “System “Syste m 2” thinking thi nking requires constant constant vigilance vig ilance so that t hat those easy and automatic responses that are hallmarks o “System 1” thinking don’t impair your efforts to spread, sustain, and keep improving excellence. Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn put it well: “You have to be like a race car driver—you driver—you need to know when to accelerate, when to brake, and when to change gears.” Recall the approach used by Chuck Eesley and Amin Am in Saberi to teach entrepreneurship entrepreneurship to some ten thousand online students. Tey used a compelling blend o “System 1” and “System 2” thinking. Te teaching team ofen slowed down to think about, build, and test solutions that later reduced the burden on themselves by making it easy or students to post and grade work, to judge one another’s effort and skill, to orm and work in teams, and or mentors to select and guide teams. In Ghosn’s lingo, Eesley and Saberi figured out when to take their oot off the gas, downshif, and hit the brakes so that
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later on they (and their students) could put the pedal to the metal and fly down the road.
The Ground War Mindset We’ve emphasized that scaling excellence requires the kind o grit required to run a marathon rather than a sprint. I anything, this analogy understates the challenge. Scaling is akin to running a long race where you don’t know the right path, ofen what seems like the right path turns out to be the wrong one, and you don’t know how long the race will last, where or how it will end, or where the finish line is located. Yet it is one o the undamental challenges that every organization aces, whether it’s small or large, new or old, or somewhere in between. And the good news is that plenty o people and teams find ways to master this mess, take satisaction in their daily accomplishments, and take pride in spreading constructive belies and behaviors ar and wide. Tose who succeed think thin k and act as i they are fighting fighti ng a ground war, war, not just an a n air a ir war. Tis Ti s “ground war mindset” (along with w ith the seven mantras) reverberates reverberates throughout throug hout the coming chapters on key decisions and scaling principles.
