Competing on the Edge

"The key driver of superior performance is the ability to change."

"Managing change is about leading change."

"The underlying insight behind competing on the edge is that strategy is the result of a firm's organizing to change constantly and letting a semicoherent strategic direction emerge from that organization."

"The intuition behind the edge of chaos is that change occurs when strategies and their related organizations are sufficiently rigid so that change can be organized to happen but not so rigid that it cannot occur."

"The result of remaining on the edge is a wider range of strategic options and a better sense of which option to choose."

"How can managers determine whether their businesses are slipping into the chaos trap of too little structure?"

"Often scant attention is paid to the products and services themselves."

"Improvisational businesses typically create products and services that are often successful but also somewhat unpredictable."

"Simply put, the dilemma involves achieving collaborative synergies and individual success."

"How can managers recognize when they are overcollaborating? Several common traits signal this trap."

"The risk is greater but so, too, are the opportunities for reinvention and growth."

"What are the signs that managers are relying too much on their companies' past? We found three common traits."

"Why is strategy for the future so challenging?"

"Managers who extensively plan the future get the timing wrong."

"These managers have no anticipation of what might happen and no hope of shaping what could happen."

"We identified several common traits among businesses that experiment effectively."

"What time pacing does is set the rate of change within the business, the pace of how fast the business moves from past to present to future."

"The key to winning relays is the exchange of the baton."

"Rhythm emerges from the pulse of choreographed transitions that are repeated at regular time intervals. Rhythm gives time pacing its energy."

"A principle reason companies do not become businesses that can reinvent themselves is that their managers take a rational, even mechanistic approach to developing their businesses."

"Seeing competing on the edge as a strategy that must be grown is central to understanding its development."

"Patching is about continuously realigning business with markets."

"The ability to think across time frames that span from today to next month to next year and out several years?while still remaining focused on today?are essential to sustaining superior performance. "

"The following summary distills the themes of competing on the edge into ten laws, or rules, that articulate key assumptions and best practices."