Darwinism, 2001

MWorld recently interviewed Sander A. Flaum, chairman and chief executive officer of Robert A. Becker, Inc. Euro RSCG, a global marketing agency specializing in the pharmaceutical field. Flaum, also chairman of the Fordham Leadership Forum of the Fordham University Graduate School of Business, shares his expertise as we all try to make sense of today’s rapidly changing business world and what it means to organizations and executives alike.

MWorld: As you look to the future, what advice would you share with other executives?

Flaum: I’d quote Patton. His advice: “A good plan executed right now is far better than a perfect plan executed next week.” It doesn’t matter what industry you are in. If you are in business today, you are in the middle of a rapidly changing competitive environment. Many of our most fundamental beliefs about customers, communication management, and competition are being challenged. All these challenges are happening at a faster and faster rate. Bill Gates has described it as “the speed of thought.”

MWorld: You have referred to how numerous blue chip firms have turned out their CEOs for reacting too slowly to changing times. Were these CEOs poor managers?

Flaum: Not at all. They simply ran out of time. They were born of a corporate culture that allowed them the luxury of careful deliberation and gradual assembling of all relevant facts and options -- a structure of multilevel reviews and slow decision-making.

That is no longer possible. It is too easy to be out-distanced by more nimble competitors. Each and every one of these CEOs could have profited from Patton’s simple advice.

MWorld: Business writers and professors of management are searching for a model to help analyze and explain the pressures that companies are facing in the New Economy. Which book would you recommend?

Flaum: For me, the answer lies in a book published in the 19th century. It was described as “the book that shook the world” for it challenged so many long-held beliefs about mankind and our universe. It was Darwin’s Origin of Species.

MWorld: What does that have to do with modern organizations?

Flaum: Darwin gives us a very useful model to plan and evaluate the effectiveness of a corporation’s response to marketplace change. If you recall, Darwin concluded that all species compete for survival. Those that survive do so through a process of continuous improvement -- saving the strongest and most useful qualities and discarding the less useful. In other words, survival of the fittest.

But today, being financially fit is no assurance of long-term survival. Neither is being the largest or most respected. In today’s business environment, regular advances in technology continually increase the velocity of competition. Our ability to adapt determines our success or failure. It puts a new wrinkle on Darwin’s theory of natural selection. We not only have to evolve by reinventing and revitalizing our organizations; we have to do it faster and faster.

Today, the rule is no longer survival of the fittest. Today, it is survival of the fastest.

What it boils down to is this: Today’s leaders have to get ahead of the industry changes they face. They have to be able to analyze the situation and make the right decisions quickly. They have to take actions today that insure they will be in the right place with the right resources to dominate tomorrow, even though the picture of the future isn’t clear yet. They have to be able to predict the future and preempt it.

MWorld: What does all this mean in operating terms?

Flaum: First and foremost, I would advise companies to forgo the notion that being right is more important than being first. We don’t have the time anymore to check everything out, and then check it out again, and then again, before we introduce a product or other idea. It would be great to have all the time in the world to plan and replan, and then execute. But that’s not the way the world is today.

MWorld: What else would you recommend?

Flaum: I’d remind companies that technology is not synonymous with innovation. It is only a tool for most companies. For instance, it isn’t enough to update your marketing strategy by thinking, “I’ll just use the Internet.” The Internet isn’t an end in itself. It is a means to get somewhere. Where is the there that the company wants to get to?

According to a study by the Gartner Group, fully 75 percent of all e-business projects will fail due to poor planning and unrealistic expectations of new technology.

MWorld: So the technology for most companies is a means to an end. What’s the end?

Flaum: For most firms, the end is a better product or service that they can get to the marketplace and produce and market more cost effectively than anyone else. No matter how strong an organization is today, its leaders have to keep looking for opportunities to innovate and then execute brilliantly. Likewise, everyone within the organization. Our ability to identify opportunities for constructive change and our ability to embrace change and then implement will shape our personal success just as it shapes the success of our organization.