Business Exposed58
American visitor: “No problem.”
Lord: “Furthermore, one does need the nest quality seed and
fertilizers.”
American visitor: “Big deal.”
Lord: “Of course, daily watering and weekly mowing are jolly
important.”
American visitor: “No sweat, just leave it to me!”
Lord: “That’s it.”
American visitor: “No kidding?! That’s it?!”
Lord: “Oh, absolutely. There is nothing to it, old boy, just keep it
up for ve centuries.”
The joke above – although admittedly not a very good one
– makes a good point for the growth and management of
organizations. What many rms, trying to grow fast or add
scores of acquisitions, often fail to realize is that companies
work in much the same way as a lawn. You can acquire all the
individual elements – buy the machinery, lease the building, hire
the people, acquire the assets, and so forth – pretty quickly and
relatively easily, and put them together. But this does not mean
that you will have a working organization.
An effective rm requires that the various elements of its organi-
zation – both the “hard” factors (such as its structure, incentive
system, etc.) and the “soft” elements (such as the culture of the
place, informal communication patterns, etc.) – are ne-tuned,
interact with, and reinforce one another. Building such an organi-
zation implies more than just “owning the parts”; it takes continued
dedication, hard work, and, most of all, it simply takes time.
This also has important implications for how you can create a
competitive advantage. Often, we think of competitive advantage
as something a rm has: a brand name, a set of patents, a unique
location, and so forth. Things that, for competitors, are difcult
to replicate so that it can give a rm a sustained advantage over
them. However, what the anecdote above points out is that the
organization itself can become a source of sustainable compet-
itive advantage.