Drucker Thursday : Synergy of Assumptions

To kickstart this newsletter, I have spent the last few weeks going through introducing the Theory of the business, the importance of assumptions, how your abilities can become disabilities and recently the four tests of theory of the business to keep it alive.

I thought that this was important to get the base set up for future conversations as we delve into innovation, entrepreneurship, design, using all of these across private sector, public sector, social sector and startups.

This is great story from Drucker about how Mark's and Spencer's saw the world differently and rethought their mission as social revolution and which meant they needed new core competencies.

The assumptions about environment, mission, and core competencies must fit one another. Marks and Spencer recognized that World War I had led to a new environment—masses of new buyers for good-quality, stylish, and inexpensive merchandise such as lingerie, blouses, and stockings.

By the mid-twenties the four brothers-in-law who had built the penny bazaars into a major chain of variety stores might have been satisfied to enjoy their considerable wealth. Instead they decided to rethink the mission of their business. The business of Marks and Spencer, they decided, was not retailing. It was social revolution. From having been a successful variety chain, Marks and Spencer purposefully changed its mission into being a highly distinct “specialty” marketer. 

Finally, it went out and looked for the right manufacturers, whom it often had to help get started—for the existing old-line manufacturers were, for obvious reasons, none too eager to throw in their lot with the brash upstart who tried to tell them how to run their business—thus developing the core competency required by the new environment and mission.

What is changing in your environment?

Should you change your mission?

What new core competencies do you need?

Let me know what you think? Love to have a chat.