Elephants can learn to dance by emulating what cheetahs do well

livemint.com:

It is the age of startups in India, with entrepreneurs celebrated as they embody the spirit of New India. Large corporations are the economy’s mainstay, but are perceived to be steady and slow. In the corporate savanna, large corporates are elephants compared to the startup cheetahs.

Let’s explore what the former can learn from the trendy. Mindset of build, break, learn and rebuild: The dominant mindset in a startup is that of a challenger breaking new ground; experimenting, learning and re-pivoting as needed. Many successful startups pivot to a new model as the market context changes.

Globally, the example of how Netflix shifted from a DVD rental service to an online streaming service is well known. In India, Myntra started as a personalized gifting service before moving to lifestyle and fashion e-commerce. These are just two examples.

Large organizations, however, have a bias for the status quo. Some companies set up innovation accelerators or labs to drive innovation, but studies show that many of these fail to achieve business impact at scale. The real challenge that large businesses face is to find a balance between risk-taking and care-taking as they grow—and adopt the ‘build, break, learn’ approach.

Bias for agility and action: In today’s fast-moving world, the ability to move with speed and agility is a competitive advantage. Startups have a knack for taking decisions quickly, prioritizing action over deliberation. Large firms struggle with this partly because of the many processes and systems they have.