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Adapt or perish — the danger of ‘target fixation’
I had an interesting conversation with an entrepreneur who was singularly focused on getting his tech start-up off the ground. During the conversation, it became clear to me — a neutral observer — that the industry had moved and that the USP his start-up once had had become obsolete.
Unfortunately, due to what I attribute to ‘target fixation’, the entrepreneur did not see the forest for the trees and continued to flog a dead horse by rejecting any suggestion to pivot his product to adapt to evolving consumer needs.
While having a singular focus and the determination to succeed are admirable (because too often people fail because they lack perseverance), we would be wise to be wary of target fixation. Many of today’s successful companies started out very differently from what they do today ….
- Nintendo started as a card-selling business
- Twitter started as a podcasting platform
- Play-Doh started as a wall cleaner to clean the black residue that coal heaters left on walls
- Flickr started as an online role-playing game
- Starbucks started as a business selling espresso makers and coffee beans
- Instagram started as a Foursquare-like app that allowed users to check in at their favorite spots, share photos, and arrange catch-ups
Charles Darwin sums it up perfectly when he said: “it is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one most adaptable to change.”
In short, besides perseverance, adaptability is an important ingredient for success and entrepreneurs need to be wary of target fixation.
