Last week, as I was leading a class on entrepreneurship with a group of international students, I made the point that while having a good idea is important, success depends on great execution. “You know, on basic blocking and tackling.”
Lots of blank stares. What I quickly realized was that most of them were not very familiar with American football, the sport from which that metaphor originates.
While that particular example for that particular audience was a miss, good analogies are often very valuable in business, especially when the path forward is not immediately obvious.
Analogies can help people reframe their thinking, giving them ways to view a problem more broadly and through a different lens. They are also helpful because in many cases, the problem at hand may be very similar to one faced — and solved— by another organization in a completely different field.
For example, when I worked at BCG, we had a windshield replacement producer as a client that was faced with changes in its distribution network of independent installation shops. As it turned out, one of our consultants had faced the same challenge a few years earlier while working with welding supply shops. We told our client, “We’ve seen this movie before,” and were able to help them consider steps that led to a successful resolution.
Likewise, Steven Covey famously used an analogy of rocks and sand to illustrate the importance of tackling big issues before small ones when addressing time management challenges. He explained that when trying to fit a combination of rocks and sand in a bottle, success requires placing the rocks (larger tasks) in the bottle first, with the sand (smaller tasks) filling in the gaps around them.
Putting Analogies Into Practice
A few suggestions…
#1. Read broadly outside your field
It’s tempting to focus exclusively on whatever your industry, specialty, or field of study may be. After all, none of us can read everything — it may seem logical to dedicate any time available towards learning more about the work you do every day.
Logical, but in my experience, not ideal. By making time to read books and articles from different fields (and even fiction), we increase the scope of our vision and, as a result, our ability to apply analogies.
Consider that many technology-related products in current use have science fiction novels and stories in their foundation. Dick Tracy’s 2-Way Wrist Radio watch was introduced in 1946 — more than half a century before its influence on Apple, Hewlett-Packard, and others would result in practical solutions.
#2. Make sure the fit is there
Context matters. So think carefully about the situation before attempting to leverage a given analogy. While the pattern or story may appear similar, there may be critical differences that stand in the way of translating from one instance to another.
In one disastrous example, Apple Store developer and retailing genius Ron Johnson attempted to bring his insights from Apple to discount retailer J.C. Penny. Unfortunately, his “improvements” led to a 25% drop in sales and his eventual firing less than two years later. It turns out that what works well when selling expensive electronics does not apply to low-cost sweatpants and other basics.
Which leads to my third recommendation…
#3. Experiment, Experiment, Experiment
Ron Johnson’s idea wasn’t just wrong — it was wrong in a very big way.
Rather than trying the new concept in just a few locations, J.C. Penny rolled it out chain-wide and all at once, in a bold effort to have immediate impact. It certainly had immediate impact — just not the kind he was hoping for!
While running the Apple Stores, Johnson didn’t experiment — they just made changes to the stores across the board and watched the results. But those changes were revisions to a core concept, not a complete makeover of the shopping experience. At J.C. Penny, the risks were greater and the unknowns more plentiful.
Reflections
Analogies can be powerful because they help us recognize patterns and borrow solutions from places we might otherwise never consider.
The challenge is knowing when the comparison is genuinely useful, which important differences may make it misleading, and how to test the idea before committing too heavily.
