This Is Strategy: Make Better Plans (Create a Strategy to Elevate Your Career, Community & Life)

by Seth Godin

The smallest organizations have an advantage when they create projects. With nothing to lose and few people to please, it’s possible to create moments of magic. Small projects from small teams can leap forward with the confidence of knowing that they don’t have far to fall. When a project works, it’s tempting and generous to scale it. Offer it to more people. Turn one successful restaurant into a chain, or a small medical practice into a much larger one. And almost inevitably, it falters. The only way to effectively scale magic is to create a strategy where the scale is the magic. Heinz ketchup is better because it’s the regular kind, the safe kind, the normal kind. That’s the magic they offer. Disney is magic because it offers predictable, industrialized, mass fun. They turned that from an oxymoron to a motto. It’s the place to go if you want to go to where everyone else is going. Projects where the scale is the magic have a network effect. The more people who use them, the better they get.