The Best Business Strategy Even Mom Doesn't Know

In our last entry, we talked about why traditional corporate business strategy doesn't work. Here, we'll tell you what does work. Here's the secret Rotisserie sauce, and the best strategy you'll ever use: Experiment, experiment, experiment, and oh, exp-er-i-ment! We call it Flashperiment. Our coined word is corny, yes. Sexy, yes. But, it works. The more experiments you cram within a given day, the higher your success rate. "The real measure of success is the number of experiments that can be crowded into 24 hours." -- Thomas Edison You'll have to accept failure as a means to accelerating your organization. Simply put, if you're not failing, you're not trying hard enough. How does Wall Street's most innovative organization approach strategy? Google Product Manager Marissa Mayer encourages experimenting at a quick pace: "In fact, during the brainstorming phase, we tried out about five times as many key features -- many of which we discarded after a week of prototyping. Since only 1 in every 5 to 10 ideas work out, the strategy of constraining how quickly ideas must be proven allows us try out more ideas faster, increasing our odds of success." The company, to the chagrin of most traditional business professors, doesn't rely on corporate strategy. Likewise the philosophy echos at America's most innovative organizations: Starbucks, 3M, Idealab, and P&G. Instead, they use flashperiment. Flashperiment! [Editor's Addenum: Learn How to Flashperiment]

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