You might have listened to Sharon Lee who was interviewed on Radio 4 this morning. She’s Bruce Lee’s daughter, and she has a new book coming out next week, which is why she was being interviewed.

The book is called, “Be water, my friend,” and that title is a reference to an analogy Bruce Lee used to explain his philosophy.

His idea is about adaptation

  • Water is soft, except
  • When a tonne of it falls on your head
  • And when over 70 million years it carved the Grand Canyon, for example
  • Water’s destination is inevitable
  • But that’s only because if it had a mind, it would be an open one. The route it takes will vary effortlessly as often as it needs to
  • If it’s put a cup, it becomes the cup; if it’s put in a bottle, it becomes the bottle; if it’s put in a teapot, it becomes the teapot.
  • Since it has nothing rigid, the cracks in water’s every obstacle will reveal themselves.

Now you might have noticed this is very similar to Richard's philosophy for structuring P&Ls. We start at the beginning, with tributaries, like me and Thuong. And every one us. Together we are a thundering Niagara Falls.

Although did you know that Victoria Falls in Zambia is twice as high and about 500m wider than Niagara Falls?

I guess some of the water that goes over Niagara probably does also go over Victoria Falls. But then the volume of water from Victoria Falls that goes over Niagara is probably greater. We can only speculate.

When we talk about a business’s ability to adapt, that’s what we normally call Business Agility. It means being able to adapt to changing markets and environments. Stuff like:

  • Being able to adapt products to changing demand
  • Running projects who’s plans can adjust as they progress
  • It’s good if you have distributed, collective trust and motivation. You need everyone to be a team player. And “team player” is such a stale metaphor that personally - since I have taste - if I hear anyone using it I will write them off immediately.
  • And control over the business: it should be distributed pretty evenly across a group of people. And it helps if they respect one another.

The other thing has to do with plans and forecasts. They’re good, and necessary. But predictions of the future are flawed, and they aren’t a substitute for keeping a business agile.

So a recommendation for you. If being Croud is like mortal combat with Chuck Norris, be water my friend.