Reposted:

The old joke about two bulls on a hill goes something like this. There are two bulls on a hill, an old one and a young one. The young bull says “Hey dad, lets run down the hill and get one of those cows.” The old bull replies, “no son.” “Let’s walk down the hill and get them all.” The moral, in the punchline of this joke, is supposed to be about the importance in taking one’s time, and how by taking your time you will actually accomplish more. That of course is the “old” version.

A new version of the same joke would have a very different ending. In the new version there would be one additional line. The joke would end with the son replying to his father by saying something like this; “…but dad, if we walk down the hill, all of the cows will be gone when we get there.”

The second punchline better reflects the world that we live in today. The big don’t beat the small, the fast beat the slow. Gone are the days where companies have the luxury of taking a lot of time to make decisions, or of planning out every detail of a strategy before they begin to execute.

The successful companies are those who are nimble and agile and able to react quickly to changing market conditions, customer feedback, and competition. Think Google advertising Wave before its even developed or the Chrome OS before a single line of code has been written.

The companies that exhibit an “old bull” mentality and walk down the hill in an attempt to get “all” of the cows, will find that more and more often that by the time they get to the bottom of the hill, all of the cows will have left.

It’s easy to spot a company that has an “old bull” mentality. You just need to ask one question; “Who has the political clout in your organization?” Is it product development? The strategy group? The sales force? The relationship managers? Or is it the lawyers, auditors, the compliance team and the regulators?

If the answer is the latter group, you’re looking at a company with an “old bull” mentality. Decisions in this type of company take a long time to be made, and the number of people involved in the process is unwieldy. This type of company has policies and procedures for everything. It’s employees are scared to take risks and the reward system is based on finding or uncovering mistakes that others make. New approaches or ideas are met with cynicism.

It is only a matter of time before these types of companies disappear as they continue to miss opportunities and the young bulls leave and work for companies that that are quicker more agile and reach the bottom of the hill in time to get the cows

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