Reading the moment

Michaël Bikard, an associate professor at INSEAD, studies what he calls idea twins: breakthrough ideas that different people arrive at independently, around the same time. His point: if ideas are often "in the air," the scarce thing isn't the idea. It's reading the moment. In boardrooms, we tend to spend our energy judging the quality of a strategic move. Is this well argued? Is the business case sound? We spend far less energy judging whether the moment is actually there for it.

Online grocery delivery makes the point well. In the late 1990s, Webvan, Kozmo and HomeGrocer all built on the same core idea: order online, get it delivered. Hundreds of millions went into it, and the model didn't last. A decade or so later, Picnic, Oda and BigBasket built on that same core idea, and this time it grew into real businesses. The idea barely changed. What changed was the moment: broadband, smartphones, and customer habits that simply weren't there the first time around.

This changes what a good strategic conversation should focus on. Not only whether this is the right direction, but whether this is the right time for it, and how we would know.

How much of your last strategic discussion was spent evaluating the move itself, versus evaluating the moment it depends on?
And what would actually tell you the moment has arrived?