{"id":1511,"date":"2025-06-20T09:54:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-20T09:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aidanmccullen.com\/?p=1511"},"modified":"2025-06-20T09:54:00","modified_gmt":"2025-06-20T09:54:00","slug":"corporate-weight-gain-small-choices-big-consequences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aidanmccullen.com\/?p=1511","title":{"rendered":"Corporate Weight Gain: Small Choices, Big Consequences"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cHow did you go bankrupt?\u201d asks one character in Ernest Hemingway\u2019s novel The Sun Also Rises. \u201cTwo ways,\u201d his friend replies. \u201cGradually and then suddenly.\u201d (via <\/em>Paul Nunes<\/em><\/a>, in \u201cBig Bang Disruption\u201d)<\/em><\/p>\n

That sentence explains so many collapses in life: waistlines, empires, reputations. One biscuit at a time. One skipped workout. One more justification.<\/p>\n

I experienced this firsthand when I first had kids with a creeping dad bod. Even thought I was a professional athlete, the creep snuck in as I moved into \u201cthe real world\u201d. It wasn\u2019t a Big Mac and a vow to abandon health. It was much imperceptible. One uneaten chicken nugget off my kid\u2019s plate. A handful of chips while tidying after a birthday party. An indulgent pastry at a work event. No single choice made the difference, but together, they nudged me across an invisible threshold. Gradually, then suddenly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWeight gain often occurs gradually over decades (about 1 lb per year), making it difficult for most people to perceive the specific causes.\u201d\u200a\u2014\u200aAuthors of this research\u00a0study<\/a><\/p>\n

Researchers have found that as little as 100 extra calories per day\u200a\u2014\u200athe equivalent of a biscuit, or just one chicken nugget\u200a\u2014\u200acan quietly lead to 5\u201310kg of weight gain over a few years. These are imperceptible surpluses, hidden beneath the noise of daily life. They don\u2019t tip scales or trigger panic. Instead, they linger beneath the surface, accumulating quietly, day by\u00a0day.<\/p>\n

This is what public health experts call \u201ccreeping obesity\u201d. You don\u2019t gain 10kg in a weekend. You gain it by ignoring the little things. You gain it with rationalisations. \u201cIt\u2019s only Thursday.\u201d \u201cI\u2019ll start again\u00a0Monday.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turning the Tide\u200a\u2014\u200aSmall Changes, Big\u00a0Impact<\/h3>\n

\u201cThings take longer to happen than you think they will, and then they happen faster than you thought they could.\u201d\u200a\u2014\u200aRudiger Dornbusch, economist<\/em><\/p>\n

Just as the surplus adds up, so too can a small daily deficit. In fact, research shows that a 100\u2013200 calorie reduction per day\u200a\u2014\u200aeating slightly less, walking a bit more\u200a\u2014\u200acan reverse the trend. You don\u2019t need a juice cleanse or bootcamp. Just consistency. Over time, small wins build momentum. You tighten one belt loop, then another. Confidence returns.<\/p>\n

You lose weight the same way you gained it: gradually, then suddenly.<\/p>\n

The same creeping complacency (or discipline) that undermines our bodies can quietly unravel even the mightiest of companies.<\/p>\n

The Corporate Calories of Organisational Decline<\/h3>\n

The Corporate Calories of Organisational Decline<\/p>\n

\u201cOne theme common to all failures is that the decisions that led to failure were made when the leaders in question were widely regarded as among the best companies in the world.\u201d\u200a\u2014\u200aClayton Christensen<\/em><\/p>\n

Businesses don\u2019t usually collapse because of one foolish CEO or one disastrous launch. They decline the way people gain weight: a few bad habits, unchecked. A little too much comfort. A failure to be mindful and take notice or worse a failure to take action when you\u00a0do.<\/p>\n

As the work of Joe Bower and his prot\u00e9g\u00e9s like Clark Gilbert<\/a> and Robert Alexander Burgelman<\/a> reveal, the real issue isn\u2019t only the bad decisions, but the invisible processes behind\u00a0them.<\/p>\n

Bower\u2019s crucial insight, If you want to understand a company\u2019s true strategy, don\u2019t read its mission statement. Watch where it allocates its resources. Not once, but over time. Strategy is not an event. It\u2019s a process. Not what the CEO says on stage, but what corporate teams fund, prioritise, pay attention to and reward (or punish) over phone calls, in meeting rooms and budget\u00a0reviews.<\/p>\n

Clark Gilbert<\/a> took this further in our latest episode of The Innovation Show<\/a>\u00a0: \u201cStrategy is embedded deep in the organisation. It\u2019s multi-level. It plays out over time. And roles are inevitably in conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not one big moment that defines you. It\u2019s the compounding effect of daily choices\u200a\u2014\u200aa biscuit in business\u00a0terms.<\/p>\n

The Tin Man Test: Rusted by\u00a0Rigidity<\/h3>\n

The Wizard of\u00a0Oz<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a moment in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy finds the Tin Man, rusted solid in the\u00a0woods.<\/p>\n

Dorothy: How did you ever get like\u00a0this?<\/em><\/p>\n

Tin Man: Well, about a year ago, I was chopping that tree, minding my own business, when it started to rain\u2026 and I rusted\u00a0solid.<\/em><\/p>\n

Historians suggest the Tin Man represented the American industrial worker during the Great Depression. Factories shut down. People froze in place (Ai may do the\u00a0same?).<\/p>\n

But perhaps there is another metaphor here: a rusting organisation?<\/p>\n

Exercise physiologists say, motion is lotion. Joints need movement to stay healthy, you use it or lose it. The same goes for companies. When an organisation stops innovating, questioning itself, reinventing, reallocating resources\u200a\u2014\u200ait rusts. No oil in the joints. No tension between old and new opportunities. No strategic stretch or flexibility. Ultimately, no\u00a0growth.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how giants fall. Gradually, then suddenly.<\/p>\n

The Parable of the Eleventh\u00a0Floor<\/h3>\n

Strategy Lives in What You\u00a0Fund<\/p>\n

\u201cYou never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.\u201d\u200a\u2014\u200aBuckminster Fuller<\/em><\/p>\n

On our recent episode of The Innovation Show, Clark Gilbert shared \u201cThe Parable of the Eleventh Floor.\u201d When he took over Deseret Media, he faced the trap of trying to innovate through a system built for the past. Legacy sales teams were still focused on selling full-page print ads to a handful of big advertisers. Digital products, with smaller margins and thousands of potential buyers, didn\u2019t fit their model\u200a\u2014\u200aor their commission structure.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t that they were stubborn. It\u2019s that they were logical\u200a\u2014\u200awithin the wrong\u00a0context.<\/p>\n

One day, Gilbert and his head of print sales met with the CEO of a major car dealership. The dealership had paused all ad spending but was ready to restart. The sales leader pitched a full campaign and asked which agency to coordinate with.<\/p>\n

Somewhat bemused, the CEO\u00a0replied:<\/p>\n

\u201cTV and print you can coordinate down here. But for digital, you\u2019ll need to go through our digital team. They\u2019re on the eleventh\u00a0floor!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Nothing unusual there, especially in the early noughties. The problem was that Clark\u2019s sales lead had never even heard of the eleventh\u00a0floor!<\/p>\n

But as Clark said, you can be sure that companies like Autotrader.com knew exactly where it\u00a0was.<\/p>\n

That moment became a parable inside Deseret Media. The Eleventh Floor was no longer a physical space. It was symbolic of a different world, a different buyer, and a different strategy, a different context. It highlighted a truth Gilbert made into a mantra: \u201cA digital buyer needs a digital\u00a0seller.\u201d<\/p>\n

He knew then that trying to retrofit digital into a legacy system was a fool\u2019s errand (what Clay Christensen called Cramming<\/a>). The solution wasn\u2019t better training or more incentives. It was a new system, a new salesforce and ultimately a new\u00a0context.<\/p>\n

And when he pulled responsibility for digital away from the old structure growth doubled. Even then, the former leader of the legacy team insisted it was a mistake, right until his retirement. Years later, even as digital sales surpassed print, the traditional sales lead remained convinced. (Planck\u2019s Priniciple<\/a>)<\/p>\n

As Clark reflected, \u201cNot only did we threaten his leadership, he thought we were doing something bad for the company. Even today as digital sales now exceed sales in the traditional business, he still believes we were wrong. It\u2019s almost impossible to overestimate the persistence of this world\u00a0view.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the key insight: You can\u2019t retrofit your way to the future. You have to create a new context where the resource allocation process values the new. As Einstein put it \u201cYou can\u2019t use an old map to explore a new\u00a0world.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the organisational chicken nugget. Not noticed. Not challenged. Crammed in, until one day, you\u2019re rusted\u00a0stiff.<\/p>\n

How Gravity Wins (Unless You Intervene)<\/h3>\n

The Elemental Project by Ray Collins Armand\u00a0Dijcks<\/p>\n

\u201cGood and evil increase at compound interest. That\u2019s why the little decisions we make every day are of infinite importance. the smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may go on to victories you never dreamed of.\u201d\u200a\u2014\u200aC.S.\u00a0Lewis<\/em><\/p>\n

In our series with Gary Hamel, Gary shared that there are three invisible forces that flatten the arc of success in organisations over\u00a0time:<\/p>\n

The Law of Large Numbers: It\u2019s harder to grow a $40 billion company than a $4 million one. Big systems resist\u00a0change.
\nThe Law of Averages: Over time, all performance reverts to the mean. You can\u2019t be a high-growth company\u00a0forever.
\nThe Law of Diminishing Returns: What once worked wonders delivers less over time. More effort, smaller\u00a0reward.<\/p>\n

These forces act silently. That\u2019s why vigilance matters.<\/p>\n

But how do you fight\u00a0gravity?<\/p>\n

Break big units into small, agile\u00a0ones.
\nReallocate resources constantly. Don\u2019t reward what used to\u00a0work.
\nSet bold targets that force fresh thinking.
\nCreate new contexts for new ideas to\u00a0grow.<\/p>\n

Gilbert\u2019s experience leading BYU\u2019s online university was a masterclass in fighting gravity. Traditional faculty resisted certificate-based learning. Using his lessons from Deseret, he didn\u2019t fight them, but rather he created a parallel system where certificate-first education was the priority. Under a new context, the new strategy to\u00a0thrive.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, as he puts it, \u201cYou don\u2019t change the people. You change the\u00a0system.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Final\u00a0Biscuit<\/h3>\n

\u201cFew will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events.\u201d\u200a\u2014\u200aRobert F.\u00a0Kennedy<\/em><\/p>\n

Whether we\u2019re talking about our bodies or our businesses, big shifts rarely happen all at once. They accumulate. A biscuit here. A spreadsheet tweak there. A sales rep steering a client toward the old product. A cognitive or strategic dissonance over there. A CEO rationalising a continued decline in\u00a0sales.<\/p>\n

If there\u2019s hope in this, it\u2019s this: we can intervene at any time. We can change our direction. One rep at a time. One budget line at a time. One bite at a time. Or not as the case may\u00a0be!<\/p>\n

Perhaps most importantly, we can create new systems where good decisions make\u00a0sense.<\/p>\n

Strategy isn\u2019t what you write down. It\u2019s what you repeatedly fund. Leadership isn\u2019t what you say. It\u2019s the context you\u00a0build.<\/p>\n

Gradually, then suddenly.<\/p>\n

That episode with Clark Gilbert, up next in this series is 3 episodes with Robert Burgelmann.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/medium.com\/media\/e401dade00be00f260575678dcbb8f9d\/href<\/a><\/p>\n

Corporate Weight Gain: Small Choices, Big Consequences<\/a> was originally published in The Thursday Thought<\/a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.<\/p>\n

The post Corporate Weight Gain: Small Choices, Big Consequences<\/a> appeared first on The Innovation Show<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cHow did you go bankrupt?\u201d asks one character in Ernest Hemingway\u2019s novel The Sun Also Rises. \u201cTwo ways,\u201d his friend replies. \u201cGradually and then suddenly.\u201d (via Paul Nunes, in \u201cBig Bang Disruption\u201d) That sentence explains so many collapses in life: waistlines, empires, reputations. One biscuit at a time. One skipped workout. One more justification. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1512,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nCorporate Weight Gain: Small Choices, Big Consequences - Aidan McCullen \u2013 Keynote Speaker Ireland | Innovation & Leadership Expert<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/aidanmccullen.com\/?p=1511\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Corporate Weight Gain: Small Choices, Big Consequences - Aidan McCullen \u2013 Keynote Speaker Ireland | Innovation & Leadership Expert\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cHow did you go bankrupt?\u201d asks one character in Ernest Hemingway\u2019s novel The Sun Also Rises. \u201cTwo ways,\u201d his friend replies. \u201cGradually and then suddenly.\u201d (via Paul Nunes, in \u201cBig Bang Disruption\u201d) That sentence explains so many collapses in life: waistlines, empires, reputations. 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One biscuit at a time. One skipped workout. One more justification. I…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aidanmccullen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aidanmccullen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aidanmccullen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanmccullen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aidanmccullen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanmccullen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aidanmccullen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanmccullen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanmccullen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}