Are Blue Ocean Strategies Prescriptive or Descriptive?
Body Surfing uses the Panera Bread story to explore an elusive question. Are blue ocean strategies prescriptive or merely descriptive? Chris Lees posed the question nicely on LinkedIn:
I've wondered about whether blue oceans can be spotted ahead of time or only with the benefit of hindsight. Many examples seem obvious after-the-fact but must have seemed like moonshots to the people making decisions at that moment.
Entrepreneurship is like forging metal by hand. Founder and CEO Ron Shaich swung his entrepreneurial hammer for years of swings before Panera became a success. He overcame resistance from Clark University administrators. He borrowed his inheritance to create his first closet-sized cookie store. He sold Au Bon Pain to focus on Panera Bread.
Each swing of the hammer helped forge Panera Bread. It became a leader in the fast-casual restaurant industry.
Seth Godin speaks of The Infinite Game in his new book, The Practice. He wrote, “The infinite game is the game we play to play, not to win. The infinite game is a catch in the backyard with your four-year-old son. You’re not trying to win catch; you’re simply playing catch. The most important parts of our lives are games that we can’t imagine winning.”
I think entrepreneurship is like all creative work. It’s an infinite game. Writing an article, building a house, painting a picture, parenting, creating a visual analytic, discovering an algorithm, writing a computer program, searching for a vaccine, running a marathon, learning to shoot a three-pointer.
Blue ocean strategies are prescriptive. But only to the entrepreneur who swings the hammer. Entrepreneurship is an infinite game.
