Compare two recent reports on automobiles.  Last Friday The Chicago Tribune reported that U.S. auto sales this decade had declined 7% (read article here).  Hmm, sounds like better quality cars is dampening revenues – and an excuse for GM, Ford and Chrysler to do poorly.  However, just last week the Wall Street Journal reported that the number of passenger automobiles on the roads in China rose — get this now — from 500,000 to 50,000,000 in the last 30 years!  Right, a 100X increase in the number of automobiles.  I don’t know how many autos are on the roads in India, Chile, Brazil and other high growth countries – but I’m sure the number has gone up quite a bit.  Any visitor to these countries can point out the increased congestion.

So, if all the growth is in these other countries, why hasn’t GM focused 50% (or more) of its market research there?  Why haven’t most design efforts been focused on autos that meet the demands of these markets?  Since all companies want to grow, why isn’t GM (and Ford, etc.) focused on supplying these markets with double digit volume gains?  After all, Tata Motors of India is now launching a sub $2,500 auto (read more here) that it expects to sell in the tens of thousands, and simultaneously the company is taking over luxury brands Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford (see article here.) 

Businesses get Locked-inside their boxes.  GM, Ford and Chrysler have sold cars in Europe – but largely they have always been happy to be U.S. companies selling products in the U.S.  Even though the growth has gone elsewhere, outside the U.S., these companies remain "inside the box" – and that box keeps getting relatively smaller as the global markets get larger.  Although they may try to "think outside the box", Lock-in keeps them fixated on the U.S. and only marginally involved in other markets. 

Companies like Tata "get outside the box – then think."  They figure out how to make money in high growth markets, and go to new markets figuring out how to get a toe in.  They compete, get bloodied up, compete more, learn and find a way to make money.  They don’t get overwhelmed with planning exercises and building market models.  They never lose sight of where growth is, and they keep their eyes on growing sales in these Rapids markets with high growth.  Meanwhile, their eyes are forever on the horizon looking for the next growth opportunity. 

No matter how big a business seems when growing, eventually growth slows.  New technologies, new products or new competitors change the landscape, and what was once a very big box starts to shrink.  Before long, as the growth goes to other markets, the box starts looking smaller and smaller.  Yet, most companies remain fixated on competing inside their box.  Like GM, so worried about U.S. market share that they missed the explosion in China, India and elsewhere.  And now the competitors that learned how to succeed in the growth markets are keener, and better resourced, to come blow up the small box GM is fixated upon.

Businesses have to get outside the box or they eventually fail.  The quicker they learn this lesson, and implement processes to Disrupt their cozy competitive world – while implementing White Space projects to keep them in the quickly shifting Rapids – the more likely they are to survive longer, and make significantly more money for investors while creating exciting jobs for employees and demand for suppliers.