Creating a Competitive Advantage: The Strategic Importance of a 1% Difference

LOS ANGELES - Nov. 20, 2013 - PRLog -- During the period that I have had the opportunity to do Coaching and Organizational Development work, I have had the great opportunity to meet many talented and fascinating people. One of these was the late Brian Maxwell, who was co-founder of PowerBar with his wife Jennifer. The Maxwells introduced their product "PowerBar" and, in turn, created what is now known as the "energy bar" category. The company was very successful and ultimately it was sold to Nestle.

I had the opportunity to work with Brian for several years. As party of this work I served as Brian's advisor, and applied several of our tools including Strategic planning, Leadership Development, and Culture Management to help build PowerBar as a sustainably successful organization.

Although my primary role is to add value to a company that I work with, I often have the opportunity to learn something new as well. Sometimes it is a new way of thinking. That was what I learned from Brian Maxwell of PowerBar.

The Concept of the 1% Difference

Brian was an athlete. He was a world class marathon runner. During one of our discussions I asked how he had come to invent PowerBar? He told me that he would spend an entire year in training to improve his performance by 1%! This was a staggering concept for me: an entire year to improve performance by 1%!

Brian also said that finally he realized that he could no longer gain any advantage from training, and that he needed to seek a different source of competitive advantage. He chose to see if nutrition could be that new source of competitive advantage. Working with a nutritionist, Brian and Jennifer ultimately created what is today known as "Powerbar." That product led to the company of the same name.

How Important is a 1% Difference?

In a sense, 1% seems to be a small almost trivial difference. How important is it really in the real world? Consider the difference between humans and Chimpanzees.

The difference in DNA between Humans and Chimpanzees is only 1.5%. Chimpanzees can master sign language, and actually use simple "tools". For example, the can use a stick to attract termites or ants and then eat them. They can use a piece of wood or a rock as a weapon. These are actually fairly sophisticated things being done by Chimpanzees. Yet humans can create tools that make other tools; can build complex things like computers, air planes, and even space ships. They can do research that leads to new antibiotics and create entire new industries. They build complex cities. Clearly, a 1.5% difference is far from trivial in impact.

Implications for Management

Brian Maxwell's concept of the 1% difference had a profound impact on my thinking. It led to the question of how we at Management Systems could contribute to the competitive advantage of our client. It led further to the development of managerial and Organizational Development tools such as our Surveys, our Strategic Planning process, our Leadership Development method, our Performance Management tools and our Culture Management in ways that would provide real differences from other comparable tools.

The Bottom Line:

In fact we believe that there is actually much more than a 1% difference between our tools and other tools with the same names; but as Brian Maxwell and Chimpanzees have shown; even a 1% difference can be very significant in creating competitive advantage!

For information about Culture Management, Leadership Development and Strategic Planning, see: Strategic Planning, Performance Management, Leadership Development and Culture Management on the Management Systems website www.mgtsystems.com