“In the beginning, your purpose doesn’t have to grab everybody,” I started. “It just has to grab you. It helps you set the course.”

Riley was pensive. “I took over from my father. His purpose served the company well until he passed. The company’s culture was built on it. But things are different, now. It’s not like we sell vinyl records, though that is making a niche comeback. The market is not as interested in our product offering. It is still a voracious market, but it looks in a different direction.”

“Markets drive everything,” I nodded. “When your father started his small company, he did not know if it would work. At the time, he had little access to market research. He based his assumptions on intuition and those first sales. If he was lucky, there would be enough sales to cover his costs. The bank would not loan him any money, so he had to develop his product within his own means and its meager cash flow.”

“I know the stories,” Riley remembered. “And, all of his profit went right back into the company to hire more people and buy more equipment. He took a second mortgage on the house, and mom had to co-sign the note. But, he made it.”

“And, did well,” I smiled. “But markets change. Sometimes markets want incremental improvement, but sometimes markets want a seismic shift. You are somewhere in between.”

“I can see the shift, already,” she said. “I can read the market chatter and see the little startups that take some of our customers. I want to change, but, I am not sure which direction to take.”

“It’s an age old dilemma,” I replied. “Many people think that resistance to change is a matter of will. Most have the willingness to change, it is more a matter of how.”

“Is it a skill?” Riley asked. “Is there a series of questions, or a series of problems that must be solved?”

“If it was a series of problems, what would be the first problem? And, don’t give me some general notion, but think in terms of a problem statement.”

“In what way can we determine the shift in our market needs to better create a product that responds to that need?”

“That’s a good start,” I encouraged. “Here are some other questions you might consider.

• Who is in our market?
• How do we find out what our market is struggling with, related to our current product?
• How do we prototype emerging products to meet that struggle?
• How do we maintain our current product long enough to create the cash to fund emerging products?
• How do we measure the ability of emerging products, even small variations, to capture new market interest?
• How do we manage the risk of failure in our experimentation?
• How do we maintain morale in our workforce in the face of inevitable failures?
• How do we learn from our failures, fast enough, to continue innovation?

There are answers to these questions, but first, you have to ask the questions.”