Inflection Points
Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.
— Arthur Ashe, American professional tennis player
Early designs of fighter aircraft did not anticipate the issues that would arise once approaching the sound barrier. As an airplane reaches the speed of sound, an invisible barrier is created by the sound waves. The result is compressed air exerting great force on the plane.
The most infamous example of this was the WW2 Japanese Mitsubishi Zero fighter aircraft. The rapidly increasing forces as the aircraft approached the sound barrier would overpower the control surfaces, causing pilots to lose control flying full speed into the ground.
Imagine your organization is like an aircraft designed to handle friction at subsonic speeds. To continue advancing forward you are forced to fly faster, rapidly approaching the speed of sound. The faster you go, the more difficult it becomes to increase your speed. As you push your plane through the sound barrier, cone-shaped shock waves form at the nose and the tail, increasing the drag drastically. The forces acting upon the control surfaces cause you to lose control. You have just hit the sound barrier: an inflection point.
Inflection points are events that result in significant changes in the progress of a company. More notable than incremental day-to-day progress, they are turning points in which dramatic changes, positive or negative, are to be expected.
To cross the sound barrier engineers and scientists were forced to disregard what was already known about designing an aircraft and begin experimenting. Today supersonic (faster-than-sound) jet planes have conical noses and sharp, sweptback wings essentially to penetrate the sound barrier. These aircraft were intentionally designed to scale to supersonic speeds.
More often than not when people speak about challenges with scaling they refer to the need for additional resources, money, or people. Of course, you can always throw more money at a problem and/or hire more people. However, looking back at my definition of scalability, that is exactly what inflection points are known for: driving costs faster than revenue.
So what is the alternative? It is to adapt to the new conditions created by the inflection points, using organizational creativity, energy, and determination. To put it simply, doing more with that which you already have.
An inspiring lesson in adaptability comes from the Israeli Airforce (IAF). The IAF was created on the heels of the 1948 War of Independence, flying a handful of Czech-made aircraft clandestinely purchased from the scraps of WWII. Within its first 20 years, the IAF would struggle to keep up with its enemies, as no-one was willing to sell them modern aircraft. Just before the Six Days War in 1967, they were barely able to muster 200 aircraft in comparison to the 600 modern Soviet-made jets fielded by the combined airforces of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq. What the IAF did have: determination and creativity.
At the time, NATO considered three missions per aircraft as the maximum that could be achieved per day. The Arabs were training for two sorties a day, with a turnaround time, to refuel and rearm, of two hours. Moshe Bar, a farmer turned fighter pilot, thought their strength should not be measured by the number of planes they possessed, but instead by the number of sorties they could get from each plane and crew. Bar, equipped with a farmer’s mindset, knew that you did not have to buy another tractor when you could run the one you had in more shifts. He believed this logic could be applied to the airforce, turning around aircraft faster to keep them in the air more.
Bar analyzed the sevev (Hebrew for turnaround), meticulously outlining what each member of the crew should be doing every minute that the aircraft was on the ground. They then began driving the crews to run the sevev faster and faster. Eventually, they were able to turnaround an aircraft in six to eight minutes. This enabled them to fly five to six sorties per aircraft each day. Meaning that the Israelis with their fleet of 200 aircraft could field 1000 sorties in a day compared to the combined Arab airforces with a potential of only 1200 sorties per day.
This adaptation by the IAF made possible one of the most brilliant aerial operations in history, Operation Focus (Moked in Hebrew). This preemptive aerial strike on the opening day of the Six Days War resulted in the destruction of 450 Arab aircraft.
Scalability it’s not about resources, it’s about a specific mindset. An adaptability mindset.
A scalable organization can utilize what they have in highly creative ways before looking for additional resources, and in some cases be able to come up with seemingly impossible solutions. These kinds of solutions are what Israelis refer to as “ein breira” (“there is no alternative” in Hebrew).
One could argue that this may not be a relevant example, after all, business is not like war, nobody dies. So, let’s discuss what happened to Southwest Airlines in 1972. After years of legal battles, a lack of cash threatened to ground the company. To keep afloat, they sold one of their four planes. However, they did not allow this to cut service. Bill Franklin, former Vice President of Ground Operations calculated that three airplanes could do the work of four if they could turnaround (in and out of the gate) an aircraft in 10 minutes, compared to the industry average of one hour. Sound familiar?
With an “ein breira” attitude, employees refused to allow other airlines to put them out of business. Southwest employees went above and beyond their normal duties, flight attendants helped with the cleaning, and pilots volunteered to work the ramps to better understand the position. They quickly learned how to utilize their time and worked together to get the aircraft turned around quickly. This attitude saved Southwest Airlines, delivering unmatched profitability in the industry, with 38 profitable years in a row.
Kevin Frieberg, author of Nuts! Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success describes the process from a passenger’s viewpoint: “It’s like there’s nobody anywhere and then all of a sudden everybody comes in like a beehive, going foom, foom, foom…The fueler’s there, the baggage handlers are there. They all just swarm in, bang, and then the next thing you know you’re boarding the aircraft.”
Inflection points signal that your company is expanding. A successful leader will anticipate these and pivot their business, not just to survive but thrive. Learn to utilize the resources available in innovative ways and you will be able to adapt as you advance forward.
Eric Kish as an author, speaker and practicing CEO. He is the author of 5 to 50 to 500: How to build and run scalable organizations and Everyday Turnaround: The art and science of daily business transformation
