Case study: Blockbuster, not to mention the failure of management to adapt.
Blockbuster is a classic case of a company that didn’t go out the door because people suddenly stopped watching movies — when the market for it did — but the leadership could not figure out how to adapt when the industry changed. The change was unmistakable in the late 1990s and early 2000s: customers sought convenience — initially, first with DVDs by mail and then with streaming. Blockbuster’s leadership remained loyal to the old template: physical stores and “late fees” as crucial profit. For the moment, those options were successful, but they made it more difficult to pivot. And even when other competitors exposed that the market was following with its own model, Blockbuster’s approach was still reactive. They attempted partial fixes (e.g., limited online efforts) but not a big change in their business model. To me at least, the weakness of leadership in that instance didn’t lie in resource availability or brand awareness — Blockbuster had both. The main problem was adaptability: leadership underestimated how quickly consumer behavior would change, and overestimated how long their existing business model could last. Taken as a leadership matter, it is a dereliction of modern effectiveness: an unwillingness to learn, unlearn, and reworking your organization around new realities.
In short: The case of Blockbuster demonstrates how any leadership that places a premium on defending its history over future generation can obliterate that longevity — even though it might feel pretty much too big to fail in the end.
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