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Competition and the Theory of Relativity You have to keep your firm moving if you hope to stay ahead of the competition, and if you want your firm to age gracefully.
I f you’ve ever spent any time at the beach, you may have noticed two distinct characters. One is the tanned, 50-year-old blonde basking in the sun on her lounge chair. Her leather-like skin makes her look 20 years older than she really is. Contrast that with the 50-year-old surfer, effortlessly maneuvering his longboard on the rolling waves. He’s nearly indistinguishable from the other surfers 20 years his junior.
Bill Murphey CONTINUING ED
In very simplistic terms, Einstein’s theory suggests that objects in motion, and traveling at very high speeds relative to slow-moving observers, will age more slowly than the static observers. Imagine two successful engineers, Andrew and Ben. They begin working at the same design firm straight out of college and at age 40 each decides to leave the company to establish his own firm. Andrew begins building his business by reaching out to his past clients and grows at the industry average of 5 percent per year. Ben decides to take another path and competes for projects beyond his firm’s current capacity. His strategy pays off and he’s able to grow at the rate of 20 percent each year. By the time Andrew and Ben turn 50, Ben has increased his firm’s revenue four-fold relative to Andrew’s firm. Both have likely worked a similar See BILL MURPHEY, page 4
Albert Einstein thought about this. Well, not about this beach scene. But he did discuss the relationship between fast- and slow-moving objects in his Special Theory of Relativity. So what does this have to do with the AEC industry, you ask? I’m one of those people who is always searching for a way to connect the dots, and I found that Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity provides another way of explaining the difference between fast-growth entrepreneurial firms and slow-growth small businesses. In a previous TZL article, I recommended reading obscure books as a way to broaden your river of knowledge in leadership and business concepts. The current book on my nightstand is Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time . Released in 1988, Hawking’s book does a great job of explaining the space-time concept of Einstein’s theory that we can use to understand how some firms out-compete other firms in our industry.
THE ZWEIG LETTER April 25, 2016, ISSUE 1149
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