DNA

2024-02-28

The early decisions that a company makes about what it does and how it does things constrain the future actions it may take. This may fancifully be called a company’s ‘DNA’¹. This is related to but separate from culture, and personal experience suggests that it may be even more difficult to change.

The basis for this assertion is personal experience at several companies of changes in

• management/leadership team
• strategic direction
• market conditions

In these scenarios there were very many changes. And equally, very many things stayed the same. Things that the firm had struggled with or excelled at before, they continued to.

Big changes are possible under the right circumstances. Rather than some kind of natural law, this concept should be construed as an attempt to consider Jeff Bezos’ dictum to consider what is unlikely to change, in relation to the internals of a firm.