Malcolm Gladwell

This New Yorker article by Malcom Gladwell (author of best sellers The Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers - all highly recommended) points to a fascinating study of every war fought in the past 200 hundred years. In lopsided conflicts where the underdogs were at least 10 times smaller, they won a remarkable 28.5% of the time. When those underdogs acknowledged their weakness and chose an unconventional strategy, the winning percentage jumps to over 63. When underdogs choose not to play by Goliath’s rules, they usually win. Pretty encouraging for start-ups and small companies in industries dominated by a Goliath.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 at 8:44 am and is filed under innovation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.