The Paradox of Pivoting

Sometimes the problems you need to solve outgrow the business you built. The only move is a pivot— whether you need to pivot because 

😞 your product isn’t finding its product-market-fit, or 

😟 your customers are using your product but not paying (enough) for it, or

😩 your selling a lot but unable to deliver a great customer experience

Pivoting is hard because it requires change, and change is hard for us humans.

I’ve worked in management teams during a pivot where we’ve spent a truck load of energy working on changing our product, or our pricing, or our operations.

Every time, we’ve struggled with this dilemma.

There’s so much change going on that we can’t afford to disrupt the team during our pivot.

And therein lies the paradox.

Because the team you need for a pivot is very different from the team you need to run a well-oiled machine.

People who “run a business” often have very different skill sets from people who “change a business”. You need both - but at different times in your business journey. And keeping one when you deeply need the other is a recipe for failure.

I remember years ago when I was running corporate and business development at Cadence Design Systems.  We were looking for growth and trying to pivot into other product segments, including software. But most of our leaders at the time were “running the business” leaders and we just couldn’t make the pivot. At the time, we were about even in market capitalization with our main competitor. Today, Cadence is about 80% of Synopsys’ market cap.

Running the Business

Your well-oiled business relies on consistency and repeatability. It needs people who can execute processes efficiently, improve incrementally, and minimize risk. “Running the business” operators are excellent at scaling what works and avoiding unnecessary disruption. They thrive in environments where the path is known and success is a matter of execution.

Changing the Business

But a pivot? A pivot requires “changing the business” operators—built for ambiguity and experimentation, over consistency and repeatability.

Personally, I love working with these people because I’m one of them! They are unafraid to challenge the status quo. They are energized by uncertainty and don’t mind blowing up yesterday’s plan if it means driving the change that is needed for the business to accelerate and grow. 

What happens when you use a “running the business” team to “change the business”? 

Your pivot stalls out.

No matter how competent or loyal your RtB team may be—they may not be wired for, or interested in, the mindset shift that a pivot demands. 

• They will get frustrated with the uncertainty.  And if you are a CtB person, they will likely get frustrated with you!

• They will get angry when you suggest dismantling the processes they have perfected. They are likely to resist, seeing this as a lack of consistency.

• They are likely to have a hard time processing the change that you're driving. You’ll start noticing “change fatigue” in your team.

It’s not because your current team isn’t talented. 

It’s because they were hired—and rewarded—for excellence in a different context. Their instincts are tuned for optimization, not reinvention. So when faced with a pivot, they lean towards stabilizing over transforming. 

The Paradox of Pivoting

So when you think that there’s too much change going on to deal with changing your team, think again. You may be asking the wrong team to do the right job.

This doesn’t mean that everyone has to go. But it does mean that you must quickly bring in people with the following mindsets and skill sets into key roles.

Adaptability - Pivots rarely go according to the first plan you lay out. 

You’ll test ideas that don’t work, encounter customer feedback you didn’t expect, and hit organizational resistance at every level. 

Leaders who are adaptable can absorb all of that without losing momentum. They don’t panic when things shift—they recalibrate. 

Urgency - Businesses usually don’t pivot unless they have to.

And time is rarely on your side. If you aren’t able to execute your pivot at speed, your employees, your customers, and even your investors may start looking elsewhere for more stable opportunities. Pivot leaders need to move fast and inspire their teams to do the same.

Bias for Action - In a pivot, overplanning can be as dangerous.

Waiting for perfect clarity before acting guarantees a failed pivot. A bias for action is what gets you out of the theory of change and into the real world of learning of how change happens. Leaders who have a bias for action don’t need to know all 12 steps in the process before taking the first one. These are the people who prototype, test, and course correct as they go.

Situational Awareness - Speed doesn’t mean recklessness. It must be balanced with broad-based situational awareness.

Great race car drivers don’t win just on speed. They rely on a team. Each team member has clear responsibilities but also understands more than just their part. And they understand that, in the end, it’s the driver that has to make the in-the-moment split second final decision.

Pivoting is a team sport—but it's for teams who have the ability to quickly see the unintended consequences of potential moves and communicate with clarity so that the team, and the leader, can course correct quickly.

Pivoting favors the fast mover—and not everyone may be able to handle this part of the ride.