Comment by dade_

The last company I worked for used the “burning platform” story a few years later after Elop’s memo. It was true, but it didn’t work.

The rank and file have no idea what to do with this information. The new platform looks great, but it isn’t proven, doesn’t replace the margin targets for sales, and the marketing is split telling the new story while trying not to accelerate the fire. Customers don’t know us for the new platform, so large effort is invested trying to get the smallest of wins at new clients. Invariably, the staff don’t really understand the new platform, quality is lower than the burning platform. Client decides this isn’t something you are good at, sales gets burned and says no thanks. Executives say, oh shit, our finances are a catastrophe, focus on the burning platform. We need quick wins!

Layoffs throw a bunch of people off the platform, repeat until the business is 10% of size, and languish for years with mediocre executives (well paid for skills /competency as no one that has a clue will work for them). People that should resign do the work for 8 people until they burnout. The situation messes with people’s minds and they stick around even though they know they must leave.

The analogy makes sense, but thought out, it is apparent why it can’t work. The whole business leaps from a platform, not to another platform, but to a life raft. It has no stability, can’t support the same people, processes, or way of thinking. Eventually it capsizes and sinks, or is collected by someone with a platform who will extract the last of the value as it goes away silently in the night.