For immediate release:

You're plotting strategy for your business.  Maybe you're going off-site to a scenic setting for a strategy retreat, where being away from the daily routine may help stimulate thinking about strategic direction.  Or, perhaps you'll stay on-site to do strategic thinking and strategy development.

Either way, your industry and markets have been changing.  So, your business may be in dire need of a new strategy.  Or, maybe you're not in such dire straits, yet require a strategy redo.  On the other hand, perhaps your strategy only warrants a bit of updating.

Nonetheless, you'll need to determine what type of strategy to develop.  Should you do something bold that resembles a moonshot?  Even if you only do minor updating, should some boldness be added to the strategy?  On the contrary, should you embrace the opposite extreme and restrict any revamp solely to incremental change?  Or, what?

High profile companies have been recognizing the downside of going for the change everything moonshot.  They are seeing the advantages of less drastic change.  Yet, according to strategy consultant and business success and failure patterns expert Phyllis Ezop, President of Ezop and Associates, successfully avoiding the change everything moonshot does not necessarily mean relying entirely on tiny incremental changes.  Instead, she says, a stepwise approach often works very well.  As Ezop points out, the steps are not just tiny increments.  Still, the steps do not involve radical, drastic change.

Ezop explains this in the most recent issue of her newsletter, Winning Moves® News, Tips and Insights, where she discusses Boeing's experience with its 787 Dreamliner jet.  In late May, Boeing announced at its annual investor's meeting that it would no longer use a moonshot approach to product strategy.

Both Ezop's newsletter, which comes out every other month, and her Winning Moves® Blog feature various examples of the value of building on past foundations and taking a stepwise, evolutionary approach. Ezop also makes the case for a stepwise approach in her report "Evolution, Not Revolution: How to Innovate Without Destroying Your Business", which was published on her website in 2007.

Ezop's newsletter, blog and reports reflect her 25+ years of researching business success and failure patterns to identify "Winning Moves".  Subscribers to Ezop's newsletter receive in-depth analysis of strategic issues—issues like moonshot versus incremental—delivered directly to them via email.  The newsletter helps subscribers see how current business news and key business topics fit with the patterns of business success.

Ezop is based in La Grange Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. She writes, speaks and consults to help companies identify and make "Winning Moves" by following business success patterns.  As a result of her research, she can be a valuable resource for companies grappling with how, as well as how much, to change.

For more information, visit ezopandassociates.com, where you can also sign up to receive the newsletter and blog posts.

Contact: