pounding their desk for special emphasis). Survey after survey backs me up. As just one example, an AlixPartners study showed that 98 percent of CEOs agree that investing in new technology and digital solutions must be a priority. That’s a lot of CEOs. We’re talking North Korea election numbers. Yet, as one of my more insightful colleagues puts it (and I’m paraphrasing): We all say we want to change. But what we really want is to keep doing what we always have done, just a bit better. Indeed, far too many leaders put forward a transformation agenda that is merely applying totally unnecessary cosmetics to a rather stocky domesticated animal. And even if the changes they support are fundamentally sound, they often put them into place far too slowly. As an experienced bullshit-dispelling enthusiast, I often find myself triggered by the words of many a decidedly mediocre company CEO sharing their latest inventor presentation or earnings update. They willpresent their multi-point, long-term growth strategy as if they have created some magical elixir to unlock a phenomenally better future. Instead, what they advance as a bold change agenda is mostly designed to address things they should have tackled years earlier or seeks to close gaps in areas where the competition has already built a sizeable advantage. Though I try to keep my schadenfreude in check, inevitably the voice of an airline captain from a recent flight begins taking over my mind: “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re about to begin our initial descent.” Bailing doesn’t fix the hole Let’s look at the troubled department store sector. Consider that the three biggest American national chains (Macy’s, Kohl’s, and JCPenney) have all breathlessly espoused various new turnaround strategies for years. CEOs have come and gone – as I write this, JCPenney is on its fourth in under 10 years – yet despite new executives, tons of investment, revamped programs, and so on, it has all added up tonothing of any real significance. But it’s actually worse than that. Not only have the various attempts at transformation failed to gainany real traction, but also their lackluster efforts (particularly in the case of Macy’s and JCPenney)have forced them to close hundreds of stores and engage in significant cost-cutting. Although addressingstructural cost issues can often be necessary, one thing we know for sure is that closing stores makesshopping a lot less convenient for those customers affected. ‘But can’t they just shop online?’ youmight ask. As it turns out, closing stores most often reduces overall e-commerce sales in the tradearea where a location has been shuttered. This is because stores serve as valuable advertising fora brand or as a showroom for products, regardless of where the customer decides to transact.Increasingly popular features like ‘buy online, pick up in-store’ or ‘buy online, return to store’ no longer become factors in customers choosing a particular brand over the competition when a nearby store ceases to be an option. It also turns out that massive cuts in operating budgets can make a bad situation even worse. If you’ve ever tried to find someone to help you at some of these stores, witnessed the ragged appearance of their shop floors, or noticed the large number of products out of stock, you know precisely what I mean. When I am delivering a keynote, I will often ask the audience whether they can name one company thathas successfully cost-cut and store-closed their way to prosperity. Bueller? Bueller? Bueller? More times than most leaders will own up to, what they refer to as a ‘growth strategy’ or ‘transformation agenda’ doesn’t do much of anything to address the hole that is causing them to leak market share to the competition. Bailing doesn’t fix the hole. And when we think it does, we merely become the architects of our own misfortune. What took you so long? During the depths of the Covid-19 pandemic, we witnessed a tremendous (and unusual) amount of innovation on the part of many organizations. Companies across many industries embraced new ways to communicate, fulfill orders, take payments, and a whole lot more. I personally know of several organizations that had been slow-walking various pilot programs and were suddenly hit with a boltof urgency to roll them out. Desperation can do that sometimes. But if seismic shifts have been rippling through your organization for well over a decade – if you’ve had a hard time winning and keeping customers, and growing, for years – and your default response to difficulties with growing the top line has been to reflexively engage in another round of cost-cutting – why did you wait for a gut punch to take bold, decisive action? It shouldn’t take a crisis to innovate. Aside from innovations that addressed coronavirus-specific issues, any idea that worked well during the pandemic probably would have been a good idea to roll out much earlier. As just one small example, many companies experienced enormous success by offering ‘buy online, pick up in-store,’ known in theindustry as BOPIS. At both retailers where I led strategy, we initially made this feature available morethan 15 years ago. If the pandemic caused you to offer this service finally, then good on you, but don’t pretend that whatyou did was innovative. The real question is what took you so long. Innovating to parity One reason meaningful transformation can be so hard is that up to a certain point, change isn’t transformation, it’s merely keeping up. What distinguished a brand’s performance a few yearsago is now often a requirement or has already become completely uninteresting or largely irrelevant. When I first began working in e-commerce in the late 1990s, standard product delivery times were about a week. If you wanted expedited delivery, we charged a hefty fee and often made a nice profit. Over time,free delivery (and often product returns) became a basic customer expectation. Moreover, today manyproducts can be delivered the same day and sometimes in less than an hour. Being able to see a nearby store’s inventory, use your smartphone to check into a hotel, find detailed product information in a matter of seconds, or get text reminders about your upcoming doctor’s appointment were once novel features. Now they are increasingly expected. And on and on. Customers’ expectations continue to be ratcheted up. The bar for essential competitive performance continues to be raised. What was once a source of differentiation has become a starting point. Don’t confuse the absolute necessity to execute well against basic customer requirements with actual innovation. Merely closing competitive gaps is not sufficient to keep pace with the speed of disruption. As the pace of change accelerates, our list of necessary actions is likely to become rather long. They may take quite a lot of time and consume substantial resources to bring to life. But we must be careful not to confuse table stakes with differentiators. When our best is merely average, we risk falling farther and farther behind. This article is excerpted from his upcoming book, Leaders Leap: Transforming Your Company at the Speed of Disruption, published by Wonderwell on April 23. Copyright © 2024 by Steve Dennis. This story first appeared in the March 2024 issue of Inside Retail US magazine.