How Can Your Company Avoid
"Icon Toppling?"

Many years ago, researcher Faith Popcorn identifed 16 long term trends which impact us, our attitudes and behaviours. A trend lasts at least 10 years or more. A fad lasts just a short time.

One of her 16 trends is "Icon Toppling." That means that "anything big and established will topple" mainly by its own mistakes leading to self-destruction.

For example, of the 100 biggest firms in the USA in 1900, only 15 still exist.

We love to join others to "overturn these pillars of society." "Icon toppling" gives people much pleasure and opportunity to gloat.

Many of these large, established long-term organizations are hard to love, making "icon toppling" even more fun for us.

How can your company, big or small, avoid "icon toppling?" That's simple.

That's simple. Learn these trends and, if your company is "off-trend" on any, some, or all of these trends, make changes to "on-trend" policy and operations.

Inability or unwillingness to understand trends results, Ms. Popcorn says, from "clinging to old-think"--a nice way of saying that one is living in the past--and is insensitive to changing purchaser attitudes.

Icon toppling happens because a company implodes by itself. The public just cheers as the company topples. Note: the public does not have to rise up and try to overthrow a company. Instead, they stop buying from it. The company failure, therefore, is self-inflicted.

As part of your strategic planning process, retain a consultant to do a situation analysis on your business, including a look at your "off-trend" or "on-trend" condition. This always leads to suggestions and action plans to correct "off-trend" problems.

These matters can be included in your Three Year Strategic Business Plan-again, this is something I can help you with.