We Have Always Done It That Way

In case you thought the “always done it that way” phenomenon was limited to associations, think again. As the CEO of a Swiss pharmaceutical company writes in this month’s HBR:

“Sometimes, the resistance takes form of unquestioned assumptions. In the mid-1990s, when I was with another company, we had an ulcer treatment that had reached $1 billion in sales–which was as much as any pharmaceutical prodcut had ever sold. I believed sales could go twice as high, but convincing the marketing teams and general managers around the world was a huge challenge. The whole organization was absolutely convinced it couldn’t be done. Why? Simply because it hadn’t been done before.”

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