Assumptions in all three areas have to fit one another.
The assumptions about environment, mission, and core competencies must fit one another. Marks and Spencer recognized that World War I had led to a new environment—masses of new buyers for good-quality, stylish, and inexpensive merchandise such as lingerie, blouses, and stockings. By the mid-twenties the four brothers-in-law who had built the penny bazaars into a major chain of variety stores might have been satisfied to enjoy their considerable wealth. Instead they decided to rethink the mission of their business. The business of Marks and Spencer, they decided, was not retailing. It was social revolution. From having been a successful variety chain, Marks and Spencer purposefully changed its mission into being a highly distinct “specialty” marketer. Finally, it went out and looked for the right manufacturers, whom it often had to help get started—for the existing old-line manufacturers were, for obvious reasons, none too eager to throw in their lot with the brash upstart who tried to tell them how to run their business—thus developing the core competency required by the new environment and mission.
ACTION POINT: Does the mission of your enterprise fit the environment? Do your core competencies fit the mission?
Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices
Managing in a Time of Great Change
* Source: The Daily Drucker by Peter F. Drucker