On the Job by Anita Bruzzese Why Its Time to Push Back Against Industry Norms

On the Job by Anita Bruzzese Why It's Time to Push Back Against Industry Norms Since he was a university student in the Netherlands, it has bothered Freek Vermeulen that newspapers are printed in the broadsheet format, which he contends is awkward and flimsy to read. When he became an assistant professor of strategic and international management at London Business School, he took the opportunity to question newspaper leaders about their format and discovered leaders didnt really know why they used broadsheets it had just always been done that way. Vermeulen then turned a couple of research assistants loose to dig deeper into the reasoning. They found that the broadsheets were born after the English government in 1712 began taxing newspaper companies based on the number of pages that were printed. While printing the larger pages made sense at the time, the practice continued even after the tax law was abolished. Vermeulen, now a full professor, says this is a great example of the trap many companies fall into hanging onto things that dont really make sense. Its also why they fail to evolve and innovate. In principle, the world is Darwinian, including in business. Part of adaptation is dumping things that dont work, he says. If you have bad habits, you may not survive. While some businesses may be able to continuebad habitsfor a surprisingly long (read more here)