????商業戰略其實也是一種潮流，但人們似乎很少留意到這一點。汽車鰭狀穩定板曾風行一時，如今商界人士的著裝活脫脫就是現實版的《廣告狂人》（Mad Men），手機行業也在效仿喬尼?艾夫的iPhone手機設計理念，紛紛采用大觸摸屏和圖標。同樣的道理，涉及企業應該如何創造價值，我們也有一些約定俗成的觀點。而且，為了便于使用，這些觀點甚至擁有屬于自己專門的名稱，比如：關注點、成本領先、差異化、核心競爭力、供應鏈整合等等。

????最近幾天，處于死亡邊緣的柯達公司（Kodak）讓我產生了上面這樣的想法。有關柯達的大多數描述都是標準版的《四眼天雞》（Chicken Little）：天要蹋了；美國夢破滅了；又一家優秀公司遭遇滑鐵盧。我們就要玩完了，而對此我們卻束手無策。畢竟，曾經的柯達是美好時代的標志。當時的美國，創新和發明無處不在。柯達創始人喬治?伊士曼當初的目標是讓攝影“像使用鉛筆一樣方便”。雖然現在這已經成為現實，甚至有所超越，但柯達公司卻并未從這一新興趨勢中獲益。

????因此，周一上午，當柯達公司的領導解釋公司面臨的問題、以及一家前途如此光明的公司為何功敗垂成時，我們的心情非常復雜，幸災樂禍中也夾雜著一絲恐懼。外界的基本觀點是，柯達錯過了這個時代。由于它過分固守膠片攝影，因此，柯達從未真正（借用另一個商業戰略流行術語）“跨越鴻溝”，無法抓住新興數碼攝影領域的發展潮流。

????如果說這個簡單的分析過于膚淺，那么實際情況又是怎么樣的呢？柯達公司的倒閉并非像那些令人唏噓不已的經典破產案例那么簡單。公司衰敗的原因也不僅僅是由于公司高管近期的一系列錯誤決策或管理不善。其中的問題更加微妙，證明了即便是一家滿懷良好的愿景、竭盡全力做到最好的公司也非常容易出現問題。它告誡我們，創新與某個具體的商品、設備，或者某一項技術無關。我們必須謹慎思考創新的真正意義，以及創新的極端重要性——事實上，它比人們想象的更加重要。

????其實，柯達非常清楚，數碼技術終將會瓦解傳統膠片產業。眾所周知，柯達擁有關于數碼攝影的主要專利，并且在1975年生產了世界上第一批數碼相機。《經濟學人》（The Economist）近期載文稱，1979年，柯達高管之間流傳過一份報告，其中詳細描述了到2010年，攝影市場將如何從膠片時代永久地轉變為數碼時代。所以，數碼技術帶來的沖擊完全在意料之中。但是柯達公司高層卻遵循了當時流行的管理思潮，仍然從公司在化學、光學和膠片領域的絕對優勢這個角度出發來看待整個行業的轉變。他們試圖沿用自己熟悉的本領來嘗試新生事物，但實際上，他們應該更積極地探索新興的陌生事物。

????柯達在膠片之外實現多元化經營的一次重要嘗試發生在上世紀70年代末。當年，他們瞄準了靜電復印，并將競爭對手鎖定為同一地區的另一家知名企業——同樣來自紐約羅切斯特的施樂公司（Xerox）。當時，我正擔任施樂的顧問，對于柯達公司進入復印行業的舉措，我們非常重視。事實上，我們的重視是正確的。要知道，憑借在有機化學和光學方面的優勢，他們開發了大批優秀的高端產品。

????People never seem to notice, but strategies have fashions. Just as cars had fins for a while, or business folks try to dress like they just stepped off the set of Mad Men, or phones get big touch screens and icons to chase after Jony Ive's iPhone design choices, there are also conventions in how we think about what firms should do to create value. These ways of thinking even have names so we can refer to them in shorthand: focus, cost leadership, differentiation, core competence leverage, supply chain integration, and the like.

????This came to mind over the last few days in the midst of the Kodak (EK) death vigil. Most of the Kodak conversation has been standard issue Chicken Little: the sky is falling; the American dream is dead; another classic company has bitten the dust. We're all off to hell in a handcart and there's not a thing we can do about it. After all, Kodak was a symbol of better times, an era when American innovation and invention was seemingly ubiquitous. But while George Eastman's goal -- to make photography "as convenient as the pencil" has been realized and even exceeded -- Kodak was not the company that capitalized on this new ubiquity.

????And so, with a mixture of schadenfreude and fear, we hear the Monday morning quarterbacks explain what went wrong and explain how a company with so much promise managed to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. The basic buzz is that Kodak missed the moment. Addicted to film photography, they never really could (to borrow a phrase from another brief strategic fashion) "cross the chasm" and drive the growing new digital photography field.

????What if this convenient analysis is just too superficial? The demise of Kodak isn't merely the classic disruption story that everyone loves to tut tut over. Nor is the company's downfall merely a result of recent bad decisions or the mismanagement of senior executives. It is the more nuanced story of how easy it can be to get things wrong, even when trying with the best of intentions to do everything right. It's a cautionary tale of the need for deeper understanding of what innovation really means, and how it is infinitely more vital than most people think it is, even as it isn't about any single product or widget or technology.

????Kodak knew all about the impending disruption of digital technology. As many have noted, they own the primary patents on digital photography and built one of the world's first digital cameras in 1975. As The Economist reported recently, a report circulated among senior executives in 1979 detailed how the market would shift permanently from film to digital by 2010. This disruption was no surprise. But following the fashions of the moment back then, Kodak's leaders looked at the whole shift through the lens of their signature strengths in chemistry, optics, and films. They tried to do new things with familiar capabilities at the exact moment they needed to be hungrier to do truly new, unfamiliar things.

????One of Kodak's significant attempts to diversify away from the world of film came at the end of the 1970s. They targeted xerography, specifically aiming at the other hometown hero in Rochester, New York. I was consulting with Xerox (XRX) at the time, and we took Kodak's threat to enter the world of copying very seriously. We were right to; Kodak's strengths in organic chemistry and optics helped them to create some excellent, high-end products.