"If my grandmother had wheels..."

The problem of reality, and its application to strategy-making

It’s really funny. It’s a British morning show, and the hosts have this Italian chef on the program. He’s making pasta.

As she’s tasting the pasta, the morning show host turns and tells the Italian chef that with a few changes and tweaks to the recipe it would be a completely different pasta dish (specifically, a British, rather than an Italian dish).

Visibly disturbed, the Italian chef looks up and says, “If my grandmother had wheels, she would have been a bike.” (Here’s a 41 second clip if you’d like to watch.)

If only we snapped our fingers and changed everything about this reality, then we would get something wonderful.

If only. If only we had a super-weapon. If only we owned this market-demographic. If only we could get hyper-precise polling. If only we had access to a coveted media outlet. If only people knew just how good our product is.

“If only.” It’s the dark-side of the visualization it takes for strategy to be made.