The Gravitational Continuum: Building, Focusing, Redirecting

The Phase Mismatch Problem

In 1953, a young Swedish furniture retailer named Ingvar Kamprad faced a pivotal decision. His mail-order business, IKEA, was struggling with a fundamental challenge: traditional furniture was bulky, expensive to ship, and frequently damaged in transit. Frustrated by these limitations, Kamprad and his team embraced an innovation that would define the company’s trajectory—the flat-pack furniture model. By selling disassembled furniture that customers would build themselves, IKEA dramatically reduced shipping costs, minimised damage, and laid the foundation for a revolutionary retail approach.

Over the following decades, IKEA would systematically evolve through distinct phases of gravitational development. First, building initial gravity around affordable, flat-pack furniture in Sweden. Then, focusing on a distinctive retail experience with immersive showrooms and efficient warehousing. Eventually, redirecting this established gravity to embrace digital shopping, urban store formats, and sustainability initiatives—all while maintaining their core essence of democratising well-designed home furnishings.

Contrast this with Nokia, once the undisputed leader in mobile phones with over 40% global market share. Despite their dominant position, Nokia failed to recognise the fundamental shift occurring in their market with the advent of smartphones. Instead of redirecting their substantial gravity toward touchscreen interfaces and robust operating systems, Nokia continued applying focusing-phase strategies during what was clearly a redirecting-phase market. The result was catastrophic: a 90% collapse in market capitalisation and eventual irrelevance in a category they once defined.

These contrasting stories illustrate this chapter’s core premise: The most dangerous strategic error isn’t choosing the wrong direction—it’s applying the right strategy at the wrong gravitational phase.

Building on our understanding of gravitational development from previous chapters, we now turn to a critical dimension that determines success or failure: the gravitational continuum. Every business exists at a specific point along this continuum, facing distinctive challenges that require phase-appropriate strategies.

In the building phase, your gravitational enemy is obscurity. In the focusing phase, it’s dilution. In the redirecting phase, it’s inertia.

Most struggling businesses aren’t pursuing bad strategies—they’re pursuing phase-mismatched strategies. A brilliant approach for building initial gravity (such as broad experimentation) becomes actively harmful when applied during a focusing phase. Similarly, the concentration strategies essential during the focusing phase become dangerous constraints during the redirecting phase.

This chapter provides a comprehensive framework for identifying your current gravitational phase, implementing phase-appropriate strategies, and navigating the critical transitions between phases. By understanding where you are on the gravitational continuum—and the unique imperatives of that position—you can dramatically increase your chances of becoming and remaining the obvious choice in your market.

The Gravitational Continuum Model

Gravitational development isn’t a single, uniform process. Rather, it unfolds across three distinct phases, each with unique characteristics, challenges, and strategic imperatives:

The Building Phase

The building phase represents early gravitational development, where companies work to establish initial pull in markets with limited awareness or established alternatives.

Key Characteristics:

• Limited market awareness and understanding
• Uncertain customer needs and behaviour patterns
• Evolving value proposition requiring frequent adjustment
• High education requirements for prospects
• Limited proof points and early adopter relationships

Strategic Imperatives:

• Exploration and market testing to validate assumptions
• Learning infrastructure to capture and apply insights
• Community development with early adopters
• Minimum viable gravity establishment
• Essence articulation for differentiation

Example: Early Spotify focused on building gravity around music streaming—making licensing deals with record labels, creating an accessible interface for digital music, and establishing the basic value proposition of unlimited listening without ownership.

The Focusing Phase

The focusing phase represents established but still-developing gravity, where companies concentrate efforts to strengthen pull in competitive spaces.

Key Characteristics:

• Established market position with growing recognition
• Validated value proposition with product-market fit
• Increasing competitive pressure requiring differentiation
• Opportunity for growth through scaling proven approaches
• Risk of dilution through diffused efforts

Strategic Imperatives:

• Specialisation and excellence in core offerings
• Experience optimisation to reduce friction
• Narrative sharpening for clear positioning
• Proof amplification to demonstrate value
• Capability integration for synergistic strength

Example: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) built initial gravity around pure-play chip manufacturing, then focused intensely on leading-edge manufacturing technology. They concentrated resources on process technology excellence rather than diversifying into chip design or consumer products.

The Redirecting Phase

The redirecting phase represents mature gravity requiring evolution, where companies must shift their pull as markets or business models transform.

Key Characteristics:

• Mature market position with strong recognition
• Diminishing returns from established approaches
• Market disruption threatening current model
• Legacy assets and capabilities requiring adaptation
• Organisational inertia resisting necessary changes

Strategic Imperatives:

• Adjacent expansion into related opportunities
• Capability translation to new contexts
• Dual system operation balancing current and future
• Heritage leveraging for credibility in new areas
• Future positioning to create aspirational pull

Example: Rolls-Royce evolved from a traditional aerospace manufacturer to a service-oriented company with their “Power-by-the-Hour” model, where airlines pay for engine operating time rather than purchasing the physical products outright. This fundamental redirection leveraged their engineering excellence in a new business model.

The Gravitational Phase Continuum

These phases form a continuum rather than discrete states. Companies often exist in hybrid positions, particularly during transitions. For instance, a business might be completing the building phase while beginning focusing initiatives, or maintaining focus in core markets while redirecting in others.

The pace of movement along this continuum varies dramatically by industry, market conditions, and business model. Digital businesses often progress through phases more rapidly than physical ones, while regulated industries typically move more slowly. Regardless of speed, however, the fundamental challenges and strategic imperatives of each phase remain consistent.

Understanding your position on this continuum isn’t merely academic—it fundamentally determines which strategies will create momentum and which will squander resources. Businesses that match their approach to their gravitational phase create compounding advantage, while those that misalign strategies with phases experience friction and stalled growth.

Most importantly, the continuum isn’t a one-way journey but rather a cyclical process that businesses often repeat as they enter new markets, launch new offerings, or respond to major disruptions. Even established companies with substantial gravity can find themselves back in building phases when entering adjacent categories or responding to fundamental market shifts.

The Building Phase Dynamics

The building phase represents the frontier of gravitational development—the challenging period where companies work to create initial attraction in markets with limited awareness or established alternatives. This phase is characterised by uncertainty, experimentation, and the search for viable traction.

Market Context

Building-phase environments typically feature:

• Limited awareness: Prospects have minimal understanding of your offering
• Education burden: Significant effort required to explain the value proposition
• Uncertain needs: Customer requirements still being discovered and refined
• Evolving solution: Product/service frequently changing based on feedback
• Weak alternatives: Competition often indirect or fragmented

Early-stage Shopify exemplifies this context. When they began creating e-commerce tools, the market largely consisted of expensive enterprise solutions or complex custom development. Small merchants had minimal awareness of accessible e-commerce options, and Shopify had to invest heavily in education while continuously refining their offering based on merchant feedback.

Strategic Priorities

Building gravity effectively requires distinct strategic approaches:

1. Exploration Methodology: Systematic market testing to validate assumptions about customer needs, value proposition, and delivery models. This includes rapid prototyping, minimum viable products, and structured experiments.

2. Learning Infrastructure: Systems for capturing and applying insights from market interactions. This includes customer feedback loops, usage analytics, and regular synthesis of findings into actionable improvements.

3. Community Development: Creating relationships with early adopters who become gravitational ambassadors. This includes fostering direct dialogue, empowering users to shape development, and celebrating early successes.

4. Minimum Viable Gravity: Establishing the baseline attraction required for sustainable development. This includes identifying the critical mass threshold for your specific business and focusing resources on reaching it.

5. Essence Articulation: Clarifying your distinctive spirit as the foundation for authentic gravity. This includes translating internal purpose into external positioning that resonates with early adopters.

Grab’s initial approach to ride-hailing in Southeast Asia illustrates these priorities well. They began with systematic testing of booking experiences, pricing models, and driver incentives across limited geographies. They built robust feedback systems, created driver and passenger communities, established minimum viable attraction in specific neighbourhoods, and articulated their essence as a locally-adapted transportation solution.

Resource Allocation

During the building phase, resource allocation requires a distinct approach:

• Distributed experimentation: Investing across multiple potential avenues to identify which creates strongest traction
• Learning emphasis: Prioritising knowledge acquisition over efficiency
• Fast-fail economics: Establishing clear criteria for continuing or abandoning initiatives
• Minimum viable commitment: Investing just enough to validate concepts before scaling
• Relationship-weighted investment: Allocating resources toward building meaningful customer connections

Early Atlassian exemplified this approach with their bootstrap methodology. Rather than raising substantial venture capital, they allocated limited resources across multiple potential products, emphasised learning from developer communities, established clear success metrics for continued investment, and focused on building strong relationships with software development teams.

Team Structure

Organisational design during the building phase requires specific characteristics:

• Flexibility and adaptability: Ability to rapidly pivot based on market feedback
• Generalist capabilities: Broad skill sets to handle diverse challenges
• Customer proximity: Direct connection between team members and users
• Decision autonomy: Empowerment to make rapid adjustments without bureaucracy
• Learning orientation: Valuing insights over perfect execution

Shopify’s early team structure reflected these characteristics, with small cross-functional groups having direct merchant relationships, broad problem-solving mandates, and the authority to make rapid product decisions based on user feedback.

Metrics That Matter

Building phase performance requires metrics focused on learning and early traction:

• Learning velocity: Rate of validated insights gained from market interactions
• Initial engagement depth: Quality of early user interactions and experience
• Early advocacy signs: Indications of user promotion and referral behaviour
• Minimum viable traction: Evidence of sustainable attraction beginning to form
• Component performance: Effectiveness of specific elements in creating pull

Spotify’s early metrics focused on these indicators, measuring not just user acquisition but engagement depth (listening time, playlist creation), advocacy behaviour (friend invitations), and the component performance of different aspects of their service (search, discovery, sharing).

Common Mistakes

The building phase presents distinctive pitfalls:

• Premature focus: Concentrating resources too early before validating the fundamental approach
• Excessive planning: Spending too much time on strategy before market validation
• Overinvestment: Committing too many resources before proving traction
• Underinvestment in learning: Failing to capture and apply market insights systematically
• Mimicking mature practices: Adopting processes suitable for later phases

Many early-stage startups fall into these traps, particularly when founders come from established companies. They import enterprise-style planning processes, establish rigid departmental structures, and attempt to scale operations before proving fundamental traction.

Transition Indicators

The building phase is completing when:

• Critical mass achievement: Reliable gravitational pull begins forming
• Proposition clarity: Value offering becomes well-defined and validated
• Repeatable customer acquisition: Predictable methods for attracting new users
• Diminishing returns from exploration: Additional experimentation yields fewer insights
• Market recognition emerging: Early signs of broader awareness developing

Intuit’s QuickBooks showed these transition indicators as they established clear product-market fit, developed repeatable acquisition channels, and began seeing diminishing returns from exploring fundamentally different approaches to small business accounting.

In the building phase, your primary gravitational enemy is obscurity—the challenge of creating enough initial pull to overcome market inertia. Recognising this reality is essential for applying appropriate strategies and avoiding premature optimisation or scaling efforts.

The Focusing Phase Imperative

As initial gravitational pull takes hold, businesses enter the focusing phase—a period where strengthening and concentrating your attraction becomes the central challenge. This phase demands a fundamental shift from exploration to optimisation, from breadth to depth, and from flexibility to discipline.

Market Context

Focusing-phase environments typically feature:

• Established position: Clear market presence with growing recognition
• Educated prospects: Basic awareness of your category and value
• Defined needs: Understood customer requirements with nuanced variations
• Validated solution: Proven approaches requiring refinement rather than reinvention
• Direct competition: Specific alternatives vying for the same customers

TSMC exemplifies this context in semiconductor manufacturing. After establishing the pure-play foundry model (where they manufacture chips designed by others), they faced growing competition from similar providers. The market understood their basic value proposition, but TSMC needed to strengthen their specific advantages.

Strategic Priorities

Focusing gravity effectively requires distinctive approaches:

1. Specialisation Deepening: Concentrating expertise development in specific areas of excellence. This means developing distinctive capabilities rather than matching every competitor feature.

2. Experience Optimisation: Systematically reducing friction in core interactions to create seamless customer experiences. This requires rigorous measurement, testing, and refinement of key touchpoints.

3. Narrative Sharpening: Refining and amplifying key messages to create unmistakable positioning. This means eliminating communicational noise and emphasising distinctive elements consistently.

4. Proof Amplification: Systematically gathering and broadcasting evidence of your value to build credibility. This includes developing structured case studies, testimonials, and demonstrations that prove your claims.

5. Capability Integration: Creating synergies between components to deliver more value than individual elements alone could provide. This means designing systems where features, services, and assets reinforce each other.

Atlassian illustrates these priorities in their team collaboration focus. They deepened their specialisation in developer tools, optimised user experiences for software teams, sharpened their narrative around team productivity, amplified proof through customer success stories, and integrated their products to create a unified collaboration environment.

Resource Allocation

During the focusing phase, resource allocation requires a fundamental shift:

• Concentrated investment: Directing resources toward proven approaches rather than diverse experiments
• Optimisation economics: Prioritising incremental improvements with measurable returns
• Efficiency-driven budgeting: Focusing on streamlining operations and reducing waste
• Return-focused decisions: Evaluating investments based on enhancement of existing gravity
• Scale economics pursuit: Leveraging growing volume to improve unit economics

LVMH exemplifies this approach with their core luxury brand investment strategy. After establishing brands like Louis Vuitton and Dior, they concentrate resources on enhancing these proven attractions rather than constantly launching new concepts, focusing on operational excellence, consistent quality, and enhanced customer experience.

Team Structure

Organisational design during the focusing phase requires evolution toward:

• Specialised expertise: Deeper capabilities in specific domains
• Optimised processes: Standardised approaches for consistent execution
• Scaling disciplines: Systems to maintain quality during growth
• Measurement rigour: Data-driven performance management
• Functional clarity: Well-defined roles and responsibilities

Salesforce’s organisational evolution demonstrates this shift. As they grew beyond their initial CRM offering, they developed specialised units focused on specific industries, products, and customer segments, with clear metrics and standardised methodologies for sales, implementation, and support.

Metrics That Matter

Focusing phase performance requires metrics emphasising efficiency and depth:

• Conversion efficiency: Effectiveness at turning awareness into engagement and purchase
• Gravity-to-effort ratio: Pull generated relative to resources invested
• Market share growth: Expansion within defined segments
• Relationship depth: Increasing value from existing customer relationships
• Competitive win rate: Success when directly compared to alternatives

SAP’s metrics during their S/4HANA focusing phase illustrate this approach, with careful tracking of sales cycle efficiency, implementation success rates, customer expansion, and competitive displacement—all indicators of gravitational strength in their enterprise software markets.

Common Mistakes

The focusing phase presents distinctive pitfalls:

• Continued dispersed exploration: Maintaining too many experimental initiatives
• Premature diversification: Expanding into adjacent areas before mastering core offerings
• Underinvestment in excellence: Failing to develop genuine superiority in key dimensions
• Complexity accumulation: Adding features, products, or services without strategic discipline
• Imitation over distinction: Copying competitor moves rather than deepening unique advantages

Many mid-stage companies fall into these traps, particularly when market success creates confidence and resource abundance. They launch too many products, enter too many markets, or add features indiscriminately, diluting their gravitational strength rather than concentrating it.

Transition Indicators

The focusing phase is completing when:

• Market saturation signs: Diminishing returns from current market segments
• Growth plateau indicators: Slowing expansion within established approaches
• Competitive disruption threats: New models challenging fundamental assumptions
• Diminishing returns from optimisation: Incremental improvements yielding smaller gains
• Strategic constraint emergence: Current approach limiting future possibilities

Rolls-Royce demonstrated these indicators as their traditional manufacturing model reached maturity. Their focus on engineering excellence and quality manufacturing had created substantial gravity, but market shifts toward service models and outcome-based pricing signalled the need for gravitational redirection.

The focusing paradox is that narrowing your efforts actually expands your impact. In this phase, your primary gravitational enemy is dilution—the dispersion of resources across too many initiatives, leading to mediocrity rather than excellence. The companies that emerge as obvious choices are those with the discipline to concentrate their gravity rather than scattering it.

The Redirecting Phase Challenge

Eventually, even the most successful focusing efforts reach their limits. Market saturation, competitive disruption, or fundamental business model shifts necessitate evolving your gravitational pull—entering the redirecting phase. This challenging period requires balancing the maintenance of existing gravity while establishing new attractive forces.

Market Context

Redirecting-phase environments typically feature:

• Mature position: Established market presence with strong recognition
• Changing expectations: Evolving customer requirements and preferences
• Emerging alternatives: New approaches challenging fundamental assumptions
• Legacy advantages: Established capabilities requiring adaptation
• Transformation imperative: Need for substantial business model evolution

Salesforce exemplifies this context in their evolution toward an integrated cloud ecosystem. Having established dominance in CRM, they faced changing expectations around integrated enterprise platforms, emerging competitors with broader offerings, and the need to transform from a specific solution to a comprehensive operating system for customer relationships.

Strategic Priorities

Redirecting gravity effectively requires distinctive approaches:

1. Adjacent Expansion: Methodically developing related attractors that leverage established strength. This means entering connected spaces where your existing gravity provides advantage.

2. Capability Translation: Applying core strengths to new contexts and use cases. This requires identifying fundamental capabilities and finding novel applications beyond current offerings.

3. Dual System Operation: Managing existing and emerging gravity simultaneously. This means creating organisational structures that can maintain current success while building future models.

4. Heritage Leveraging: Using established trust and relationships to facilitate evolution. This involves activating customer goodwill to support transitions to new approaches.

5. Future Positioning: Creating aspirational pull toward your evolving vision. This requires articulating a compelling future state that attracts customers, partners, and talent.

IKEA illustrates these priorities in their recent evolution. They have expanded into adjacent services like design consultation and installation, translated their capabilities in affordable home products to sustainable living solutions, operated dual systems of physical and digital retail, leveraged their heritage of democratising design, and positioned themselves as leaders in sustainable living spaces.

Resource Allocation

During the redirecting phase, resource allocation requires a balanced approach:

• Portfolio management: Allocating investments across current and future gravity
• Transformation economics: Funding substantial change initiatives while maintaining returns
• Strategic decommissioning: Gradually reducing investment in declining offerings
• Future foundation building: Creating infrastructure for emerging business models
• Acquisition consideration: Potentially buying capabilities rather than building them

Rockwell Automation exemplifies this approach in their industrial IoT transition. They maintain investment in traditional automation hardware while significantly increasing allocation to digital platforms, software capabilities, and connected solutions—creating a balanced portfolio that bridges current revenue and future growth.

Team Structure

Organisational design during the redirecting phase requires ambidextrous capabilities:

• Dual focus structures: Separate units for maintaining and building gravity
• Innovation teams: Dedicated resources for exploring new approaches
• Legacy excellence groups: Specialised teams optimising established offerings
• Cross-functional integration: Mechanisms for sharing insights and assets
• Transitional leadership: Executives capable of managing across paradigms

Intuit demonstrates this structure in their transition from desktop to cloud solutions. They established cloud-focused teams while maintaining desktop product excellence, created innovation groups to explore new approaches, and developed integrative functions to ensure coherence across platforms and business models.

Metrics That Matter

Redirecting phase performance requires dual measurement systems:

• Renewal growth indicators: Traction metrics for new initiatives
• Legacy sustainability measures: Performance of established business lines
• Capability transfer success: Effectiveness of applying strengths to new contexts
• Transition velocity: Speed of evolution to new models
• Portfolio balance health: Appropriate distribution of investment and returns

Recruit Holdings (owner of Indeed and Glassdoor) illustrates this measurement approach in their evolution from traditional job boards to comprehensive HR technology. They track growth in new platform offerings while monitoring traditional listing businesses, measure capability application across contexts, assess transition speed, and evaluate overall portfolio health.

Common Mistakes

The redirecting phase presents distinctive pitfalls:

• Excessive focus on declining areas: Overinvesting in mature offerings with limited futures
• Half-hearted transformation: Insufficient commitment to necessary evolution
• Premature abandonment: Transitioning too quickly away from viable current models
• Disconnection from essence: Evolution that loses touch with fundamental purpose
• Future-only orientation: Neglecting current business in pursuit of tomorrow

Nokia exemplifies these mistakes in their smartphone transition. They maintained excessive focus on their Symbian operating system despite clear market shifts, made half-hearted commitments to touchscreen models, disconnected from their essence of user-friendly devices, and eventually adopted a future-only orientation with Windows Phone that neglected their current user base.

Transition Indicators

Successful redirection is underway when:

• New growth trajectory: Clear momentum in emerging models
• Capability transfer completion: Effective application of strengths in new contexts
• Fresh identity emergence: Updated market perception reflecting evolution
• Core business stabilisation: Sustainable performance of legacy offerings
• Organisational adaptation: Team structures aligned with new realities

Spotify’s successful expansion from music streaming to broader audio content demonstrates these indicators. They established clear growth in podcast and audiobook offerings, transferred their recommendation capabilities to new content types, updated their market identity as an audio platform, stabilised their music streaming business, and reorganised teams around the expanded mission.

In the redirecting phase, your primary gravitational enemy is inertia—the accumulated momentum of past success that resists necessary evolution. As Reed Hastings famously observed, companies rarely die from moving too quickly; they die from moving too slowly. The redirecting phase requires the courage to evolve while the current model is still viable, rather than waiting until obvious decline forces change.

Phase Transition Management

The most challenging gravitational moments aren’t within phases but between them—when businesses must fundamentally shift their approach in response to changing conditions. These transitions require deliberate management across four key stages:

1. Transition Recognition

The first challenge is accurately identifying signals that phase shift is needed:

Building to Focusing Signals:

• Reliable traction with core offerings
• Diminishing insights from broad experimentation
• Clear patterns of customer value emerging
• Competitive pressure requiring excellence
• Inefficiency from continued exploration

Focusing to Redirecting Signals:

• Diminishing returns from optimisation
• Fundamental market shifts affecting core offerings
• New entrants with disruptive approaches
• Customer needs evolving beyond current solutions
• Growth plateau within established model

Intuit demonstrated effective transition recognition when they identified the shift from desktop to cloud-based financial software. They recognised diminishing returns from desktop optimisation, saw fundamental market shifts toward connected services, noticed emerging competitors with cloud-native offerings, and identified evolving customer expectations around mobile access and real-time collaboration.

Assessment Process

Effective transition recognition requires structured approaches:

• Regular horizon scanning for market shifts
• Systematic customer feedback analysis
• Trigger metrics that signal diminishing returns
• Competitive landscape monitoring
• Technology trend evaluation

Decision Protocol

Once potential transition signals appear, a clear decision process includes:

• Evidence standards for confirming transition necessity
• Multiple perspective input from across the organisation
• Implication analysis for stakeholders
• Readiness assessment for new phase requirements
• Clear commitment criteria for shifting resources

2. Transition Planning

Once the need for phase shift is confirmed, deliberate planning is essential:

Strategy Evolution:

• Phase-appropriate objectives and frameworks
• Resource reallocation roadmap
• Organisational capability assessment
• Timeline development with key milestones
• Risk mitigation strategies

Communication Approach:

• Internal narrative for team alignment
• External messaging for market positioning
• Stakeholder-specific communication plans
• Transition storyline development
• Expectation management frameworks

IKEA’s digital transformation planning illustrates this approach. They developed clear objectives for their omnichannel evolution, created resource reallocation plans, assessed organisational capabilities, established multi-year timelines, and developed risk mitigation strategies. They also created internal narratives to align their organisation, external messaging to position the change with customers, and stakeholder-specific communications.

3. Transition Execution

Managing the gravitational shift itself requires specific approaches:

Pacing Strategy:

• Evolutionary vs. revolutionary approach determination
• Sequencing of transition elements
• Momentum building through early wins
• Adaptation based on market feedback
• Acceleration or deceleration decisions

Momentum Preservation:

• Maintaining essential gravitational elements
• Bridging mechanisms between phases
• Customer experience continuity planning
• Team morale and engagement maintenance
• Market trust preservation tactics

Spotify’s transition from music platform to audio ecosystem demonstrates effective execution. They took an evolutionary approach, sequencing their expansion into podcasts before audiobooks, building momentum through strategic content acquisitions, and adapting based on user engagement data. They maintained core music functionality throughout, created clear bridges between content types, ensured consistent user experience, maintained team engagement through clear vision, and preserved market trust through transparent communication.

4. Transition Stabilisation

Finally, establishing new phase operations requires dedicated effort:

Operational Integration:

• Embedding new approaches in daily systems
• Process evolution to support changed reality
• Technology infrastructure alignment
• Performance management adaptation
• Resource allocation normalisation

Culture Alignment:

• Evolving values and behaviours for new phase
• Success definition and recognition updates
• Decision-making framework evolution
• Meeting and collaboration rhythm adaptation
• Symbolic changes to reinforce transition

Rolls-Royce’s stabilisation of their “Power-by-the-Hour” service model transition exemplifies these approaches. They embedded service-oriented processes in daily operations, evolved performance management to prioritise uptime metrics, normalised resource allocation toward preventive maintenance, evolved cultural values from engineering perfection to operational reliability, and updated success definitions from product specifications to customer outcomes.

The Transition Framework

These four stages create a comprehensive approach to managing gravitational phase shifts:

1. Recognition: Identifying when transition is necessary
2. Planning: Preparing strategically for intentional shift
3. Execution: Managing the gravitational change process
4. Stabilisation: Establishing new phase operations

Critically, this framework applies to organisations of all sizes and types. While large enterprises may have more formal processes, even small businesses benefit from deliberate attention to transition management rather than haphazard evolution.

The pace of transition varies dramatically by context. Digital businesses often progress through transitions more rapidly than physical ones, while regulated industries typically move more slowly. Regardless of speed, however, the fundamental stages remain consistent.

The most common transition failure is incomplete progression—beginning a shift but failing to complete all stages. Many organisations recognise the need for transition and begin planning but execute halfheartedly or neglect stabilisation, creating confusion rather than evolution.

Mastering phase transitions is perhaps the most underappreciated leadership capability in business. Those who navigate these critical junctures effectively create sustainable advantage, while those who mismanage transitions waste resources and lose momentum at pivotal moments.

The Gravitational Audit Framework

Effectively navigating the gravitational continuum begins with accurately assessing your current position. The Gravitational Audit Framework provides a systematic approach to evaluating where you stand and determining appropriate strategies.

Market Position Analysis

The first dimension examines your standing in market development:

Market Maturity:

• How established is your category or solution approach?
• Scale: 1 (Emerging/Undefined) to 5 (Mature/Well-defined)

Competitive Landscape:

• How crowded and defined is your market space?
• Scale: 1 (Limited/Fragmented) to 5 (Consolidated/Clear)

Solution Clarity:

• How well understood is your value proposition?
• Scale: 1 (Minimal/Confusing) to 5 (Comprehensive/Clear)

Customer Familiarity:

• How educated are prospects about your solution type?
• Scale: 1 (Unaware/Unfamiliar) to 5 (Knowledgeable/Comfortable)

Adoption Stage:

• Where are you on the innovation adoption curve?
• Scale: 1 (Innovators) to 5 (Late Majority)

Gravitational Strength Evaluation

The second dimension assesses your current gravitational pull:

Awareness Level:

• How recognised are you in your target market?
• Scale: 1 (Minimal/Unknown) to 5 (Universal/Top-of-mind)

Consideration Rate:

• How frequently are you included in buying decisions?
• Scale: 1 (Rarely/Never) to 5 (Always/Default)

Referral Momentum:

• How actively do customers advocate for you?
• Scale: 1 (No referrals) to 5 (Consistent advocacy)

Talent Attraction:

• How easily do you draw desired team members?
• Scale: 1 (Difficult/Unknown) to 5 (Magnetic/Waitlist)

Opportunity Flow:

• How balanced is your inbound versus outbound ratio?
• Scale: 1 (All outbound) to 5 (Primarily inbound)

Organisational Readiness Assessment

The third dimension evaluates internal capabilities:

Strategic Clarity:

• How well-defined is your market direction?
• Scale: 1 (Undefined/Confused) to 5 (Crystal clear/Aligned)

Resource Alignment:

• How effectively are resources directed to priorities?
• Scale: 1 (Scattered/Inconsistent) to 5 (Focused/Disciplined)

Execution Discipline:

• How consistently do you deliver on commitments?
• Scale: 1 (Unreliable/Variable) to 5 (Dependable/Consistent)

Adaptation Capability:

• How quickly can you respond to market changes?
• Scale: 1 (Slow/Resistant) to 5 (Rapid/Flexible)

Measurement Sophistication:

• How effectively do you track performance?
• Scale: 1 (Anecdotal/Limited) to 5 (Comprehensive/Advanced)

Market Dynamics Evaluation

The fourth dimension assesses external environment:

Industry Velocity:

• How rapidly is your market changing?
• Scale: 1 (Static/Slow) to 5 (Turbulent/Rapid)

Disruption Threat:

• How vulnerable is your position to new entrants or models?
• Scale: 1 (Protected/Stable) to 5 (Highly vulnerable/Unstable)

Customer Evolution:

• How significantly are customer needs changing?
• Scale: 1 (Static/Predictable) to 5 (Rapidly evolving/Unpredictable)

Technology Shifts:

• How impactful are technological changes to your value?
• Scale: 1 (Minimal impact) to 5 (Fundamental challenge)

Regulatory Impact:

• How substantially do regulatory changes affect your market?
• Scale: 1 (Minimal effect) to 5 (Transformative impact)

Phase Identification Framework

Based on assessment scores, this framework guides phase determination:

Phase	Market Position	Gravitational Strength	Organisational Readiness	Market Dynamics
Building Phase	Emerging (1-2)	Limited (1-2)	Developing (1-3)	Any
Focusing Phase	Established (3-4)	Growing (2-4)	Structured (3-4)	Moderate (2-3)
Redirecting Phase	Mature (4-5)	Strong but Plateauing (3-5)	Well-developed (4-5)	Changing (3-5)
Hybrid: Build-Focus	Emerging to Established (2-3)	Growing (2-3)	Developing (2-3)	Moderate (2-3)
Hybrid: Focus-Redirect	Established to Mature (3-4)	Strong (3-4)	Structured (3-4)	Changing (3-4)

Phase-Specific Strategy Matrix

Once you’ve identified your gravitational phase, this matrix guides strategic approach:

Strategic Element	Building Phase	Focusing Phase	Redirecting Phase
Resource Allocation	Distributed exploration, multiple experiments	Concentrated investment in core strengths	Balanced portfolio of current and future gravity
Metrics Priority	Engagement depth, learning velocity	Conversion efficiency, gravity-to-effort ratio	Renewal indicators, new gravity growth rates
Team Structure	Flexible, multidisciplinary, generalist	Specialised, optimised, efficiency-oriented	Ambidextrous, balanced stability and innovation
Decision Making	Rapid, iterative, learning-focused	Disciplined, data-driven, consistency-focused	Strategic, long-view, transformation-oriented
Risk Approach	Calculated experimentation, acceptable failures	Risk mitigation, predictable execution	Managed disruption, strategic risk-taking
Success Definition	Valid learning, market validation, initial traction	Market share growth, efficiency gains, deepening relationships	Successful transition, future position establishment, renewal momentum

Conducting the Assessment

To effectively apply this framework:

1. Gather diverse perspectives from across your organisation
2. Use data where available but accept informed judgment
3. Score each dimension independently before determining phase
4. Identify the phase that best matches your overall profile
5. Recognise hybrid situations requiring blended approaches
6. Develop specific strategies based on phase identification
7. Create monitoring systems to track evolving position

This assessment isn’t a one-time exercise but rather an ongoing practice. Most organisations benefit from quarterly gravitational position reviews, with more frequent check-ins during periods of significant market change or internal evolution.

The framework provides strategic clarity that goes beyond traditional business planning. By identifying your gravitational phase, you can align resources, metrics, organisational structures, and decision approaches to your specific position on the continuum—dramatically increasing the effectiveness of your market strategy.

The Multi-Phase Organisation

As organisations grow in complexity, they often manage multiple gravitational phases simultaneously across different business units, product lines, or geographical markets. This multi-phase reality creates unique challenges requiring sophisticated approaches.

Portfolio Complexity

Larger organisations typically span gravitational phases through:

• Business unit variation: Different divisions operating in distinct phases
• Product lifecycle differences: Mature offerings alongside emerging innovations
• Geographic market diversity: Advanced positions in some regions, early stages in others
• New venture versus legacy operations: Established business alongside innovation initiatives

LVMH exemplifies this complexity across their luxury brand portfolio. They simultaneously manage:

• Building phase for emerging brands like Fenty
• Focusing phase for growing maisons like Celine
• Redirecting phase for established houses like Louis Vuitton

This multi-phase reality requires sophisticated governance to prevent phase confusion while enabling appropriate strategies across diverse contexts.

Governance Frameworks

Managing diverse gravitational contexts demands specific approaches:

• Phase-appropriate decision rights: Different approval processes based on gravitational position
• Resource allocation systems: Distinct investment criteria for different phases
• Performance expectation variation: Adjusted metrics and targets by phase
• Leadership selection considerations: Phase-appropriate executive capabilities

SAP demonstrates these governance principles in managing their transition from on-premise to cloud solutions. They established separate decision rights for legacy and cloud businesses, created distinct resource allocation models with different ROI expectations, varied performance metrics across phases, and selected leaders with capabilities matched to specific gravitational challenges.

Communication Strategies

Preventing confusion while enabling phase-appropriate approaches requires:

• Contextual clarity: Explicit recognition of different gravitational positions
• Stakeholder education: Explaining phase-specific strategies and expectations
• Expectation management: Setting appropriate timelines and outcomes by phase
• Strategic narrative integration: Unifying story across diverse gravitational contexts

Recruit Holdings exemplifies effective multi-phase communication in managing their diverse HR technology businesses. They explicitly communicate different expectations for emerging ventures versus established platforms, educate stakeholders about phase-specific approaches, manage expectations around growth and profitability timelines, and integrate these diverse businesses into a coherent strategic narrative.

Team Development

Building capabilities across multiple phases requires:

• Talent mobility consideration: Strategic movement between phases for development
• Skill development priorities: Phase-specific capability building
• Cultural adaptability needs: Flexibility to operate in different gravitational contexts
• Leadership versatility requirements: Executives capable of understanding multiple phases

Atlassian demonstrates this approach through deliberate movement of talent between established products and innovation initiatives, phase-specific training programs, cultural emphasis on adaptability across contexts, and leadership development that builds multi-phase understanding.

Measurement Systems

Tracking performance across gravitational phases demands:

• Phase-appropriate metrics: Different indicators for different positions
• Consolidated reporting approaches: Integrated view across varied measures
• Cross-phase comparison challenges: Avoiding inappropriate direct comparisons
• Leading indicator identification: Early signals of phase transition needs

TSMC illustrates this approach with distinct measurement systems for mature process nodes versus emerging technologies, consolidated reporting that integrates these diverse metrics, careful avoidance of direct comparisons across phases, and leading indicators that signal when technologies should transition between phases.

Common Challenges

Multi-phase management presents specific pitfalls:

• Phase confusion: Applying inappropriate strategies across contexts
• Resource competition: Tension between current and future needs
• Cultural conflict: Friction between different operating approaches
• Leadership preference bias: Executive comfort with specific phases influencing decisions

Many large organisations fall into these traps, particularly through blanket application of standardised processes regardless of gravitational phase. They force building-phase initiatives to use focusing-phase approval processes, create winner-take-all resource competition between mature and emerging businesses, allow cultural conflict between innovation and optimisation mindsets, and make leadership assignments based on general capability rather than phase-specific needs.

Success Patterns

Effective multi-phase organisations demonstrate specific characteristics:

• Explicit phase recognition: Clear identification of gravitational positions
• Contextual governance: Differentiated approaches based on phase
• Resource ring-fencing: Protected investment for different phases
• Cultural breadth: Accommodation of varied operating styles
• Leadership development: Building phase versatility capabilities

Organisations with these characteristics can simultaneously optimise current gravity while building future pull—creating substantial advantage over competitors who manage all initiatives with a single approach regardless of gravitational position.

As businesses grow in complexity, mastering multi-phase management becomes an increasingly important capability. Rather than viewing this complexity as a challenging burden, forward-thinking organisations recognise it as a strategic opportunity to simultaneously harvest mature gravity while planting seeds for future attraction.

Measuring Gravitational Evolution

Effective navigation of the gravitational continuum requires sophisticated measurement systems that evolve as your position changes. Different phases demand different metrics, and transitions require specific indicators of progress.

Building Phase Metrics

Early gravitational development requires indicators focused on learning and initial traction:

• Learning velocity measures: Rate of validated insights from market interactions

  • Experiment completion rate
  • Hypothesis validation percentage
  • Customer feedback implementation cycle time

• Engagement depth analytics: Quality of early user interactions

  • Time-in-product metrics
  • Feature adoption sequence
  • Repeated usage patterns

• Community growth indicators: Development of supportive relationships

  • Active user communication
  • Referral behaviour
  • Community participation metrics

• Proposition clarity assessment: Evolution of value articulation

  • Messaging comprehension testing
  • Explanation efficiency metrics
  • Value proposition testing results

Early-stage Shopify exemplified this measurement approach, tracking experiment velocity, merchant engagement depth, community development, and messaging clarity evolution as they refined their e-commerce platform.

Focusing Phase Metrics

As gravity strengthens, measurement shifts toward optimisation and competitive position:

• Conversion efficiency measures: Effectiveness at turning awareness into action

  • Channel-specific conversion rates
  • Funnel optimisation metrics
  • Purchase decision timelines

• Market share analytics: Competitive position within defined segments

  • Share of wallet measurement
  • Competitive displacement tracking
  • Category position monitoring

• Competitive advantage indicators: Distinctive strength measurement

  • Preference driver analysis
  • Competitive win reason tracking
  • Value perception differentials

• Relationship depth assessment: Customer value expansion

  • Product/service adoption breadth
  • Customer lifetime value progression
  • Expansion revenue metrics

TSMC’s mid-stage gravitational metrics illustrate this approach, with sophisticated tracking of customer conversion efficiency, semiconductor market share by process node, technical advantage measures versus competitors, and customer relationship expansion across multiple chip generations.

Redirecting Phase Metrics

Mature gravity evolution demands dual measurement systems:

• Renewal growth measures: Traction in new initiatives

  • New offer adoption rates
  • Cross-model migration success
  • Emerging business growth curves

• Legacy sustainability analytics: Performance of established models

  • Core business trajectory tracking
  • Maintenance efficiency metrics
  • Customer retention in transition

• Transformation progress indicators: Evolution toward future state

  • Capability development milestones
  • Organisational alignment measures
  • New competency acquisition metrics

• Future positioning assessment: Perceptual shift measurement

  • Market narrative testing
  • Future-oriented perception tracking
  • Next-generation preference indicators

Rolls-Royce’s measurement evolution during their service model transition demonstrates this approach. They developed specific metrics for service contract adoption, maintained rigorous tracking of manufacturing business performance, created milestones for service capability development, and measured perception shifts from product manufacturer to service provider.

Transition Metrics

Phase shifts themselves require specific indicators:

• Recognition accuracy measures: Effectiveness at identifying transition signals

  • Early warning indicator performance
  • Market shift prediction accuracy
  • Competitive disruption anticipation

• Execution pace analytics: Progress through transition stages

  • Milestone achievement rates
  • Transformation velocity metrics
  • Planning versus actual timelines

• Momentum preservation indicators: Stability during change

  • Customer retention through transition
  • Team engagement through evolution
  • Core performance maintenance

• New phase adoption assessment: Stability of evolved approach

  • New operating model adherence
  • Updated process compliance
  • Stabilisation milestone completion

Spotify’s measurement approach during their audio platform transition illustrates these metrics. They tracked recognition accuracy for content format shifts, monitored transition pace against milestones, measured user retention through experience changes, and assessed stability of their expanded business model.

Measurement System Evolution

As organisations progress through the gravitational continuum, their analytics capabilities must evolve from:

• Exploratory analytics: Discovering patterns and insights
• To optimisation analytics: Refining performance and efficiency
• To transformational analytics: Managing complex portfolio evolution

This progression requires increasing sophistication in data integration, predictive modelling, and decision support systems—creating measurement infrastructure appropriate to each gravitational phase.

The most common measurement mistake is phase misalignment—applying metrics appropriate for one gravitational position to businesses at different stages. This creates distorted decision-making, with building-phase initiatives inappropriately judged by focusing-phase standards or redirecting-phase efforts measured against focusing-phase expectations.

Effective measurement across the gravitational continuum doesn’t just track performance; it guides strategic decisions by highlighting phase-appropriate opportunities, risks, and transitions. By developing measurement systems aligned with your gravitational position, you create a navigational tool that ensures resources flow to phase-appropriate initiatives rather than being misdirected by mismatched metrics.

Implementation Across Organisation Types

The gravitational continuum applies across organisations of all sizes and types, but implementation approaches must be tailored to specific contexts. Understanding how different business situations affect phase characteristics and transition management enables more effective application.

Startups: Navigating Early Gravitational Phases

Young companies face distinctive building phase challenges:

• Resource constraint adaptation: Building gravity with limited resources
• Market education burden: Creating awareness from zero base
• Validation pressure: Demonstrating viability to stakeholders
• Capability development speed: Rapidly building essential functions
• Early relationship concentration: Focusing on first critical customers

Early Grab exemplifies effective startup implementation, focusing resources on driver-passenger matching in specific neighbourhoods, systematically educating markets about ride-hailing benefits, building validation through usage metrics, rapidly developing key technologies, and concentrating on creating exceptional experiences for initial users.

For startups, the critical implementation principle is disciplined experimentation—maintaining exploration without diffusing limited resources across too many directions. Successful startups recognise their building phase position and avoid premature focusing efforts or unnecessary redirections before establishing foundational gravity.

Scale-ups: Managing Building-to-Focusing Transitions

Growth-stage companies typically navigate the challenging hybrid ground between building and focusing:

• Organisational evolution needs: Developing systems for consistency
• Process formalisation requirements: Creating repeatability without bureaucracy
• Leadership skill adaptation: Shifting from founding generalists to specialised expertise
• Measurement system development: Building data infrastructure for optimisation
• Cultural preservation challenges: Maintaining spirit while adding structure

Shopify’s transition management illustrates effective scale-up implementation. They evolved from an opportunistic startup to a systematic platform provider by developing consistent operational systems, creating formalised but efficient processes, supplementing founding talent with specialised expertise, building sophisticated measurement capabilities, and deliberately preserving their merchant-centric culture through growth.

For scale-ups, the key implementation principle is balanced evolution—introducing necessary structure while preserving the entrepreneurial qualities that created initial success. The most common mistake is over-correction, where companies rush to extreme formalisation that undermines the very adaptability that enabled early growth.

Established Companies: Focusing and Redirecting Challenges

Mid-sized and larger organisations typically balance focusing excellence with redirecting initiatives:

• Optimisation discipline: Creating systematic improvement capabilities
• Organisational inertia management: Overcoming resistance to necessary change
• Legacy leverage opportunities: Using established assets for new directions
• Dual-speed operational requirements: Running different models simultaneously
• Leadership versatility demands: Managing across diverse gravitational contexts

Salesforce demonstrates effective established company implementation, maintaining disciplined optimisation of their core CRM while systematically overcoming organisational inertia to expand into adjacent solutions, leveraging their customer relationships and platform technology for new offerings, creating separate operational approaches for established and emerging businesses, and developing leaders capable of managing across these diverse contexts.

For established companies, the critical implementation principle is balanced investment across gravitational phases. The most common mistake is over-indexing on current performance optimisation while underinvesting in necessary redirection, creating short-term results but long-term vulnerability.

Mature Organisations: Redirecting Phase Imperatives

Large, established companies face particular challenges in gravitational redirection:

• Legacy business optimisation: Maximising value from established models
• Transformation scale management: Handling complex, multi-dimensional change
• Cultural evolution requirements: Shifting deeply embedded mindsets and behaviours
• Capability acquisition challenges: Building or buying needed competencies
• Multi-phase portfolio complexity: Managing diverse businesses simultaneously

Rockwell Automation illustrates effective mature organisation implementation in their industrial IoT evolution. They optimised their legacy automation hardware business while managing large-scale transformation to digital solutions, evolved their engineering-centric culture toward data and services orientation, acquired software capabilities to complement internal development, and created sophisticated portfolio management approaches across multiple business units.

For mature organisations, the key implementation principle is courage with continuity—making bold moves toward future gravity while maintaining essence and leveraging heritage advantages. The most common mistake is timid incrementalism, where established organisations make changes too small to create meaningful redirection.

Industry Variations

Implementation approaches must account for sector-specific characteristics:

• Technology vs. manufacturing: Digital businesses typically progress through phases more rapidly than physical product companies
• Service vs. product: Service businesses often require more relationship-focused transition management
• B2B vs. B2C: Business markets typically demand more evidence-based transition approaches
• Regulated vs. unregulated: Compliance requirements can significantly affect transition timing and approaches

These variations don’t change the fundamental gravitational phases but affect the pace, emphasis, and specific tactics appropriate for each context. Understanding your industry dynamics enables more effective adaptation of the gravitational framework to your specific situation.

Universal Implementation Principles

Despite these contextual variations, certain principles apply across all organisations:

1. Phase Clarity: Explicitly identify your gravitational position
2. Strategic Alignment: Match approaches to your phase location
3. Transition Discipline: Manage phase shifts with deliberate processes
4. Measurement Evolution: Develop phase-appropriate metrics
5. Resource Allocation: Direct investments based on gravitational position

By applying these principles to your specific organisational context, you create a customised approach to gravitational development that leverages the universal patterns of the continuum while accounting for your unique situation.

Conclusion: The Gravitational Navigator

As we’ve explored throughout this chapter, becoming and remaining the obvious choice requires more than merely implementing gravity-building strategies—it demands applying the right approaches at the right gravitational phase.

The gravitational continuum provides a fundamental framework for understanding your market position and the appropriate strategies for that location:

• Building phase: When creating initial pull in markets with limited attraction
• Focusing phase: When strengthening gravity in established competitive spaces
• Redirecting phase: When evolving pull as markets or business models transform

This framework explains why seemingly effective strategies fail when misaligned with gravitational position. The exploration approaches essential during building become dangerous distractions during focusing. The optimisation methods crucial during focusing become constraining limitations during redirecting. And the transformation initiatives necessary during redirecting would be premature distractions during building.

Most businesses don’t struggle because their strategies are fundamentally flawed; they struggle because they’re applying phase-mismatched approaches.

IKEA’s sustained success over decades illustrates the power of phase-appropriate strategies. From their building phase focus on affordable flat-pack furniture in Sweden, to their focusing phase concentration on distinctive retail experiences, to their redirecting phase evolution toward digital shopping and sustainability initiatives—they’ve consistently matched their approach to their gravitational position.

This evolutionary journey hasn’t been a straight line but rather a cyclical process that IKEA has repeated across different markets, product categories, and business models. Their ability to accurately identify their gravitational phase in each context and implement appropriate strategies has been a cornerstone of their enduring success.

The gravitational continuum isn’t just a conceptual model—it’s a practical navigation tool for determining where to invest resources, how to structure teams, which metrics to prioritise, and when to shift approaches. By regularly assessing your position and adapting strategies accordingly, you create the conditions for gravitational development that compounds over time.

Most importantly, this framework promotes strategic patience at the right moments and decisive change at others. It helps leaders recognise when to foster exploration, when to demand focus, and when to catalyse transformation—creating rhythms of continuity and change that maintain essence while enabling evolution.

As markets continue accelerating and business models evolve more rapidly, mastery of the gravitational continuum becomes increasingly valuable. Those who navigate these phases effectively create sustainable advantage, while those who misidentify their position or apply phase-inappropriate strategies waste resources and lose momentum at critical junctures.

The path to becoming and remaining the obvious choice isn’t a single, uniform journey but rather a continual navigation of the gravitational continuum—a dynamic process of building, focusing, and redirecting that enables you to evolve with changing markets while maintaining the distinctive essence that makes you irresistible.