by Michael Sansolo
Charles Darwin famously explained his theories on evolution by saying it wasn’t the strongest, fastest, biggest or any other “est” that survives. Rather it’s the most adaptable.
The Daily Meal recently ran an article about the nation’s largest restaurant chain that went kaput. For MNB readers under a certain age, the name Howard Johnson will mean nothing, because the hotel/restaurant chain that once dotted the country with more than 1,000 locations is completely gone.
(Almost a decade ago, the Content Guy did a FaceTime from the site of the last Howard Johnson’s, which eventually closed. You can check it out here.)
In addition, AARP ran a more extensive piece about 15 once ubiquitous restaurant chains (including Howard Johnson’s) that also have largely disappeared from the landscape. That list will no doubt include someplace that nearly all of us visited in the past.
What the stories make clear is that there wasn’t one specific reason for all these failures. In some cases it was over-expansion, in others, mediocre service, food and menus. But one thing they all have in common was a fatal inability to adapt to the times. Size is no guarantee of success. Adaptability is.
By sheer coincidence, at the same time I was stumbling into these articles I received an e-mail update from IGA reminding me of its special celebration of 100 years in business. The celebratory function will be next February, during the annual NGA convention.
Here’s the thing: IGA is a much larger operator than most of us realize with stores all over the US and increasingly around the globe. It has an unusual business structure – not really a company at all, but rather an alliance and collaboration of independent operators and their supporting wholesalers.
And while no one talks about IGA with the fear or awe they have for, say, Walmart, Costco and so many others, IGA continues to survive and grow. Remember what Darwin said about size not being the key to survival.
The IGA announcement mentioned a very important point. When the idea for a collective of independents was born in 1926, the dominant competitor of the day was the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (A&P). Again, for those too young to remember this, at one time A&P’s market share was far larger than anything Walmart has today.
Yet, A&P, like Howard Johnson’s, Sears and many other behemoths, remains only in memory. IGA is alive and thriving and doing so, I’d argue, by building community links wherever they operate that are the envy of far larger competitors. And they do that by being authentically in step with the communities they serve.
Past achievement among even the largest companies is no guarantee of future success. If you read that list of restaurant chains that disappeared you’ll see many that were innovators in their time and had years, if not decades, of massive success before their collapse.
It’s a reminder to all of us that tomorrow is always uncertain, always challenging and always difficult. And that only the adaptable (and, like IGA, authentic) find a way to survive.
Michael Sansolo can be reached via email at [email protected].
His book, “THE BIG PICTURE: Essential Business Lessons From The Movies,” co-authored with Kevin Coupe, is available here.
And, his book “Business Rules!” is available from Amazon here.
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