The title of this post comes from Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises.” One character asks another how he went bankrupt. “Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”
I learned of the quote from this article about how a prominent US retailer is slowly bleeding itself to death. Strategic failures can take a long time to be noticed and by the time you notice them, it is too late.
The opposite is also true: strategic successes take a long time to bear fruit but suddenly, there they are.
And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light,
In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
But westward, look, the land is bright.
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