While most of us here in the US vacuum our floors, in the UK people “hoover” theirs, even though they are more likely to be using a machine made by Dyson than one made by the troubled local company Hoover.

The vacuum cleaner that Hoover made famous was actually invented by James Spangler, a janitor with horrible allergies who had to do something in order to be able to maintain his livelihood. He created a company around his invention but soon sold it to his cousin’s husband, William Hoover, a maker of saddles and leather goods.

Saddles were not the best of markets to be in at the time (though certainly better than buggy whips would prove to be), and Hoover was looking for some new line of business for his company. The rest, as they say, is history—as well as a very object lesson for the rest of us in the importance of corporate re-invention as one of the most critical components of innovation. Hoover, seemingly unable today to come up with another new business it should get into, is well on its way to consigning itself to the dustbin of history. Hoover, after all, makes vacuum cleaners. That is their business.

A recent WSJ article chronicled a similar evolution (or rather, resistance to evolution) at another established American firm: Wrigley’s.

In “Father, Son and Gum” WSJ writer Janet Adamy chronicles both the history of the company and changes proposed by the current (fourth) generation of Wrigleys. While we in Northeast Ohio wrestle with what is sometimes referred to as the “third generation management problem,” it could be that the fourth generation might just offer some hope for the future. “In 1995,” Adamy writes, “William Wrigley Jr. approached his father with a bold idea: The family run company, after dominating the chewing gum business for a century, should start selling mints. His father, who had successfully run Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. for more than three decades, turned him down. ‘We know gum,’ the son recalls his father saying.”

For those who have missed the recent adds feature mismatched Double-Mint twins, Wrigley, under the leadership of fourth-generation Bill Wrigley, has turned from a stagnant gum producer into a growth company that—you guessed it—now sells mints. (They also, by the way, own Altoids and Lifesavers.) The Wrigley home page touts the company’s “spirit of innovation” along with the fact that the company has been named one of Fortune Magazine’s Top 100 Companies to work for.

I sometimes try using chewing gum as a non-technical story about innovation but sometimes find people can’t get over the notion of gum ever having been an innovation (nothing personal, Tim). But it was innovative when it was first introduced, and now, more importantly, it is the makeover of the mature, fading company that led the way with the introduction of chewing gum into modern, western society into a more dynamic and diversified company from which we as a region can learn something valuable.

Even the authors of Built To Last firmly believe that in order to last, companies today have to be built to change; Jerry Porras, one of the co-authors of Built to Last wrote the preface to a new book by Ed Lawler and Christopher Worley called Built To Change.

Do some of the companies in our region need to focus on process and product improvement in order to remain competitive? Of course they do. But many, many more need to fundamentally change their business in order to remain competitive.

When Edison invented the phonograph, he intended for it to be used to replace letter writing. He set a few devices up in bars so people could try them out—but you know what happens when you give a drunk a microphone…next thing you know people were singing, not talking, into Edison’s letter-writing replacement devices, and before a long an entire new industry—the recorded music industry—was born. It’s had a good run, but today the industry leaders, still stuck in a “we make records” mentality, are struggling to figure out what role they play in the “new” new music business.

Similar stories abound in other industries as well. WPP, the second largest media services conglomerate in the world, started out life as Wire & Plastic Products.

Things change. And when they do, companies must change too in order to remain competitive.

Many people find change uncomfortable; many companies find it impossible. But until and unless we can come to grips with building change into the very nature of what we do, we’ll never be able to reinvent ourselves as a region that meets the needs of the global marketplace. Ten years from now the British will no doubt still be “hoovering” their carpets with their Dyson machines—but what will Hoover be doing?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 21st, 2006 at 8:14 am and is filed under Strategy, Innovation, Entrepreneurship. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.