Why Companies Can Get Better At The Wrong Things

How Hill-Climbing Can Keep You On The Wrong Hill

I am an avid hiker. Anyone who hikes knows you have to look down at your feet, find an upward slope, take a step forward, and repeat that process until you get to the top. But if you are in a blinding fog or do not have a map, you can encounter what is called a local maximum. That means you have reached the peak of a smaller hill, and from that point, every step around you leads downhill.

The problem is that you could be flawlessly executing a strategy on a 500-foot hill, completely unaware that a 10,000-foot mountain peak sits just across the valley. To get to that higher peak, you would have to do something that goes against almost every corporate instinct you possess: willingly turn around, walk down into the foggy valley of uncertainty, and give up some of the high ground you worked so hard to gain.

The Modern Hill-Climbing Trap: Optimizing What Worked In The Past

In the business world, this is how organizations get good at the wrong things. When an organization falls into that trap, efficiency can actually work against its ability to adapt. People tend to seek immediate rewards and avoid short-term pain, so corporate cultures naturally gravitate toward metrics that move up and to the right. We optimize what we can see, what we can measure, and what worked yesterday. The danger is that the market may be changing while you are still celebrating better results from yesterday’s strategy.

We all know the classic historical examples. Blockbuster had become very good at running physical stores and stayed tied to a business model that had worked for years while digital distribution was changing what customers wanted. BlackBerry had built enormous success around features such as its physical QWERTY keyboard, but the smartphone market moved rapidly toward a very different touchscreen experience. These stories show how difficult it can be to move away from something you have spent years learning to do exceptionally well. Once you are successful on one hill, it becomes much harder to admit that a bigger one may be forming somewhere else.

Why Hill-Climbing Can Feel Safer Than Changing Direction

Companies usually do not stay on the wrong hill because nobody sees the problem. More often, people can see it, but the incentives keep pushing them in the same direction. If you increase conversion by 3%, cut costs, or improve a number everyone already tracks, that is easy to defend because the company already agrees that the number matters. What is much harder is suggesting a change that could make the results look worse for a while, even if it creates a better opportunity later.

That is where hill-climbing can become a trap. If you run email marketing and open rates are going up, there is little incentive to question whether email is still the best way to reach your audience. Changing direction means taking a risk with something that is currently working, and that becomes even harder when your compensation or career depends on the results. Before long, the company can end up protecting a shrinking hill simply because the current one still produces numbers everyone understands.

Loss aversion makes this even harder because people naturally become cautious when they are being asked to give up something that is still working. A company may have to accept weaker short-term results, more uncertainty, or a period of inefficiency before a better opportunity becomes clear. That is a difficult sell when the current strategy is still producing acceptable numbers, which is why companies can stay on the wrong hill much longer than they should.

How Leaders Can Keep Hill-Climbing From Becoming A Trap

If you want to prevent your company from becoming world-class at something that is losing relevance, it is not enough to tell people to be innovative. You have to look at what you are rewarding and what you are measuring. If every new idea is judged by whether it immediately improves the numbers you already use, people will naturally stay close to what they already know. A new product, process, or business model may need time before it can compete with something that has been refined for years.

Leaders also need to make room for ideas that challenge the assumptions behind the current strategy. It means being willing to hear from people who see the situation differently and recognizing when the question should change from “How do we improve this?” to “Does this still deserve to be improved?” That distinction is important because hill-climbing can make you exceptionally good at executing a direction without ever forcing you to reconsider whether that direction still makes sense.

Why Hill-Climbing Depends On Making The Right Assumptions

To make sure hill-climbing is taking you toward the right peak, ask yourself: Are you climbing a hill with future value, or are you standing on a pile of yesterday’s successes? There is a profound difference between doing things right and doing the right things. If your organization is focused only on improving the processes you have today, you could become extremely efficient at something that is losing relevance. Sometimes the harder decision is knowing when to stop climbing, give up some of the ground you have gained, and consider whether there is a better hill worth pursuing.