The Real Cost of “New Coke” Wasn't the Formula — It Was Almost Not Reversing It
Inc.'s Minda Zetlin says the lesson of New Coke isn't that Coca-Cola made a bad call. It's that the company reversed it in under three months, while many leaders would have defended it for years rather than look foolish.
Prompted by “Great Leaders Aren’t Afraid to Look Foolish. That Makes Them Stronger”, Inc. (Minda Zetlin).
Minda Zetlin's point isn't that Coca-Cola made a bad call in 1985. It's that plenty of leaders would have kept defending “New Coke” for years rather than admit, in public, that they'd gotten it wrong. Coke reversed course in under three months. That speed is the real skill.
Her argument is that fear of embarrassment keeps leaders locked into decisions long after the evidence turns against them, and that leaders who have practiced looking foolish and survived it are simply less controlled by that fear when it counts.
What does that look like when you run the whole show?
It lands differently at your scale. A public reversal costs a public company a quarter of stock price and a news cycle. For a founder, a bad call rarely becomes publicly embarrassing. It just gets quietly protected, because you championed it and nobody on your team wants to be the one to say it isn't working.
Test it out: name one decision from the last six months that you have a nagging feeling isn't working, then ask one person on your team directly whether they think it should be reversed. Don't defend it while you ask. Just listen to the answer.
A room of peers with no stake in your decision is a good place to test one you're unsure about. That's what OCTET is built for.
Originally posted on LinkedIn ↗