Vikings and Farmers

I was listening to Don Sull of London Business School at a conference last week and he explained that he would take entrepreneurs over innovators any day of the week when a company is looking for new ideas. Innovation is over-rated, he said. It is a matter of Vikings vs. Farmers.

Vikings head off into unknown territory looking for opportunity. They probe to find a place where defenses are weak (or non-existent) and move aggressively to seize opportunities. Farmers, on the other hand, are tied to their land. They can become better and better farmers but they don't go out and discover new farms.

Sull was careful to say that Vikings are not inherently better than farmers. They are just less afraid to take risks and set out for undiscovered shores. In fact according to Sull, businesses need to find the right balance of Vikings and Farmers. Vikings, after all, aren't particularly good at hanging around to cultivate the long-term value of what they've discovered.

The "Vikings and Farmers" metaphor carried over to the rest of the conference and seemed to resonate with people from a wide range of companies and geographies.

We entrepreneurs are natural Vikings. However our ventures, if successful, eventually reach a stage where we need a few farmers to help us keep them going and this can be one of the most difficult transitions for any enterprise. Farmers want to introduce structure and process; Vikings hate structure and process. Farmers are patient; Vikings are restless. But in the end, Vikings need Farmers and Farmers need Vikings. It just isn't always easy to live together.