Applying the Matrix to Investors as well as Consumers
So Sprint Nextel has fired Gary Forsee, who only a few years ago was being touted as the firm’s savior, a technology visionary who would blanket the country with Wimax, leapfrogging Cablevision, Verizon, AT&T and everyone else trapped in the old-fashioned, wired world, leading the company to unparalleled heights of wealth and power even a Caesar would never had dared to dream. What happened? Well, on one level, what happened was that it was turning out to take longer – and cost more – to achieve that technology nirvana than anyone had predicted. Moreover, Verizon, AT&T, T-mobile, and the rest were stealing traditional customers at an alarming rate. My guess is that the new chairman will come in shouting an ongoing mantra of “back to basics.”
It occurs to me, however, that Mr. Forsee was also the victim of a shift in the perceptions of Sprint’s investors. Our quadrant approach to consumers can also be applied here – to investors. Put simply, these investors had moved from the right-hand side of the matrix (large, slow stopwatch) to the Impatient Quadrant. For some time, these investors were either Recreational (”We should really invest in these neato keeno new technologies; that’s a lot more fun than dairy products or (horrors!) companies that bend metal for a living”) or they were Painstaking (”We really believe in the Wimax bet that Sprint Nextel is making – eventually, the buildout will be completed, the leapfrog will happen and we’ll be rich beyond our wildest dreams.”) Faced, however, with deterioration in day-to-day subscriber growth, their investors became quite Impatient. Forsee, unable to deliver short-term results, will not be given the chance to deliver the long-term vision he had so Painstakingly tried to sell to Wall Street.
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