Great to Good

In November, on my own blog for ambitious CEOs I wrote The Tale of Two CEOs: To Iterate or Not Iterate Your Offer.

I thought about this post again with Apple’s recent acquisition of Lala. Lala enables users to listen to their music without the actual songs on their device (instead the music is in the “cloud” or is streamed similar to the way people watch videos today or via internet radio sites such as Pandora.). 

Here are the facts:

1. Apple launched the iTunes Store in 2003
2. In early 2008, five years later,  the iTunes Store became the #1 music vendor in the United States (passing Wal-Mart).
3. Apple purchased Lava in order to make drastic changes to their iTunes Store
4. Apple plans on significantly iterating (making changes) to currently the most successful, fastest growing, and #1 music store in the United States.

This is a risky strategy for Apple but the riskier strategy is to do nothing.

There is a direct correlation between being the best at something and purposely working towards change for the better. Think of your favorite business, team, or individual that has risen to be the best and the norm is to see that entity no longer hold that title a short time later, or what I call “Great to Good”.

Apple is making a conscious choice to stay “Great”. What’s your choice?  If it is “Be Great” or “Stay Great”, what specifically are you doing about it?