Researchers at the University of Washington wanted to understand how crows respond to threat. So they constructed a clever experiment. They donned a caveman mask, walked onto campus, captured a few crows, banded them, and released them. Then they waited.

In today’s business and leadership environment, effective strategy is more about mobilization and execution acumen than a brilliant plan.

Let’s talk about gorillas. They’re big. They’re hairy. They’re menacing. And if I had you focus on this screen and one walked directly into your line of sight, you’d absolutely see it, right? The truth is, half of you may not.

Unless you’ve spent time driving the back roads of northeast Tennessee and southwest Virginia, you’ve probably never heard of Pal’s Sudden Service. Pal’s is a micro-regional fast food restaurant chain, not a brand name company with celebrity endorsement and a national footprint. Imagine In ‘N’ Out Burger with a retro-LA design vibe. In 2001, it became the first business in the restaurant industry to receive the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, which NIST describes as the highest level of national recognition a U.S. organization can receive for performance excellence. Baldrige is not an award for having a beloved product or a charismatic founder.

Polaroid was among the best-known and most successful brands in photography. They had significant market share, wide profit margins and huge fan base. By many measures, Polaroid was the Apple of their day. They were an innovation factory that churned out highly desirable products that were coveted by tens of millions of people, and they operated a company whose stock value defied reason. And then it all went wrong.

Most organizations are built to improve what’s known. Their budgets are structured around it. Their leadership incentives reward it. Their planning cycles assume it. And there is nothing wrong with this — improving the known is essential. Doing what we already do faster, better and less expensively is the foundation of operational excellence and any organization that neglects it will not survive long enough to transform anything. In fact, gains made improving the core business are often used to fuel innovation.

The year is 1997 and a little-known start-up is about to revolutionize the way we devour entertainment. The story of Netflix, in my view, is a revealing look at transformation and offers at least some insight that’s relevant outside the entertainment industry.

Most people evaluate their careers along a single axis: advancement. Is this role a step up? Does it bring me closer to the title I want, the compensation I think I deserve, the level of influence I aspire to? The entire infrastructure of career development — executive recruiters, LinkedIn optimization, leadership development programs — is organized around this premise. Move up. Move fast. Accumulate the markers of success.

Culture. In many organizations I’ve advised, the focus is on creating a culture of innovation / transformation. It’s not universally the case, but often work on culture only goes surface deep. We get platitudes that are hard, if not impossible to argue with. We should be human centered. We should work differently. We should be bold and think big. Do these sound familiar?