A manager once told me they had copied Google’s OKRs. Nobody knew what they were doing, and it became a checklist cult.
He wasn’t joking.
The team filled out their OKRs every quarter. There were meetings. There were updates. But when you stepped back and asked why, no one had a good answer. The tool had become the process. The reason behind it was lost.
This isn’t unusual.
Plenty of teams, from fast-moving startups to massive corporations, fall into the same pattern. They see a tool, a method, or a structure that seems to work for someone successful, and they copy it. It feels safer than starting from zero. But it rarely helps.
Copying feels like progress. But it’s often just theatre..
Why copying often fails?
You are not Google. You are not Spotify. And you are not Amazon. They didn’t become what they are by copying others. They invented their own ways of working, based on their goals, their people, and their timing.
I once worked with a company that tried to copy Spotify’s squad model. It looked good on paper, but nobody was clear on what a squad actually did. Roles blurred. Accountability dropped. Eventually, they renamed everything back to departments.
“Google didn’t become Google by trying to be like others. They invented their own ways. You will not become Google by trying to be like Google.”
Without clarity, copying structure just creates confusion.
Another team I coached added daily stand-ups after reading a blog. But when I asked what value they were getting from those meetings, the room went quiet. “We thought that’s what agile teams do,” someone finally said. They were going through the motions without any ownership.
That’s where the problem lies. When you borrow someone else’s method without understanding the thinking behind it, you end up mimicking the surface and missing the substance.
A lesson from history
After World War II, islanders in the Pacific saw American soldiers build runways and receive supply planes filled with food and equipment. When the soldiers left, the supplies stopped. The islanders then built their own runways out of bamboo, complete with wooden control towers, hoping the planes would return.
They didn’t.
The islanders had copied the form but not the function. They saw the visible symbols of success, but not the complex systems that made it work. It’s a story that’s often repeated in business.
You see an article about innovation and think the beanbags must have helped. You hear about a tech giant using OKRs and rush to do the same. You apply the ritual and expect the same result. But it never shows up.
The illusion of success
It’s easy to believe in success stories. If Apple or Netflix did something, it must be right. But we only see what they choose to show. We miss the internal debates, the failed versions, and the months or years it took to get things working.
Spotify’s team model became famous around the world. But what many didn’t hear is that it was partly aspirational. Even leaders at Spotify admitted that parts of the model eventually broke down. But by then, thousands of companies had already copied it.
What works in one company can fail completely in another. A great idea in the wrong context can do real damage.
Imagine borrowing someone else’s tailored suit. It might be expensive and high quality, but if it doesn’t fit you, it just looks awkward.
Copying blocks creativity
When teams are told to follow a model, they often stop asking questions. They stop thinking critically. They focus on doing it right instead of doing what’s needed.
People feel most alive when they’re solving problems, not when they’re stuck in someone else’s framework. And once you’ve shown them an example, they often struggle to imagine alternatives. This is known as fixation in design research. You get stuck on the first idea, even when better ones are available.
What seems like a shortcut can quietly block your team’s creativity.
Real-world examples
General Motors tried to copy Toyota’s lean system but only the parts they could see. They added kanban racks, installed andon cords, and set up big display boards to track performance. But they didn’t change how people worked. Workers weren’t given the power to stop the line. Team leads couldn’t fix problems in real time. Managers still focused on hitting daily targets instead of improving quality. In one plant, Van Nuys, the number of defects per 100 vehicles was more than double the company average. Workers felt threatened, not empowered. The lean tools became decoration. The plant eventually shut down, and today it’s a shopping center called “The Plant.” The name is all that’s left of the original factory.
GM tried again with a “factory of the future” in Lordstown, Ohio. They spent over a billion dollars. They trained workers. They filled the ceiling with electronic boards. But the problems kept piling up. The warning lights were so frequent that supervisors started ignoring them. Eventually, they turned them off. Within a few years, productivity dropped, shifts were cut, and the plant closed for good.
JCPenney made a similar mistake. They hired an Apple executive to modernize their stores. He removed coupons, raised prices to clean round numbers, and redesigned the layout to feel sleek and minimal. But longtime customers came for the discounts, not the design. Sales dropped fast over 25 percent in one year. The board let the CEO go after less than two years. The Apple model didn’t match JCPenney’s shoppers or culture.
Ringling Bros faced growing pressure to stop using animals, especially elephants. So they tried to reinvent the circus. They added video projections, storylines, and special effects, taking inspiration from Cirque du Soleil. But the new version didn’t land. Traditional fans missed the animals. New audiences still saw the brand as outdated. The changes raised costs but didn’t bring back crowds. In 2017, after nearly 150 years, the company shut down.
In each of these cases, the same mistake repeated. Leaders copied the visible parts of a successful system but ignored the people, culture, and context that made it work. Without those foundations, even the best ideas fall flat.
What actually helps
Start by understanding the real problem. Not the symptoms but root causes. You should post following question: What’s holding your team back? Where do things get stuck? What frustrates people?
Once you understand that, you can begin to look for ideas.
When you do look outward, focus on the principles, not the labels. Google’s OKRs are about clarity and alignment. Amazon’s small teams are about speed and autonomy. Those are ideas worth learning from. But they need to be reshaped to fit your team.
Then, test your idea in one place. A single team. A single project. Ask what’s working. Watch closely. Tweak it. If it helps, you scale. If it doesn’t, you move on.
Respect the culture you already have. If your people like structure, don’t rip it out overnight. If they’re used to freedom, don’t bury them in rules. You can change culture, but only by working with it, not against it.
And most importantly, ask your own team. They already know where the problems are. They have opinions. They have ideas. Listen to them. Give them space. Support them. You’ll get better answers than any framework can offer.
Practical ways to shift your thinking
Ask your team how a competitor could beat you. Then ask how you could do it before they do.
Take your first idea off the table and make everyone come up with a different one.
Adaptive Thinking Playbook
Use this process every few months to help your team think clearly, avoid blind spots, and come up with better ideas.
Part 1. How a competitor could beat you?
Purpose: Find your weak points before someone else does.
| Step | What to do | Time | Output |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Invite eight to fifteen people from different functions. Add one facilitator. | 15 min | Calendar invite with context note |
| 2 | Brief the group. Ask everyone to imagine they run a startup whose only aim is to put you out of business. | 10 min | Shared understanding of the game |
| 3 | Break into trios. List every tactic that would hurt the company most. No idea is off-limits. | 30 min | Post-its or digital whiteboard of threats |
| 4 | Reconvene. Cluster threats, rank by impact and speed. | 20 min | Top five vulnerabilities |
| 5 | For each top threat, draft one defensive move you can start this month. | 15 min | Action backlog with owners |
Part 2. Ban your first idea
Purpose: Get your team to think beyond the obvious.
- Capture your best solution on a sheet of paper. Fold it and set it aside.
2. Tell the team that idea is now banned.
3. Spend fifteen minutes in silence writing at least three different ways to solve the same problem.
4. Share, debate, combine, improve.
Research shows that mild debate beats classic brainstorming for both quantity and novelty of ideas.
Part 3. Pre-mortem (plan for failure)
Purpose: Spot what could go wrong before it happens.
| Sequence | Detail |
|---|---|
| Brief | Outline project goal and scope. |
| Imagine failure | Team pretends the project flopped badly one year from now. |
| Silent list | Everyone notes reasons for that failure on their own. |
| Share | Read lists aloud, no judgment. Group similar reasons. |
| Prioritise | Vote on top risks, assign mitigation owners. |
Part 4. Visit other industries
Purpose: Get fresh ideas from outside your world.
Steps:
- Pick an industry that’s very different from yours.
- Visit a company, invite someone to speak, or watch how they work.
- After the visit, ask each person to write down one idea worth trying at your company and why it might work.
Part 5. Celebrate smart adaptation
Purpose: Reward people who improve ideas instead of just copying them.
| Element | How to run |
|---|---|
| Criteria | Recognise changes that fit local context, save time, or lift quality. |
| Channel | Peer-to-peer shout-outs in chat or town-hall, plus quarterly awards. |
| Points | Simple points system redeemable for small gifts or development budget. |
| Committee | Cross-functional group validates nominations. |
| Feedback | Share short stories on what was adapted and the result. |
Final message
Most best practices are just someone else’s old answers. That doesn’t make them wrong, but it doesn’t make them right for you either.
You don’t need to follow someone else’s playbook. You can write your own.
Start with your people, your problems, and your purpose. Think for yourself. Build something that works where you are.
That’s how you make progress that lasts.
And who knows. Maybe one day, someone will try to copy you.
Then build something worth copying.
Sources
- Defense Acquisition University Magazine (Phillips, 2023)dau.edudau.edu – NUMMI case where GM copied Toyota’s processes without success, an example of cargo cult thinking in manufacturing
- Business Insider – Timeline of Ron Johnson’s J.C. Penney strategy businessinsider.combusinessinsider.com (shows how copying Apple’s retail approach failed with JCP’s customers)
- Quartz (Mauborgne, 2015) qz.comqz.com – Case study of Cirque du Soleil breaking industry conventions and succeeding by not copying competitors
- Jeremiah Lee, “Spotify Model Failed #SquadGoals”jeremiahlee.comjeremiahlee.com – Insider account warning that the famous “Spotify model” was never meant to be copied wholesale
- Business-Digest “Cargo Cult Thinking” business-digest.eu – Explains imitation vs. underlying principles and the importance of mindset/culture change
- Design cognition research (Condoor & LaVoie, 2007) designsociety.orgdesignsociety.org – Findings on how example solutions (prototypes) cause design fixation and reduce creativity
- Psychology Today (Williams, 2022)psychologytoday.com – Neuroscience insight on novelty activating dopamine, which can boost creativity and motivation
