One of the hardest disciplines in business and in life is tearing down what you’ve built to build something better—and knowing when to do it, especially if everything is going well. At Qualtrics, the company my father, brother, a friend, and I founded in 2002, we’ve reinvented our business multiple times. At first we did it out of necessity. But we soon learned that it’s much easier to change from a position of strength than when your hand is forced by the market or your competition. No major bet or pivot was successful in less than three or four years, so we learned to change when times were good. Still, sometimes you have no choice but to rebuild in the middle of a crisis.
A version of this article appeared in the July–August 2021 issue of Harvard Business Review.