CHAPTER 1
THE ICE KING AND THE ADAPTIVE LEADER
The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.
- Albert Einstein
In leadership, there is a thin line between dominance and downfall. History offers countless examples of industries and organisations that once held the throne, only to be toppled by forces they failed to see or refused to adapt to.
Their mistake? Misinterpreting success as permanence. It's a mistake that echoes through time, and a trap no modern leader can afford.
Consider one of my favourite examples of disruption: a 4 000- year-old global industry toppled within just two decades. At its height, this business was one of the most influential and lucrative industries in human history. Its merchants traversed continents, trading cargo more valuable than gold. It connected the East and West for millennia, underpinning economies and shaping empires.
Yet within a mere twenty years, it completely collapsed. Four thousand years of dominance undone in just two decades.
Any ideas about the industry I'm referring to?
The spice trade.
For millennia, the spice trade was the economic foundation of ancient Mesopotamia. Via the Silk Road, Asia connected to the Mediterranean, North Africa and Europe, linking the great ancient civilisations of India, Egypt, Persia, Arabia, China and Rome.
During this time and for hundreds of years before, it was believed that spices could preserve meat and food. Do you have a spouse or significant other who is not particularly gifted in the kitchen? You'll know that spices merely mask undesirable natural and bitter flavours and enhance taste. They make bad cooking or rotten food taste better!
Along came Frederic Tudor, the 'Ice King'.
After visiting the Caribbean, Tudor saw an opportunity: exporting ice harvested from Boston's frozen ponds. In 1806, he shipped ice to Cuba, learned from initial setbacks, and rapidly scaled his operations. By the 1830s, Tudor boldly shipped 180 tons of ice to Calcutta, India, successfully selling 100 tons that survived the voyage. His innovation brought new luxuries like ice cream, cold drinks, and medical relief from fevers. Humanity soon realised ice genuinely preserved food, disrupting millennia-old beliefs. This kickstarted the first slow-moving train wreck that no one saw coming, shifting the way global cargo could move and a new wave of food security.2
When Tudor died in 1864 he was worth the equivalent of $200 million today. Ice became the United States' second-largest export, eclipsed only by cotton.3
But the story doesn't end there.
As the ice trade evolved, so did the technological advancements that would also make it obsolete.
If you think your mother's fridge was retro, imagine her grandmother's icebox. Every few days, an iceman would arrive, hook in hand, with a large block of ice that he would place into an insulated wooden box to keep your food fresh. Companies like Consolidated Ice operated thousands of horse-drawn wagons, delivering ice directly to consumers' homes.
But refrigeration technology appeared, initially dismissed by ice traders as absurd. Early refrigeration used ammonia and despite aggressive campaigns by ice traders promoting 'natural ice' as safer, the superior convenience and reliability of refrigeration won.
By 1912, innovations like William Henry Howe's Rapid Freeze Flake Ice Machine sealed the ice trade's fate. Still resisting, the natural ice industry fought fiercely, questioning the health and safety of 'artificial ice', but technology marched relentlessly forward.
By the 1950s, compressor-driven refrigerators made the traditional iceman obsolete.
Today, smart fridges with clever features and functionality integrate smart meal planning and automatic ordering. But in 2015 another revolution took place. Services like Uber Eats emerged, reshaping food logistics again. Leveraging advanced technology and the gig economy, fresh meals from virtually any cuisine can now arrive within minutes. Some city dwellers, embracing this hyper-convenience, forego large appliances altogether, relying solely on rapid food delivery.
Think of this evolution: from the spice trade to the ice trade, from iceboxes to refrigerators, and now to on-demand food delivery - all in the name of providing and preserving sustenance.
You may be asking yourself why I started the book about leadership and technology with so much background and context on ice and food.
There's another take beyond food security and preservation - a more critical and relevant one:
Not one recorded business evolved from the spice trade and made it into the ice trade.
Despite its proximity, not one recorded business from the ice trade made it into the ice box industry.
Despite the logical progression, not one player from the ice box industry made it into the refrigerator industry.
Despite global success, tremendous brand recognition and route to market, not one player in the global appliance industry has evolved into the rapid on-demand delivery industry.
The harsh reality is that no matter your success or industry dominance, change is fast approaching and inevitable.
More importantly, that change is not likely to come from your largest competitor or anyone else in your direct industry - no matter how much knowledge, how much power, or how much revenue. The narrative discussed, and history, are proof that disruption often comes from left field, from players no one saw coming. No matter how lucrative, reliance on outdated practices can blind even the most successful industries to the threat of innovations.
The lesson here is stark: what once seemed indispensable became irrelevant almost overnight. The downfall wasn't due to a lack of intelligence or resources - whether in spice or in ice - it was the inability or unwillingness to adapt to new technologies and shifts in consumer behaviour; industry leaders who clung to their belief that what worked yesterday will work tomorrow.
History has proven over and over and over, that what got you here, won't get you there.
Primarily, not being adaptable and relying on what got you past success is enough to cripple you from ever growing again.
Where are you stuck in your own success story? Have you confused stability for relevance?
The spice trade believed its value lay in preserving food, only to be disrupted by an innovation that rendered that assumption obsolete. The ice trade faced a similar reckoning as technology surpassed tradition. Each of these industries thrived on assumptions that seemed unshakeable at the time.
The majority of my clients are market leaders. Fortune 100 and 500 companies in industries ranging from financial services, retail, media, consumer goods, telecommunications, mining and natural gases. Whether speaking on stage, advising an EXCO, or rolling out a digital transformation journey, I've had the privilege of partnering with some of Africa's and the world's largest brands.
The majority of these brands have had a long history of success; many even nearing or past 100-year anniversaries. They've been touted as market makers, the 'Big 4', true benchmarks for scale and success. When assessing their performance over the last several decades, the biggest impacts on their success have often come from small players completely outside their purview.
In the 15th century, the spice trade was everything. Cloves, cinnamon and pepper sparked wars, built empires, and drove global commerce. Nations rose and fell based on their ability to navigate this trade.
It sounds ancient because it is . history is fascinating but distant.
Every generation has its own 'spice trade', a market or industry that feels indispensable until it collapses beneath the weight of innovation. Today, you face the exact same danger. What assumption are you taking for granted and what is today's 'spice trade'?
Look around. The signs of disruption are everywhere.
Perhaps it's the traditional automotive industry, threatened not just by electric vehicles but by autonomous technology making driving itself obsolete. Maybe it's banking and finance, increasingly replaced by blockchain and decentralised finance solutions that render traditional intermediaries redundant. Or perhaps it's conventional higher education, upended by generative AI and digital-first learning platforms that deliver tailored, immersive and scalable education to millions at a fraction of the cost.
Consider retail for example, where traditional brick-and-mortar giants struggle to keep pace with agile, digital-native brands, harnessing AI to deliver hyper-personalised customer experiences. Or manufacturing, where additive manufacturing (3D printing) rapidly eliminates the need for extensive inventory and complex global supply chains.
Consider also the seismic shift happening right now with traditional online search. Google, once the unchallenged gateway to information, now faces disruption from platforms like TikTok, which has become the preferred search engine for younger users, offering visual, relatable, and immediate answers. According to Google's own data, nearly 40% of young people now prefer TikTok over Google for searches. From sharing funny videos, to becoming the platform that two in five Americans now use as a search...
