---
title: "The Bucket Theory Is Dead; the Long Board Theory Is What You Must Master!"
description: "The famous bucket theory—that a bucket's capacity is determined by its shortest plank—was effective in the industrial age but is now obsolete in the internet era. Today's companies don't need to excel at everything; they can outsource weaknesses and focus on their core strengths, leveraging partnerships to fill gaps, as exemplified by PepsiCo and Google."
author: "New Distribution"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2016-03-21"
language: "en"
canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/the-bucket-theory-is-dead-the-long-board-theory-is-what-you-must-master-a5cfdace/"
markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/the-bucket-theory-is-dead-the-long-board-theory-is-what-you-must-master-a5cfdace.md"
original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/QibH9LXOIhbn2vtcqRI1aw"
translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E6%9C%A8%E6%A1%B6%E7%90%86%E8%AE%BA%E5%B7%B2%E6%AD%BB-%E9%95%BF%E6%9D%BF%E7%90%86%E8%AE%BA%E6%89%8D%E6%98%AF%E4%BD%A0%E5%BF%85%E9%A1%BB%E6%8E%8C%E6%8F%A1%E7%9A%84-a5cfdace.md"
attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/the-bucket-theory-is-dead-the-long-board-theory-is-what-you-must-master-a5cfdace/"
usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt"
---

# The Bucket Theory Is Dead; the Long Board Theory Is What You Must Master!

> The famous bucket theory—that a bucket's capacity is determined by its shortest plank—was effective in the industrial age but is now obsolete in the internet era. Today's companies don't need to excel at everything; they can outsource weaknesses and focus on their core strengths, leveraging partnerships to fill gaps, as exemplified by PepsiCo and Google.

There was once a famous bucket theory—the amount of water a bucket can hold depends on its shortest plank. In the industrial age, this theory was indeed very effective. But in the era of global internet, this theory has long been bankrupt.
Today's companies really don't need to be proficient in everything. If finance isn't professional enough, they can hire a more advantageous accounting firm; if lacking in human resources, they can hire headhunters or HR consulting agencies. If marketing and PR are weak points, there are plenty of excellent advertising and promotion companies to tailor solutions for you; similarly for legal services, strategic consulting, employee psychological services...
Contemporary companies only need one sufficiently long plank, and a manager with a "complete bucket" mindset, to fill in their short boards through cooperation.
So today's enterprise development has shifted from the short board principle to the long board principle—when you tilt the bucket, you'll find that the maximum water it can hold is determined by your long board (core competitiveness). And when you have a long board, you can lay out your strategy around it to generate profits. If you also have systematic thinking, you can use cooperation and purchasing to compensate for your other short boards.
PepsiCo's strategy in China is exactly this: they outsource all production, channels, delivery, and logistics, retaining only a few people in the marketing department to operate the Pepsi brand. They just focus on doing the brand—their long board—well.
The Tsingtao Beer you drink today comes from a brewery within 100 kilometers of you. The bottles and caps come from another manufacturer specializing in caps. Tsingtao Beer only provides its recipe and puts its label on.
In early 2014, Google announced the sale of Motorola Mobility to Lenovo for $2.91 billion. A week after the sale, Google's stock rose 8%. The reason is also based on the long board theory—CEO Page explained: "This transaction will allow Google to devote its energy to innovation in the entire Android ecosystem, thereby benefiting smartphone users worldwide." Translated into our terms: Google is a system maker; we bought a phone company to fill a short board (hardware), but now we find it's better to focus on our long board (systems).
Even great companies don't need to be strong in every area; they just need to excel in one board—Taobao excels at the trading platform; Xiaomi excels at fan interaction; New Oriental excels at spiritual construction; Tencent captures nearly 80% of Chinese netizens.
Professional specialization makes it impossible to fill all short boards. The internet speeds up information flow within and outside companies, making cooperation costs increasingly lower. At this point, when a job isn't done well, the opportunities and costs of finding a partner are getting smaller.
Rather than spending energy curing certain "chronic ailments," it's better to spend the same time and energy leveraging your strengths.
Many modern managers work in a mode of "self + assistant + external brain + mentor."
So in career development, the best ability strategy is: "one specialty, multiple skills, zero defects." "One specialty" means having one expertise that is extremely strong, even to the level of talent; "multiple skills" means having several abilities in reserve that can be used in combination; "zero defects" means making your weaknesses passable through self-effort and external cooperation. The most important thing to avoid is "temperament greater than talent"—you have some small advantages, but because the cost of cooperating with you is too high, no one is willing to work with you.
This is similar to the strategy for dealing with diseases—first, avoid getting "acute diseases" that can kill quickly (such as work attitude, integrity, cooperation ability, basic comprehensive abilities); then, coexist peacefully with your "chronic diseases" (such as lack of talent or skills in certain areas) and focus on leveraging your strengths.
History is full of such examples: Churchill, Roosevelt, and Lincoln were all famous lifelong depression sufferers. Lincoln's depression was so severe that he had an episode during his wedding and ran away, unable to marry normally. But even in the gaps between depressive episodes, Lincoln had enough to launch the Civil War, and Churchill and Roosevelt had enough to win World War II. Steve Jobs was a reality-distorting, eccentric, insensitive, and demanding perfectionist; Stephen Chow was known for his bad temper and unpredictability; Jack Ma is famous for his hype and going back on his word.
For companies, they recognize their problems, know they have long boards, and that short boards need others to fill. For themselves, they always focus on their strengths—this gives us the great Lincoln, the resilient Roosevelt, the uncompromising Churchill, the perfectionist Jobs, the funny Stephen Chow, and the Jack Ma who helped thousands of businessmen. Bringing out the white side is enough.
The long board player that impressed me most is physicist Stephen Hawking.
Hawking was born in Cambridge, England, in 1942. At the freest age of 21, he contracted muscular atrophy and was confined to a wheelchair for life. At 43, a tracheotomy operation made him completely lose the ability to speak. He could only move three fingers, and by tapping a button, he synthesized artificial speech for lectures and writing, typing out "A Brief History of Time" letter by letter. He was considered the greatest living scientist.
Ordinary people may find it hard to understand the height of his physics. But from a career perspective, Hawking had only a genius brain and three fingers; every other part of him was far worse than yours or mine. Yet even focusing such resources, he could support a great life.
********-END-********
Excellent Product Promotion: China's first brain gold drink "Shanlong" brain gold drink is now recruiting national distributors. Reasons for recommendation:
1. Category innovation: The first DHA brain gold drink in China, helpful for adolescent brain development, opening a new blue ocean in the beverage market.
2. Unique and eye-catching packaging: Patented dragon claw bottle design, the first sci-fi and fashionable beverage bottle internationally, extremely outstanding in terminal display. Advanced imported sports cap, first introduced in China, stylish and cool, with high technical barriers.
3. Distinct selling points: China's first brain gold drink, a brain-health beverage, with fun and fashionable bottle design, ensuring product popularity.
4. Weak competition: Shanlong is a completely original category and appearance, with few competitors.
5. Huge consumer group: Targeting students and teenagers, channels like schools and internet cafes where young people gather can see rapid sales growth.
6. Small investment, big profits. Can be trial sold in small quantities, retail price 5 yuan, with huge profits. Please do not disturb if you are an advertiser or have no experience or channels.
Nationwide blank market hot recruitment, don't miss it.
Long press the QR code below to directly add Manager Lin's WeChat: Guangdong Heyuan Fengsheng Food & Beverage Co., Ltd. Website: WWW.FOODSUN.CN
Best learning platform for FMCG distributors in China
Focusing on providing professional, practical, and applicable tutorials for enterprises and distributors
Committed to helping Chinese FMCG distributors grow rapidly
**The most professional and practical knowledge base in the FMCG industry**
Reply with the red number below to get corresponding content
Reply with number 1 to view the complete knowledge base
| **001** Excellent article selection | **002** Distributor market operation | **003** Terminal visit management | **004** Sales supervisor skills | **005** Sales improvement techniques | **006** Channel expansion | **007** Managing distributors | **008** Distributor development | **009** Distributor internal operations management | **010** Team management | **011** Efficient distribution techniques | **012** Sales manager's eighteen skills | **013** KA operation methods and strategies | **014** First lesson for new salespeople | **015** Internet, brand |
[Long press QR code to follow]
**To join QQ/WeChat groups, please click: **Read the original text****


---

## Copyright and AI use

This article is sourced from New Distribution. Search, quotation, summarization, and model training are permitted, but every use must credit New Distribution and retain the canonical source URL.

Contact: zhaobo258@gmail.com · +86 158 5481 7671