There are four primary hurdles to overcome to implement a successful blue ocean strategy. The first is convincing employees and executives to get rid of old habits and embrace the new strategy. The second is limiting the use of resources despite making great changes. The third is motivating key players, such as partners and employees, to carry out the plan. Finally, the fourth hurdle is getting over office politics, which often tend toward resisting change.

Businesses can use tipping point leadership, a tool developed by the authors, to overcome the above four problems. The key to tipping point leadership is identifying the factors that disproportionately affect performance and addressing them while conserving resources. This is the opposite of the conventional wisdom, which dictates that large investments in training or technology must be made to improve performance. Tipping point leadership is effective, fast, and cheap to enact because it specifically targets the factors that most affect performance to achieve maximum results.

The best way to convince employees and executives to change, according to tipping point leadership, is to stop relying solely on numbers and charts, and instead make them experience firsthand the operational problem at hand.