Andy Grove on business transition

Q: When a company goes through these periods of transition - I've heard you refer to it as going through the "valley of death."  Explain that metaphor. 

Andy Grove: I kinda have this little movie playing in my mind of people riding down one side of a mountain.  They know that there is another mountain out there someplace that they want to get up on top of, but they are stuck in the middle.  Think of a hazy Death Valley where you can't really make out the two sides.  You kind of ride in a particular direction and you start to get concerned about whether you know where you are going.  And in that situation the leader of the group of riders becomes far more important than at other times.  Because people look to him to stick his neck out and decide on a direction - which they have to decide, because if they don't they will start breaking up and debating which way they're gonna go and they will die of thirst.  The demand on this mystical leadership ability to drive toward a relatively ill-defined destination - and the need to instill conviction in the group to keep going - is greatest when you're in the middle of that valley, and you know that you can't go back where you came from, but you can't really see the other side that clearly.

~ Andy Grove, "Andy Grove's Rational Exuberance," Wired, June 1, 2001