Your comment prompted me to consider the ratio between two kinds of information: (a) that which already exists and (b) has yet to be created.

By "information" I'm hand-waving around concepts such as code, organizational hierarchy, processes, lessons learned, sales pipelines, industry connections, brand awareness, etc.

I will toss out some claims: the human mind, operating in the context of an organization with more stuff that already exists, will largely "anchor" on what is known. In an organization, people share common knowledge -- and people know this about each other. It shapes how they interact and what they think is worth doing and trying.

So, to put a finer point on it: To what degree will existing information provide a productive jumping off point for what needs to be done?

To the extent my simplifications above capture the core dynamic -- it would perhaps explain a lot: (a) why some pivots feel incredibly hard, while others feel easy; (b) why some teams evolve fluently while others struggle to modernize; (c) why some cash cows transition to adjacent profitable opportunities while others languish; (d) why the idea of "skunk works" is so compelling when rapid innovation is needed