|
|
The biggest trap we can fall into is success. I know that sounds odd, but what tends to happen is that we get locked into complacency. In most of us there's a yearning for the good life where we can get unearned reward. It's actually not that hard. But ultimately it's not very rewarding. I reject the idea that the "hard work" that brings results necessarily involves hours. The productive hard work involves learning new ways of thinking and and performing new behaviours. Our brains are naturally efficient - they like to get things learned and keep them learned. We exert our brains when we learn - new connections are being forged betwen neurons, and repeated connection establishes it as a pattern of thought or belief. Once that happens, it takes a lot of effort to either unlearn it or learn something that replaces it. I worked for an organisation that was highly successful. It had a brilliant strategy which was benefitted from government policy settings of the day, it had great products and superior execution over a very long period. It established itself as a leading brand. And then it started to decline. It had a flaw in its pricing model that competitors exploited, and over a 10 year period it lost a quarter of its customer base. When it finally made the necessary changes, it was traumatic and nearly caused its demise. Why did it wait so long? Because the leadership were trapped by success. They couldn't let go of what had worked so well for so long because it was, on balance, still working. The reality was that there would come a point where it was, on balance, not working. There's a specialty tea shop near where we live. It's always busy, and we've been going there for years. Their primary business is actually supplying the trade. Last year the owner put in a coffee roaster, and he's steadily building that revenue stream as his tea business bubbles along, growing more slowly now than it used to. He din't need to do it, but his philosophy is simple: you need to do something big and new every two years. The message is simple: change before you have to. No matter how well something is working now, experiment with different approaches because one day what works today will stop working. And then we'll be faced with a crisis. |