“Change or face extinction” – harsh words first used by medics when engaging with severely ill people, but now applicable to the world at large in a non-medical or health related context…
We have seen a tremendous amount of change in the years since the turn of the millennium. I bet you’d be shocked if I showed you a list of the top 10 firms, products or ideas from the year 2000. Most don’t exist anymore!
In every single country, industry and community, we have seen countless businesses and individuals at a total loss when it comes to comprehending and coping with the massive rate of change. What if you can’t even see the change?
People need time to change but there doesn’t seem to be any time to even stand still; never mind change. How often do we hear the phrase, “sorry, … don’t have the time” when the simplest requests are made.
Lightning Fast
Change happens so fast that we need to be cognisant that our next change will itself require adjustment soon after implementation. That is a frightening prospect.
Businesses have to respond very, very quickly to the latest ideas in order to survive. Their customers (or more likely ex-customers) have tastes and requirements that vary from one year to the next. As soon as a firm cracks a market, it has to immediately be vary of losing market share before it has even built any critical mass.
Many businesses that were successful up until a few years ago, don’t even exist anymore. I’m not talking about the small outlier businesses that nobody has heard of. Extremely well-known household names have been consigned to history.
Think about all of the disruption caused to incumbent industry leaders when the likes of Amazon, Apple, Tesla turn up. These new-economy firms could have used their industry’s standard model to enter the marketplace, but they chose to tear up the rule-book and cause disruption like a rebellious adolescent. They pulled it off and the old guard have literally been caught off-guard!
This demise unfortunately applies to many people as well. After all, a business can be considered as just a group of people. Some people can’t adapt and survive a changing world. When there are too many of these people in an organisation, then both the people and the firm are endangered. Maybe that has been you at some point?
Can you change?
If the world is changing, can you change? If you said “yes”, then do you really mean it or is it something that seems to be the right thing to say?
Consider the following. For a lot of highly educated people (including recent graduates), what they learnt in formal education has become hopelessly out-of-date. Do you have a continuing education plan to keep up-to-date to counter that threat? You will be superseded by someone a few years your junior otherwise. If you don’t believe me, I bet there is a ‘smarty pants’ 10 year old kid somewhere in your extended family who knows more than you about something important.
What about your career. Do you think you are in a job for life or a career for life? (hint: neither exist anymore). The financial crisis of 2008 took many talented folk out of the banking and investment industry forever. The rise and subsequent collapse in the oil price a few years ago has ended many careers in the energy industry. Some people moved on before the juggernaut of change crushed them. Others adapted and survived the new landscape. However, many others have been left to waste by the wayside.
If you are an entrepreneur, you’ll know all about having a solid strategy, taking calculated risks and being innovative. But how resilient are you really. Time to change your game plan; build some defences perhaps before your next offensive action.
This is true for the most successful people too. As I wrote in another article, you might have metaphorically “climbed the wrong mountain” and hence need to go and do something different!
Outside or Inside?
Its time to tune in and become realistic about the modern world. You might have to provide for yourself for the rest of a 100 year lifetime. That’s a big ask for a lot of individuals without any help. Being aware of threats and opportunities is a must. Then you have to play to your strengths and overcome your weaknesses to master the change that is coming.
Many of the factors that affect your survival are external. The economy, other people, politicians, technology, globalisation, social trends and so on. However, we can never control the external world in any meaningful way. If we tried, we’d always be in a reactive mode. That is unsustainable and only has an undesirable outcome.
The answer is to start from inside. Meaningful change for you has to start from the inside (of you). In that way, you become creative – the opposite of reactive. Its much easier to be creative than reactive; less tiring and requiring less energy.
As Bob Dylan sang in his 1964 classic… The Times They Are a-Changin’.
Are you?
Want to find out more?
Would you like to join me for a 30 minute “virtual coffee” chat so that we can explore ideas like the above? If so, here is a link to my online calendar where you can pick a suitable date and time for us to meet.