Aversion to Change and an Appetite for Self Destruction

I was on David Bustle's blog reading his post The Death of a Professional and that got me thinking about the massive cost of ignoring change in your industry, and in your life.

I think I've been lucky. I learned about the importance of embracing change when I was just 7 years old!

For as long as I live, I'll never forget the day my family was forced to leave our homeland of Nicaragua, back in the late spring of 1979.

That was the day that the Sandinista leftist-guerillas were on their way to capture Nicaragua's capital, Managua. My parents had largely ignored the civil war that had been raging in the countryside for years. My dad, a decorated army officer, never thought the rebels would be successful in overthrowing the government, until it finally happened.

No one believed it was possible until, of course, the levies broke.

I was awakened at 3:00 AM  that spring morning and rushed out of bed. We left for the airport in haste under the dark cold of night. By late afternoon we found ourselves in a strange land (Guatemala), far from home and nearly broke. We left behind family, our home and all the possessions which formed the trappings of a comfortable upper middle class existence. And we didn't know if we would ever return or what would become of us in the difficult days, months and years that surely lay ahead.

That's my family's story, but failure to embrace change is not a phenomenon confined to geo politics. You see this all the time in business, in industry after industry.

For example, I heard Steve Knopper on Book TV talk about his new book, An Appetite for Self Destruction. He was eloquently discussing how the recording industry was not merely a “victim” of piracy, and the unreasonable desire of consumers to acquire music cheaper, or even FREE, via Napster and other peer-to-peer sites.

In fact, the record industry had ample warning from knowledgeable employees and other business leaders and industry insiders. The alarms were definitely sounding but they chose not to listen until it was too late. They didn’t embrace change or emerging technologies. It took an outsider in a totally different industry (Steve Jobs) to help them sort of get their act together.

Why does this happen?

I think it’s because people get too comfortable with their current arrangements. They can’t stand the thought of their bubble being burst. They stay there in their comfort zones until it can no longer be helped. That’s when fear of change morphs into the fear of NOT changing. But fear, it seems, is always the fulcrum that leverages change.

That's unfortunate.

I see it happening now with Social Media. Lots more people are getting serious about it but the vast majority of business owners I interact with still don't see how it's relevant to their business. They see it as complete waste of time. They don't quite grasp that buy not addressing (if not embracing) these new tools what they're actually doing is giving the competition a chance to score points at their expense. They're leaving the door wide open for someone else in their market space to take the lead, and eat their lunch.

And it's tougher the older we get. That's why I said that I was fortunate to have learned this incredibly valuable lesson at such an early age. I learned that if I could survive as a refugee I could survive anything. If I had to pack up my bags right now and move to China, I know I wouldn't spend a second lamenting my predicament. I'd embrace my new reality and get to work.

Luckily, most of us are spared the realities of these extreme scenarios. Still, change is all around us.

Are you paying attention? Are you embracing change? Or are you lamenting your shrinking market share, your dwindling profit margins, the proliferation of competitors, the bad economy, whatever. We live in a world of abundance, so why are you focused on scarcity?

My advice to you is simple and cliched, but nonetheless true: grab the bull by the horns before it's too late!