The more successful you or your company has been in the past the more difficult it is to recognize significant changes of your environment, the markets or customer behaviour and that this requires an adaption of you or your company towards new situations, in other words towards signficant change.

Whenever discussing necessary changes to be prepared for the future with my clients or colleagues in various industries I oftentimes hear
– ”the change will not work with us”
– “it has always been like that”
– “the change is not necessary, why should we”
– “to expensive, no market, no customer demand, no return”
– ”we already thought about this but it doesn`t make sense for us”
– “we have been successul without change”
– “we are still and will be very successful without change”
– ”no need for change, we are the best in what we do anyhow” and
– “we will exist with what we already did the last decades sucessfully”.
In total all the same: we don`t want to change, we want to stay in our safe harbour.

The success of the past is reflecting the intensity of your todays comfortzone. If we stay within we end up like not producing digital cameras (AGFA, KODAK), loosing (significant) market share to smart phone producers (NOKIA) and still catching up to TESLA producing electrified cars (complete german automotive industry)…
Always be aware that your success of the past is not a guarantuee for your success of the future. Adapation, adjustment and change is part of the daily business – It is the most agile who will survive, not the strongest.

Happy to read your thoughts on this…