The rate of disruption and change may have convinced you that the old rules of business no longer apply. At least one - and perhaps all - of the speakers at your last professional conference fueled your growing fear with their admonitions to unlearn and reinvent or become obsolete.
Take a breath. The world in which you compete has changed ... a lot. That doesn't necessarily mean, however, that the sky is falling.
What Has and Hasn't Changed
It is important to draw the distinction between companies that have been successful in the past with those that are on life-support. If your company is in crisis, your first responsibility is to stop the bleeding and begin an organizational overhaul.
For everyone else, it is crucial to recognize what has and hasn't changed. Online video providers made Blockbuster obsolete, but they didn't change everything. They only changed the thing that mattered most to their customers - ease of use.
It is the same for your industry and business. Someone will focus on and innovate around points of distinction where they can be faster, better, cheaper, and/or friendlier. In other areas, they will do things basically the same as, and not necessarily better than, you.
In other words, you don't need to reinvent everything. You only need to reinvent the areas that allow you to remain competitive.
You don't have to unlearn everything that worked in the past either. In fact, you probably shouldn't even if you could.
George Santayana wrote that "when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual."
In other words, unlearning, in its literal definition, stunts growth and is potentially dangerous. True unlearning runs the risk that you will lose something important in the processes of acquiring new knowledge or perspective.
Constants remain in your business even in the midst of radical change. You still have to serve customers and treat them with respect. Staff must be acquired, trained, engaged, and retained. You still need to keep up with inventory, follow regulations, and control costs.
Whatever Happened to Woolworth?
F.W. Woolworth was a fixture in towns and cities around the world for decades. By the 1980's, however, buying patterns shifted away from the traditional "five and dime" model that sold many things at a low cost.
Fortunately, the Woolworth Company purchased Kinney Shoes in 1963. While Kinney Shoes has joined Woolworth Stores as a relic of the past, the company lives on today because the company purchased an athletic specialty shoe company in City of Industry, California. You know that company as Foot Locker.
The Two Beliefs You Need to Discard
- There is only one way to do things. Woolworth wasn't locked into a belief that five and dime stores was their only path to success as a company. Without the willingness to look at other ways to succeed there would have been no purchase of Kinney Shoes and the specialty stores that would ultimately allow it to remain relevant.
- Past success proves you were right once. Foot Locker doesn't succeed today because Woolworth reached a crisis and said, "We have to reinvent." It succeeds because Woolworth's never stopped inventing in the first place. Your job isn't to reinvent. It is to continually invent, tweak, and adapt in pursuit of service to your customers and profits for your company.
The challenge faced by the Woolworth Company are not that different than those you face today. What is different is that the advance of technology has stripped away the illusions that you can rest on your laurels or that you will be immune from the uncertainty and upheaval.
Randy Pennington is an award-winning author, speaker, and leading authority on helping organizations achieve positive results in a world of accelerating change. To bring Randy to your organization or event, visit www.penningtongroup.com , email info@penningtongroup.com, or call 972.980.9857.
Randy Pennington does not have a financial interest in any company mentioned in this post.