“There is nothing strange or mystical about creativity and change. Nothing superhuman. It is simply your willingness to take a step beyond.”
Jeff Blackman
6. The Power and Plight of Change.
By effectively dealing with change, you turn reluctance into resilience, despair into desire and trepidation into triumph!
However, dealing with that change may not come easy. Why? Because the pressures of change are both internal and external. Internal, as you wrestle with your self and your new you and environment. External, as you combat the predictors of doom and gloom, the naysayers and the critics.
The stark reality of this struggle was really driven home when I read the following framed quote on a wall behind a client’s desk:
It should be borne in mind that there is nothing more difficult to arrange, more doubtful of success, and more dangerous to carry through than initiating changes.
The innovator makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old order, and only lukewarm support is forthcoming from those who would prosper under the new.
Their support is lukewarm partly from fear of adversaries, who have the existing laws on their side, and partly because people are generally incredulous, never really trusting new things unless they have tested them by experience.
Without change…
Now, it’s easy for me to encourage you to change, but first let’s explore what might happen if you don’t change and you stay as you are.
First, you must acknowledge that without confronting change you’re likely to limit growth. And without growth, you’re likely to diminish opportunity. And without growth and opportunity:
- Your profits decline.
- You lose market share.
- You lose quality products and it gets tougher to obtain or create new ones.
- You lose enthusiasm, suppliers, your best people and customers or clients.
As Isay Stemp once said, “There is no such thing as merely surviving or maintaining the status quo in business. As in the organic world, there is only growth and decay, and growth…is the business of business.”
The following “fast facts” really drive home the glory of growth versus the devastation of decay:
- Intel is always working simultaneously on two sets of new products—the next product and the one that will replace it.
- During the boom days of the minicomputer, Digital Equipment’s CEO Ken Olson predicted the PC would be a bust in business. He attacked the workstation as a “snake oil” concept. In 1992, DEC posted a loss of $2.8 billion. Olson was canned!
- Fortune magazine once named Rubbermaid as America’s most admired company. Perhaps it’s because each year, Rubbermaid introduces at least 365 new products.
© Blackman & Associates, LLC
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Jeff is a Hall of Fame speaker, best selling author, success coach, broadcaster and lawyer. His clients call him a “business-growth specialist.” If you hire speakers, please contact Sheryl Kantor at: 847.998.0688 or [email protected]. And visit jeffblackman.com to learn more about his other business-growth tools and to subscribe to Jeff’s FREE e-letter, The Results Report. Jeff’s books include; Stop Whining! Start Selling!, (an Amazon Bestseller), and the new, revised 5th edition of the bestselling Peak Your Profits. You can also stay connected with Jeff via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter: @BlackmanResults