No change before it hurts

All in all, our business is doing well. We're selling more products than ever. And if we may believe the analysts, "the best is yet to come".

In the mean time, our organizations get into a comfort zone. Things are going well. We're growing and gaining weight. We know we have "room for improvement", but why worry? We're making money, a lot of money! There is no sense of urgency to anticipate on future change.

But everybody knows that fairytales don't last. Like always, change will come in one way or another, whether we like it or not. Our inovative products will become a comodity (let's hope) and we'll have to come up with the next hot thing. Competitors will emerge. Shareholders will come and go. ... Are we ready for that?

When things go well, organizations fall asleep, and they sleep until a real crisis sets in. In the best case scenario, they "get away with it" by restructuring blindly - and getting the shareholders from their back ... for a while - but for some organizations it's the end of their business.

Stay awake! is the message, not to find your self in a "we knew it but we did not do anything about it" mea culpa situation. Stay alert for the signals, get and keep the sense of urgency alive, make your organization look forward and enjoy the rollercoaster of change. And although rollercoasters are scary - at least for me - they are exciting to ride!