One of the surest ways for any organization to stop evolving is for decision-makers to lose their appetite to trial new ways/ approaches/ processes/ systems/ products/ services. Comfort with what is familiar combined with fear of the unknown and making mistakes is what mostly causes appetites to be lost.
In my book I talk about the willingness of organizations to challenge their status quo – to be prepared to explore unchartered waters to find new fertile ground to change their modus operandi (i.e. how the business operates). Organisations cannot expect to grow/ develop unless they are prepare to risk making mistakes. Mistakes teach us about actions that are best not repeated in the future if the same undesired outcome is to be avoided. And through this process of “trial and mistake” new discoveries are made – sometimes even life-changing positive discoveries.
When I consult with business owners, one of the pivotal questions that I ask them is “when did you last challenge the status quo of your business in a bid to improve certain elements of it ?” More often than not, the answer given is along the lines of “we’re happy with how it has been running, and we don’t see the need to change anything right now”. Such answers reflect a mindset of “we’re comfortable with sticking what is familiar to us”.
As a famous psychologist determined many years ago, when we’re comfortable doing something because it is familiar to us, the comfort that we feel can actually serve to destroy us. The experiment conducted which revealed this discovery involved a frog being put in a pot of warm water on a stove. The stove element that the pot was sitting on was then gradually turned-up so the element incrementally became hotter and hotter. Because the change in the temperature of the water that the frog was sitting in changed only a small amount at a time, the frog didn’t sense any danger and became accustomed to each change in water temperature. Had the experiment continued to the point where the water temperature became life-threatening the frog may well have perished.
In a business context, if a business owner becomes set in their ways, refusing to entertain the injection of others’ ideas or to trial new practices to help keep the business competitive; their comfort in sticking to what is familiar to them may unfortunately be decimated by competitors “turning the heat up” on them, in the form of securing comparative advantages such as: adoption of new technologies, new practices and the engagement of experts/ specialists to resource new work functions (e.g. ICT or digital marketing specialist) that are proven to fuel the forward movement of businesses.
Learning from mistakes is about evolving…and adaptation and evolution are a quintessential part of life.